Bibliomancy

Bibliomancy is the practice of seeking spiritual insight by selecting a random passage from a Holy Book.

Bibliomancy is divination using a book, sometimes a bible is used. The book will be opened at a random page and while keeping your eyes closed you will point at a line or passage in the book. Moslems use the Quran for this divination. During the middle ages Virgil's Aeneid was popular.

It is a form of Stichomancy or Libromancy ("divination from lines"), which involves selecting a random passage from a random book of any nature.

Bibliomancy and Stichomancy have been popular methods of divination for at least 3000 years, when the I Ching was first used to divine the future.

Method:


Pick a book you believe to hold truth.
Balance it on its spine; let it fall open.
With eyes closed, touch your finger to any random passage.
View the passage as wisdom to your future.
St. Francis of Assisi, to seek divine guidance, is said to have thrice opened to a random page of the book of Gospels in the church of St. Nicholas. Each time he opened to a passage in which Christ told His disciples to leave their earthly belongings and follow Him.

Because book owners frequently have favorite passages that the books open themselves to, some practitioners use dice or another randomiser to choose the page to be opened. This practice was formalized by the use of coins or yarrow stalks in consulting the I Ching. Tarot can also be considered a form of bibliomancy, with the main difference that the cards (pages) are unbound.

Another variant requires the selection of a random book from a library before selecting the random passage from that book. This also holds if a book has fallen down from a shelf on its own.

Chartomancy, from the Latin charta, meaning 'paper', it is the art and practice of divination by interpreting the writings in literary or musical works, official papers, letters, manuscripts, documents, and so forth. Chartomancy it is considered to be a form of Bibliomancy.

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