× Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Nietzschemanteion?

The Nietzschemanteion is a bibliomacy system. It is at once a machine of the cut-up technique, a means of divination, and a channel to the dead. It is an oracle composed of fragmentary lines from the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, especially as found in The Birth of Tragedy and Ecce Homo. It is an expression of the eternal return, the return of the same but slightly different. It is a gesture toward chance, spirit, and the unknown. It is a powerful friend.

Bibliomancy?

The use of books for oracular purposes. An obscure but well attested means of divination surviving from antiquity. A potent form of magic, as evidenced by the Homeromanteion found in the Papyri Graecae Magicae. In Using Homer for Divination: Homeromanteia in Context, Raquel Martin-Hernandez describes the Homeromanteion as:

a certain divinatory text that uses a selection of Homeric verses for offering automatic oracular answers by lot. The text was preserved in three different manuscripts […] The name Homeromanteion is already attested as the title for the text in the copy of PGM VII, but according to the Oxyrhynchus papyrus, it could be also called ‘the Scimitar.’ […] According to the instructions for use, the Homeromanteion was performed in the following way: firstly, the practitioner has to consult the table of days and hours in which the oracle can be performed. When the day and hour are favourable for divination, the consultant has to utter a prayer addressed to Apollo composed indeed by five Homeric verses (the last one modified). While reciting the prayer, the consultant is supposed to think about the question he/she wants answered. Then a dice has to be thrown three times. This process gets as a result a number of three digits that must be located throughout the ordered series of numbers followed by a Homeric verse. The numbers are arranged in a series of six numbers of three digits each, separated by lectional signs, a system that covers all the possibilities of throwing a dice three times. The number obtained by the consultant leads him/her to the Homeric verse that would be the oracular answer. As in other different lot divination texts […] the mechanism of the oracle is based on chance by a mediating element that led the consultant to the oracular answer.

So how is the Nietzschemanteion used?

Pocketbook: Consecrate a set of dice to be used with the system. Make offerings to Nietzsche, to the dead, and to the system itself. Ask a question, roll three dice one after another to get a line. Get as many lines as you intuit are required to respond to the complexity of the question at hand. Compose the lines into a poem to get your answer.

Web: Make offerings to Nietzsche, to the dead, and to the system itself. Go to nietzschemanteion.com in a web browser. Ask a question, and click or tap the ‘Roll’ button (this rolls three dice and fetches a line). Get as many lines as you intuit are required to respond to the complexity of the question at hand. Compose the lines into a poem to get your answer.

What type of questions can I ask?

Ask anything, but make it good.

Does it work?

Yes.

How does it work?

We don’t know. Ask it yourself.