Fortune telling is the practice of predicting information
about a person's life. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical
with the practice of divination. The difference is that divination is the term
used for predictions considered part of a religious ritual, invoking deities or
spirits, while the term fortune telling implies a less serious or formal
setting, even one of popular culture, where belief in occult workings behind
the prediction is less prominent than the concept of suggestion, spiritual or
practical advisory or affirmation.
Historically, fortune telling grows out of folkloristic reception of Renaissance magic, specifically associated with Romani people. During the 19th and 20th century, methods of divination from non-Western cultures, such as the I Ching, were also adopted as methods of fortune telling in western popular culture.
An example of divination or fortune telling as purely an item of pop culture, with little or no vestiges of belief in the occult, would be the Magic 8-Ball [yesterday’s Daily Quiddity post] sold as a toy by Mattel, or Paul II, an octopus at the Sea Life Aquarium at Oberhausen used to predict the outcome of matches played by the German national football team.
There is opposition to fortune telling in Christianity, Islam and Judaism based on scriptural prohibitions against divination. This sometimes causes discord in the Jewish community due to their views on mysticism.
Terms for one who claims to see into the future include fortune teller, crystal-gazer, spaewife, seer, soothsayer, sibyl, clairvoyant, and prophet; related terms which might include this among other abilities are oracle, augur, and visionary.
Fortune telling is dismissed by the scientific community and scientific skeptics as being based on magical thinking and superstition.
Common methods used for fortune telling in Europe and the Americas include astromancy, horary astrology, pendulum reading, spirit board reading, tasseography (reading tea leaves in a cup), cartomancy (fortune telling with cards), tarot reading, crystallomancy (reading of a crystal sphere), and chiromancy (palmistry, reading of the palms). The last three have traditional associations in the popular mind with the Roma and Sinti people (often called "gypsies").
Another form of fortune telling, sometimes called "reading" or "spiritual consultation", does not rely on specific devices or methods, but rather the practitioner gives the client advice and predictions which are said to have come from spirits or in visions.
Western fortune tellers typically attempt predictions on matters such as future romantic, financial, and childbearing prospects. Many fortune tellers will also give "character readings". These may use numerology, graphology, palmistry (if the subject is present), and astrology.
In contemporary Western culture, it appears that women consult fortune tellers more than men. Some women have maintained long relationships with their personal readers. Telephone consultations with psychics (at very high rates) grew in popularity through the 1990s but they have not replaced traditional methods.
Discussing the role of fortune telling in society, Ronald H. Isaacs, an American rabbi and author, opined, "Since time immemorial humans have longed to learn that which the future holds for them. Thus, in ancient civilization, and even today with fortune telling as a true profession, humankind continues to be curious about its future, both out of sheer curiosity as well as out of desire to better prepare for it."
Popular media outlets like the New York Times have explained to their American readers that although 5000 years ago, soothsayers were prized advisers to the Assyrians, they lost respect and reverence during the rise of Reason in the 17th and 18th centuries.
With the rise of commercialism, "the sale of occult practices [adapted to survive] in the larger society," according to sociologists Danny L. and Lin Jorgensen. Ken Feingold, writer of "Interactive Art as Divination as a Vending Machine," stated that with the invention of money, fortune telling became "a private service, a commodity within the marketplace".
As J. Peder Zane wrote in the New York Times in 1994, referring to the Psychic Friends Network, "Whether it’s 3 P.M. or 3 A.M., there’s Dionne Warwick and her psychic friends selling advice on love, money and success. In a nation where the power of crystals and the likelihood that angels hover nearby prompt more contemplation than ridicule, it may not be surprising that one million people a year call Ms. Warwick’s friends.”
Fortune telling is dismissed by the scientific community and skeptics as being based on magical thinking and superstition.
Skeptic Bergen Evans suggested that fortune telling is the result of a "naïve selection of something that have happened from a mass of things that haven't, the clever interpretation of ambiguities, or a brazen announcement of the inevitable." Other skeptics claim that fortune telling is nothing more than cold reading.
A large amount of fraud has occurred in the practice of fortune telling.
Historically, fortune telling grows out of folkloristic reception of Renaissance magic, specifically associated with Romani people. During the 19th and 20th century, methods of divination from non-Western cultures, such as the I Ching, were also adopted as methods of fortune telling in western popular culture.
An example of divination or fortune telling as purely an item of pop culture, with little or no vestiges of belief in the occult, would be the Magic 8-Ball [yesterday’s Daily Quiddity post] sold as a toy by Mattel, or Paul II, an octopus at the Sea Life Aquarium at Oberhausen used to predict the outcome of matches played by the German national football team.
There is opposition to fortune telling in Christianity, Islam and Judaism based on scriptural prohibitions against divination. This sometimes causes discord in the Jewish community due to their views on mysticism.
Terms for one who claims to see into the future include fortune teller, crystal-gazer, spaewife, seer, soothsayer, sibyl, clairvoyant, and prophet; related terms which might include this among other abilities are oracle, augur, and visionary.
Fortune telling is dismissed by the scientific community and scientific skeptics as being based on magical thinking and superstition.
Methods of Fortune Telling
Common methods used for fortune telling in Europe and the Americas include astromancy, horary astrology, pendulum reading, spirit board reading, tasseography (reading tea leaves in a cup), cartomancy (fortune telling with cards), tarot reading, crystallomancy (reading of a crystal sphere), and chiromancy (palmistry, reading of the palms). The last three have traditional associations in the popular mind with the Roma and Sinti people (often called "gypsies").
Another form of fortune telling, sometimes called "reading" or "spiritual consultation", does not rely on specific devices or methods, but rather the practitioner gives the client advice and predictions which are said to have come from spirits or in visions.
- Alectromancy: by observation of a rooster
pecking at grain
- Astrology: by the movements of celestial
bodies.
- Astromancy: by the stars.
- Augury: by the flight of birds.
- Bazi or four pillars: by hour, day, month,
and year of birth.
- Bibliomancy: by books; frequently, but not
always, religious texts.
- Cartomancy: by playing cards, tarot cards, or
oracle cards.
- Ceromancy: by patterns in melting or dripping
wax.
- Chiromancy: by the shape of the hands and
lines in the palms.
- Chronomancy: by determination of lucky and
unlucky days.
- Clairvoyance: by spiritual vision or inner
sight.
- Cleromancy: by casting of lots, or casting
bones or stones.
- Cold reading: by using visual and aural
clues.
- Crystallomancy: by crystal ball also called scrying.
- Extispicy: by the entrails of animals.
- Face reading: by means of variations in face
and head shape.
- Feng shui: by earthen harmony.
- Gastromancy: by stomach-based ventriloquism
(historically).
- Geomancy: by markings in the ground, sand,
earth, or soil.
- Haruspicy: by the livers of sacrificed
animals.
- Horary astrology: the astrology of the time
the question was asked.
- Hydromancy: by water.
- I Ching divination: by yarrow stalks or coins
and the I Ching.
- Kau cim by means of numbered bamboo sticks
shaken from a tube.
- Lithomancy: by stones or gems.
- Necromancy: by the dead, or by spirits or
souls of the dead.
- Nephelomancy: by shapes of clouds.
- Numerology: by numbers.
- Oneiromancy: by dreams.
- Onomancy: by names.
- Palmistry: by lines and mounds on the hand.
- Parrot astrology: by parakeets picking up
fortune cards
- Paper fortune teller: origami used in
fortune-telling games
- Pendulum reading: by the movements of a
suspended object.
- Pyromancy: by gazing into fire.
- Rhabdomancy: divination by rods.
- Runecasting or Runic divination: by runes.
- Scrying: by looking at or into reflective
objects.
- Spirit board: by planchette or talking board.
- Taromancy: by a form of cartomancy using tarot
cards.
- Tasseography or tasseomancy: by tea leaves or
coffee grounds.
- Ureamancy: by gazing upon the foamy froth of urine
created within water.
Sociology of the Fortune
Telling Market
Western fortune tellers typically attempt predictions on matters such as future romantic, financial, and childbearing prospects. Many fortune tellers will also give "character readings". These may use numerology, graphology, palmistry (if the subject is present), and astrology.
In contemporary Western culture, it appears that women consult fortune tellers more than men. Some women have maintained long relationships with their personal readers. Telephone consultations with psychics (at very high rates) grew in popularity through the 1990s but they have not replaced traditional methods.
As a Business in North America
Discussing the role of fortune telling in society, Ronald H. Isaacs, an American rabbi and author, opined, "Since time immemorial humans have longed to learn that which the future holds for them. Thus, in ancient civilization, and even today with fortune telling as a true profession, humankind continues to be curious about its future, both out of sheer curiosity as well as out of desire to better prepare for it."
Popular media outlets like the New York Times have explained to their American readers that although 5000 years ago, soothsayers were prized advisers to the Assyrians, they lost respect and reverence during the rise of Reason in the 17th and 18th centuries.
With the rise of commercialism, "the sale of occult practices [adapted to survive] in the larger society," according to sociologists Danny L. and Lin Jorgensen. Ken Feingold, writer of "Interactive Art as Divination as a Vending Machine," stated that with the invention of money, fortune telling became "a private service, a commodity within the marketplace".
As J. Peder Zane wrote in the New York Times in 1994, referring to the Psychic Friends Network, "Whether it’s 3 P.M. or 3 A.M., there’s Dionne Warwick and her psychic friends selling advice on love, money and success. In a nation where the power of crystals and the likelihood that angels hover nearby prompt more contemplation than ridicule, it may not be surprising that one million people a year call Ms. Warwick’s friends.”
Criticism of Fortune Telling
Fortune telling is dismissed by the scientific community and skeptics as being based on magical thinking and superstition.
Skeptic Bergen Evans suggested that fortune telling is the result of a "naïve selection of something that have happened from a mass of things that haven't, the clever interpretation of ambiguities, or a brazen announcement of the inevitable." Other skeptics claim that fortune telling is nothing more than cold reading.
A large amount of fraud has occurred in the practice of fortune telling.
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