Bibliomancy – definition

Bibliomancy is a combination of two words, the Bible and mancy, the second term in compound words that means divination by the means indicated in the first part of the word . Following this line of reasoning Bibliomancy is nothing but divination from the Bible. Most religions have their own holy books, but Bibliomancy refers to each of them. This is one of the branches of stychomancy consisting of opening a selected book on a random page and selecting a random quote. The selected fragment is to serve as a divination or answer to a bothering question. Bibliomancy can also be referred to as “the Apostle’s destiny” or librarianship.

Bibliomancy – a historical outline

The first appearance of the word bibliomancy is dated 1753, but this does not mean that divination should be ascribed to “only” 300 years. Bibliomancy is much older and finds application in many religions. An example of ancient China in which the book of Yijing (Book of Changes) was used, in Islam of the Koran , ancient Greeks sought advice in the Iliad or Homer Odyssey , while the Romans used the Sibylline books . The Book of Yijing is one of the oldest Chinese texts.

It presents a look at cosmology and the philosophy of Native Chinese. In addition, it is a canonical book of Taoism and Confucianism. Practically from the very beginning it was used for divination, and it is still there. In distant times this form of bibliomancy was approached in a very serious way. She helped during the rule of the Zhou dynasty.

Through it, ceremonies and war expeditions were organized. The less common name is the Sibylline books from ancient Rome, which are a list of prophecies written in hexameters (the oldest known meter of European epic poetry ) in Greek. They sought advice when the country was in danger. Usually it was advice about what God should find in the pantheon, and then start worshiping him.

The original meaning of the word was completely different. Bibliomancy was used to determine whether a person is innocent of witchcraft. The process involved comparing the weight of a great Bible with a local church and a suspect person. When the subject weighed less, he was considered innocent.

The next stage of development was the random opening of the Bible after asking a question (aloud or in thought). The fragment of the text on which the diviner’s finger rested was supposed to refer to the question asked and help in solving it, much depended on the interpretation of words. It was easy enough to find a meaningful quote. This was due to the fact that the ancient books were often loosely connected pages or scrolls. The situation was slightly changed by Gutenberg, but fortune-tellers and magicians still copied texts on individual pages specifically for divination.

Bibliomancy was practiced by both lay people and clergy, despite the explicit prohibition of the Papal State. In the presumption of the church’s top hierarchs, this type of divination did not differ much from pagan methods of divination and led to a meeting of the devil rather than God. One of the most bizarre methods of divination was to use dice to play.

In the Middle Ages, other Bible-based predictions were also practiced. We are talking about, for example, putting a book on the child’s head to induce dreams, or reading the Bible to pregnant women to report pregnancy safely.

Pop culture uses Bibliomancy

Since we are in modern times, it is worth emphasizing Bibliomancy participation in many works, let’s use examples as:

• The story of MR James ” Ash ” bibliomancy there is used for biblical warning.

• The book ” Running with scissors ” Augusten Burroughs has a few characters, and one of them uses bibliomancy (called “descent of the Bible”)

Bibliomancy and sin

After such a development of the subject and having knowledge of what bibliomancy is and how it works, it remains to look at this action from the level of church and faith. If you are a religious person and still use this type of “help”, you must know that the church’s position in this aspect has not changed for hundreds of years. Bibliomancy, despite the use of the “right” book, is a method of divination and instead of bringing it closer to the church, it can cause a departure in more pagan practices.

The border is thin and it may be too invisible for those who have a crisis with faith. Entrusting your life to fate and an unknown force that drives it, not God, is a sin. Of course, there are attempts to explain that it was the Holy Spirit who pointed out the quote, but it has more interesting things than it does to show you a quote in the Bible every day. Scripture should not be treated as a set of random phrases that, if properly treated, can be interpreted at your own discretion. The context of each verse preceding and after the passage usually matters.

Some people come up with ideas that these evil demons are encouraging this type of practice, but they would hardly have a great deal of interest in having a person read the Bible, even randomly. Here the difference between the fragment draw and random reading should be noted. Usually, we don’t have time to read for a long time, so when reading, for example, one page, there is nothing wrong, especially if you do not ask yourself a question and look for the answer in the passage you read.

Trying to find answers in the Bible is nothing wrong, just the opposite. However, the use of divination methods for this is no longer welcome. If this does not turn us away from God, then in my opinion it is a matter for discussion, but in the case of more frequent departure into the world of magic and fortune-telling, you need to verify your faith again.

Summing up the topic, bibliomancy is an interesting and broad issue with a long history and different grades even in church structures. If you are interested in other topics related to the views of the church on various matters such as esoteric, please visit our other entries.