Fortune-telling

[[File:Georges de La Tour, The Fortune Teller.jpg|thumb|right|165px|''The Fortune Teller'' by Georges de La Tour.]]{{psychic}}
'''Fortune-telling''' is a form of [[superstition]]. Its roots can be traced back to ancient times. In Delphi, an ancient sanctuary in [[Greece]], there were priestesses/oracles called Pythias. [[Nostradamus]] was a famous [[France|French]] prophet from the Renaissance period.  A common theme in the predictions of the Pythias and Nostradamus (and any other "prophet" or fortune-teller for that matter) is that their prophecies were told in a vague, often self-fulfilling way, without a specific date in mind.

Fortune telling can also be when a supposed psychic [[#Chiromancy|reads your palm]], makes a chart for [[astrology]], or "[[Channelling|channels]]" spirits of the dead for answers.

If a psychic tells your future through the use of the [[supernatural]], this is called '''divination'''. Divination is extremely popular in various circles, including [[Neopaganism|Neopagans]] who tend to use traditional arcane methods that rely somewhat on chance.

[[Christian]]s officially frown on fortune-telling or divination, but some people (like [[Harold Camping]]) engage in it anyway by claiming that [[God]] has told them the world is going to end or a major disaster is coming. 

There have been many other methods of trying to predict the future in the past, but [[goat|animal]] sacrifice is frowned upon now.<ref group=note>However, that the earliest [[Chinese]] writing is from their earliest form of divination.</ref>

Fortune telling doesn't ''always'' work — as shown [https://imgur.com/gallery/9iv9wGy here].

==Bujo / Egg curse scam==
Some unscrupulous fortune tellers use the divination business as a front for a scam traditionally called the '''bujo''' or '''egg curse scam'''.<ref name=illinois>Illinois State Police, [https://web.archive.org/web/20041105150834/http://www.isp.state.il.us/crime/citizenscam.cfm Common Citizen Scams], accessed Nov. 17, 2010</ref><ref>''People v. Bertsche'', 265 Ill. 272, 106 N.E. 823 (Ill. 1914)</ref>  The fortune teller uses her [[cold reading]] skill to detect that a client is genuinely troubled rather than merely seeking entertainment; or is a gambler complaining of bad [[luck]]. The fortune teller informs the mark that they are the victim of a [[curse]], but that for a fee a spell can be cast to remove the curse. In [[Gypsy|Romany]], this trick is called ''bujo'', originally meaning simply "bag", but now meaning "a swindle involving a large amount of money from a gullible fortune-telling customer."<ref>Anne Sutherland, in ''Gypsies, Tinkers, and Other Travellers'' (Academic Press, 1975)</ref> 

This name comes from a traditional form: the mark is told that the curse is in their money; they bring money in a bag to have the spell cast over it, and leave with a bag of worthless paper;<ref>See, e.g., ''Marks v. State'', 144 Tex.Crim. 509, 164 S.W.2d 690 (Tex.Crim.App. 1942)</ref> or money or property are given to the fortune teller to be destroyed as bearing the curse, and an item of lesser value is swapped and conspicuously destroyed instead.<ref>W. W. Zellner, William M. Kephart, ''Extraordinary groups: an examination of unconventional lifestyles'' (Macmillan, 2000; ISBN 1-57259-953-7), pp. [http://books.google.com/books?id=izrSSWrKu8cC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=bujo+gypsy+scam&source=bl&ots=oktYov9_dK&sig=psavI5uf3jd-pQZnvWudOs2R7dA&hl=en&ei=Ci7jTNT1O8ainQeM6IDoDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false 121-122]</ref> In some cases the curse is "verified" by a sleight of hand trick, often involving an egg.  The fortune teller tells the mark to bring an egg to a reading,<ref>[[Sylvia Browne]], Lindsay Harrison, ''The Truth About Psychics: What's Real, What's Not, and How to Tell the Difference'' (Simon and Schuster, 2009; ISBN 1-4391-4972-0), pp. [http://books.google.com/books?id=QyVPUipWVL4C&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=egg+curse+scam&source=bl&ots=ytB7tuizri&sig=I-rqZqoNLdm6MaiXX9BCoe4W_Ys&hl=en&ei=UvXrTIT1NsT_lgfCx9SPAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEkQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=egg%20curse%20scam&f=false 230-321]</ref> which when cracked open reveals disgusting matter or symbols of evil. This discovery confirms the curse.<ref name=illinois/><ref>Skip Hollandsworth, "The Curse of Romeo and Juliet", Texas Monthly, [http://archive.ph/20121117131543/http://www.texasmonthly.com/1997-06-01/feature2-3.php June 1997]</ref>

=="Techniques"==
[[File:貴方の運勢をお獅子が運びます (16211023411).jpg|thumb|right||150px||Japanese fortune telling machine]]
===Tasseography===
{{cquote|It's only tea leaves—stop being dramatic!|||"[[Apophenia]]", by They Might Be Giants}}
[[File:Coffereading.jpg|thumb|right|150px||"I can see your future... you are washing this cup."]]
Tasseography (tasseomancy, tassology) is the posh word for a group of divination/fortune-telling methods that involve "reading" patterns in [[coffee]] grounds, [[tea]] leaves or [[wine]] sediments left in a cup after emptying it.  The usual name is 'tea leaf reading', because tea is the customary medium used.

For best results, tea must be brewed in a teapot without a strainer, because getting tea leaves into the cup is the object.  A wide, cylindrical cup allows for the patterns to form.  The person consulting this oracle must drink most of the tea, leaving some in the bottom to swish around three times.  This creates the patterns in the wet tea leaves that are read by the [[psychic]] interpreting the oracle.  Letters, numbers, and various [[pareidolia|imagined symbols]] in the patterns of the leaves whose meanings are more or less obvious (an [[angel]] means good news, an airplane foretells travel, etc.) are then discerned in the wet leaves.<ref>Gibson, Walter and Litzka.  ''The Complete Illustrated Book of the Psychic Sciences'' (Bell, 1966; ISBN 0-517-67152-2), p. 367 et. seq.</ref>

It is a fairly benign example of a far larger class of methods of divination which involve looking for suggestive patterns in an apparently random arrangement of matter. Similar methods include the Roman custom of haruspicy (or extispicy) whose practitioners examined the entrails of animals; pyromancy where shapes in fire suggest hidden messages; ceromancy using patterns formed from dripping wax; [[molybdomancy]] with molten metal; nephelomancy by looking at clouds; [[scrying]] with a reflective surface; and according to one Wikipedia editor, "Ureamancy: by gazing upon the foamy froth of urine created within water."<ref>{{wpa|Fortune-telling}}</ref>

Like other types of fortune-telling, when it "works", it "works" mostly by [[cold reading]] (or [[hot reading]], if the fortune-teller is unscrupulous enough and the stakes are high enough). Potentially, as with the Rorschach inkblot test, it may also reveal something about the mind or subconscious of the reader.

===Chiromancy===
[[File:Palmistry hand.jpg|thumb|right||150px|A palmistry hand.]]
Palmistry or palm-reading{{efn|Also called '''chiromancy''', '''chirology''' or '''cheirology''' by people who like to get all mystical about it or to show off what fancy words they know. The root is the same as in [[chiropractic]] &mdash; χειρ is Greek for "hand".}} is a bunch of [[Bullshit|crap]] that claims to be able to tell a person's future based on the lines on the palm of their hand. It has its roots in ancient [[Hindu]] [[astrology]]: a textbook called ''Teachings of Valmiki Maharshi on Male Palmistry'' is attributed to the epic poet Valmiki (active sometime between 500 BCE and 100 BCE). In classical Greece, Anaxagoras and [[Aristotle]] both discussed it; the latter's ''Historia animalium'' suggests the lines on the palm predict the length of life.<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/284242 Aristotle's Chiromantic Principle and Its Influence], Roger A. Pack, Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-2014), Vol. 108 (1978), pp. 121-130, Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press, DOI: 10.2307/284242</ref> However it was less acceptable to Christian authorities (although {{bible|Job|37|7}} is sometimes said to justify palmistry, saying God "sealeth up the hand of every man; that all men may know his work.") Despite church suspicion, it never entirely went away, and enjoyed a certain popularity in the Renaissance, apparently as a result of social turmoil and relaxing church controls, with the development of printing allowing maps of the hand to be distributed.<ref>[https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2016/10/31/palmistry-the-future-in-the-palm-of-your-hand/ Palmistry: the future in the palm of your hand], Atalanta Grant-Suttie, Circulating Now, US National Library of Medicine, October 31, 2016</ref>

Palmistry was repopularised in the 19th century by improbably-named figures such as Captain Casimir Stanislas D'Arpentigny, Katharine St. Hill, Edgar de Valcourt-Vermont (Comte de St Germain), William John Warner (who called himself Cheiro and had numerous celebrity clients including Mark Twain and Gladstone), and Edward Heron-Allen (a polymath who also translated the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and wrote extensively on asparagus).<ref>{{wpa|Palmistry}}</ref>

The usual method involves studying the appearance of lines and bumps on the palm, which are given colourful names such as the heart line, head line, simian crease, Girdle of Venus, sun line and earth line. Different parts of the palm are associated with heavenly bodies that also feature in [[astrology]], and hand types are compared to the four elements of the now-discredited ancient Greek classification (earth, air, water, fire). Palmists consider factors such as the length of lines, their presence or absence, whether they meet, how broad or gridded they are, the relative sizes of different features, etc. Its popularity may be explained by it involving minimal raw materials and less math than astrology; it can be done anywhere; and you get to hold people's hands.

It is generally accepted as fraudulent, considering one of the "methods" is to [[PIDOOMA|make stuff up]]. Strangely, some people believe in it. They're probably the same people who read their [[horoscope|stars]] in the paper or go to fairground fortune-tellers for "genuine" advice.

===Astrology===
{{main|astrology}}
From personalised star charts to newspaper horoscopes, it's all bollocks.

===Bibliomancy===
Predicting the future by opening a book at random and seeing what is there; a particular line or word is often chosen at random (e.g. by pointing with the eyes closed). Sometimes a holy or revered book is used such as the [[Bible]] or [[Quran]], but other texts can be used, and one variant involves first selecting a book at random. It actually works quite well if you've been looking at a particular page in a travel book and bent or broken the spine. The poet Robert Browning was an acolyte and consulted ''Cerutti's Italian Grammar'' to find out if he should marry Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The practice is also known as stichomancy and very similar is rhapsodomancy, which uses a random passage from a poem.<ref>{{wpa|bibliomancy}}</ref> Divination using the [[I Ching]] involves selecting a passage at random from the ''I Ching''.

==Other techniques==
*[[Channeling]] &mdash; possession by "spirits"
*[[Tarot cards]]
*[[I Ching]]
*[[Scrying]] &mdash; with a crystal ball or other reflective surface
*[[Runes]] &mdash; by some [[neo-pagan]]s
*[[Molybdomancy]]
*Machines that cost $.25 at a carnival, most famously Zoltar/Zoltan<ref>{{wpa|Fortune teller machine}}</ref>
*[[Fortune cookie]]
*{{wpl|Cowrie-shell divination|Cowrie-shells}} &mdash; common in [[Brazil]] by followers of {{wpl|Umbanda}} and {{wpl|Candomblé}}
*{{wpl|Paper fortune teller}}
*{{wpl|Magic 8-Ball}}
*etc.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Superstition]]
[[Category:Scams]]
[[Category:Psychic powers]]

Categories: Superstition, Scams, Psychic powers