Throwing the Bones: How to Foretell the Future with Bones, Shells, and Nuts

Books on magic, witchcraft, etc vary wildly in quality, but this is one of the really excellent ones. The author is intelligent, knowledgeable, and funny. The book covers EVERYTHING: from how to read chicken bones to dominoes to Mongolian shagai bones (sheep ankle bones). I bought this book specifically because I needed to know how to read shagai, and not only is there a nice long discussion of them and the traditions surrounding them, but there is a CHART showing EXACTLY how to read them! There are lists of traditional symbols in divination, astrological symbolism - everything you need to do any kind of bone, nut, and shell reading you can think of. I'm keeping it permanently with my divination collection because it's likely to become my go-to resource for tough readings. If you're interested in this subject or want to learn how to do it, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

While this volume is not lengthy, the amount of knowledge here is outstanding. A fantastic overview of bone throwing divination practices from various cultures. Truly informative!

Unlike another reviewer, I don't think that this book "falls short" in anyway. Cat did a pretty good job cramming a wide swathe of cultures distinctive "bone oracle" use in plain English. A good amount of history, diagrams pictures and charts, a wide variety of not only descriptive but unique oracles all with a common theme of bones...for under 10 bucks? So it's an introduction, she's not an anthropoligist. I'm sure a dry and drab bow tie wearing professor of Blah-D-Blah can give you all the nitty gritty on a specific culture's use of bone oracles. If you just want a little bit of info to sink your teeth into, get this book. I did, and I don't regret it.Includes topics like;Slaughter bone oraclesheat induced bone readingWishbones (yes the thanksgiving tradition is in essence, a bone oracle)Oracle Bones in Ancient ChinaOracle Bones of the Native American Naskapi TribeMathematical Bone Reading SystemsI Ching (complete with the 8 trigrams and sixty 4 hexagrams depicted)Yoruba Obi of west Africa (Nigeria)Hakata 4 binary bone oracles of the Shona people of Zimbabwe (with pictures of carvings and a chart of outcomes)Diloggun with cowrie shellsBone Dice and Sheep KnucklesDominoes and Gypsy DominoesSortilegeRune Bones (my favorite)Possum Bone Reading (heard about it here in the South but never knew anything about it, thanks cat)Chicken Bone ReadingMingled Species Bone MeaningsBones of the Body meaning...with Zodiac Chart of a naked dude...for the ladiesContainersAncestor AltarsGuidlines for casting bones (any system)And a Tea Leaf reading/meaning chart for good measure.This book absolutely delivers for under 10 bucks. Get a copyHer collaboration project "The Black Folder" is real good too.

For such a complex topic this book brings the essentials of the beautiful art and practice that is reading bones! I love that the author did their do diligence in researching the history of this art and included it. Well written and absolutely worth the price and more.

Make sure you check dimensions on book. Print is very small. Would convert to a spiral but I don’t think there is enough room

I really liked this book. It's a great intro to the subject. It really spices up the subject of divination! The author seems very wise & the book is very cool. People always want to look at it when they see me reading it. I noticed something strange in the writing though. The author always writes "I" in lower case ie "i." But on the last page of the book writes it in capital as in "I" upper case, but on the same page reverts to writing it lower case again! This doesn't detract from the info in anyway, but I wonder its purpose. Is it some type of code? We may never find out.

The history of osteomancy in this book is incredible! And the instructions are wonderful! I wrote a long review at cannonballread.com. This is the osteomancy book I'd been looking for!