Dark Arts

intheplayingfields:

Molybdomancy: Telling Tales With Tin.

In many Nordic countries (like Finland!), there is a New Year’s Eve tradition of melting pellets of tin over a candle’s flame and casting the molten liquid into water to create a portentous shape.  This process is termed molybdomancy, from the Greek molubdos, meaning lead.  This year’s divination fell by the wayside due to an international move that dragged on for months while all my worldly goods were packed in crates, followed up by an evacuation from my new home due to the 11 March Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.  Finally, things are getting back to normal and there is no better time to wish to start the year over.

I was fortunate enough some years ago to be gifted with a molybdomancy kit, but the materials are easy enough to assemble on your own.  I think there is a bit of alchemist in all of us, after all.

What You Will Need:

• A ceramic mug or cup of some kind (probably best to not use Grandma’s heirloom Limoges porcelain).
• Cool water.
• A tealight or some other kind of candle.
• A metal spoon (again, not Grandma’s finest silver cuillère à thé)
• A lighter or other household-approved flame-maker.
• Tin pellets.*
• Your sense of intuition.

* A word about the tin pellets—it is probably easiest to find packets of lead-free tin soldering pellets if you want to keep the molten metal aspect to this process.  I hope I do not have to tell you what a terrible idea it is to melt anything containing lead—there is a reason alchemists were a little loopy.  A fine alternative would be to use a bit of candle-wax instead:  this is called ceromancy.  It still has a name with wonderful cachet, the process is identical, and it is easier to obtain.

Next, having assembled our materials, we light our candle.  Please observe the usual precautions with children, babies, pets, flimsy shawls draped around, lit cigarettes, glasses of wine.

Carefully place some of your tin pellets or your wax bits into the spoon.  You need less than you think, but make sure there is enough to create an interestingly shaped result.

Begin to hold the spoon about an inch or so above the flame, making sure the pellets are receiving the brunt of the heat. 

The tin pellets will seem like they are never going to melt, as they tend to keep their shape.  Every few seconds, give the spoon a *very* gentle shake.  Suddenly, after about 30-45 seconds, the whole thing will liquify.

Carefully guide your spoon-full of molten tin to the nearby mug full of cool water and pour it it.  This is the best part of the whole process, as the tin hitting the water will make an otherworldly sort of space-age laser-ray-gun sort of noise, for such an otherwise alchemical process.  Some schools of thought will have the focus of the divination be on the sound the tin makes, rather than the resulting shape—the choice is yours.

Now, peering into your mug, you should see a little shape of some kind resting in the bottom.  Occasionally it will break into multiple shapes, or even shatter into numerous shards.  If the latter happens, it is supposed to mean you will have a difficult year.

After letting it cool a minute or two, carefully retrieve your little shape and decide what it looks most like.  Sometimes, one can use the light from the candle to cast shadows upon the piece, which might help suggest a particular form or another. 

I feel my 2011 tin shape strongly resembles an ear, with its lobe and little folds.  Consulting my little dictionary of meanings, I find:

An important message.  Interesting.  Meanings for other shapes can be found online in a variety of places or you could use dream dictionary symbolism, tasseomancy (tea-grounds divination) meanings or anything that seems to indicate what the shape, and thus, the future might hold. 

If you do try this out, please let us know what your results were!  Happy divining from the ladies here at After Dark In the Playing Fields.

(Top image: James Nasmyth (1808-1890), The Alchemist, c. 1834).

—OTB