Bibliomancy

views updated Jun 11 2018

Bibliomancy

A method of discovering whether or not a person was innocent of sorcery, by weighing him against the great Bible in the church. If the person weighed less than the Bible, he was innocent of practicing witchcraft. A more popular system of bibliomancy was to open a Bible at random after asking a question. The passage on which one's finger rested was supposed to have special applicability to the question posed. Other books consulted in this way included Greek epics, classical poetry, or the works of Shakespeare, and the term rhapsodomancy also has been used for this practice. Another term for bibliomancy is stichomancy.

Sources:

Waite, Arthur Edward. The Occult Sciences. 1891. Reprint, Secaucus, N.J.: University Books, 1974.