[‘ Divination through communication with the spirits of the dead. Also: divination by means of shadows.']
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈsʌɪəmansi/, U.S. /ˈsaɪəˌmænsi/
Forms: 15–16 *sciomancie*, 16 *sciomantie*, 16– *sciomancy*, 17 *sciamancy*.
Etymology: < post-classical Latin /sciomantia/ (5th cent.) < /scio-/ scio- comb. form + /-mantia/ -mancy comb. form.
Compare Middle French /sciomantie/ (1546 in Rabelais), French †/sciomance/ (Cotgrave 1611), sciomancie, sciamancie (both 1765).
Divination through communication with the spirits of the dead. Also: divination by means of shadows.
Often distinguished from necromancy in involving only the spirit, as opposed to the corpse, of a dead person.
1560 W. Painter tr. W. Fulke /Antiprognosticon/ sig. A.iiiv, Capnomancy and Sciomancie [L. /Sciomantiam/], whereof the one teacheth to haue vnderstandynge of thynges to come by smoke, the other by shadow.
1648 A. Ross /Mystagogus Poeticus/ (ed. 2) xii. 305 This..was but Sciomancie, or a sight of shadowes onely, not Necromancie.
1656 T. Blount /Glossographia/, /Sciomantie/,..the part of Necromancy, practised by shadows.
1693 T. Urquhart & P. A. Motteux tr. Rabelais /3rd Bk. Wks./ xxv. 210 If you be afraid of the Dead,..I will make use of the Faculty of Sciomancy [Fr. /Sciomantie/].
1728 E. Chambers /Cycl./ (at cited word), The Witch who conjured up the Soul of Samuel, to foretel Saul the Event of the Battle he was about to give, did it by Sciomancy.
a/1878 /Spiritual Scientist in /Mod. Panarion/ (1895) 80 The sciomancy of the past bears the same relation to modern psychometry that ancient Magic does to modern Spiritualism.
/a/1879 J. D. Hoppus /Riverside Papers/ (1882) II. 45 One..who was no deep-seer, or ‘sensitive’, no victim of cataleptic craving, or sciomancy.
1947 /College Art Jrnl./ *7* 118 The question is dropped and he hurries on to discover psychomancy and sciomancy in other phases of modern art.
2002 /Africa News/ (Nexis) 15 Apr., Secret societies..sometimes rouse dead people, communicate with them as is done in what is called sciomancy.
Derivatives
scioˈmantic adj. of or relating to sciomancy.
1859 T. S. Henderson /Mem. Rev. E. Henderson/ vi. 378 The actual not sciomantic appearance of Samuel at Endor.
2008 F. Chappell in G. H. Scithers /Cat Tales/ 172 My first unguided excursion into sciomantic venture.