Aeromancy
divination conducted by interpreting atmospheric conditions
Aeromancy (from Greek ἀήρ aḗr, "air", and manteia, "divination") is divination that is conducted by interpreting atmospheric conditions. Alternate terms include "arologie", "aeriology", and "aërology".
Practice
Aeromancy uses cloud formations, wind currents, and cosmological events such as comets, to attempt to divine the past, present, or future. There are sub-types of this practice which are as follows: austromancy (wind divination), ceraunoscopy (observing thunder and lightning), chaomancy (aerial vision), meteormancy (meteors, AKA shooting stars), and nephomancy (cloud divination).
History
Variations on the concept have been used throughout history, the practice is thought to have been used by the ancient Babylonian priests, and is probably alluded to in the bible.
Damascius, the last of the Neoplatonists, records an account of nephomancy in the 5th century CE, during the reign of Leo I:
Wherefore one finds a woman in the days of Leo the Roman emperor who knew neither by sense of hearing nor by the ancient practices the art of divination by clouds. The woman came from Aigai in Cilicia, having come from the family of the Orestiadai who dwell on the mountain at Komana in Cappadocia. Her family went back to the Peloponnese. She took thought for a man entrusted with a military command who was sent with others to the war against the Vandals in Sicily. She prayed to foresee the future by dream and prayed facing the rising sun.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aeromancy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.