Chresmomancy
Alternatively Chresmonancy.
Derived from the Greek khrēsmos ('utterance') and manteia ('divination'), it is the art and practice of divining the past, the present and the future by listening to the ravings of a lunatic.
Chresmomancers carefully listened to what mentally ill people said in order to divine the future.
This type of divination was practiced at the oracle of Apollo in Delphi, where a female prophet known as the Pythia was consulted every month on the 7th day, the date believed to be the Greek's sun-god birthday.
While in a frenzied state of trance ― thought by Herodotus to have been induced from natural gases escaping between the rocks ― this Pythia was known to prophesy. Her utterances were interpreted by special divinatory priests, a cast of clerics that usually dealt with the religious, administrative and economic affairs concerning the oracle.
Other methods of Chresmomancy involve the interpretation of magic sounds or ethereal voices and foreign words, at times transmitted through a psychic.
See Divination, Astrology, Acutomancy, Agalmatomancy, Divination, Coscinomancy, Cleidomancy, Augur, Stoichomancy, Dowsing, Tarot, Heptameron, Demonology, Sortilege, Idolomancy, Demonomancy, Tephramancy, Anemoscopy, Eromancy, Austromancy, Chaomancy, Roadomancy, Capnomancy, Pyromancy, Meteormancy, Ceraunoscopy, Zoomancy, Mystic Gifts and Charms - New Age Gift Shop & Wicca and Pagan Supplies, Love Spells -- Use these powerful love spells to help you find and keep your true love, The Tarot Store, Divination & Scrying Tools and Supplies, Unique Amulets, Talismans, Good Luck Charms, and Love Tokens, Powerful Witch Doctor Spell Kits, Powerful Spells - Cast by Andreika the Witch, Webmasters Make $$$, AzureGreen - Celebrating All Paths to the Divine, ISIS - Tools for Your Soul's Journey, and The Pyramid Collection - Myth, Magick, Fantasy and Romance.
Sources: (1) Dunwich, Gerina, A Wiccan's Guide to Prophecy and Divination, Carol Publishing Group; (2) Spence, Lewis, An Encyclopedia of Occultism, Carol Publishing Group; (3) Dictionary of the Occult, Caxton Publishing.
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