Games of the Gods: The Origin of Board Games in Magic and Divination

260 Pages·1989·13.524 MB·English

by  Nigel Pennick

About the author
Nigel Pennick is a writer and lecturer on ancient and modern
mysteries, an authority on Northern European geomancy,
runemaster, practising geomant and traditional symbolic
craftsman. Trained as a scientist, he researched marine micro­
organisms for fifteen years. In 1975, he helped found and run
the Institute of Geomantie Research. He has edited the journals
Arcana, Walrus, The Oracle of Albion, Journal of Geomancy, Templar
and Practical Geomancy. He is author of many books and papers
on subjects ranging from Church architecture and symbolism
to Tube railways in London. His practical work includes
geomantic design on an architectural competition entry for the
La Villette Park project in Paris and in 1986, the laying-out and
supervision of the first stone labyrinth in North America. He
has lectured on geomancy, labyrinths, runes and underground
tunnels before many organizations and colleges in Britain and
abroad.
By the same author
Earth Harmony (Rider)
Glastonbury (contributor) Rider
Mysteries of King's College Chapel Cokaygne
Geomancy Cokaygne
Terrestrial Zodiacs in Britain (with Professor Robert Lord)
Institute of Geomantie Research
Ancient Science of Geomancy Thames and Hudson
Sacred Geometry Tumstone
Subterranean Kingdom Turnstone
Hitler's Secret Sciences Neville Spearman
GAMES OF THE
GODS
The origin of board games in magic and divination
Nigel Pennick
SAMUEL WEISER, INC.
YORK BEACH, MAINE
First American edition published in 1989 by
Samuel Weiser, Inc.
Box 612
York Beach, Maine 03910
© Nigel Pennick, 1989
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, without
permission in writing from Samuel Weiser, Inc. Reviewers
may quote brief passages. First published as a Rider Book
in 1989 by Century Hutchinson, Ltd, London.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Pennick, Nigel
Games of the gods.
Bibliography. Includes index.
1. Divination — History. 2. Board games — History.
I. Title.
BF1751.P45 1989 133.3 88-27786
ISBN 0-87728-696-5
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
The Guernsey Press Co. Ltd., Guernsey, Channel Islands.
CONTENTS
Illustrations vi
Introduction viii
Acknowledgements xii
1 Shapes of Things to Come 1
2 Number and Pattern 29
3 Microcosmic or Divinatory Geomancy 50
4 Figure and Sequence 73
5 The Orientation of Patterns 101
6 The Royal Centre, Fairs and Sacred Boards 129
7 Symbolic Board Games 161
8 Chess and Draughts 186
9 Other Symbolic Board Games and Game-pieces 208
10 Games, Magic and Orthodoxy 228
Appendix 1 240
Appendix 2 243
Appendix 3 244
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Lappish shaman 3
2. Goddess as chequerboard 6
3. Order in the Universe: crystallized sea water 9
4. Chlandis Figures 12
5. Mattings and a meddo:navigated 'stick chart' 17
6. Slate slabs, Portpatrick 20
7. Rhabdomancy 25
8. Central location of augur 31
9. Ceramic sheep's liver 33
10. The Pythia oracular prietess, Delphi 36
11. Astrological imagery of spindle and distaff 40
12. Nyout board 43
13. Kwan P'ai (Oriental playing cards) 46
14. Consulting Rune staves 48
15. Emperor Fou Hi 53
16. Ganss-spiel (Game of Goose) 57
17. Sixteen figures of divinatory geomancy 61
18. Geomantie correspondences 63
19. Islamic locational geomancy 66
20. Shields of Thracian legions 69
21. Undeciphered legend on disc of lignite 70
22. Hallristingar characters 75
23. 33-character Runic row 80
24. Scandinavian Rune-row 83
25. Final Runic row, 18th century engraving
26. Armanen Runes 90
27. Runic correspondences 93
28. Northumbrian Rune cards 97
29. Ogham characters 104
30. St Beatus driving the dragon 108
31. The Cosmic axis 113
32. Paramasayika grid 117
ILLUSTRATIONS VÜ
33. Choultry grid 120
34. Occult powers 123
35. Rose of the winds 126
36. Traditional horoscope diagrams 131
37. The grid pattern 134
38. Ballinderry Game Board 139
39. Merlin's Oak 144
40. Coat of Arms, Amsterdam 148
41. Thamugadi, Algeria 152
42. Cosmic centre and the grid 157/158
43. Mount Meru 164
44. The Camp of the Israelites 167
45. Nine-dot patern and derivatives 170
46. Fylfot pattern 173
47. Labyrinths at Toulsouse and Mirepoix 176
48. Merels board 178
49. Merels family of games 182
50. Fatal positions in Merels 188
51. Northern European board game fragments 191
52. Tafl 194
53. Race games played in India 197
54. Chaturanga played on Ashtapada board 200
55. Fortune telling: children's game 203
56. Zatrikon board 206
57. Medieval draughts players 210
58. Knight's tours (Euler's version) 213
59. Pachisi game 216
60. Ludo 218
61. Fox and Geese 220
62. Game boards 223
63. Alquerque and Fanorona 226
64. Surakarta compared to Saffron Walden maze 229
65. Gala board 233
66. Game pieces 234/5
67. Pages from Orbis Sensualism by Commenius 236
68. Illustrations to Appendix 3 (page 256) 238
INTRODUCTION
Human beings have always felt there is more to life than
the immediately apparent material world, and that it is
possible to go beyond the confines of body and time. Because
of this, various methods have been developed over the years to
attempt to transcend the obvious limits of human knowledge.
Science is one of these, the study of the material world based
upon observation and experiment. Divination is another. It
includes all of those methods by which human beings have
striven to discover hidden knowledge, most especially the
knowledge of future things to come.
Divination is primarily a non-scientific method of acquiring
knowledge unavailable by other means. The underlying
principle of divination is one which transcends or bypasses the
materialist picture of the world which is the prevailing view
today. The scientific world-view is analytical in the
reductionist sense. It attempts - and succeeds brilliantly in
most cases - to explain the myriad phenomena of existence in
terms of physics, by breaking down every object and each
interaction into its basic components. Unfortunately, the
innate belief-system of the scientific world-view automatically
discounts any other - it is exclusive, claiming to be the only
objective reality. When it bothers with divination at all,
materialist science sees it as nothing more than a belief-system
to be studied by social anthropology.
According to the modern interpretation of divination, the
numbers coming up on dice, the figures formed in divinatory
geomancy, the hexagrams appearing in the 1 Ching and the
casting of the runes are not just a matter of chance and
nothing more. Although they conform to the mathematical
principles of randomness, the concept of randomness has
nothing to say about meaning. While it applies perfectly to