Throughout history, people have come to fortune-tellers to find out their future. For their part, these mystics argue that there are a number of methods for looking into the future. Some, however, are extremely strange.
10. Electriomancy
This is an old form of fortune telling, in which the future was read according to the behavior of a rooster or hen. First, the chicken was placed next to several piles of grain. Each pile represented a letter, and the soothsayer received an answer to the question asked by looking at the pile that the bird pecked at.
Initially, the bird (the white rooster was preferred) was clipped. The severed claws were wrapped in sheepskin and allowed to eat by a hungry rooster. After that, the magician would read a spell, holding the rooster in his hands, and then put it in front of the piles of grains.
All this action must have taken place when the Moon or the Sun are in the constellation Ares, otherwise fortune-telling does not work.
It is believed that with the help of electriomancy it was possible to predict the successor to the Roman emperor Valens, although the details of this story are fragmentary and contradictory. Some say that Valens himself ordered a fortune-telling to find and eliminate any potential adversary who would try to seize the throne.
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However, Valens was a staunch Christian, so the more likely scenario, if any, is as follows. His political rivals used this practice to determine who could help them in their fight against Valens and his platform of Christianity.
In any case, the rooster settled on the letters th, e, o, d (in Greek). Valens declared fortune-telling illegal, however, he sentenced the man predicted by the rooster to death.
To protect himself, he sentenced several more people, whose names began with these letters, to death. Valens himself was later killed in action, and, frighteningly, he was succeeded by a man named Theodosius. Unfortunately for those who wanted to overthrow Valens, Theodosius was also a Christian.
9. Haruspice
Haruspice is predicting the future through a detailed study of the intestines of animals, usually the liver. Despite the fact that this was the most famous method of divination used by the Romans, in fact, the ancestors of this practice are the Etruscans.
Believing that their god Tages gave this gift to his followers, they continued to practice haruspice even after their civilization was absorbed by the Roman Empire.
The Romans took the haruspicus and the haruspics (the people who practiced it) very seriously. Even the famous Roman philosopher and politician Cicero wrote about them.
The most famous haruspex was Spurinna. He was very respected, even Caesar himself used his services. His most famous prediction was later immortalized by Shakespeare in a play about the doomed emperor.
The soothsayer warned Caesar: "Beware of the Ides of March," which corresponded to March 15 in the Roman calendar. It was on this day that Caesar was killed. In reality, however, everything was somewhat different. The actual prediction sounded less accurate than the immortalized lines of the famous playwright - "the danger threatens the emperor no later than the March idols."
The idea may sound creepy, but someone has suggested that Spurinna may have conspired to assassinate Caesar.
8. Parrot Astrology
Originally from South India, parrot astrology is the most popular in Singapore. Despite the name of this method, the birds, which were the main characters in this fortune-telling, must have been green.
Although each fortune-teller performed the ritual in her own way, as a rule, it all began with the customer saying his name, while the fortune-teller laid out the cards according to the principles of Indian cosmology.
Then a cage with a bird was opened, the parrot went out and chose a card, which determined the state of a person. Once the card was selected, the bird was returned to the cage.
Surprisingly, one parrot - a psychic named Mani successfully predicted the winners of all quarter finals of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and also correctly noticed the rivalry between Spain and Germany in the semifinals.
But, apparently, his strength was exhausted, and he could no longer predict the ending correctly. Despite Mani's fame, parrot astrology is a dying art. Singaporeans are losing faith in the predictive power of these birds, and most of their income comes from tourists.
Unusual ways of divination
7. Capromancy
Capromancy, or feces divination, has existed for centuries in various forms.
Probably the earliest forms of it originated in ancient Egypt, when the actions of scarabs (one of the types of dung beetles) were analyzed, that is, how they transformed a pile of dung. The modern method uses ducks walking indoors. According to their feces, the specialist tells what he saw.
Some experts "read" from human feces. They analyze the shape, texture and even aroma of the source material.
Professional Skatomancer SS Sighn surprised Journey to the Planet of Sanity writer Blake Freeman with his hands-on analysis. Singh took a plate of faeces from Freeman's colleague Leroy Tessina, inhaled the "fragrance", trying to feel and predict.
According to Singh, the length of the bowel movements can tell about the responsiveness of a person, and by their size you can determine the strength and leadership. The soothsayer says that he was given a gift, however, no one wants to know in what way he came to the "enlightenment".
6. Asparamansia
The self-proclaimed "asparamantic" - based in England fortune teller Jemima Packington (Jemima Packington) claims to be able to predict the future using asparagus.
She says that she "learned to read" asparagus when she was 8 years old. Jemima inherited her gift from her grandmother, who practiced fortune telling by reading tea leaves.
This woman's divination method is to throw the asparagus into the air, and then draw conclusions from the way it falls to the ground.
She predicted England's strong performance at the 2012 Olympics, an event that was later hailed as "the most successful Olympic Games for the country in history." She also predicted a bad result for the English team at Euro 2012. And so it turned out: the British were eliminated in the quarterfinals.
Her more dubious predictions, according to the Mirror tabloid, are royal births in 2012. According to the soothsayer herself, the asparagus fell in the shape of a crown with two small spears, indicating two pregnancies.
Jemima herself admits that asparagus divination sounds very silly, but the accuracy of her predictions is nevertheless often maintained. Her ability to predict rewards, however, is questionable.
Despite the fact that her prediction regarding the Oscar winning for The King's Speech! came true, she failed to correctly determine the winner - the animal. Her prediction of the collapse of the euro as a form of currency also failed.
5. Rumpology
Rumpology is the practice of predicting the future of a person by the shape of his buttocks. Jackie Stallone, America's chief "rumpologist", says that this is the oldest practice used by many civilizations, however, no evidence of this claim exists.
As Stallone says, the ancients could read on the buttocks, staining them with henna, and then sitting with such a booty on papyrus. Jackie herself "reads" the future even from digital photos of the fifth point print sent to her.
Among the revealing details in the literal sense of the outstanding part of the human body, she highlights the shape and roundness that show aspects of the personality. However, it should be added that rumpology is used for simple predictions.
Stallone claims that she was able to accurately predict the election results using the prints of her Dobermans' buttocks (as she did, one can only guess).
Rumpology has spread to several European countries, including Germany, where one blind rumpologist uses his hands to "read." He says that because his blindness gives clients complete anonymity, disability is a blessing.
4. Nipple reading
This type of divination is native to Japan. He became popular there after the appearance on Japanese television of a "magician" by the name of Eri Koizumi, who wore a beret in the shape of a nipple and promoted her book "Become Happy: Areola Fortune-Telling." …
Success is predicted by looking at the shape of the nipple. It is described by such interesting names as "apple tree", "blue mountain coffee bean", etc. All this is characteristic of certain personality traits.
For example, an apple-shaped areola nipple indicates that you are smart and will be happy.
Color is another defining factor in reading. Shades range from “creamy” to “biscuit” and define traits such as “loyalty to duty” and “excessive talkativeness”.
However, these colors, and to a lesser extent the shapes, are based on the analysis of the nipples of the Japanese population, so those whose areolas are lighter or darker than the declared ones will not be able to use this divination method.
If that sounds too crazy to be true, especially after looking at Koizumi's nipple take, it's because it most likely isn't true. Koizumi is known as a "magician" but is best known for her comic talents.
All of this is probably a big joke, although there are undoubtedly people who take fortune-telling seriously.
3. Feline palmistry
You can learn this "science" by reading the book "How to Read Your Cats Paws" (Pawmistry: How to Read Your Cats Paws)
The author claims to teach you how to read your cat's condition by analyzing the lines and their shapes on her paws. After reading the book, as the author says, you will take better care of your pet and begin to understand him more deeply.
He also says that feline palmistry will show you much more than its condition, you will also find out cultural influences, geographic origins and hereditary characteristics.
One of the authors, Ken Ring, claims to have discovered cat palmistry by accident, simply by deciding to "read" the cat's paw at a psychological meeting.
The former clown and magician now claims to be a fortune teller, psychic and weather forecaster. He also denies the problem of climate change, believing that even if it is real, people should prefer a warmer and more comfortable planet.
Another author, Paul Romhany, makes no claims of mystical power and writes mainly about his magical activities. He, however, co-authored another book with Ring, in which they are said to uncover secrets on how to identify a person by talking and laughing.
2. Tables for fortune-telling
Back in the Roman Empire, people used tables to guess. These tables were engraved with letters. When a person asked a question, the ring hanging over the table supposedly began to travel through the letters, giving the answer.
History knows at least two cases of fortune-tellers who were sentenced to torture for trying to find out the name of the future emperor using this method.
Then fortune telling was transformed into what we know it today, spreading across Europe and America. It was popular at various parties and did not require a special fortune teller to perform the ritual.
The participants in the session sat down at the table, lightly touching the edge of the table with their fingers, and one of the group members "got in touch" with any spirit coming "towards". The idea was to ask the spirit questions that could be answered with monosyllabic yes and no answers.
The spirit "responded" with a knock, a crash, extraneous sounds, etc.
The most interesting incident occurred during the "Philippe experiment." In an experiment, parapsychology researcher Dr. Alan Robert George Owen created a fictional "spirit", and his team were "contact persons."
They conducted "sessions" every week, speaking to Philip's imaginary spirit, while his team created a background that was supposedly interpreted as "Philip's responses" (knocking, flashing, moving objects, etc.).
All participants in the experiment knew that Philip was a fictional character, and the answers to all the questions that Philip gave were known to at least a few of them. The purpose of the experiment was to prove that such phenomena were created by the minds of the participants.
Dr. Owen specializes in psychic research and poltergeists. He says that a huge number of supernatural phenomena are products of a person's own mental strength.
1. Automatic writing
Automatic writing is writing without conscious effort. Scribbled messages, as it was originally supposed, come from other worlds. It came into vogue as a way of communicating with supernatural beings, especially with the world of the dead.
This became especially popular after the use of this method by the Fox sisters, the famous soothsayers who stood at the origins of spiritualism.
The sisters died in poverty after one of them confessed to fraud, but their legacy and methods continued to live on. Helen Smith, a 19th century medium, claimed to have received messages from Mars using the sisters' technique.
These extra-planetary messages were transmitted to her in the Martian language, which skeptics noted was very similar to her native French.
Non-spiritualists, including psychologists, usually view automatic writing as either a colorful trick or an expression of the unconscious.