Fun with arithmancy and divination

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67"
<justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> I was trying to remember the fancy word for tea-leaf reading last
> night and a Google search led me to this site:
> 
> http://phrontistery.info/divine.html
> 
> which gives the names of all sorts of divination, from fortune- 
> telling using playing cards (which I remembered was cartomancy) to
> coscinomancy (divination using a sieve and a pair of shears). 
> Tea-leaf reading, I discovered, was phyllomancy. 

I thought tea-leaf reading was tassomancy ... (click click click)
<www.onelook.com> says "Sorry, no dictionaries indexed in the selected
category contain the word tassomancy. Perhaps you meant: tasseomancy
found in 1 dictionary)"

That '1 dictionary' is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasseomancy>
which says: "Tasseography
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Tasseomancy)
Tasseography (also known as tasseomancy or tassology) is a divination
or fortune-telling method that in western traditions interprets
patterns in tea leaves. The term also refers to the reading of coffee
grounds, especially in the Middle Eastern tradition, or the reading of
wine sediments."
> 
> Anyway, while I was there, I noticed arithmancy (divination using
> numbers, naturally) and wondered (again) why Hermione would regard
> Divination as a "woolly" subject but find Arithmancy, a form of
> divination, useful and intriguing.
> 
I remain certain that the Arithmancy of which Hermione is so fond has
nothing to do with the Muggle numerology called arithmancy. Sort of
like there is
<http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=psychometry&r=66>, that is,
'psychometry' means BOTH 'The ability or art of divining information
about people or events associated with an object solely by touching or
being near to it.' AND 'any branch of psychology concerned with
psychological measurements'.