Fortune Telling [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION ¦ There is a fascination with the future which draws nnost people - young and old, male and female, of every colour and belief - into spending some time and money on trying to discoverwhat Is going to happen to them, or what decisions they should make. (In Christian countries this is-despite clear warnings against fortune-telling in the Bible, which says, for example, "Do not practise divination or sorcery." Leviticus 19: 6). You are one of those people, or else you would not be reading this book. You probably do not know a great deal about the different methods of fortune telling (or divination). You could consult a professional who might give you a tarot reading, scrutinize your palm, cast your birth chart or look Into a crystal ball for symbols of your future. Or, instead, you might be able to predict the future for yourself, and this book will teach you something about the current methods of fortune telling. It sets out a range of possibilities. In some cases it will give you enough information for you to try the system for yourself, at home. In other cases, where the method is very complicated or requires expensive equipment or a particular talent, it will help you to understand what is involved in the method. Fortune telling has an extremely long history-longer than any written records show. Hundreds of methods have been used and discarded over the centuries. For example, it is rare these days for anybody to kill an animal in order to read fortunes from its still-warm entrails. Such methods are ignored here. This book will concentrate on the eleven major and a few minor methods still widely used in the West today. DINNER PARTY FORTUNE TELLING -•- Some minor methods are easily overlooked, or else are not thought of as "proper" fortune telling. For example, there are fortune cookies, common in American Chinese restaurants but rare in British Chinese restaurants. These are small pastry cases, folded overand cooked hard, each containing a strip of paper bearing a one-line homily or piece of advice, rather than an actual predictive fortune. Examples of such fortune-cookie slips are "Be on the alert for new opportunities" and "Proceed with caution". Obviously, nobody is meant to take the advice in fortune cookies very seriously. A fortune-telling system need not be difficult or complex or take much time. It takes only a second to pull a fortune out of a fortune cookie. It takes only slightly longer to carry out some of the methods involving candles. The simplest is really just an omen. At a dinner party or similar gatherings where several people are sitting round a table, light a new candle and place it in the centre. Note which side the molten wax first begins to run down, because it signifies bad luck for the person sitting at that side of the table. Slightly more formal, and requiring some preparation, are two other candle methods, llthomancy and lychnomancy. (The word-ending "-mancy" means "fortune telling by means of".) "Litho-" comes from "litfios", the ancient Greek word for a stone, while "lycho-" comes from "lynchnos", the Greek for a lamp.