How do diviners identify the spirit, witch, or demon believed to be causing trouble?

In animistic and particularistic belief systems, when misfortune occurs, the task of identifying the responsible spirit, witch, or demon falls to the diviner. Diviners employ various methods to diagnose the source of trouble, often categorized into intuitive and interpretive techniques:1

• Intuitive Divination: The diviner may enter a trance state—sometimes induced by drugs, self-energized techniques, or spontaneous means—to communicate directly with the spirit world. In this state, the diviner may speak as if possessed, acting as a medium for a god or spirit to reveal the cause of the affliction.2
• Interpretive Divination: This involves reading signs, portents, or omens. Techniques include cleromancy (casting lots), where the arrangement of objects provides meaning, or pyromancy, where a fire may react to reveal a "guilty" party.3
• Ordeals: When the suspected cause is a witch or a nonhuman force in human form, a community may use an ordeal to test for malevolence. These tests, such as walking on coals or surviving immersion in water, are based on the belief that blessed or innocent qualities are inconsistent with malevolence.2

Experts in white magic, such as the āšipu in ancient Mesopotamia, also diagnosed evils caused by demons or witchcraft by performing rituals and incantations to identify and combat the source of the misfortune.4