Herbal Magick - Small Farm, Permaculture, and Sustainable Living

Chapter 3:
Herbal Divination
The art and practice of divination by herbs is one of the
oldest methods of prognostication known to mankind. Its formal
name is botanomancy, which is derived from the Greek
word botane, meaning “herb.”
Phyllomancy is a type of divination closely related to
botanomancy. Diviners who employ this method typically
interpret the patterns of veins on leaves to gain insight to future
events or to reveal things of the unknown.
Causimomancy is another variation of botanomancy. It
draws omens from the ashes produced by the burning of plants
and trees. Deriving its name from the Greek word kaustos (meaning
“burned”), this method of divination also draws omens
from the rate at which a plant placed in a fire burns. Traditionally,
if a plant smoldered and burned slowly or failed to
burn altogether, this was taken as a bad omen. But if it burned
rapidly, the omen was good.
Causimomancy has several variants, including capnomancy
(the drawing of omens from the various patterns of smoke
generated by the burning of flammable botanical material),
crithomancy (the interpretation of grain and flour),
daphnomancy (the drawing of omens from the smoke and
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