Numerology is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in words and names. When numerology is applied to a person's name, it is a form of onomancy. It is often associated with astrology and other divinatory arts.
Numerorum mysteria (1591), a treatise on numerology by Pietro Bongo and his most influential work in Europe
Agrippa's numerology table as published in Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact or interaction with supernatural agencies such as spirits, gods, god-like-beings or the "will of the universe".
Display on divination, featuring a cross-cultural range of items, in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England
Russian peasant girls using chickens for divination; 19th-century lubok.
Joseph Enthroned. Folio from the "Book of Omens" (Falnama), Safavid dynasty. 1550. Freer Gallery of Art. This painting would have been positioned alongside a prognostic description of the meaning of this image on the page opposite (conventionally to the left). The reader would flip randomly to a place in the book and digest the text having first viewed the image.
