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Fortune telling is easily dismissed by critics as magical thinking and superstition. [24] [25] [26] 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."
Precognition (from the Latin prae-'before', and cognitio 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a real effect, and it is widely considered to be pseudoscience . [ 1 ]
Roman haruspicy was a form of communication with the gods. Rather than strictly predicting future events, this form of Roman divination allowed humans to discern the attitudes of the gods and react in a way that would maintain harmony between the human and divine worlds . [5]
Practitioners interpret the shapes of the cooked egg white for signs of future events; a bell can foretell a wedding celebration while a snake-like form could be a sign of impending evil. In ...
Palmistry is the pseudoscientific practice of fortune-telling through the study of the palm. [1] Also known as palm reading, chiromancy, chirology or cheirology, the practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations. Those who practice palmistry are generally called palmists, hand readers, hand analysts, or chirologists.
Fortune-telling and other forms of divination were widespread through the Middle Ages. [23] In the constitution of 1572 and public regulations of 1661 of the Electorate of Saxony, capital punishment was used on those predicting the future. [24] Laws forbidding divination practice continue to this day. [25]
An omen (also called portent) is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. [2] It was commonly believed in ancient times, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages from the gods.
Greek divination is the divination practiced by ancient Greek culture as it is known from ancient Greek literature, supplemented by epigraphic and pictorial evidence.. Divination is a traditional set of methods of consulting divinity to obtain prophecies (theopropia) about specific circumstances defined be