Elements
Early modern philosophers inherited an ancient Greek understanding of the four elements as the building blocks of the universe. The German occultist Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) explained in his 1533 Three Books of Occult Philosophy that the elements comprised ‘the root and foundation of all bodies, natures, virtues, and wonderful works’, and added: ‘he which shall know [the] qualities of the Elements, and their mixtions, shall easily bring to pass such things that are wonderful, and astonishing, and shall be perfect in Magic’.1Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, trans. J. F. (London, 1651 [1533]), p. 7.
Diviners across the social spectrum sought insight by harnessing the elements. Divination by earth, or geomancy, might entail studying markings on the ground; patterns made in soil, sand or ashes; or patterns formed by tossing handfuls of earth, sand or rocks. Geomancers often generated charts with sixteen figures and interpreted their positions, drawing heavily on astrological theory. Divination by air, or aeromancy, involved observation of patterns in the sky. Aeromancers might take an interest in the weather, clouds, the behaviour of birds, comets, wind currents, thunder and lightning, or unusual skyborne apparitions.
Diagram that appeared in a 1591 guide to geomancy.2The Geomancie of Maister Christopher Cattan Gentleman (London, 1591), p. 11, Wellcome Collection.
Divination by fire, or pyromancy, usually entailed interpreting the shapes made by flames or smoke, or inspecting burned items: in 1711, the Welsh writer T. P. noted that people would throw nuts, ivy leaves or fruit stones in fire to learn about matters such as oncoming deaths or the sex of unborn babies.3T. P., Cas Gan Gythraul, ed. and trans. Lisa Tallis (Newport, 2015 [1711]), p. 117. Finally, divination by water, or hydromancy, could take various forms. It might involve studying the behaviour of bodies of water, or using water as a surface for scrying. Another method was to write names or answers to questions on pieces of paper, wrap them in clay balls and drop them into water; the one that unfurled first was the response to the question. Dropping items in water and observing the ripples, sound, and whether the items floated or sank was also possible. In 1633, Bessie Skebister of Orkney confessed to divining whether a neighbour’s absent husband was well. She dropped a sixpence in water, saying that if the cross fell up, he was well. The cross fell down, but Bessie then repeated the experiment. The coin fell differently, and she declared him well.4Records of Orkney Sheriff Court, Orkney Archives, SC10/1/5, f. 89r. We are grateful to Prof. Peter Marshall for this reference.
Coloured version of a 1472 depiction of the four elements.5Isidorus Hispalensis, De Responsione Mundi et de Astrorum Ordinatione (Augsburg, 1472), ch. 12; Wikimedia Commons, original uncoloured version Harvard Library.
Woodcut from a 1532 work showing man harnessing the elements.6Hans Weiditz, woodcut in Francesco Petrarch, De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae (Augsburg, 1532), bk. 1, ch. 3, the British Museum.
Some forms of hydromancy are easy to practise at home. Try thinking of a question, writing the possible answers on scraps of paper, and folding them or scrunching them into balls. Drop them into the bowl of water and see which answer emerges first.
Alternatively, think of a yes/no question and play the video below for an answer!
In the first extract below, the antiquarian John Aubrey describes geomantic practices in a book written in 1686-7.7John Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, ed. James Britten (London, 1881 [1686-7]), p. 24. The next extract is a 1712 account of a ghostly battle, from the Scottish minister Robert Wodrow. Ghostly battles were often believed to prefigure or follow real events.8Robert Wodrow, Analecta: Or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences, ed. Matthew Leishman, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1842-3), vol. 2, p. 43. Third is an account of pyromancy from a 1694 letter by a gentleman’s son in Strathspey,9In Michael Hunter (ed.), The Occult Laboratory: Magic, Science, and Second Sight in Late Seventeenth-Century Scotland (Woodbridge, 2001), p. 150; we have modernised spelling and punctuation. and finally there is a story of a pond in which the water turned to blood, framed as a prediction about the ongoing civil war.10The Most Strange and Wounderfull Apperation of Blood in a Poole at Garraton in Leicester-shire (London, 1645), pp. 1-6. The images are details from a frontispiece to an English edition of Magia Naturalis (Natural Magic), by the Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615).11Details from Richard Gaywood, frontispiece to Giambattista della Porta, Natural Magick by John Baptista Porta (London, 1658 [1558]), Library of Congress.
When I was a boy … the maidservants were wont at night (after supper) to make smooth the ashes on the hearth, and then to make streaks on it with a stick; such a streak signified privately to her that made it such an unmarried man, such a one such a maid: the like for men. Then the men and the maids were to choose by this kind of way, their husbands and wives: or by this divination to know whom they should marry. The maids I remember were very fond of this kind of magic, which is clearly a branch of geomancy.
…some scores, if not hundred[s], of people saw this apparition in the air one evening, about sunset. There appeared to them … two large fleets of ships, near a hundred upon every side, and they met together, and fairly engaged. They very clearly saw their masts, tackling, their guns, and their firing one at another. They saw several of them sunk; and after a considerable time’s engagement they sundered … a very sensible gentleman was a witness … and it’s hard to think they could be all under a deceptio visus [optical illusion].
There was one James Mack-coil-vic-Alasterz [from near Strathaven] … a very honest man … [who] used ordinarily by looking to the fire, to foretell what strangers would come to his house, the next day or shortly thereafter; by their habit and arms; and sometimes also by their names; and if any of his goods or cattle were amissing, he would direct his servants to the very place where to find them, whether in a mire or upon dry ground; he would also tell if the beast were already dead, or if it would die ere they could come to it…
At Garraton, a town in Leicestershire … is a great pond of water … it began to look red, and the substance thereof, was thicker then before … It waxed more red the second day … and far more red the third day … and on the fourth day it grew a perfect sanguine … surely it will prove good news could I from hence assure you that as after the four days being ended, the water did begin to return in its first genuine colour, so the fourth year of this war being expired, the kingdom shall again return to its ancient blessing and habit of peace.
