Anthropomancy

Anthropomancy is a form of divination in which human remains, particularly the entrails or internal organs of a dead or dying person, are examined for prophetic signs. In historical and occult literature, the practice is often described as involving human sacrifice and the interpretation of organs, bodily reactions, or the circumstances of death.

The name is derived from the Greek anthrōpos, meaning “human being” or “man”, and manteia, meaning “prophecy” or “divination”.

Anthropomancy is sometimes associated with hepatoscopy, the examination of the liver for divinatory purposes, although hepatoscopy more broadly refers to liver divination and is not limited to human victims.

Related Forms

In ancient Etruria and Rome, the much better documented practice of interpreting entrails was haruspicy, performed by a haruspex. In that tradition, the sacrificial victim was ordinarily an animal rather than a human being.

Occult terminology also preserves more specialised names for supposed forms of human entrail divination. Antinopomancy has been used for divination through the entrails of children, while splanchomancy is associated with divination through viscera or entrails and has sometimes been described specifically in connection with women.

These terms belong to a wider family of divinatory practices in which internal organs were believed to reveal the intentions of gods, supernatural powers, or fate.

Methods

Traditional descriptions of anthropomancy portray the diviner as examining the organs of a sacrificial victim and interpreting their colour, shape, condition, and arrangement. Particular attention might be paid to the liver, intestines, and other organs that were regarded as especially significant within older systems of sacrificial divination.

Some accounts describe omens being taken not only from the organs themselves but also from the circumstances surrounding the death. Bodily movements, cries, the manner in which the victim fell, bleeding, and the behaviour of sacrificial flames could all supposedly become part of the divinatory interpretation.

The essential principle resembles that of haruspicy: the body is treated as an oracle, and unusual features are interpreted as signs concerning future events. In anthropomancy, however, the alleged use of human victims makes the practice one of the darkest and most disturbing forms described in occult literature.

Historical Traditions

Anthropomancy has sometimes been claimed to reach back into prehistoric or Neolithic ritual culture, although such broad claims are difficult to establish with certainty. Later writers associated forms of human sacrificial divination with a variety of ancient peoples, including the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Celtic priesthoods.

Descriptions of Druidic sacrifice occasionally connect the burning of victims in large wooden structures with divination. According to later accounts, signs might supposedly be taken from the flames, smoke, sounds, or manner of death. Such stories became closely connected with the famous image of the Wicker Man, although ancient reports concerning Druidic human sacrifice are themselves filtered through hostile or external sources and should be treated cautiously.

Menelaus

Herodotus related a story concerning Menelaus, king of Sparta, who was said to have been delayed in Egypt by unfavourable winds. According to the tradition, Menelaus sacrificed two local children in an attempt to obtain supernatural knowledge concerning his circumstances and destiny.

The episode belongs to the wider ancient literary tradition in which human sacrifice was presented as an extreme method of seeking divine favour or knowledge.

Elagabalus

The Roman emperor Elagabalus, also known as Heliogabalus, appears in later hostile accounts as a practitioner of unusual and forbidden religious rites. Some occult writers subsequently included him among rulers alleged to have practised anthropomancy.

As with many stories surrounding Elagabalus, however, the ancient sources are highly polemical, and claims concerning his supposed magical and sacrificial activities should not automatically be regarded as straightforward historical fact.

Julian the Apostate

Later occult literature also associated Julian the Apostate, the fourth-century Roman emperor and nephew of Constantine the Great, with anthropomantic practices. Stories circulated accusing him of incorporating human sacrifice into magical operations and of using victims for divinatory purposes.

One particularly grim legend concerns a temple at Carrhae in Mesopotamia, where Julian was supposedly said to have carried out secret rites before departing on his Persian campaign. After his death, later stories claimed that disturbing evidence of sacrificial magic was discovered within the sealed sanctuary.

Such accounts form part of the hostile legendary tradition that grew around Julian after his death. Because Christian writers frequently portrayed him as a dangerous pagan magician, tales of extreme occult practices became attached to his reputation.

Later Legends

The infamous Gilles de Rais and Elizabeth Báthory have also occasionally been connected in later occult speculation with forms of sacrificial or anthropomantic practice. Both accumulated extensive legends involving murder, sorcery, and ritual cruelty, but claims specifically identifying their crimes as anthropomancy belong more to later interpretation and sensational occult literature than to firmly established historical evidence.

Anthropomancy and Sacrificial Divination

Anthropomancy belongs to the wider history of sacrificial divination, in which the body of a victim was believed to provide signs concerning the intentions of supernatural powers. Its closest parallels are found in haruspicy, hepatoscopy, extispicy, and related practices involving the examination of organs.

What distinguishes anthropomancy is the alleged use of a human being rather than an animal. For that reason, much of the material surrounding it survives through accusation, legend, hostile religious writing, and later occult compilations rather than through clear descriptions of an established and continuous ritual system.

Within the Occult World classification, anthropomancy belongs most naturally to Augury, because its essential principle is the interpretation of sacrificial signs and bodily portents. It also overlaps strongly with Divination by Observation, but its historical relationship with extispicy and sacrificial omen-reading makes Augury the stronger classification.

Enter the Darkest Archives of Divination

Anthropomancy stands at the extreme edge of divinatory history, where sacrifice, death, political accusation, religion, and occult legend become almost impossible to separate. It reminds us that the history of divination is not composed only of cards, dreams, mirrors, and harmless household omens; some traditions were imagined, alleged, or practised within far darker conceptions of what human beings were willing to sacrifice in pursuit of forbidden knowledge.

If you want to understand that history without sanitising it, enter the Occult World Mystery School. Study augury, necromancy, sacrificial divination, spirits, grimoires, ritual magic, and the traditions that conventional occult summaries barely dare to touch. There are thousands of spirits, gods, demons, magical systems, grimoires and forgotten traditions waiting beyond it. Stop browsing the safe edges of occult history and enter the Mystery School where the darker structures behind these practices are examined in depth.