GASTROMANCY, or GASTROMANTIA, a kind of divination practised amongst the ancients by means of words receding or seeming to proceed out of the belly. The word is Greek, γαστρομαντία, composed of γαστρὸς, belly, and μαντία, divination. There is another kind of divination called by the same name, which is performed by means of glasses or other round and transparent vessels, within which certain figures appear by magic art. It is so called because the figures appear as it were in the belly of the vessels.