#onomancy

In researching scientific and astrological texts of antiquity, I noted a new grimoire I had not heard of: Liber Alchandrei. Upon further investigation, this is a 12th-century grimoire of astrology and divination. On folio 7v, this image appears, which is a common table used in onomancy (divination by numbers that correlate to the letters of an individual's name) for predicting whether a sick person will live or die, the outcome of a duel or battle, or anything else requiring a binary yes/no answer. According to its instructions, the operator takes the name of the person in question, finds the numbers that correspond to the letters of their name and adds them into a total. Add to this the number of the day of the moon (1) on which they first fell sick and the number corresponding to the planetary weekday (2). This grand total is divided by 30 and if the remainder is found in the top of the "Sphere" diagram (below), the patient will live, if not, they will die.

(1) This likely refers to the day of the moon within a lunar cycle totaling to 30 days. For example, today (June 10th 2023) would be the 23rd day of the lunar cycle that began on May 19th with the New Moon that will finish on June 18th.

(2) I assume this is in reference to the associated Chaldean number assigned to each planet, though experimentation would be needed to confirm this.

Give it a try if you have need of a binary answer and let me know how it goes!

my new wizard Hemlock and her chicken familiar, Pepper!

for a dnd game where we're all storybook characters who have gained a certain measure of autonomy and get picked to play "roles" in the toddler's brain when his parents read to him!