Dice divination, know technically by the term astrogalomancy, comes from the Greek word, astragalos, which means ‘dice’ or ‘knucklebone.’ The original dice consisted of small bones, usually sheep bones. In ancient times, these bones were marked with special symbols or letters of the alphabet, then either tossed onto the pages of a picture book, or into a drawn circle or some other kind of boundary, which was often marked with magical or divinatory symbols. A reading was taken from how the dice landed, what symbol, if any, they landed on, and which side landed face up. Astragalomancy was very popular in Mesopotamia, and African tribes have practiced it from ancient times up to the present day.
Today, of course, we use the modern six-sided dice. A few methods of modern dice-casting use many-sided dice, but we will focus on the six-sided dice. Most ancient occult traditions say Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and the most favorable days of the week for casting the dice, and that it should not be attempted on Fridays and Sundays. Other sources say dice-casting should not be attempted on Mondays and Wednesdays. I cast the dice on Sundays, as Sunday is the most peaceful and relaxed day of the week for me.
Dice divination is not a method that lends itself to answering specific questions. The only question you can ask the dice is something along the lines of ‘What of any significance is going to happen to me in the next week?’ It gives only a general prediction about what is going to happen in the next seven to nine days.
Love this! I have a question, I threw two dice, do you add them both up? Or just look at each number on the dice and read those meanings?
You’ll add up the numbers on both dice and look for the meaning of the resultant number.
When I roll dice where will I get unswer,,and how?or what I the meaning of 1,2,3,4,5,6 through dice?
Thank you for mentioning this issue. I will work on a correction, perhaps a Concise List of Number meanings. I thought I’d included a downloadable list of number results and their meanings in the lesson, but I could be wrong.
If you use 2 or 3 dice how do you get a 1 or a 2 if you add the numbers together?
The only way you could throw a 1 with two or three dice is if only one die lands in the casting circle, and the other one or two dice land outside the casting circle. The only way you could throw a 2 with two dice is a pair of snake eyes. If throwing a 2 with three dice, that result would have to be a pair of snake eyes, with the third die landing outside the casting circle. On the issue of throwing a 1 or a 2 with two or three dice, there appears to be an unspoken assumption that one or two of the dice have landed outside the casting circle. Opinion differ a little on the divinatory meanings of the various numbers thrown with the dice, but I’ve found a dice-divination source or two which frankly don’t even cover a 1 or a 2 result, considering only throws of 3 or higher to be of any significance. I included meanings for a throw of 1 or 2 for the sake of being comprehensive, and on the off-chance that someone might throw a number that low. But if a dice-diviner wants to establish for themselves the operating principle that any number below 3 is meaningless and therefore not to be considered, there is some support for that premise. Throwing a 1 or 2 is rather rare, anyway.
ON THE OTHER HAND: There are those dice diviners who consider any dice landing outside the circle to be a bad omen, indicating an upset or an argument. And if any dice land on the floor, that’s considered to be even worse, indicating a break-up or relationship-ending argument. So a throw of 1 or 2, with one or two dice landing outside the circle, can indicate those numbers’ meanings, accompanied by an upset or argument, so in effect you have a two-part prediction. For example, say you throw a two with three dice and two dice land in the circle, the other two outside the circle. Two, according to the source I use, says ‘Take a good look at situations in your life at this time. Things may not be quite what they seem to be.’ Because some dice diviners take dice landing outside the circle to mean an upset or an argument is coming, this throw could be saying you’ll take a closer look at a certain situation, discover something amiss, or discover that you and another person are operating under different assumptions, and an argument ensues. And if the one die which landed outside the circle in this example landed on the floor, some sources say the argument could be serious enough to lead to a break-up. So for a scenario like that, a throw of 1 or 2 with two or three dice could turn out to be very significant for a person.
I myself am neutral on the idea of taking any dice which land outside the circle to be of any significance, because if you live with, work with, or regularly interact with a naturally-argumentative person, then a die or two landing outside the circle indicating an argument doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know. And sometimes nothing of the sort happens. But your mileage may vary.