The Oxford English Dictionary lists 1652 as the earliest known use of the word “tyromancy” in print however, references to “cheese-diviners” dates back much further. The name on the piece that grew mold first was determined to be the lovestruck youngster’s future partner. An additional folk tradition in use at the time reportedly involved young women writing the names of their potential spouses on pieces of cheese and waiting to see how the mold grew on them. Cheese was also carefully watched as it was made patterns that emerged during the coagulation of the cheese were similarly interpreted as signs foretelling what was to come in the future. At that time, the “shape, number of holes, pattern of the mold, and other characteristics” of a piece of cheese were viewed as omens and interpreted accordingly. Tyromancy: Divination by Cheeseįrom the Greek tūros, or “cheese,” and manteia, or “prophecy,” tyromancy is precisely what its etymology implies: Telling the future by using cheese as the medium to do so.Īccording to online occult encyclopedia Occultopedia, this method of divination was in use primarily during the Middle Ages. Do any of them actually work? That’s up to you decide for yourself-but either way, you’ll probably be surprised by the specific details of some of these methods. When it comes to divination-the art of seeking knowledge by supernatural means- there’s a wide range of genuinely wild methods on the books, dating back as far as antiquity and often continuing all the up through the present.ĭivination isn’t always focused explicitly on what most people think of as “telling fortunes.” Indeed, some methods of divination are geared more towards revealing some’s character or even just helping querents figure out their real thoughts and feelings surrounding a specific issue.īut some methods of divination certainly do attempt to suss out what might be coming down the road for us, either sometime soon or many years from now. Sure, you’ve heard of tarot cards, talking boards, and the I Ching-but that’s just scratching the surface of the many, many ways humans have tried to predict the future throughout history.
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