Bibliomancy
A method of discovering whether or not a person was innocent
of sorcery, by weighing him against the great Bible in the
church. If the person weighed less than the Bible, he was innocent
of practicing witchcraft. A more popular system of bibliomancy
was to open a Bible at random after asking a question.
The passage on which ones finger rested was supposed to have
special applicability to the question posed. Other books consulted
in this way included Greek epics, classical poetry, or the
works of Shakespeare, and the term rhapsodomancy also has
been used for this practice. Another term for bibliomancy is
stichomancy.
Sources
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Occult Sciences. 1891. Reprint, Secaucus,
N.J. University Books, 1974.
