10. Middle Eastern believers in geomancy would try and find keys to the future hidden in patterns in the sand or in stones
In the ancient Muslim world, seers would try and find meaning in sand or in stones. This practice, known as geomancy, was around for hundreds of years, with a number of original sources explaining allowing historians to gain an understanding of its origins and significance. According to Arabic Hermetic texts from around 1,000 years ago, the prophet Idris was taught how to read signs in the sand by the angel Jibril. He then took this knowledge to the Indian king Tumtum-al-Hindi. The monarch wrote the first book on geomancy, explaining the practice could be used to divine the future.
Famously, in One Thousand and One Nights, the enemies of Aladdin use geomancy to try and track him down. And this is just one instance of the practice being cited in texts from the Middle East and the Arabic world. However, from the 14th century onward, the idea that geomancy was given as a gift from God, passed on to mankind through the prophets, started to die out. However, the practice was revived in the 19th century as European scholars of the occult and ancient divination practice published new guides to reading sand and stones.