Gyromancy
There are a lot of ways to tell the future if you believe any of this at all. Reading tea leaves (tasseography), reading the bones of small animals, using the stars…but what about spinning in circles? Gyromancy is a type of invitation that involves spinning, getting dizzy, and falling down to tell the future.
Gyros means "spiral" in Greek and manteia is the Greek word for divinitation. To see a Gyromancy session you would draw a circle upon the ground. Then the person divining would enter the middle of the circle and begin walking the perimeter of it. They would do this over and over until they fell to the ground from dizziness. Where, how, and in what direction they fell would be read in a meaningful way to answer a question or tell the future.
In some cases, in addition to all the work mentioned above there would also be letters drawn around the circle and the letters against which the person fell would spell out a prophetic message. Instead of letters, runes or other occult symbols could also be used (and to be honest this last method seems to be the most effective).
Why spinning though? Some believed the spinning and what it did do your brain could help shake loose realizations or latent realizations. In some ways, this is the similar to spinning or flipping a coin to decide a fate.
Thanks to Lily for this blogstonishing suggestion!
This photo is by flickr user Marco Nürnberger and is entitled Dizzy Wood. It is licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic.