More
oracles

Runes are drawn at random from all 24 without putting any back, each landing upright or reversed with even odds; nine runes look the same either way up and are always read upright. In the nine-rune cast each rune is also thrown onto a round cloth: it lands at a random point, about one in six rolls off the cloth and is set aside, and each lands face up or face down with even odds. Only face-up runes on the cloth are read, by how close they lie to the centre. The spread positions follow modern rune-reading practice; how runes were used for divination in the Viking age is barely recorded. The randomness is your browser’s cryptographic generator. The readings are sample text written for this demo.

Three twelve-sided dice, as sold for astrological divination. The planet die (the ten planets and the Moon’s two nodes) says what is at work, the sign die how it unfolds, and the house die where in your life. Every face has the same odds, from your browser’s cryptographic random generator. Go deeper opens the full birth-chart texts for that planet in that sign and house. The readings are sample text written for this demo.

Western geomancy, as practised in Europe from the Middle Ages. Sixteen lines of marks are made at random and each counts odd (one dot) or even (two dots); every four lines make one of the four Mothers. The rest of the chart follows by fixed rules: the Daughters are the Mothers read across, the Nieces add pairs of figures (row by row, odd one dot, even two), the two Witnesses add the Nieces, the Judge adds the Witnesses and the Reconciler adds the Judge to the First Mother. The Judge always has an even number of dots, so only eight figures can judge. The twelve Mothers, Daughters and Nieces also fill the twelve houses in order, the common modern method. The answer weighs the Judge with perfection: whether the figure of house 1 (you) and the figure of the house your question is about come together, by occupation, conjunction, mutation or translation, checked in that order. The randomness is your browser’s cryptographic generator; the readings are sample text written for this demo.

Ogham is the early Irish alphabet of twenty letters cut as strokes along a stem line, found on standing stones from about the 4th century. Medieval Irish manuscripts tie each letter to a tree; using the letters for divination is a modern practice built on those tree meanings. Staves are drawn at random from all twenty without repeats, with your browser’s cryptographic generator, and read one way up. The letters are drawn on the page; the readings are sample text written for this demo.

Bibliomancy is the old custom of opening a book at random and reading the first passage your eye falls on as an answer. Here the books are the six public-domain works in the Handbook. A book (or the one you choose), a chapter and a paragraph are picked with your browser’s cryptographic generator; very short lines, headings and footnotes are skipped. The passage is quoted exactly, in its author’s own words and spelling, with where it comes from. The question under it is ours, to help you reflect.