- Belomancy
Belomancy, also bolomancy, is the ancient art of
divination by use ofarrow s. Belomancy was anciently practised at least byBabylonian s,Greeks ,Arab s andScythian s.The arrows were typically marked with
occult symbols and had to have feathers for every method. In one method, different possible answers to a given question were written and tied to each arrow. For example, three arrows would be marked with the phrases, "God orders it me", "God forbids it me", and the third would be blank. The arrow that flew the furthest indicated the answer. Another method involves the same thing, but without shooting the arrows. They would simply be shuffled in thequiver , worn preferably on the back, and the first arrow to be drawn indicated the answer. If a blank arrow was drawn, they would redraw.This was an ancient practice, and probably that mentioned in the
Book of Ezekiel 21:21, shown below in the original Hebrew, and translated to English in theNew American Standard Bible ,:Ivrit|כִּי-עָמַד מֶלֶךְ-בָּבֶל אֶל-אֵם הַדֶּרֶךְ, בְּרֹאשׁ שְׁנֵי הַדְּרָכִים--לִקְסָם-קָסֶם: קִלְקַל בַּחִצִּים שָׁאַל בַּתְּרָפִים, רָאָה בַּכָּבֵד.
:"For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he shakes the arrows, he consults the household idols, he looks at the liver."
St. Jerome agrees with this understanding of the verse, and observes that the practice was frequent among theAssyria ns andBabylon ians. Something like it is also mentioned in Hosea 4:12, although a staff or rod is used instead of arrows, which is ratherrhabdomancy than belomancy.Grotius , as well as Jerome, confounds the two together, and shows that it prevailed much among theMagi ,Chaldean s, andScythian s, from which it passed to theSlavonia ns, and then to the Germans, whomTacitus observes to make use of it.A lost traveller might also use belomancy to find his way, by tossing the arrow into the air, and letting its angle show him the way.
The
Book of Mormon describes an oracle known as theLiahona which consisted of two spindles in a brass ball. One of the spindles would point the direction of travel. Writings would also appear on this device.References
#1728 [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech-idx?type=turn&entity=HistSciTech000900240246&isize=L]
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