Arts, names
& connections.
The complete field guide: practices, historical vocabulary and variants, connected to their sources and scales.
Each name has a definition and a context. A term can identify a symbolic system, a reported experience, a contemplative practice or a historical custom. Related names retain their own entries.
Inner perception & dreams
Remote viewing ↗
A target-based practice in which a person records impressions of a concealed or distant scene for later comparison.
Human scale / Inner perception & dreamsPrecognition & presentiment ↗
Accounts interpreted as anticipating a later event, through a specific impression or a more general feeling.
Human scale / Inner perception & dreamsRetrocognition ↗
Impressions interpreted as referring to past events that the person reports not knowing beforehand.
Human scale / Inner perception & dreamsTelepathy ↗
Reports interpreted as information passing between people without an identified ordinary sensory channel.
Human scale / Inner perception & dreamsPsychometry ↗
A practice in which impressions about an object or its associations are recorded while holding or observing it.
Human scale / Inner perception & dreamsClairaudience & clairsentience ↗
Terms used for experiences interpreted as intuitive hearing or feeling, often described as internal impressions.
Human scale / Inner perception & dreamsOneiromancy ↗
The interpretation of dreams as symbolic signs or omens within a named cultural or personal framework.
Human scale / Inner perception & dreamsDream incubation ↗
Preparing a question, theme or intention before sleep and recording what is recalled afterward.
Human scale / Inner perception & dreamsHypnagogic imagery ↗
Images, sounds or bodily impressions experienced during the transition from wakefulness into sleep.
Human scale / Inner perception & dreamsDream yoga & yoga nidra ↗
Distinct contemplative practices concerning awareness, dreaming, rest and sleep, each with its own teaching context.
Reflective surfaces, fire & forms
Catoptromancy / mirror gazing ↗
Contemplating or interpreting images seen in a reflective surface, including a dark mirror.
Matter / Reflective surfaces, fire & formsHydromancy ↗
Symbolic or divinatory interpretation of water, its surface, reflections or movement.
Hand scale / Reflective surfaces, fire & formsLecanomancy ↗
A reading made with a basin, commonly involving water and sometimes floating substances such as oil.
Matter / Reflective surfaces, fire & formsPyromancy ↗
Symbolic interpretation of fire, including the appearance or movement of a flame.
Matter / Reflective surfaces, fire & formsCapnomancy ↗
The symbolic interpretation of smoke, its direction, density or changing forms.
Matter / Reflective surfaces, fire & formsCeromancy ↗
Symbolic interpretation of wax shapes, including cooled forms and candle remnants.
Hand scale / Reflective surfaces, fire & formsLithomancy ↗
Readings made with stones or gems through selection, arrangement, casting or reflected light.
Matter / Reflective surfaces, fire & formsSand readings / psammomancy ↗
Symbolic interpretation of patterns in sand, scattered grains or marks made on a granular surface.
Matter / Reflective surfaces, fire & formsInkblot & incidental-image readings ↗
Symbolic responses to incidental marks, stains or ambiguous images, recorded as personal interpretations.
Lots, texts, names & numbers
Geomancy ↗
A family of divinatory systems using generated figures, often formed from odd and even groups of marks.
Hand scale / Lots, texts, names & numbersBibliomancy & stichomancy ↗
Selecting text from a book, passage, line or verse and reading it as a symbolic response.
Hand scale / Lots, texts, names & numbersNumerology / arithmancy ↗
Systems that assign symbolic significance to numbers and numerical relationships.
Hand scale / Lots, texts, names & numbersGematria & isopsephy ↗
Letter-number interpretation within particular writing systems, including Hebrew and Greek traditions.
Hand scale / Lots, texts, names & numbersOnomancy ↗
Symbolic readings of names, their letters, sounds or assigned numerical correspondences.
Hand scale / Lots, texts, names & numbersKledonomancy ↗
Reading chance words, overheard phrases or incidental speech as symbolic prompts.
Hand scale / Lots, texts, names & numbersCleromancy / casting lots ↗
An umbrella family of readings in which lots, tokens or randomized outcomes are assigned meanings.
Hand scale / Lots, texts, names & numbersBelomancy ↗
A historical name for divination involving arrows, their markings, selection or movement.
Hand scale / Lots, texts, names & numbersIfa, diloggun & named casting systems ↗
Distinct named divinatory traditions whose signs, texts, materials and practitioners belong to particular communities.
Body, gesture & creative attention
Physiognomy & metoposcopy ↗
Historical systems that attributed character, fate or other meanings to bodily appearance, especially facial and forehead features.
Human scale / Body, gesture & creative attentionGraphology ↗
Interpretive systems that assign personal or symbolic meanings to features of handwriting.
Human scale / Body, gesture & creative attentionHand and body movement journals ↗
Structured records of movement and bodily awareness, used for reflection or comparison over time.
Human scale / Body, gesture & creative attentionAutomatic music & improvisation ↗
Spontaneous sound-making recorded before detailed editing or symbolic interpretation.
Human scale / Body, gesture & creative attentionGuided imagery & pathworking ↗
Structured imaginative journeys that use a prompt, narrative or symbolic route as a focus for attention.
Human scale / Body, gesture & creative attentionLabyrinth walking ↗
Following a designed path as a contemplative or reflective movement practice.
Landscape, weather & animal signs
Augury / ornithomancy ↗
Historical and symbolic readings of signs, including birds’ calls, movements or flight.
Earth / Landscape, weather & animal signsAlectryomancy, hippomancy & ichthyomancy ↗
Historical names for readings involving fowl, horses and fish respectively.
Earth / Landscape, weather & animal signsNephomancy ↗
Symbolic interpretation of cloud shapes or changing cloud formations.
Earth / Landscape, weather & animal signsBrontomancy ↗
Historical interpretation of thunder as an omen, often in relation to its time or direction.
Matter / Landscape, weather & animal signsScapulimancy & plastromancy ↗
Historical oracle readings of shoulder blades and turtle plastrons, often involving cracks and inscriptions.
Matter / Landscape, weather & animal signsExtispicy / hepatoscopy ↗
Historical readings of internal organs, with hepatoscopy specifically concerning the liver.
Branches of arts already present
Tarot, Lenormand, Sibilla & playing-card systems ↗
Different card-reading families whose decks, layouts and interpretive conventions should be identified separately.
Hand scale / Branches of arts already presentAstragalomancy ↗
A reading using astragali, knucklebones or their shaped equivalents as lots.
Hand scale / Branches of arts already presentRhabdomancy & rod methods ↗
Readings or searches made with rods or wands whose movement is interpreted by the practitioner.
Solar system / Branches of arts already presentHorary, electional, natal & mundane astrology ↗
Branches of astrology distinguished by the moment, question and subject for which a chart is interpreted.
Solar system / Branches of arts already presentAstrocartography & planetary hours ↗
Astrological mapping and timing systems that use different geographic and calendrical conventions.
Hand scale / Branches of arts already presentTasseography variants ↗
Related cup-reading practices interpreting patterns of tea leaves, coffee grounds or other specified sediment.