Belomancy

This article has multiple issues. Please help or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (January 2022) This article appears to have insufficient references to demonstrate notability. However, an editor has performed a search and claims that there are sufficient sources to indicate that this is a notable topic. You can help to improve the article by adding citations to reliable sources. Ideas for references may also be found on the Talk page. (January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged or deleted. (January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Belomancy, also bolomancy, is the ancient art of divination by use of arrows. The word is built upon Greek: βέλος belos, "arrow, dart" and Greek: μαντεία manteia "divination". Belomancy was anciently practised at least by Babylonians, Greeks, Arabs and Scythians.

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 the quiver, 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 mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel 21:21, shown below in the original Hebrew, and translated to English in the New American Standard Bible,

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."

Jerome agrees with this understanding of the verse, and observes that the practice was frequent among the Assyrians and Babylonians. Something like it is also mentioned in Hosea 4:12, although a staff or rod is used instead of arrows, which is rather rhabdomancy than belomancy. Grotius, as well as Jerome, confounds the two together, and shows that it prevailed much among the Magi, Chaldean, and Scythians, from which it passed to the Slavonians, and then to the Germans, whom Tacitus observes to make use of it.

References[]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• [1]

This occult-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

• v
• t