Pyromancy

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As Pyromancy (Greek. Divination from the fire ), even Pyromantik is called from fire and its manifestations the truth or to predict the future the alleged art. It is related to the many Indian and shamanistic applied embossed Siberian peoples divination that consists of the observation of phenomena and fire.

The Greeks ascribed the invention of pyromancy to Amphiaraos . In antiquity this art of divination was common in temples, especially in Apollonia in the Epirus region at the “holy fires” fed by natural hydrocarbon gases.

Pyromancy is also said to have been used by the Romans . Cicero's wife is said to have predicted by reading a sacrificial fire that he would become consul the following year . Tanaquil , the wife of Tarquinius Priscus , prophesied that he would become king of the Romans.

A number of the North American Abenaki and Algonquin tribes also prophesied from the fire.

application

Pyromancy was practiced in different ways. For example, a handful of salt or the like is thrown into the fire. The seer looks into the flames for about a quarter of an hour in order to interpret the future based on the flame formation and shape of the fire.

There are two other mantic arts that can also be defined as pyromantic, capnomancy , where the interpretation is based on the smoke that a fire gives off, and tephromancy , where the ashes of a fire that was kindled for sacrificial purposes is interpreted .

literature

Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer , Hanns Baechtold-Staeubli (Hrsg.): Concise dictionary of German superstition. Volume: Pfluegen signature. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 1974, ISBN 3-1100-6595-9 . Pp. 401-414.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer, Hanns Baechtold-Staeubli (ed.): Concise dictionary of German superstition. Volume: Pfluegen signature. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 1974. ISBN 3-1100-6595-9 . P. 401ff.
  2. ^ François Lenormant: The magic and fortune telling art of the Chaldaer. Verlag Hermann Costenolle, 1878. p. 462 with further sources.
  3. ^ Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Johann Scheible: Magische Werke. Verlag Scheible, 1856. p. 168.
  4. ^ Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Johann Scheible: Magische Werke. Verlag Scheible, 1856. p. 169.
  5. ↑ German Society for Ethnology: Journal for Ethnology. Volume 1. 1869, p. 424
  6. ^ Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Johann Scheible: Magische Werke. Verlag Scheible, 1856. pp. 168f.