Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter LIII — Of Divinations, and the Kinds Thereof · 2 of 2 · tr. Henry Morley; L. W. de Laurence ed.
Chapter LIII, Section 1b
Confert is an augury when a man or bird in journeying or flying shall pass behind thee, coming from the left side of thee, and, bending toward thy right, pass out of thy sight, and is an evil sign concerning thy business.
Scassarvetus is when thou see a man or a bird pass by thee, and resting in a place on thy left side, is an evil sign to thee.
Scassarnova is when thou see a man or a bird pass by thee, and resting in a place on thy right side, is an augury of good to thee.
Emponenthem is when a man or a bird, coming from thy left side, and passing to thy right, goeth out of thy sight without resting, and is a good sign.
Hartena or Herrenam is an augury that, if a man or a bird coming from thy right hand, shall pass behind thy back to thy left, and thou shall see him resting anywhere, this is in evil sign.
The ancients did also prognosticate from sneezings, of which Homer in the seventeenth book of his poem of the Odyssey makes mention, because they, thought that they proceeded from a sacred place, viz., the head, in which the intellect is vigorous and operative.
Whence, also, whatsoever speech came into the breast or mind of a man rising in the morning, unawares, is said to be some presage and an augury.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →Themes
Cosmic Sympathycosmology
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The entire system of augury presupposes the doctrine of hidden affinities: that the movement of a bird or person, a sneeze, or an unbidden morning thought are not random but carry presignifying meaning connected to the diviner's future, making the physical event a legible sign of a hidden cause or outcome.
All passages →Divinationpraxis
The ritual practice of discerning hidden knowledge — future events, concealed causes, or the will of higher powers — through a structured technique applied to cards, lots, astrological configuration, entrails, oracle, or other sortilege, rather than through direct unmediated insight. Distinct from gnosis_direct_knowledge (unmediated inner apprehension of ultimate truth, not a technique applied to an external medium) and cosmic_sympathy (the underlying doctrine of hidden affinity that many divinatory techniques presuppose, rather than the practice of consulting it).
The entire passage is a catalog of auguries — a specific branch of divination — describing multiple techniques (bird augury by direction of movement, sneeze augury, morning-speech augury) and their interpretive rules.
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