Pyromancy involves divining by the flames caused by a burned sacrifice. We don’t need to sacrifice anything or anyone in order to communicate with spirits! Communicating with spirit through the burning of a fire is closer to what is known as anthracomancy, named after the anthracite coal that was best for that purpose. Anthracite is a hard, glossy-surfaced coal that burns with very little smoke. As the coal burns, it goes through a stage during which it is a red and yellow mass of hot ashes, retaining the original shape of the piled coals for a while before finally crumbling to nothing. These red-hot ashes are where it is possible to see and imagine all sorts of shapes, faces, figures, and the like, restricted only by the imagination.
As a child growing up in England, where coal fires were the norm, I spent many long winter’s nights listening to the radio (in the days before television!) and gazing into these red-hot embers. I saw castles and dragons, as well as people and all sorts of other figures.
Making such a fire (to a lesser extent, a wood fire can produce the same effects) and gazing into it after meditating on, and calling upon, deceased loved ones is a wonderful way to make contact and to present the means for that spirit to get back to you. The faces, figures, and places seen in such a fire-gazing can be particularly relevant to the deceased, providing the very evidence needed to confirm the identity and background of the spirit.
One of the joys of this sort of communication is that, over a few minutes, the scenes and faces built up in the ashes can change as those ashes collapse and produce new images. It is almost possible to have a “conversation” with spirit in this way.
The embers, as they burn down, can be given a brief new life by sprinkling them with a handful of salt or sugar.