Was performed by means of a number of little points or dots, made at random on paper; and afterwards considering the various lines and figures, which those points present; thereby forming a pretended judgment of futurity, and deciding a proposed question.
Polydore Virgil defines Geomancy a kind of divination performed by means of clefts or chinks made in the ground; and he takes the Persian magi to have been the inventors of it. De invent. rer. lib. 1, c. 23.
⁂ Geomancy is formed of the Greek γη terra, earth; and μαντεια, divination; it being the ancien custom to cast little pebbles on the ground, and thence to form their conjecture, instead of the points above-mentioned.
Hydromancy, ὑδροματεια,
The art of divining or foretelling future events by means of water; and is one of the four general kinds of divination: the other three, as regarding the other elements, viz. fire and earth, are denominated Pyromancy, Aeromancy, and Geomancy already mentioned.
The Persians are said by Varro to have been the first inventors of Hydromancy; observing also that Numa Pompilius, and Pythagoras, made use of it.
There are various Hydromantic machines and vessels, which are of a singularly curious nature.
Necromancy,
Is the art of communicating with devils, and doing surprising things by means of their aid; particularly that of calling up the dead and extorting answers from them. (See Magic.)