"No objects of the natural world," said Dr. Farnell, "attracted the devotion of the primitive and later Greeks so much as rivers and springs, and no other obtained so general a recognition in the cults of Greek States." (Halliday 116)
Ancient Greeks worshipped rivers, streams, wells, springs, and other bodies of water for their divination properties. Individual rivers had their own priests, and ancient Greeks performed many sacrifices and rituals to the river gods. A bowl of water was often used as a vessel for divination. Many of the spells in the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) used water as an important component of magical practice.
In ancient Greek religion mother earth was a very prominent figure. Ancient Greek's believed that she sent the streams and her son Archeloos, who was known as the river god, to the earth. (Halliday 121) Because rivers traveled underground, they were thought to have divine power. They could run underground and then reappears aboveground, thus the rivers were believed to be gates to the underworld. (Halliday 118)
Bodies of water were believed to send dream oracles. Holy wells were connected with heroes and the dead, which were both thought to reveal the future to the living (Halliday 130). Eustathius described that:
"Beneath the tree besides the brook of Dodona, that sacred spot at which all the modes of divination appear to meet and flourish in combination, the Selloi with unwashen feet, who sleep on the ground seem to have received dreams an intimation of the future." (Illiad 1057)
Another form of water divination involved the use of healing wells, Ancient Greeks dropped a coin in the healing well and the side that landed up would tell them the fate of a sick friend. (Halliday 136) The wells used to comport anxiety and to reveal the remedy of an illness. (Halliday 121)
Along with divination rituals with bodies of water, a vessel of water was also used as an instrument. This practice was called lekanomancy. The ritual involved using a cup of liquid, such as a bowl of water from a holy well. Objects were thrown into the bowl and where they rested was used to foretell the future. (Halliday 149) In the PGM, a saucer divination of Aphrodite says:
"…take a white saucer and fill it with clean river water and olive oil" and the goddess will appear in the liquid to "reveal concerning things that you wish." (PGM IV 3209-54)
There are accounts of ancient Greeks placing a mirror in the holy springs at the Sanctuary of Demeter at Patrai as a mode of divination. After a prayer, they gazed at the mirror to behold the future that the reflection revealed. (Halliday 152) Mirrors were often associated with water divination, for instance, Apuleius' accusers made his possession of a mirror a charge of magical malpractice. (Apuleius, Apology, 13) Future brides often looked into a well seeking the faces of husbands, white others hoped to identify a thief. (Halliday 153)
A common medium in PGM water divination spells, was a young boy or virgin. The boy was used as a pure form of the human soul that can return to its immortal and divine nature. Boys were used to look in to bowls of water and interpret the messages from the god. (Halliday 161)
Through both wells and bowls of water, gods were summoned to appear. "If you evoke heavenly gods, use rainwater, if earthly, sea water if Osiris or Serapis, river water, if the dead, spring water." (Augustine 35) The PGM also used water to summon gods, for example, to summon Anubis the spell stated "take a copper vessel, pour rainwater into it and make an offering of male frankincense." (PGM VII 319-34)
From the PGM and other magical texts, it is evident that the magical practices of water divination did exist. In actual ancient Greek literature, suck as Apuleius' Apologia, It is obvious that the practices of water divination are known. In his defense, Apuleius discusses a case in which "an image of Mercury reflected in a bowl of water foretold the future in a hundred and sixty lines of verse." (Apuleius 78) It is unclear how common divination practices were in ancient Greek civilization, but there is enough evidence to argue that the practices did occur.