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Have you ever been to a fortune teller before?
I do believe that some people do possess the ability to see the future.
But the ones you see on the streets with the crystal balls with the palm reading for five dollars, most of those people are probably fake.
There’s a video I saw once where Criss Angel was telling people their fortunes but in reality he was just reading like horoscopes of a newspaper or something.
And people would buy it.
They were crying, getting emotional, saying the things that he was saying was so accurate.
What I'm trying to say is that a lot of fortune tellers out there just say very fake stuff and they are not worth the time with them.
With that said, fortune telling or the ability to see the future, I do believe those things do exist. But some of the methods people used to look into the future maybe a bit bizarre.
Here are some of those methods:
#1 – Alectryomancy:
Let me ask you guys,
What do you think of when I say ‘chicken’?
First starts in my mind are fried, extra crispy… uh spicy!
But this is actually a method that utilizes chickens to tell the future.
First, a chicken will be placed amid piles of grain.
Each pile represents a letter and the answer the fortune teller sees will be spelled out by the chicken pecking at the piles.
The chicken, preferably a pure white male, would first have its claws cut off.
The severed claws were then wrapped in lambskin and the... get this: fed back to the chicken, which is one of the most disturbing things I have ever heard.
I mean, is that really necessary?
A chicken eating chicken is already pretty messed up, but then chicken eating chicken that came from its own body that's just twisted.
Anyway after that, the fortune teller chants a magical prayer while holding the chicken and placed it down in front of the piles of grains.
This had to be done when either the Sun or Moon was in the constellation Aries, or it would not work.
Alectryomancy was thought to have predicted the successor to Roman Emperor Valens, though the details are sketchy and often contradictory.
Some say Valens himself ordered the prediction so he could find and eliminate any potential opponents who would try to seize the throne from him.
the chicken spelled out the letters: TH, E, O, and D in Greek.
Valens who was a Christian proclaimed the divination illegal but put the man predicted by the chicken to death.
For good measure, he also executed a number of other men whose names began with the same letters.
Valens himself was later killed in battle, but get this, his successor was a man named Theodosius.
#2 - Haruspicy
So yeah, this method is pretty rough.
Haruspicy meant predicting and even influencing the future through the detailed study of animal entrails, usually the liver.
Although it was most famously used by the Romans, it was actually an Etruscan practice.
Believing that their god Tages gave it to his followers, the Etruscans continued to use haruspicy even after their civilization was assimilated into the Roman Empire.
The most famous practitioner of Haruspicy was named Spurinna.
He was well respected in his time, he was even called upon by Julius Caesar to make predictions.
He warned Caesar to “beware the Ides of March”, which corresponded to March 15th, the day Caesar was assassinated.
#3 - Parrot Astrology
Yes, parrot astrology.
Originally from southern India, parrot astrology gained the most popularity in Singapore.
Despite its name, the birds used to divine the future are actually parakeets, usually green.
Though every fortune-teller has his own unique style, a session often begins with the customer saying their name while the fortune-teller sets out a number of cards based on Indian cosmology.
They will then open the bird’s cage, and the parakeet walks out and selects a card to determine the customer’s fortune.
#4 – Tables
As early as the Roman Empire, people were using tables to tell fortunes.
These tables had letters engraved into the surface, and when asked a question, a ring hanging over the table would supposedly travel along the top spelling out answers.
Table-tipping, as we know it today, began in the US and later spread to Europe.
It was favored at events like parties because it didn’t really require a paid fortune-teller.
Participants would sit around a table with their fingers lightly touching the edge, and one of the members would make “contact” with any spirit willing to converse.
The idea was to ask questions, usually of the “yes” or “no” kind, and invite the spirit to answer by knocking, flipping, or moving the table.
So basically you do this when we can’t afford a Wizard board.
#6 – Asparamancy:
Sound fancy, creepy?
None of these above.
Aspara in this word means asparagus.
Yes this is people telling fortunes using asparagus.
Anyway, a self-fashioned “asparamancer” resides in England, called mystic Jemima Packington, she claims to be able to predict the future using spears of asparagus.
She said she has been reading asparagus since she was eight years old, having inherited the “gift” from her grandmother, who practiced reading tea leaves.
Basically what she does is she tosses the vegetables into the air and “read” how they land.
No word on whether she ate the divine instruments afterwards.
#7 - Rumpology
Okay so yeah, this method of fortune-telling is through reading a person's behind or rump.
Apparently among the revealing details of a person’s butt are the shape and roundness, which reveals aspects of their personality.
Amazingly Rumpology has spread to several countries, in Germany there's even a blind rumpologist who feels his clients’ rumps for readings.
That will be really messed up if you wasn't really blind.
And finally #8 – Scatomancy
Though this is super gross and reminds me of that famous scene from Jurassic Park.
Scatomancy, or fortune-telling through feces, has been around for centuries and taken various forms.
The gross of being a fortune teller reading the meaning of a person's own feces.
Now I wonder how that works.
Does a person poo at the fortune teller's place?
Or do they, you know, like bringing it in.
Then the fortune teller analyzes the shape, texture and even the smell of the poop.
Oh that's so gross.
Now the biggest question for me is: how do you come to realize that you can tell someone's fortune through poop?
Are you like in a public bathroom one day and noticed that somebody forgot to flush the toilet and you're like ‘Ewww…Oh, wait a minute, i think it is speaking to me’.
In many Eastern religions there is a belief that we all possess a third eye that allows us to see into any point in history or the future and even viewing events in other dimensions.
And this is supposed to be in innate ability that all humans had but because we rely so much on external tools that we slowly lost that ability.
I did do a video about the third eye.
So if you haven't seen it take a look.
It's right there.
Here’s something I don't get about fortune tellers.
I live in New York City and there are a lot of fortune tellers here.
I mean you can walk down basically any street and see signs for like five or ten dollar palm reading.
But here's my question: how did these fortune tellers all have like stores in Manhattan.
I've honestly never seen anybody enter a fortune teller store.
Anyway I just didn’t know how they can afford like storefronts
Also show your fortune telling stories in the comments below.
Alright guys thanks so much for watching. See you later.