-mancy, -mancer, -mantic, -mantical

Divination with dice made from huckle bones: In astragalomancy, stones, small pieces of wood, or ankle bones which were marked with letters, symbols, or dots. .

Divination, or fortune telling, by observing and interpreting lightning_ During the thunder storm and believing in astrapomancy, Adam was out on his balcony watching the lightning in the sky and hoping to find out if he was going to pass the final exam the following day.

Divination by interpreting the stars, now known as astrology: Astromancy was one of the ancient systems of prophecy. Astromancy was developed in Babylon and later carried to Greece, ascribing heavenly thrones to gods as represented by the sun, moon, and planets.

From their movements, wise men divined the purposes of such deities, taking into account the phases of the moon, eclipses, the proximity of planets to the brighter fixed stars, and other phenomena, including the positions of constellations other than those forming the signs of the zodiac.

Some examples include the new moon rising in a cloudy sky presaged victory in a coming battle, while, if it failed to rise as an anticipated time, it became an omen of defeat.

When astrology advanced as a science, the casting of horoscopes and other exact calculations replaced the old traditions and astromancy became less significant.

Its systems are largely obsolete, but its lore has survived as modern superstitions, such as expecting bad luck if you look at the moon over your left shoulder, or making a quick wish when you see a shooting star.

It’s interesting to note that astromancy became "astrology", and "astrology" became the science we now call "astronomy".

Divination by observing winds: Austromancy especially concerns the south winds, with special significance attached to their direction and intensity.

The practice of divination, or fortune telling, by interpreting the sound of birds and their behavior, such as crows in flight or other birds: In the past, it was believed that avimancy was performed when birds, being able to fly in the sky, could commune with the sky god, who was inaccessible to humans.

So all the people who made divinations, or avimancies, with the flight and sound of birds, believed that the birds were messengers whose behavior carried encoded messages or signs sent to people by means of the god of the sky.

A future prediction using the head of an axe or a hatchet: Axinomancy is a divination with an axhead and a “jet-stone” placed on a bed of hot embers; or with a marble.

Axinomancy was practiced by the ancient Creten Greeks to discover a crime. An agate or piece of jet (stone) was placed on a red-hot axe which indicated the guilty person by its motion.

Another explanation suggests that it was a system that was used as a mode of finding a guilty person which consisted of heating an ax head, setting it upright, placing a marble on it, and turning it slowly until the marble rolled in someone’s direction. This same prodedure was considered as one way to find a treasure.

An additional method was to suspend a hand ax, or hatchet, from a string attached to its handle, twirl it and see to whom it pointed when it stopped.

A third, and perhaps the best method, was to drive the ax blade into the top of a post and let it waver there, while a group danced around the post.

When the ax finally fell, its handle was supposed to point to the guilty person if he or she was still around. If she or he was gone, it pointed to the direction in which that person went.

1. A method of divination with arrows that dates as far back as the age of the Chaldeans: Belomancy existed among the Greeks, and still later among the Arabians. Belomancy was an ancient form of divination performed by tossing or balancing arrows. Anothr method involved throwing the arrows in the air, the point at which the arrows inclined pointed out the direction to be taken.
2. Etymology: derived from Late Greek belomantia, from belos, "an arrow" or "a dart".

Divination or fortune telling by picking words or other book passages at random: Several church councils were formed in the fifth century A.D. to study and forbid this "common" practice of bibliomancy.

One of the methods used was for a person to point to a line or passage of an open book with his or her eyes closed. The randomly chosen line was believed to convey a message of significance.

In the Middle Ages, it was trendy to use Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Illiad. Moslems are said to use the Qur'an for this purpose.

Now, bibliomancy refers to divination which interprets randomly chosen passages from any book. The Bible is still the most frequently used book, although other publications may be used.

The variation of using a book of poetry is called "rhapsodomancy".

Divination using patterns formed by water currents: Bletonomancy involves a prophecy that is interpreted by the patterns formed by the drift or flow of of water

"Bletonism" was named after the French bletonist, Monsieur Breton.

An ancient art of divination with arrows thrown at random from a container: Bolomancy used arrows that were typically marked with occult symbols and had to have feathers for every interpretive procedure.

Divination with plants, herbs: Botanomancy is a method of fortune telling by burning the branches of vervein (now "vervain"; verbenas are said to have sacred boughs of certain medicinal plants) and brier, upon which were carved the questions of the diviner.

Variations included scattering the leaves of vervein (vervain) or heather in a high wind. Another method was by writing sentences on leaves that were exposed to the wind, and the divination would be gathered from those leaves which were left.

Interpretations were also made from the crackling sounds made when certain plants were thrown on the fire or crushed in the hands.

It is also considered a form of pyromancy or the interpretation of burned or burning tree branches and leaves.

Botanomancy is also considered a general term for divination which uses any plant or plant part.

A prediction by the interpretation of dreams: Jack read about brizomancy involving night visions inspired by Brizo, goddess of sleep or by an Aegean moon goddess of Delos.

Divination, or fortune telling, by interpreting thunder or thunderstorms: Believing in brontomancy, Sandra listened carefully to the crashing of thunder during the afternoon in order to know how to make the important decision the next day.

Divination made by observing smoke patterns from a fire: In the book Sam was reading, capnomancy involved the patterns of smoky clouds rising from victims who were sacrificed by fire.

Capnomancy also concerned breathing in the smoke of the sacrificial fire and making prophetic evaluations.

Divination by interpreting melting waxing cold water: During the Middle Ages, carromancy was performed by wax being melted in a brass container and poured into another vessel containing cold water.