


Etymology of bibliomancy

Speaking of literature terminology, this phenomenon is the most interesting and extraordinary. Are you familiar with Oracle? Do you know how does it work? If no, keep reading, and this term will surprise you a lot.

If to refer to the dictionary we can find such a definition: bibliomancy is the method of predicting the future with the help of the random passage from the Bible. If to put the word into the shell it can be compared with the child game when we open the book another person tells the line, we read, and this is the anticipation of the future.

Bibliomancy definition

We can speak about bibliography when we find the line, concept, or character from the Bible. It can be a small sentence that tells the main idea of the Gospel, for instance. Surfing the Internet, you can come across various meanings of the bibliomancy. We aim to share with you the most interesting. In ancient Greece that device was used to treat people and save them from the disease. People, especially, bishop picked the most “powerful” lines and read them in front of the sick person. Everybody believed that it could heal a person. Later, this term was used to prophesy the future but with the help of the Bible. As we can see the word “Bible motivates all definitions and meanings.”

It is important to mention that the term bibliomancy hides a lot of sacred rituals. Namely, the bishop opened the book was considered as holly; found “the strongest” line and read over the head of a person. Moreover, that person had to close the eyes and thought about something positive. As you can see that literary device was also important in religion.

Nowadays, modern literature tries to avoid bibliomancy because it can make people believe in something and force to be religious. That branch of art tries to be more neutral in those spheres.

Despite that fact, bibliomancy brings profit to literature. The main reason for it is that bibliomancy makes the content more diverse and enriches it with a new side for argument. The audience has the chance to read the storyline of the character and also to plunge into the deep religion context.

Examples of bibliomancy

That part of our informative article is especially interesting as you can see the brightest illustration and usage of bibliomancy.

We present you the examples of bibliomancy in the literature of different epochs and authors.

In Michael Strogoff (1876) by Jules Verne, Feofar Khan judged Michael Strogoff to blindness after pointing randomly in the Koran at the phrase: “And he will no more see the things of this earth.”.

In The Book of Webster’s (1993) by J. N. Williamson, the sociopathic protagonist Dell uses the dictionary to guide his actions.

In the short story “The Ash-tree” by M. R. James, bibliomancy is used to produce a warning message from the Bible.

The Vedas serve as a tool for Bibliomancy to the Hindus while Muslims rely on the Koran.

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