Fortune telling

[Fatmarley]

I've got 1/2 hour to kill while I wait for the stepdaughter to have her fortune told. I can't help but think it's a waste of time and money (£30).

I've heard people say a fortune teller told them something that they couldn't have possibly guessed, but I still remain sceptical.

Anyone here a believer?

 

[Del monaco]

My wife visited. Private spiritualist after the sad death of her Mum 20 years ago. I was sceptical but my wife found the session very comforting and has never really spoken about the session. I am still sceptical but it seemed to really help my wife so it appeared to have value.

 

[Vinny]

Actual predictions are sufficiently imprecise in the main so that future events seem to fit.

It is no different to HiFi foo

 

[Barrymagrec]

It`s Malarkey.

 

[Rcook]

Mediumship, psychic readings, and fortune telling are not the same things.

Mediumship is communication with spirit, via a medium. The purpose of it (according to the Spiritualists National Union) is not to predict the future, it is proof of survival - e.g. when the medium gives several pieces of information such as names, accurate descriptions of the person (including their appearance, character, names, interests, what caused them to pass, their occupation etc) or specific details - usually it is small but specific details that give the best proof. It can, and does, give people comfort and guidance. Some information about future events may be given, but predictions should be avoided (if the medium is sticking hard and fast to SNU rules), though they often do.

Psychic readings, which can also use tarot cards or other 'tools' (e.g. crystal balls), are where the psychic reads another person. There is no spirit contact with a psychic reading. Regarding predicting the future, sometimes guidance can be given, but generally it's more about giving insight into where someone is at right now and their path forward and what may or may not influence it.

Fortune telling is specifically about predicting the future - generally where people will end up in life, in the long term.

 

[thejoker]

i think a lot of shiisters doing it and a small minority who defy explanation. If you fancy a good read, try and get hold of 'The Door Marked Summer' by Michael Bentine. A fascinating read

 

[Bob McC]

Mediumship, psychic readings, and fortune telling are not the same things.

Mediumship is communication with spirit, via a medium. The purpose of it (according to the Spiritualists National Union) is not to predict the future, it is proof of survival - e.g. when the medium gives several pieces of information such as names, accurate descriptions of the person (including their appearance, character, names, interests, what caused them to pass, their occupation etc) or specific details - usually it is small but specific details that give the best proof. It can, and does, give people comfort and guidance. Some information about future events may be given, but predictions should be avoided (if the medium is sticking hard and fast to SNU rules), though they often do.

Psychic readings, which can also use tarot cards or other 'tools' (e.g. crystal balls), are where the psychic reads another person. There is no spirit contact with a psychic reading. Regarding predicting the future, sometimes guidance can be given, but generally it's more about giving insight into where someone is at right now and their path forward and what may or may not influence it.

Fortune telling is specifically about predicting the future - generally where people will end up in life, in the long term.

All different versions of defrauding the gullible.
Randi will be spinning in his grave.

 

[Vinny]

All different versions of defrauding the gullible.

I can't really argue with that, but in the case of soothing the bereaved and suchlike, be it no more than a placebo, it is hard to criticise.

Houdini likewise - spinning

 

[herb]

50 years ago as an experiment I consulted the I Ching. I did not like the result so I tried again - It told me to sod off so I did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching

 

[mandryka]

I had an aunt, now dead, who made her living through fortune telling, a good living too by all indications (she had a flat in Cheyne Walk.) She had an international reputation for her work on Zodiacs -- the one time I met her she had just returned form a conference in Russia on the subject, and she suggested that Princess Di was one of her clients. She was pretty well estranged from her family because of it, my mother (her sister) thought she was a fraud at best and told her so.

I have only come across it once before, one of the directors of a company I worked for had done a study of correlations between prisoners' zodiac charts and their crimes. I forget the results.

Oh, and I once met someone who said he used his magic powers of dowsing to help oil companies find oil wells. But that's maybe different.

 

[sean99]

I see a future in which you are 30 quid poorer.

how many of us would like a crystal ball in these times !?

 

[Vinny]

I once met someone who said he used his magic powers of dowsing to help oil companies find oil wells. But that's maybe different.

Dowsing is real.
Over 40 years ago I worked with someone whose brother in turn worked for a local water company. If they wanted a precise position to dig, out came the dowsing sticks of the ol' boys who'd been on the job for years and sod the metal detectors.

There is probably some very simple science behind it, its just that no-one has studied it enough.

 

[Stunsworth]

Someone I used to know went to a fortune teller and was told she was going to meet and marry ‘Mr Right’. She was going out with someone with the surname Wright. They later got married.

 

[I.D.C.]

Years ago at work a female colleague started to tell me my future . Everything she told me came true including a hospitalization that would lead to a long holiday abroad. On my return a push bike would be bought to build my fitness which came to pass also. No cards, crystal balls , she just looked at me telling all. Scary.

 

[mandryka]

When I was a university teacher I worked with Michael Dummett, a famous logician. He was a bit of a renaissance man, and his hobby was Tarot, not for fortune telling but as a card game, he wrote a book on it. He would often talk about how the history of Tarot shows the pack to be for a game, and it had become abused later on by people who propagated the myth that it was for fortune telling.

 

[Nero]

I see cables in your future.

 

[Bob McC]

Quavers

 

[Joe P]

I thought fortune telling was nonsense, but I saw a fortune teller some years ago and, dammit, he was unnervingly prescient.

Joe

 

[gintonic]

Yes my older SiL came to collect one of her late mums rings (my wife is custodian of rings), to take to a séance on the first anniversary of mums passing, to see if the spirits in the ring would help deceased mum rattle her vodka bottle......

 

[Colin L]

Colin B of this parish seems to be able to see the future