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To: Pete from Shawnee Mission

I like that word Haruspex. Are Haruspex and augur interchangeable? I was awarded a Boy Scout merit badge for augury.


45 posted on 12/27/2016 6:25:50 PM PST by Sawdring
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To: Sawdring

Um, sort of. Augury comprehends the idea of a Haruspex.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/augury

“Augury is the prophetic divining of the future by observation of natural phenomena—particularly the behaviour of birds and animals and the examination of their entrails and other parts, but also by scrutiny of man-made objects and situations.” Cicero wrote a book on it, “De divination.”

In its milder forms the Augur worked with living birds. Drop some feed, see how they act. If they don’t eat it, its a bad sign. Are they flying? How are they flying? Do they drop dead and fall from the sky? Again, a bad sign.

A Haruspex specifically practiced “extispicy—studying the organs of animal and human sacrifices.”

I divine that Because you have received a merit badge in Augury you must be a time traveler from Ancient Rome...which did not have boy scouts. Or perhaps you are an anachonist who is living a bit out of time.

If you want to specialize and become a Haruspex,consider a job at your local abbatoir! Keep in mind the experience of Saul and the witch of Endor in their attempts at necromancy and that you are no longer in a Roman society, but a Judeo Christian society. (I do not think there much of a market for this skill any more and certain religious proscriptions against it.)


46 posted on 12/30/2016 3:42:23 PM PST by Pete from Shawnee Mission ("Beware the Ides of March!" Spurrina to Julius Caesar according to Suetonius)
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