From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bibliomancy is the use of books in divination. The method of employing sacred books (especially specific words and verses) for 'magical medicine', for removing negative entities, or for divination is universal in all religions of the world. "What the Vedas were to the Hindus, Homer to the Greeks, and Ovid and Virgil to the Romans, the Old Testament was to the Jews, the Old and New Testaments to the Christians, and the Koran and Hafiz to the Mohammedans." (quoted from Jewish Encyclopedia)

Sometimes this term is used in the same way as Stichomancy and Libromancy, which is a form of divination that seeks to know the future by randomly selecting a passage from a book, frequently a sacred text.

Contents 1 Method 2 Favoured works 2.1 The Bible 2.2 Virgil's Aeneid 3 Bibliomancy in fiction 4 Trivia 5 See also 6 External links

1. A book is picked that is believed to hold truth.
2. It is balanced on its spine and allowed to fall open.
3. A passage is picked, with the eyes closed.

Among Christians, the Bible is most commonly used, and in Islamic cultures the Qur'an. In the Middle Ages the use of Virgil's Aeneid was common in Europe and known as the sortes Virgilianae.

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.

Bibliomancy is a type of Stichomancy: "divination from lines". Some sources refer to bibliomancy as a specialized form of stichomancy, often falsely attributing the word root "biblio" to "the Bible", rather than books in general.

At the acclamation of Martin as bishop of Tours (371) a few cast aspersions, largely for his lack of personal glamor. According to the Vita by Sulpicius Severus,

it so happened that the reader, whose duty it was to read in public that day, being blocked out by the people, failed to appear, the officials falling into confusion, while they waited for him who never came, one of those standing by, laying hold of the Psalter, seized upon the first verse which presented itself to him. Now, the Psalm ran thus: "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise because of thine enemies, that thou mightest destroy the enemy and the avenger." On these words being read, a shout was raised by the people, and the opposite party were confounded. It was believed that this Psalm had been chosen by Divine ordination.

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.

St. Augustine related, in his autobiographical Confessions, how his conversion to the Catholic faith was assisted by a voice chanting tolle lege or 'take up and read':

So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeating, "Take up and read; Take up and read." Instantly, my countenance altered, I began to think most intently whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words: nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Antony, that coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read was spoken to him: Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me: and by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto Thee. Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle when I arose thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.

The sors Vergiliana, also spelled sors Virgiliana (Latin: "Vergilian lot"), plural sortes Vergilianae or sortes Virgilianae, is a form of divination by bibliomancy in which advice or predictions of the future are sought by randomly selecting a passage from Virgil's Aeneid.

The sors Vergiliana was most widely practiced in the later Roman Empire and in medieval times, when Vergil was often thought to have magic powers or a gift of prophecy. Clyde Pharr, in the introduction to his edition of the Aeneid, notes that

In the mediaeval period a great circle of legends and stories of miracles gathered around [Vergil's] name, and the Vergil of history was transformed into the Vergil of magic. He was looked upon not only as a great magician but as an inspired pagan prophet who had foretold the birth of Christ. It was at this period that the spelling Virgil came into vogue, thus associating the great poet with the magic or prophetic wand, virga.

(Compare virge and virgule.)

Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie describes Roman beliefs about poetry and recounts a famous Sors Vergiliana:

Among the Romans a poet was called vates, which is as much as a diviner, foreseer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words, vaticinium and vaticinari, is manifest; so heavenly a title did that excellent people bestow upon this heart-ravishing knowledge. And so far were they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought in the chanceable hitting upon any such verses great fore-tokens of their following fortunes were placed; whereupon grew the word of Sortes Virgilianae, when by sudden opening Virgil's book they lighted upon some verse of his making. Whereof the Histories of the Emperors' Lives are full: as of Albinus, the governor of our island, who in his childhood met with this verse,

Arma amens capio, nec sat rationis in armis,

and in his age performed it.

Sidney refers to Decimus Clodius Albinus, a Roman who ruled Britain and laid claim to the Roman Empire, but was defeated in battle by Septimus Severus. The verse upon which Albinus reportedly chanced, Aeneid II, 314, means "madly I take up arms, without having reason to do so".

The Greek equivalent of the sors Vergiliana is the sors Homerica, or bibliomancy employing Homer's Iliad.

In Michael Strogoff (1876) by Jules Verne, Feofar Khan judged Michael Strogoff to blindness after pointing randomly in the Koran at the phrase: "And he will no more see the things of this earth.".

In The Book of Webster's (1993) by J. N. Williamson, the sociopathic protagonist Dell uses the dictionary to guide his actions.

In Running with Scissors (2002) by Augusten Burroughs, the eccentric psychiatrist Dr. Finch performs bibliomancy using the Bible.

The popular 'lonelygirl15' internet fiction series mentions the use of bibliomancy as part of the main character's religious beliefs.

The novel The First Verse by Barry McCrea tells the story of Niall Lenihan, a student who falls in with a 'cult' whose members use sortes to guide them.

In the short story Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick, every major character uses bibliomancy, mainly by casting yarrow stalks in conjunction with the I Ching. Dick himself reportedly used this process for deciding key points in the story, even going so far as to blaming the I Ching for plot developments that he himself did not particularly care for.

The device (sortes Vergilianae) is briefly attempted and mentioned by name in Graham Greene's "The Comedians".

In Wilkie Collins' 1868 novel The Moonstone, the narrator Gabriel Betteredge routinely practices bibliomancy using the pages of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.

• Bibliomancy is a school of magic available in the horror roleplaying game Unknown Armies.

• Rhapsodomancy

• Bibliomancy from the Jewish Encyclopedia
• Free Bibliomancy readings from multiple literary sources at bibliomancy.org
• Free Online Stichomancy Readings at Facade.com
• Bibliomancy from A Word A Day