Anthropomancy

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Anthropomancy (from Greek anthropos, 'man', and manteia, 'divination') is a method of divination by the entrails of dead or dying men or women, often young virgin female children through sacrifice. This practice was sometimes also called Splanchomancy (divination by examining the entrails of sacrificial victims).

Elagabalus (the Roman emperor Varius Avitus Bassanius, 205-221) and the ancient Egyptians were known practitioners of this type of divination, Julian the Apostate allegedly sacrificed countless children for his nocturnal divinations.

The slightly more acceptable variety of this is augury, in which a bird is the victim.

The word is compounded of the Greek ανθροπος ("man"), and μαντεια ("divination; clairvoyance").