Divination

From Srafopedia

Divination is the art of reading the future in everyday objects. Traditionally tea leaves, sticks and "knuckles" (knuckles from the trotters of pigs).

There are many incidences of divination in most fantasy genre novels including His Dark Materials, from reading the future in porridge in the Discworld series to Elvish divination via the Mirror of Galadriel in Lord of the Rings.

Relevance to His Dark Materials

The I Ching Mary Malone uses is a stick and knuckle example of divination. It uses sticks that form a Hexogram shape, which is interpreted by the accompanying text. The text lists every possible combination of the sticks, ensuring the bearer can always distil meaning from it. The context of using I ching in the books, i.e. to communicate with Dust implies that divination is a way of communicating with Shadow Particles, rather than sheer blind luck.