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.