Cleromancy
Cleromancy,
sortilege,
casting lots or
casting bones is a form of
divination in which an outcome is determined by random means, such as the rolling of a
die.
Casting of lots occurs frequently in the
Bible. One notable example of casting lots is represented by the soldiers who cast lots for
Jesus' clothes (
John 19:24) as he was dying on the cross. In this case, the casting of lots was implicitly looked down upon by the biblical authors.
However, in the
Old Testament, there are three cases where casting lots was invoked as a legitimate means of determining
God's wishes:
#In the
Book of Joshua, God commands that a thief is found by casting lots, first among the tribes of Israel, then among the families of that tribe, etc. Akan, the person identified in this way, confesses his guilt, and shows where he has buried the loot.#In the
First book of Samuel, the people of Israel demand God to set a king over them, and God decrees a king to be found by a procedure similar to the above, leading to the selection of king
Saul.#In the
Book of Jonah, casting of lots is used to determin by
Jonah's crew that he was, in fact, the source of the storm they were enduring. He was subsequently cast overboard, causing the storm to dissipate.
In
China, and especially in Chinese
Taoism, various means of divination through random means are employed, such as use of the
I Ching. In
Japan,
omikuji is one form of drawing lots.
Pens which can answer "yes-no" questions are widely used in
divination and
fortune telling, especially by
New Age adherents. Their use is similar to the usage of
pendulums for the same purpose (with the difference that a pendulum can also be used for
spiritism). Another classical "yes-no" fortune telling method is the use of
coins. There exist some websites which utilise
software to simulate these "yes-no" pens to produce similar results
on the computer screen.
*
List of spirituality-related topics*
Halliday, Greek Divination (1913), full online edition. Chapter 10 is on
Kleromancy.
