Man, would being able to predict the future be convenient. Or psychically crushing, I suppose. It depends on if you consider the idea of fate comforting, or existentially devastating. Different strokes, different folks. But for many ancient civilizations, the benefits of knowing what was to come far outweighed the chance of receiving worrying news. In fact, dozens upon dozens of future-glimpsing methods were explored throughout history with the hope that a civilization wouldn’t be caught off-guard by floods or famine.
Most of these methods were charming, if ineffective. Poking around in tea leaves and tossing out spreads of tarot cards are fun, tactile activities that put the “soothe” in “soothsaying.” There’s a reason that they’ve survived, to be practiced even now by modern witch doctors, fortune tellers and Brooklyn’s used bookstore employees. It’s a little less serious today, of course, since most people having their fortune read these days are doing so mostly for fun. But in ancient times, they were really trying, which meant that they were willing to go a little farther in search of solid results.
Don’t Miss
One method of divination that you’re unlikely to stumble upon at a street fair in 2024 is the practice of haruspicy. In this form of future-predicting, the magical materials in question were the entrails of recently sacrificed animals. It was practiced by the ancient Mesopotamians, who regularly scanned an altar’s worth of guts for answers to burning questions. These Mesopotamian predictors also constructed models to teach the aspiring augurs of the future how to magically interpret a pile of wet innards.
But it wasn’t just the Mesopotamians, multiple cultures embraced this gory crystal ball substitute. Eventually, haruspicy made its way to Italy, to be practiced by the Etruscans, who would pass on this nasty bit of knowledge to the Romans. The Romans loved a good prophecy, and practiced multiple forms of divination. For the most important of predictions, though, they almost always turned to gut-reading.
If the information needed was real high-level stuff, they’d pass up the augurs who were interpreting chicken behavior and head to what I have to imagine were the worst-smelling fortune tellers in town: the haruspex. The haruspex would move some unlucky animal’s insides outside of their body, and then examine the conditions and markings of the kidneys, heart, lungs, intestines and liver for omens.
Was it effective? Probably not, or else Caesar would have had some inkling that he was about to get airholed.
If haruspicy saved any lives, it’s probably because anyone getting their information from it was going to be told, in some fashion, to be careful. I have to assume that it was uncommon for someone to squeeze around on a pair of sheep lungs and report, “Everything’s fine!”
Hey, if they thought it would stop the fall of their empire, can we blame them for trying? There’s that common saying, “It’s not crazy if it works!” Though, I think this might be considered an exception.