Haruspicy, Necromancy ... I first encountered these words
in The National Lampoon. In their first three years, when the
Harvard influence was still strong, their regular Horoscope
column featured a different form of Divination each month.

So for Haruspex, there would be a description
(stinking pile of sheep guts)
and some vaguely worded prediction aimed at the
satiric target of the day
(usually Spiro Agnew or Henry Kissinger).

Divination by birds, cloud-shapes, I Ching:
The Lampoon provided the foundation of my magical education,
unsurpassed until we all took Sibyl Trelawney's class.

Tim Szeliga

--
I am pedantically obligated to state that
there is no apostrophe in Finnegans Wake, by
Jame's Joyce, author of Dubliner's and Ulysse's.
---Tim Szeliga