oleomancy

From oleo- (“oil”) + -mancy (“divination”).

The ban on necromancy and divination through idols and teraphim is understandable as falling under the prohibition of worshiping the dead and idols. But on what grounds is the distinction made between, say, hepatoscopy, astrology, and oleomancy, which are all banned, and Urim, ephod, and lots, which are permitted, though also involving a technique?

1960, Yehezkel Kaufmann, translated by Moshe Greenberg, The Religion of Israel: from its Beginning to the Babylonian Exile, Chicago, I.L.: University of Chicago, page 88:

Some of his material makes additions to the hoodoo corpus, especially the title quotation, a divination which may be the only example of oleomancy in HOODOO.

1970, Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo, Conjuration, Witchcraft, Rootwork, volume 3, Washington, D.C.: American University, page 1968:

Once in camp, Balaam may practice his craft. Mesopotamian baru-prophets read omens, by oleomancy (discerning oil patterns in a cup) or hydromancy (water patterns), by hepatoscopy (liver reading) or necromancy (conjuring up dead spirits).

1992, Michael E. Williams, The Storyteller's Companion to the Bible, volume 2 (Exodus–Joshua), Nashville, T.N.: Abingdon Press, →ISBN, page 149:

(divination, historical) The practice of divination by pouring oil into water and observing the resulting patterns.


dryghten

Learned borrowing from Old English dryhten which comes from Proto-Germanic *druhtinaz. Cognate with Old Frisian drochten, Old Saxon drohtin, Old High German truhtin, Old Norse dróttinn.

lbor

(Wicca) the universal pantheistic deity in Wicca, variously as Dryghtyn or "the One" or "The All." This impersonal ultimate divinity is generally regarded as unknowable, and is acknowledged but not worshiped


royal stars

At the earlier period the Summer solstice was in the centre of Leo, the Autumnal equinox in the centre of Scorpio, and the Winter solstice in the centre of Aquarius - corresponding roughly, Mr. Maunder points out, to the positions of the four "Royal Stars," Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut.

1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 41:

(astrology) A set of four first magnitude stars, Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut, regarded by ancient Persians as the guardians of the sky.


metethereal

But for our minds there must needs be 'a critical point' in any such imagined continuity; so that the world where life and thought are carried on apart from matter, must certainly rank again as a new, a metethereal environment.

1904, Viscount [Richard] Haldane, The Pathway to Reality, London: John Murray, page 583:

(spiritualism) Lying beyond the ether; spiritual, transcendent.


ruling planet

(astrology) The planet (a term which in astrology includes the Sun and Moon) which is considered to have especially strong influence over a given zodiac sign; the sign is called the planet's domicile.


weird sister

It was some such feeling as this which led Michael to visit a weird sister known as the Witch of Falsehope.

1863, Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, volume 59, page 289:


Latis

Either of two Celtic deities (a god and goddess) worshipped in Roman Britain.


infohazardous

en-adj

infohazardous (comparative more infohazardous, superlative most infohazardous)

more infohazardous (comparative)
most infohazardous (superlative)

(neurology, chiefly science fiction) Being, containing, or pertaining to a infohazard.


antimemetic

antimemetic (comparative more antimemetic, superlative most antimemetic)

more antimemetic (comparative)
most antimemetic (superlative)

From antimeme + -etic or anti- + memetic.

(neurology, sociology, chiefly science fiction) Of, being, containing, or pertaining to antimemes.


anabibazon

From Ancient Greek ἀναβιβάζων (anabibázōn).

(astrology, obsolete) The ascending lunar node, where the Moon moves into the northern ecliptic hemisphere.


Seax-Wicca

A denomination of Wicca blended with modernized Anglo-Saxon paganism, founded by Raymond Buckland.


shagai

An ankle bone of a sheep or goat used in traditional Mongolian games and divination practices as a die.


plain of Mars

(palmistry) The centre of the palm; the hollow of the hand.


perispritic

In other words, just as there is no other obstacle to our advancement than that which we make for ourselves by our persistence in wrong-doing, so there is no other arbiter of our destiny than our own moral and intellectual state, which state decides, at each successive period of our career, the quality of our perispritic action on the material elements around us.

1871, Anna Blackwell, The Philosophy of Existence, pages 61–2:

“A Spirit” is a complex being, in which is a trinity, consisting of a soul, or inner principle of conscious and active selfhood; a permanent soul envelope (Nephesch), which I will call Perisprit, composed of the “Dynamic substance,” which is the substantiality of Magnetism and Electricity; and a changeable outer envelope, or “body,” composed of particles of Matter, attracted and held together by the magnetic action of the said Perisprit, or Spirit Body, and that will fall apart from each other, and be resolved into their original elements on the cessation of the perispritic vibrations by which they were agglomerated into form; as particles of iron, for instance, would be drawn into shape by the attractive vibrations of a magnet of any given form plunged into their midst; as we are perpetually, although unconsciously, building up for ourselves a succession of new bodies, through the magnetic processes of digestion.

1874, Count de Medina Pomar, The Honeymoon, volume 2, pages 173–4:

Do you think it impossible that a perfect spirit like Jesus should be able to materialize the perispritic fluids of the superior worlds, and add and adapt the earthly fluids of which your bodies are composed to produce a tangible perispritic body, suited to his earthly mission, which should apparently represent the faculties and phases of your humanity.

1881, W. F. Kirby, transl., edited by J. B. Roustaing, The Four Gospels explained by their Writers, page 28:

(spiritualism) Of or pertaining to the perispirit.


retroshade

Retroshade is going to increase the chances of a travel mishap, so just get ahead of the chances and protect yourself.

2017 December 19, Kaitlyn Wylde, “Mercury Retroshade Can Seriously Mess Up Holiday Plans — Here's How to Prepare”, in Bustle, archived from the original on 2020-12-06:

Retroshade is considered by astrologers (such as myself) to be the worst part of Mercury Retrograde. The pre-Retrograde starts slowing down the communicative planet and begins to make us all see situations with unclear thoughts.

2019 November 20, Lisa Stardust, “Yeah, Mercury Retrograde Is Over—but Have You Heard of *Retroshade*?”, in Cosmopolitan, New York, N.Y.: Hearst Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-11-04:

Technically speaking, retroshade refers to a planet's "retrograde shadow period," which occurs both before and after the retrograde itself. It's when the planet slows down as it prepares to enter retrograde and speeds up as it leaves its backward motion behind. […]

[2023 January 11, Aliza Kelly, “When Mercury Retrograde Ends, Mercury Retroshade Begins”, in The Cut, archived from the original on 2023-08-09:

(astrology) A transitional period, occurring immediately before and after retrograde, during which a planet moves across the same part of the sky twice.


Dodekatheism

Borrowed from Greek δωδεκαθεϊσμός (dodekatheïsmós).

bor+

δωδεκαθεϊσμός

Hellenismos aka Dodekatheism, Hellenism, Hellenic Polytheism or Hellenic Reconstructionism is the modern adaptation of the Ancient Hellenic (Greek) religion.

2016, Rachel Patterson, The Art of Ritual, Collective Ink, →ISBN, page 183:

Others, focusing on the twelve deities from Mount Olympus, refer to their tradition as either Dodekatheism or Olympianism.

2018, Tony Mierzwicki, Hellenismos: Practicing Greek Polytheism Today, Llewellyn Worldwide, →ISBN, page 11:

Others consider themselves as followers of Dodekatheism or Olympianism.

2021, Samantha Leaver, Pagan Portals - Hellenic Paganism, Collective Ink, →ISBN, page 15:

(uncommon) Synonym of Hellenism (the modern-day revival of the polytheistic religious system of Ancient Greece)


Kitab al-Azif

Borrowed from Arabic كِتَاب العَزِيف (kitāb al-ʕazīf).

كِتَاب العَزِيف


favomancy

A form of divination, specifically cleromancy, that involves throwing beans on the ground and interpreting the patterns into which the beans fall.


hedge riding

From hedge (“boundary”) + riding (“traversing, crossing”), where the boundary is that separating this world from the spirit world.

compound

2012, Harmonia Saille, Pagan Portals - Hedge Witchcraft, John Hunt Publishing, page 10,
Hedge riding is shamanic in nature and is usually solitary as the hedge witch is solitary, but there is no reason why you cannot practice with others.

2014, Trevor Greenfield, Witchcraft Today - 60 Years On, John Hunt Publishing, unnumbered page,
Hedge riding may be part of the spell a hedge witch puts together.

2018, Rachel Patterson, Witchcraft...Into the Wilds, John Hunt Publishing, unnumbered page,
The hedge is the symbolic boundary between the worlds. Hedge riding is the journey your spirit takes into the Otherworld or Underworld realms, sometimes called the upper and lower realms. The middle realm being our everyday world that we live in.
Hedge riding can take our spirit travelling back into the past to connect with our ancestors and we can meet and talk with our past-life selves.

Shamanic journeying, as practised by a hedge witch.


hedge rider

1883, Translation of Havamal, in Guðbrandur Vigfússon, Frederick York Powell (editors, translators), Corpvs Poeticvm Boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue, Volume 1: Eddic Poetry, Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), page 27,
18. The tenth I know: If I see witches [hedge-riders] dancing in the air, I prevail so that they go astray and cannot find their own skins and their own haunts.

2007, Doug Lennox, Now You Know Big Book of Answers, Dundurn Press, page 118,
Witches, who were usually homeless and gaunt and sometimes crippled, were said to be hedge-riders; they roamed the darkened roads by the edge of town and were reputed to live in two realities by straddling the hedges between the civilized safety of a small village and the real and imagined dangers from ghosts and demons who dwelled beyond.

2012, Harmonia Saille, Pagan Portals: Hedge Riding, page 4,
Verses 147–165 of the Havamal are charms. Depending on which translation you follow, reciting the charm can cause either the hedge rider to show their true self and return home, or the rider's spirit to become separated from their physical body. […] The hedge rider of ancient times flew to the otherworld to consult with spirits and gods for the purposes of magic or prophecy. The hedge rider of modern times will certainly do this among other things.

A witch who practises hedge riding; a hedge witch.