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Wanting to see into the future seems to be built into human nature. The person who knows their future can control it, and become the commander of their destiny. Some of the most prized magical objects have been tools for divination and attempting to see the future. People who are purported to have second sight have been consulted by everyone, from celebrities to shoe sellers.

If you can see the future (and, quite frankly, if you can’t), you’ll have seen that we are about to enter the world of prediction, fortune-telling and the Hogwarts subject of Divination. The practice of divination stretches back thousands of years, and has used natural instruments like bones and turtle shells. More recently, it had a renaissance in the front parlours of Victorian England, using everyday objects like teacups for peering into the future. Some people will use anything to see what fate and fortune holds!

Part 1: From RUnes to Oracle Bones

So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can take you only so far in this field…’

Professor Trelawney – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

In 19th-century Siam (now Thailand), important life choices were made by consulting a divination manual called a phrommachat. It couldn’t be read by just anyone – it had to be taken to a divination specialist called a Mor Doo to be interpreted.

Because the manuals were used so much, they were often worn out and recopied multiple times, which makes dating their use in history quite difficult. The oldest known copies are from the 18th century, but parts of the manuals were probably adopted when Buddhism was introduced in mainland Southeast Asia, about a thousand years ago. Their Hindu and Chinese elements might date them to even before that.

In a typical phrommachat the paper was concertinaed, and accordingly it was called a folding book. It would have been handwritten in ink and would typically have contained wonderful illustrations of courting couples, big cats and men riding an assortment of animals: chickens, dragons and elephants. The Mor Doo was needed to interpret the multiple belief systems that were merged in the book, requiring both literacy and numeracy to do so.

For Buddhist monks leaving the order, a career as a Mor Doo was a viable way of casting yourself as a lay specialist with access to the necessary secret knowledge the job required. There are links with Hindu and Indian traditions, and the zodiac employed in the manuals is derived from Chinese tradition. Like Southeast Asia and Thailand itself, the manuals reflect a melting pot of traditions and cultures.

When would you consult your Mor Doo? For any difficult decision that had to be made, or for a major life choice, a trip to the Mor Doo was in order: questions might include whether to marry someone, start a business or build a new house, and if so where to build it. Travelling was dangerous back then, so people would even consult on taking trips. Falling ill was seen as a symptom of mental sickness as much as physical. Emotional strains on relationships could all add up to making someone ill, so the Mor Doo consulted on how to sort out issues with relationships in the community. Feelings of guilt and remorse, or any extreme emotions, were thought to make one sick. A divination specialist would tell you exactly what to do.

How the Mor Doo would interpret the book is complex. The twelve animals in the zodiac were combined with five elements: water, fire, earth, wood and metal. And multiplied together, this would give you sixty possible years. To make it more complicated, each of these sixty years was combined with a female or male avatar, or sometimes a different figure, to take it to 120 options. The idea was that you could determine someone’s birth year within the range of 120 years, and if you added the reign of a king, you could hone in on which particular year was mentioned.

Since the minefield of relationships was one of the main reasons why people consulted a Mor Doo, there was even a special relationship section. Matchmaking and checking the future compatibility of two individuals in a relationship (particularly marriage) would warrant seeing the Mor Doo. And not just for the individuals concerned, but both families, too – it was a family affair.

They hurried back down to the Gryffindor common room, which was half-empty, and joined Hermione, who was sitting alone, reading a book called Ancient Runes Made Easy.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Runes were an ancient Germanic writing system – the earliest runic inscriptions date from around 150 AD. As Christianity spread, the characters were replaced by the Latin alphabet. After the early 16th century, runes were no longer in practical use, but their association with magic continues. Famously, The Tales of Beedle the Bard – the children’s book for wizards first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – was written in runes. The need to interpret runes (and the difficulty in doing so) means they have an air of magic and secret knowledge surrounding them. Even the root of the word ‘rune’ means secrecy. They have come to be very powerful symbols, associated with Odin in Norse mythology.

Some think that runes actually started as symbols of magic and developed into a writing system. They aren’t curved letters like the Latin alphabet, as they were made for carving into hard surfaces, especially wood and even antlers. Antlers also have magical associations, so the combination of runes and antlers is particularly potent.

Antlers grow above the head and so connect the head with a higher power. Stags shed and regrow them, suggesting the powerful symbolism of renewal, rebirth and regeneration. Using antlers to make divination discs with runes inscribed on them would draw on the power of nature in the antler and the rune itself, allowing you to interpret the future or your situation.