Anthropomancy

Divination by the entrails of human being.

Ancient practice of divination by the entrails of men or women. Herodotus said that Menelaus, detained in Egypt by poor winds, sacrificed two children of the country to discover his destiny by means of anthropomancy. Heliogabalus practiced this means of divination. It is said that in his magical operations, Julian the Apostate caused a large number of children to be killed so that he might consult their entrails. During his last expedition at Carra, in Mesopotamia, he shut himself in the Temple of the Moon. After completing his anthropomancy, he sealed the doors and posted a guard, whose duty it was to see that they were not opened until his return. However, he was killed in battle with the Persians, and those who entered the Temple of Carra, in the reign of Julian's successor, found there a woman hanging by her hair, with her liver torn out. The infamous Gilles De Laval may also have practiced this dreadful type of divination.

Sources:

Waite, Arthur Edward. The Occult Sciences. 1891. Reprint, Secaucus, N.J.: University Books, 1974.

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