Casting lots, or cleromancy, was the practice of making decisions by processes that would usually be considered random, such as rolling a dice, flipping a coin or drawing sticks of different lengths. The principle was that these methods left the outcome up to God’s providence. The Bible records many examples, including the famous case of Roman soldiers casting lots to win Christ’s robe after his crucifixion.

In the early modern period, charity was sometimes dispensed by lottery, and between 1665 and 1676 it was legal for juries to cast lots to reach decisions if they were divided. All the same, there was debate among theologians and philosophers about whether lot-casting was a legitimate way of seeking God’s guidance. The Protestant leader Martin Luther held that ‘casting of lots is in itself a real act of faith’, and Christians ‘must believe that God directs the lots and rules our fates’. However, he underlined that lot-casting was a serious business, and condemned playing dice games for fun.¹Martin Luther, Works: Volume 19: Lectures on the Minor Prophets II, ed. Hilton C. Oswold (St. Louis, 1974), p. 61. Several authors also argued that lot-casting should be used only for immediate decision-making, not to pry into the secrets of the future.

Cheap pamphlets nonetheless detailed various methods of using dice-rolling, coin tossing or other methods in divination. Also common were elaborate ‘wheels of fortune’, which employed various methods to produce answers to questions. Readers were often instructed to roll dice or make calculations according to the number of letters in their name and the day’s date; the wheel would then direct them to passages in the pamphlet that responded to their query.