- Build your bone set with ethically sourced or found animal bones, natural objects like feathers or crystals, and any other items that are meaningful to you.
- To cast the bones, gather them all in your hands, then ask your question while gently shaking them. Toss them and analyze their positions to find your answer.
- Create your own guidelines for divining an answer. The meaning of each bone and the “rules” you use to interpret them depend entirely on what feels right to you.
Building a Bone Set
Gather animal bones you find in nature or look for ethically sourced sets. The ideal bones for osteomancy come from animals who died of natural causes. Keep your eyes on the ground on your next hike for bones and skeletons that speak to you (just make sure to check your area’s regulations about collecting animal remains). If you’re comfortable with the idea, try using bones from your pet when they pass for an extra personal connection. A pet embalmer or pet funeral service can provide them to you. For your safety, clean and disinfect bones that you find by scrubbing them with mild soap and soaking them in diluted hydrogen peroxide. If you’re uncomfortable collecting bones yourself, purchase a curated set from a divination retailer. Ask curio or collector’s shops, universities, and museums about ethical bones for sale. “Ethically sourced” refers to bones that weren’t deliberately taken from an animal for human use. Even though they’re easily available, bones from a butcher or slaughterhouse aren’t great for osteomancy since the animals’ lives were cut short by humans.
Incorporate other natural objects into your bone set. Bone sets for divination don’t have to include just bones. If you have or find other natural objects that you feel a connection to, feel free to add them to your collection. Use items like sea shells, bird feathers, tree bark or carved wooden figures, crystals and rocks, driftwood, or even teeth. If you’re squeamish about bones in general, you don’t have to use them. They’re preferred because they’re naturally imbued with spirits, but if you feel a spiritual connection to non-bone objects, use them instead.
Add other household or found items that have a special meaning to you. Marbles, buttons, old keys, game pieces, family heirlooms—any object that you feel drawn or connected to will work in your bone set. When you first start collecting, your set might have more objects in it than bones. That’s OK since it takes a while to collect a strong set of bones. As long as you feel a relationship with your objects, you can begin throwing “bones” successfully. Try to have at least 4-7 bones and objects in your set before using your collection for the first time. This makes it easier to draw fuller, more meaningful interpretations.
Cleanse your bones before using them for the first time. Cleansing your set rids them of negative spiritual energy and prepares them to bond and work with you. Use many of the same methods you’d use to cleanse crystals on your bones and other objects. Just make sure not to expose them to water or too much direct sunlight, since these can damage them. Popular cleansing methods include: Smudging a sage stick and wafting your bones through the smoke Leaving your bones out to absorb moonlight overnight (or sunlight for short periods) Burying your bones in a tub of sea salt or Himalayan salt overnight Exposing your bones to a sound bath
Assign a personal meaning to each bone and object in your set. There are no rules about what each piece means, just as there are no rules about what pieces to include—it all depends on what feels right to you. Hold each piece and meditate with it to see what emotions, memories, or “stories” it shows you. Jot down all of your associations with the piece in a notebook, spellbook, or grimoire to pinpoint what the piece means to you. The meanings of your pieces may change over time as your collection and experience grows. Some osteomancers assign the largest bone or object to represent themselves, while some designate a specific piece as the one that “points” to the answer. For example, a set might have pieces with meanings like the self, health, wealth, family, love, yes, no, truth, or disaster. If the answer to your question involves other people, include separate pieces (or a double-sided piece) assigned male and female for clarification (or, if you don’t prefer gendered terms, use another polarity like lunar and solar).
Store your set in a special, dedicated bag or box. Cleanse your bag or box with sage, sunlight, or salt before putting any bones in it so it’s ready to receive highly spiritual objects. Keep only your bone set in it—intermingling with other objects might make the bag less protective. Store the bag in a meaningful, spiritual place in your home like on an altar, near a crystal collection, or simply in a cabinet or on a shelf dedicated just to your bones. Also try keeping your collection in your purse, backpack, or travel bag. That way, your energy and the collection’s energy are mingling frequently.
Casting the Bones
Gather your entire collection in your hands or in a basket or bag. Include every piece in each casting (even if you think its meaning won’t have any bearing on the question) since missing items can skew the results. Using your hands is preferable if your set is small enough to hold, but a bag or container dedicated to casting your collection will work too.
Ask your question out loud while you gently shake your collection. State your question clearly. It might be a simple yes/no question (“Will I ever find love?”) or something more open-ended (“What will my career be?”). Continue meditating on your question and jostling the bones until you sense that it’s time to cast them. If you’re doing a reading for another person, have them ask the question. It will draw their energy into the reading and produce a more meaningful answer.
Toss your bones very gently onto a designated osteomancy surface. Choose a soft surface, like a cushion or even a yoga mat, so the fragile bones don’t break. Use both hands to release the bones, and try to toss them from a medium height—too high and they’ll bounce too far apart from each other to read, too low and they’ll pile on top of each other in a confusing clump. Some osteomancers throw their bones on a special cloth with markings on it to aid with interpretation. Whether you use one or not is entirely up to you and your practice. The markings are different for every practitioner, too—some cloths are cut from a premade pattern that’s meaningful to the owner, while others involve hand-drawn quadrants, circles, or runes.
Observe how each piece lands and note the relationships between them. Take time to study each piece before drawing a conclusion. Note things like which pieces are overlapping or touching, which ones are “pointing” at each other or at a mark on your casting surface, which pieces landed outside of the cloth, and which pieces are far away from each other. Pieces near each other are more likely to be related or intertwined somehow, while pieces that are far apart will have less to do with each other. Pieces outside of the cloth may have less to do with the answer to your question than pieces within in or that are closer to the center.
Interpreting the Bones
Create your own set of rules for interpreting the bones’ positions. Osteomancy doesn’t come with objective instructions or a manual. The rules that govern your interpretation of the cast depend on what resonates with your practice. When you first start out, analyze the proximity of the bones to each other (this is a common thread in many practices). As you gain experience, your “rules” will become more nuanced and personal. For example, if you asked “When will I get married?” and your bones for love and man/woman land very near each other, that could mean marriage is coming sooner than later. Other interpretation strategies include: Analyzing the shapes the scattered bones create on the ground Splitting your cloth or surface into quadrants or concentric circles, with each area having a different meaning or energy Assigning an “answer bone” that always points to the piece most relevant to your question Designating the center of your cloth or surface as crucial to your answer, while the edges are less important
Let your mind go blank and release any preconceived answers. Try not to overthink your analysis. Clear your mind, be still, wait, and “listen” to the bones. What do you notice? Is there a story entering your head that lines up with the bones’ placement? Do you have a gut feeling, or a persistent thought that seems important? Acknowledge all of these things and trust what your intuition is telling you.
Practice and refine your bone throwing over time. Osteomancy is an art and a skill that takes time to master. When you first start out, your predictions might not come to pass as you thought. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong! Think of it as a nudge toward finding your perfect practice. Keep comparing your predictions to your outcomes to hone your skills, and reassign your bones’ meanings if needed. With practice and patience, you can become a great osteomancer! Track your rules and casting results in a notebook or grimoire. Continue adding notes as you practice to build your knowledge and expertise over time. You may not be able to tell if your prediction or answer is correct for a long time. In those cases, focus on what you feel—an answer that resonates with you is more likely to be correct than one you’re forcing yourself to believe.
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