Category Archives: Top Tens

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mancy (Special Mention)

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Free “divine gallery” art sample from OldWorldGods

 

But wait – there’s more mancy!

Of course, you knew that already.

There is a plethora of methods of divination (or types of magic) connoted by the suffix -mancy, indeed so many that I could have done my usual twenty special mentions several times over. Just look at the Wikipedia entry for methods of divination – or the TV Tropes entry for whatevermancy.

As I said in my introduction to the top ten, there is an almost overwhelming number of variants of divination (or magic) with that suffix -mancy, and their sheer abundance has always fascinated me. In part that reflects the ease by which one can coin such a word, usually by combining a Latin or Greek root word with -mancy. However, it predominantly reflects connoting forms of divination actually used by people as observed or recorded in history or anthropology – as people have used almost anything and everything as the magical means of divination.

Of course, some or even many are incredibly particular, esoteric or obscure as a result – to use just one example to illustrate, belomancy (or bolomancy) is the art of divination by use of arrows.

Accordingly, I have continued to prefer the broader brush strokes I used in my top ten for the special mentions as well, although as usual I splash out with some wilder entries in my special mentions.

And once again, it goes without saying that the top ten or special mentions does or do not reflect any personal beliefs in methods of divination or forms of magic, just my interest in them.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (Special Mention)

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I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

Indeed, I have a top ten of them – and I have a whole host of special mentions for mythological subjects. My usual rule is twenty special mentions for each top ten, where the subject matter is prolific enough, as it is here – which I suppose would usually make each top ten a top thirty if you want to look at it that way. My special mentions are also where I usually have some fun with the subject category and splash out with some wilder entries.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (Special Mention)

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Free “divine gallery” art sample from OldWorldGods

 

I live in a mythic world – and I have special mentions!

That’s right – I don’t just have a top ten mythology books, I have a whole host of special mentions. My usual rule is twenty special mentions for each top ten, where the subject matter is prolific enough, as it is here – which I suppose would usually make each top ten a top thirty if you want to look at it that way.

My special mentions are also where I can have some fun with the subject category and splash out with some wilder entries.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mancy (1) Oneiromancy

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Salvador Dali’s painting “Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomengranate a Second Before Waking” (cropped for fair use and for the naked woman – believed to be his wife Gala as recurring model for his paintings) – one of his most famous paintings, and given its title, iconic of the dreamlike imagery of his paintings (as well as surrealism in general). Also representative of my subconscious (particularly with the naked woman) – this is pretty much how my mind works 

(1) ONEIROMANCY

 

“Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams”.

Oneiromancy, or divination by dreams, may not have the brand recognition of necromancy in second top spot, but it takes out the top spot all the same.

It can be argued – and effectively has been by anthropologist Pascal Boyer – that oneiromancy probably was the original source of all divination, not least of necromancy, or indeed, of magic and religion in general, and for much the same reason as for necromancy. That is, that we see dead people in our dreams – prompting us to believe that they live on or have some continuity in a spirit realm or supernatural reality.

As Joseph Campbell famously opined, mythology overlaps with dream – “myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths”.

Prophetic dreams and their interpretation recur surprisingly frequently in the Bible, from Genesis to the Gospels and arguably to Apocalypse. And when they are not actual dreams, it is striking how often God or angels reveal themselves by night rather than day – in divine dream-like revelations. Unlike other methods of divination, oneiromancy seems respectable or even ordained in the Bible, to the point that God himself might be styled the god of dreams.

Biblical oneiromancy is only one of many throughout world mythology – with written or literary records including manuals of dream interpretation dating back to the beginning of recorded history in Mesopotamia.

And one might say we’re still at it – with modern psychology originating as a form of oneiromancy, not least with that landmark work The Interpretation of Dreams by that leading modern (sexual) oneiromancer, Freud.

In turn, this originates with the raw and vivid emotional power of dreams for each of us. Who among us does not secretly believe that our dreams are true or meaningful in some transcendent way? Although, I always recall a quip that dreams can mean everything and nothing – or that dreams are the bowel movements of the brain.

It does not seem an exaggeration to suggest that all divination is ultimately a form of oneiromancy, whether by way of using dreams and visions as a focus for divination, or by similar means of symbolic interpretation.

Nor does it seem an exaggeration to suggest that all magic is also ultimately a form of oneiromancy – essentially acts of lucid dreaming to shape reality to our imagination, or to impose dream-logic on reality to make it fluid like dreams.

At very least, oneiromancy would seem to be a straightforward one-on-one correspondence to the schools of enchantment and illusion in Dungeons and Dragons, but readily also adapts every other school of magic, perhaps most vividly conjuration and transmutation by dream-logic. Also abjuration – necromancy too if one counts nightmares.

Nor does it seem exaggeration to style all supernatural reality as the Dreaming, as in indigenous Australian culture, which has been widely adopted by popular culture well beyond its original context.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT DREAM-TIER?)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (1) Biblical

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The Creation of Adam – Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. Probably the most famous painting of Biblical imagery – “reproduced in countless imitations and parodies” as “one of the most replicated religious paintings of all time”

 

(1) BIBLICAL

 

Or as I like to call it – Babylon and the Beast (as I’ve seen them featured in art Christian website, which only succeeded in making these two Biblical supervillains look awesome – with the Beast resembling a tyrannosaurus rex).

This is it. This is the big one – genesis and apocalypse, alpha and omega, allelujah and amen!

Of course, Biblical mythology is helped into top spot in that for many people it is not just mythology but religion, in contrast to classical mythology or other ‘pagan’ mythologies it largely replaced. Although as one historian quipped, from a historical point of view, Christianity is a Greek hero cult devoted to a Jewish messiah.

However, I read the Bible as mythology rather than religion – or as poetry rather than history. That is, as literature for its literary quality. Or in other words, like virtually everyone reads classical mythology or any other mythology shorn of religious belief. And as mythology, it has an enduring resonance – of symbolic narratives that ring true at an emotional level or with the power of story, characters that resonate with us as flawed human protagonists (and that’s including God, who is all too human in his characterization) and language that in its best passages has an enduring lyrical or poetic quality.

And when you look at the mythology under the religious hood, that’s when things become much more interesting with layers of subtext, sex and violence as well as hints or insinuations of competing mythologies

Born again in Babylon and torn apart in Jerusalem…

 

SACRED SPACE & CHTHONIC BLUES

 

Similarly to classical mythology, Biblical mythology outranks other mythologies with the enduring iconic nature of its mythic geography or sacred space.

Again, I say geography because, like classical mythology, the mythic geography or sacred space of Biblical mythology tended to be actual locations in historical geography, particularly within the ancient Middle East, albeit transformed with a numinous nature – with perhaps the most prominent being the opposing “poles” (for good and evil respectively) of Jerusalem and Babylon.

Although some locations are more mythic than others – with again perhaps the most prominent representing opposing “poles”, this time at the beginning and end of the world, Eden and Armageddon, albeit the latter is often conflated with the apocalypse in which it appears.

As for chthonic blues, there’s the enduring iconic nature of Biblical mythology’s underworld, Hell (as well as Limbo and Purgatory) – or indeed its afterlife in general when you add Heaven, such that Biblical mythology outranks all other mythologies for afterlife and underworld.

 

APOCALYPSE HOW

 

The most definitive and iconic apocalypse in mythology, again outranking other mythologies, not surprisingly since it is the source of the very name for apocalypse.

 

EQUAL RITES

 

Biblical mythology is something of a paradox when it comes the equal rites of its female figures – it obviously can’t rank too high given its masculine monotheism, even with the Trinity (unless you throw in Mary as well), but perhaps more surprisingly, it doesn’t rank as low as one might expect.

Firstly, it has a prolific number of female figures, albeit not explicitly divine or semi-divine but which nevertheless remain among the most famous or iconic female figures in mythology. In that, it might be compared to Arthurian legend, only more so in their number and iconic status.

Secondly, like Arthurian legend or classical mythology, there are hints or at least revisionist interpretations of divine female figures or even goddesses – or at least the divine feminine nature of God – to be found in the Bible and its female characters.

 

DIVINE COMEDY

 

As for equal rites, Biblical mythology is something of a paradox when it comes to its divine comedy and trickster figures.

You don’t tend to associate the Bible with comedy (or tricksters) – well you do when it comes to Dante’s Divine Comedy from which I borrow the name of my divine comedy ranking – and yet it ranks surprisingly highly for both. Much of that is intentional, although arguably even more of its comedy is black comedy or unintentional to its writers.

What is neither black nor unintentional is the Gospels in the New Testament are ultimately comedy.

No, seriously – I’ve seen it argued in a dictionary of Christian theology or thought (that sadly I now can’t recall for its exact title or details of publication) that the Gospels (and New Testament in general) are ultimately comedic in nature, essentially along the lines of its eucatastrophe or happy ending in triumph over tragedy.

Taking that a bit further to less serious interpretations, I’ve always been struck by the similarity in style between parables and jokes. And whatever else you might say (or believe) about him, you can’t deny that Jesus had a gift for a snappy one-liner, particularly to hecklers – even when those hecklers include the Devil himself.

 

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

 

What can I say? For sheer persistence as well as scale for endurance not only of cultural influence but active religious belief, Biblical mythology outranks all others in my top ten – indeed, probably all of them combined in terms of scale, particularly if you add in Islam as one arguably should.

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – WHAT ELSE?)

 

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (1) Bible

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The title page to the 1611 first edition of the King James Bible

 

 

(1) BIBLE

 

The Hebrew dreaming and the great messianic ghost dance.

The holy book of smiting and begetting.

Chosen people and only son.

 

This is the big one – genesis and apocalypse, alpha and omega, allelujah and amen!

Readers of my top tens will be familiar with me playfully classifying the highest tier (or god-tier) entries as my Old Testament or New Testament – a tribute to the influence of the Bible. I do that in a few ways with my Top 10 Mythology Books (or Top 10 Mythologies), but of course at a fundamental level the Bible is itself my Old Testament and New Testament.

Of course, the Bible is helped into top spot in that for many people it is not just mythology but religion, in contrast to classical mythology or other ‘pagan’ mythologies it largely replaced . The Bible is also the heart, still beating in many ways, of ‘Judeo-Christian’ culture that is one of the two predominant cultural influences in what is often termed as Western civilization, along with the ‘Greco-Roman’ culture that vies with it as the other predominant cultural influence – sometimes in alignment and sometimes as rivals. Athens versus Jerusalem and all that – filtered through Rome. It is as the source for religion rather than mythology that most people come to it, as I did, even if I have lapsed from any religious belief in it.

However, it is the book that doesn’t stop giving, even after you stop believing. That is because of its enduring mythic resonance or narratives and language that in its best passages has an enduring lyrical or poetic quality.

In other words, I read the Bible as mythology rather than religion or in short, as poetry rather than history. Don’t get me wrong – my own hot take, to antagonize both believers and skeptics, is that the Bible is of course a lot less historical than fundamentalist believers usually maintain, but has more history than skeptics usually credit. This is a view influenced by Manfred Barthel’s What The Bible Really Says, which among other things proposes more naturalistic explanations of apparently supernatural miracles – even such things as the burning bush, and not in terms of what Moses was smoking. And also don’t get me wrong as to its literary quality – the Bible is an anthology after all, and one of uneven quality. It may be described by believers as the word of God but he could have used an editor. Or for that matter, better writers of a more modern novelistic style even for its better narrative parts, which tend to resonate more when adapted into more modern style – or screenplays.

I mean seriously, the Bible is the original Game of Thrones – people are often surprised just how much sex and violence is in it (or just how much sheer pagan enjoyment it can provide). It is the book of smiting and begetting after all. And as opposed to Game of Thrones, it finishes with a bang rather than a whimper with a much more sensational, if much trippier, finale, at least in the New Testament and the Book of Apocalypse, my personal favorite book in the Bible.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER – WHAT ELSE?)

 

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mancy (2) Necromancy

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Free “divine gallery” art sample – OldWorldGods

 

(2) NECROMANCY

 

Dead men do tell tales!

That’s right – it’s the mancy everyone knows, virtually synonymous with evil and death or the undead in popular culture, hence its high ranking although I refuse to give it top spot.

For example, Sauron styles himself as the Necromancer in The Hobbit, although he doesn’t seem to do much actual necromancy – he probably would have done better with armies of the undead in The Lord of The Rings. Of course, he was also a vampire AND a werewolf at various points, because the First Age was trippy.

Necromancy has a far older literary pedigree – indeed the oldest, at least for the two sources of Western literary culture, the Bible and the epics of Homer, albeit the Odyssey rather than the Iliad.

The Bible has the Witch of Endor, whom Saul consults to raise the prophet Samuel from the dead. Interestingly, it is presented as working, although both Samuel and God seem pissed about it. It could also be argued to present with the same deception or trickery as a séance.

The Odyssey has the archetypal journey into the underworld by its protagonist to consult the shade of the prophet Tiresias, with the nice necromantic component of pouring out sacrificial blood to attract the dead – also perhaps demonstrating the substantial overlap with hieromancy and blood magic from the previous entry.

Interestingly, in both cases, while the necromancy involved raising or summoning the dead person, but the actual divination or prophecy part did not originate from them being dead, but that they had been prophets in life. Although Odysseus’ dead mother also has useful information for him – and I have read (and prefer) adaptations that extend the divination to other shades.

Necromancy has a pedigree older than literature or writing, as its inclusion in the Odyssey, originally an oral epic, suggests. Indeed it has probably the oldest, likely one of the first methods of divination in history or prehistory – originating from when humans first associated death or the dead with a mystical or supernatural realm, from which one could see things not seen by the living.

Strictly speaking, necromancy is defined not as the hardcore zombie apocalypse type of necromancy we see in popular culture, but only calling on or communicating with the dead for divination – divining things beyond the knowledge of the living, whether past, present or future. After all, the dead reside in eternity as opposed to time.

As such, it was not necessarily evil in origin – indeed, quite the contrary, seeking out or summoning the spirits of ancestors or dead heroes for guidance. To the extent that it extended beyond communing with ancestors or heroes, it probably involved positive aspects of keeping balance between life and death, or with the spirit realm or souls, for purposes such as healing.

“But since that’s not nearly as interesting as zombies”, necromancy in popular imagination and culture is, as I said, virtually synonymous with evil and death, or rather, the undead – the ultimate crossing lines that were not meant to be crossed between life and death, animating or controlling the dead (or generally playing with dead things).

“The career of necromancer is an excellent choice for evil-doers who are not a ‘people person’. Though some might say there is not much point to turning the earth into one gigantic graveyard, these people are fools and will never understand anyway. Good career entry points for becoming a necromancer include occultists, dabblers in voodoo, grave diggers, morticians, possessed eight-year-old girls, and inheritors of scary books wrapped in human flesh.”
— Neil Zawacki, How to be a Villain

As TV Tropes points out, necromancy commonly overlaps with the trope of necromantic (a pun of necromancy and romance) – bringing back a loved one lost to death. Also, “it’s not unheard of for a necromancer to be one of the undead themselves, often a lich. Even if they aren’t liches or other forms of undead themselves, they are likely to have unlocked other ways of prolonging their own lives to unnatural lengths. Furthermore, they may become partially undead.”

As a means of divination, it’s up there with the original and the best, the dead perhaps being second only to the divine or infernal (and often overlapping with those) in secret knowledge. Speaking of infernal, necromancy definitely overlaps with the more rarely used necyomancy (or divination by summoning damned souls) or demonomancy (or divination by demons).

As a school of magic, it is similarly one of the most powerful, if distasteful. It was notoriously overpowered in Dungeons and Dragons, such that opting out of it was effectively nerfing your wizard – although ironically the class of cleric made for better necromancers than wizards, which certainly makes me think differently of the average priest.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
GOD-TIER (OR IS THAT DEVIL-TIER – OR DEATH-TIER?)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (2) Classical

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(2) CLASSICAL

 

“What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy!”

I believe in all the gods – especially the goddesses!

And I’m into classical mythology for the nymphs.

Or pining for them. As I said for Egyptian mythology, if there’s one of two things I lament about Christianity, it’s the decline of the Egyptian pantheon. Of course, the other thing – indeed the foremost – is the decline of classical paganism. It’s all I can do to stop myself yelling “This isn’t over! Pan isn’t dead! Julian the Apostate was right!” in churches.

“What ailed us, O gods, to desert you
For creeds that refuse and restrain?
Come down and redeem us from virtue”

If only we continued to follow the gods of classical paganism! If there is any mythology that tempts to me to actual religion within the deepest levels of my psyche, it’s classical mythology. I can see myself as a devotee of Aphrodite or Dionysus.

Classical mythology is of course the combination of Greek mythology and Roman mythology in ancient Greece as well as the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Even as mythology rather than religion, it is one of the major survivals of ‘Greco-Roman’ culture that in turn is one of the two predominant cultural influences in what is often termed as Western civilization. Of course, many devotees prefer to refer to it simply as Greek mythology, seeing Roman mythology as Greek mythology with the serial numbers filed off. Which is somewhat ironic, as prior to the so-called Greek revival of the nineteenth century, Europeans primarily referred to names from classical mythology in their Latinized form. It is also a little unfair, as Roman mythology was not entirely derivative of Greek mythology – more a continuity reboot in the words of TV Tropes.

Anyway, you know it – or should. The gods and goddesses, primarily the twelve Olympian gods, but all the other deities as well as the demi-semi-hemi-gods that pop up because the gods can’t keep it in their pants. There are the heroes – a concept that in its very name actually comes from Greek mythology – primarily the heroes of the Trojan cycle. And there’s all the other beings, notably the various monsters that represent all the chaotic or chthonic forces in classical mythology.

And of course there’s the nymphs…

 

SACRED SPACE & CHTHONIC BLUES

 

What it lacks in the same extent of mythic cosmology as the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology, classical mythology more than makes up in the enduring iconic nature of its mythic geography.

I say geography, because the mythic geography or sacred space of classical mythology tended to be actual locations in historical geography, particularly within Greece, albeit transformed with a heroic or numinous nature. Troy is perhaps the most famous such location, although both its location and historicity remained uncertain before its modern rediscovery.

Even the realm of the gods had its portal in the historical geography of Greece with Mount Olympus.

Best of all, you have classical mythology’s recurring tendency to populate virtually every geographic feature with a hot nymph – now that’s sacred space!

As for chthonic blues, there’s the enduring iconic nature of classical mythology’s underworld – with most of its features being adapted wholesale by its successor for most prevalent imagery of the underworld in Western culture and imagination.

 

APOCALYPSE HOW

 

In contrast to its sacred space and chthonic blues second to my mythology in top spot, classical mythology is the least apocalyptic mythology in my top ten. Apocalyptic eschatology is not entirely absent from classical mythology.

There are hints that the supreme Olympian god Zeus will fall to the same sort of revolt against him as he led against his own father Cronus to rise to power (with Cronus in turn having risen to power by the same means against his father Uranus).

It’s one of the variant versions told of why Prometheus is chained to a rock with an eagle perpetually eating his liver – that he knew the secret of Zeus’ downfall, according to Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, albeit Prometheus ultimately reconciled with Zeus by confessing the secret. (The secret being that the nymph Thetis would have a son greater than his father, which obviously posed a problem for Zeus as one of her suitors – so instead he arranged for Thetis to marry a mortal Peleus, conceiving Achilles).

There was a similar prophecy for the goddess Metis, except here the problem was that Zeus had already impregnated her – so Zeus pulled the same stunt as his own father and swallowed her, only for his daughter Athena to be born fully grown (and armed) from his head. She was famously one of classical mythology’s virgin goddesses, which I’ve always presumed was in part to avoid any fulfilment of the prophecy through her.

Apart from those hints of the future dethronement of Zeus, there were other revolts against Zeus, invoking the patricidal revolts by Zeus himself against his father Cronus and Cronus before him against Uranus – the primal cosmic battles or war in the heavens of classical mythology encapsulated as the Titanomachy. One is the war of the giants against the gods – the Gigantomachy to match the Titanomachy – and the other, more dangerously, is the attack by the monstrous Typhon on the gods, putting them to flight and even maiming Zeus himself. There’s even at least one coup attempt by other gods, including Zeus’ wife Hera – as told in the Iliad.

But for the most part, the apocalypse of the Olympian gods is more a matter of fading away in the twilight of any active religion or ritual for them. Or even dying, as was famously reported for Pan – “Pan is dead!”

Although ironically, as the argument does, Pan was the one Olympian god who did not die, being reborn with his goat-hooved and goat-halved form as the guise of the Christian Devil – better to reign in a Christian hell than to serve in an Olympian heaven I suppose. Sadly, it seems that argument is overstated but I prefer to believe it.

 

EQUAL RITES

 

Classical mythology has a prolific number of goddesses and divine (or semi-divine) female figures, such that it may seem to rival even Hindu mythology for the equal rites of its goddesses, particularly as the twelve Olympians were evenly divided between gods and goddesses – at least unless (or until) Dionysus substitutes for Hestia.

However, classical mythology seems to stop short of a supreme divine female figure (like that of Shaktism within Hindu mythology). As iconic as the divine female figures of classical mythology are, they tend to be subordinate to the divine male figures – particularly the supreme divine male figure of Zeus.

And yet there are hints or at least revisionist interpretations of the original or ultimate predominance of its goddesses or divine female figures. One of the most famous for the latter was by Robert Graves in his study of classical mythology, The Greek Myths (and popping up again in his poetic creed of the goddess, The White Goddess), although my favorite remains that of Barbara Walker in The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. As for Celtic mythology and Arthurian legend, there is something of a cottage publishing industry in revisions of classical mythology focusing on its distinctive female figures.

Whatever the truth of such hints or interpretations, classical mythology has to rank high for equal rites if only for both the prolific number of its female figures and their enduring iconic nature.

 

DIVINE COMEDY

 

As for the equal rites of its goddesses or female figures, classical mythology has to rank highly for its divine comedy – in the prolific number and enduring iconic nature of myths with comedic elements or trickster figures. Arguably the Odyssey is one long trickster’s tale. Indeed, the origins of dramatic comedy is in Greek theater or drama, which tended to revolve around the tales, themes or tropes of classical mythology.

Of course, as like to quip, life is the laughter of the gods but sometimes they have a black sense of humor.

 

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

 

“What ailed us, gods, to desert you?”

Alas, I can’t deny the twilight of the gods of classical mythology – or that it is the one I feel most acutely.

Like Norse mythology, the gods of classical mythology have faded from religious belief and ritual by all but a tiny neo-pagan following. However, they loom even larger than those of Norse mythology in being adapted by their successor or within culture and popular imagination.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (2) Bulfinch’s Mythology

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Botticelli’s Birth of Venus

 

(2) BULFINCH’S MYTHOLOGY (1867)

 

I believe in all the gods –
especially the goddesses.

Now we get into the second of my three B’s, the top trinity of my top ten books of mythology. And we’re going old school for this one, as in nineteenth century old school – named for its American author Thomas Bulfinch and published as a collection of three volumes after his death in 1867. Yet Bulfinch’s Mythology still remains a classic reference (and handily in the public domain) – as indeed it was for me as my introduction as a child to the world of classical mythology. Well, technically that was the first volume – the Age of Fable – which also featured a briefer recitation of Nordic mythology, admittedly a close second to my love for classical mythology. (The second volume – The Age of Chivalry – featured Arthurian legend, while the third volume The Legends of Charlemagne is pretty much what it says on the tin).

Looking back to it now, it’s somewhat dated and has its flaws as a reference – particularly as his obituary noted, it was “expurgated of all that would be offensive”. Or in other words, half the fun of classical mythology or all the sex and violence. (Indeed, his Wikipedia entry includes an uncited reference that Bulfinch was an anti-homosexuality activist in his final years. If true, that would have made for some awkwardness when compiling classical mythology – those gods tended to swing all ways). Which is somewhat disappointing, because having learnt that Bulfinch was a merchant banker, I fondly imagined him as staid banker by day and Bacchanalian by night, similar to the hedonistic heathen imagined by Chesterton in The Song of the Strange Ascetic.

However, it remains one of the most accessible single-volume references to classical mythology for the general reader – as Bulfinch wrote in his preface:

“Our work is not for the learned, nor for the theologian, nor for the philosopher, but for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation.”

Anyway, its impact as an introduction to classical mythology remains profound – if, deep within my psyche, there is any mythology that tempts me to actual religion, it’s classical mythology.

Yes – it’s the nymphs.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mancy (3) Hieromancy

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Free ‘divine gallery’ art sample – OldWorldGods

 

(3) HIEROMANCY

 

“Who are these coming to the sacrifice?”

No doubt some are wondering what could exceed the cosmic power of the previous entry, astromancy? Or the elemental power of the preceding methods of divination or schools of magic?

And yes – astromancy might top the scale for sheer raw power, even absurdly so, but it lacks the conceptual force that underlies hieromancy, which is that divination or magic COSTS. When it comes to either, there is no such thing as a free lunch – particularly when it comes to breaking the normal rules of reality as they do. No snatching the secrets from the stars just by looking at them as in astrology – that’s just cheating or cutting corners.

There’s a price to be paid, in full – and very often in blood. And we all have to make sacrifices. The world is indeed a vampire, at least when it comes to divination or magic.

That can be the case even combined with other methods of divination or schools of magic. For example, one can still channel or harness power from some cosmic, elemental or other source but it needs a hieromantic payment or sacrifice, as a trigger or ignition point, as a focus or means, or as a key to unlock it.

This concept that divination or magic requires some payment or sacrifice has a logic and therefore potency to it, to avoid being reality-breaking or story-breaking if magic is too easy. For example, it is striking just how low magic The Lord of the Rings is compared to the high magic of your average Dungeons and Dragons setting. If The Lord of the Rings was a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, it could be over in a few turns by casting some sort of divination spell on the ring and magically teleporting to Mount Doom.

Strictly speaking, hieromancy is divination by sacred or holy means or objects (from the Greek root hiero- for sacred or holy), although typically that is by sacrifice. I mean, have you read all the sacrifices at the Temple prescribed by the Bible in Leviticus and those books? The place sounds like an abattoir.

The archetypal hieromancy is divination by entrails from animal sacrifices, or as it was known from Latin, haruspicy (performed by a haruspex). One might say that hieromancy is like hydromancy, except that it involves scrying blood and guts rather than water. The liver was of particular interest – hence hepatoscopy or hepatomancy.

Of course, when the chips were down, the ultimate form of hieromancy was anthropomancy – or divination from human sacrifice, again particularly by entrails of the dead or dying sacrificial victims. Perhaps it worked best if you ate the liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti? I’d also like to imagine that when Aztec priests dressed up and danced around in the flayed skin of their sacrificial victims, that anything they said would be taken as oracular utterances.

As a method of divination, it doesn’t seem particularly instructive, other than telling that whatever was sacrificed is dead.

As a school or even more so system of magic, it has a conceptual force to it. Much like the rest of life, you get what you pay for – by exchange, payment, or sacrifice. That would also extend to contracts or Faustian pacts with divine or infernal powers.

Perhaps the archetypal hieromantic magic is the trope of blood magic (which I suppose technically might be haematomancy or hemotomancy).

“Spilling of blood is a potent force in the working of magic. It may be a token sacrifice, but it may also be the loss of life that fuels the spell. Expect mages who practice blood magic to be portrayed as evil, or at least charcoal grey, with possible exceptions made for druid like nature cults that may be considered amoral…Some blood may be indicated to be more powerful than others. Common types are human blood, monster blood, the blood of royalty, the blood of a special line, the blood of an innocent, a child’s blood, the caster’s own blood, or virgin’s blood. Sometimes only a single person’s blood has power, and any other blood is powerless. Sometimes it also makes a difference whether the blood being used was offered willingly or taken unwillingly”.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER – although ironically the gods and similar beings usually get their magic for free as part of their being or nature)