Predictions have often been made, from antiquity until the present, by using paranormal or supernatural means such as prophecy or by observing omens. Methods including water divining, astrology, numerology, fortune telling, interpretation of dreams, and many other forms of divination, have been used for millennia to attempt to predict the future. These means of prediction have not been substantiated by controlled experiments, and are disputed by most, including scientists and skeptics.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Prediction, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

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”.

Print, televised and online advertisements for fortune-tellers are now almost as common as ads for orange juice and automobiles. As J. Peder Zane wrote in the New York Times in 1994, “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.”

Clientele

In 1994, the psychic counsellor Rosanna Rogers of Cleveland, Ohio explained to J. Peder Zane that a wide variety of people consulted her: “Couch potatoes aren’t the only people seeking the counsel of psychics and astrologers. Clairvoyants have a booming business advising Philadelphia bankers, Hollywood lawyers and CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies… If people knew how many people, especially the very rich and powerful ones, went to psychics, their jaws would drop through the floor.” Ms. Rogers “claims to have 4,000 names in her rolodex.”

In 2000, a writer for the Northern Echo, a Canadian periodical, noted that the Canadian clairvoyant Mrs. Jane Welbourn said that “about 90% of the people I see are experiencing some stress, or something is bothering them. Whether it’s drink, drug, illness, financial, infidelity or marital problems, there is usually something.”

Typical clients

In 1982, Danny Jorgensen, a professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida offered a spiritual explanation for the popularity of fortune-telling. He said that that people visit psychics or fortune-tellers to gain self-understanding. and knowledge which will lead to personal power or success in some aspect of life

Thirteen years later, in 1995, Ken Feingold offered a different explanation for why people seek out fortune-tellers: “We desire to know other people’s actions and to resolve our own conflicts regarding decisions to be made and our participation in social groups and economies. … Divination seems to have emerged from our knowing the inevitability of death. The idea is clear—we know that our time is limited and that we want things in our lives to happen in accord with our wishes. Realizing that our wishes have little power, we have sought technologies for gaining knowledge of the future…gain power over our own [lives].”

Ultimately, the reasons a person consults a diviner or fortune teller are mediated by cultural expectations and by personal desires, and until a statistically rigorous study of the phenomenon have been conducted, the question of why people consult fortune-tellers is wide open for opinion-making.

Services

Traditional fortune-tellers vary in methodology, generally using techniques long established in their cultures and thus meeting the cultural expectations of their clientele.

In the United States and Canada, among clients of European ancestry, palmistry is popular and, as with astrology and tarot card reading, advice is generally given about specific problems besetting the client.

Non-religious spiritual guidance may also be offered. An American clairvoyant by the name of Catherine Adams has written, “My philosophy is to teach and practice spiritual freedom, which means you have your own spiritual guidance, which I can help you get in touch with.”

In the African American community, where many people practice a form of folk magic called hoodoo or rootworking, a fortune telling session or “reading” for a client may be followed by practical guidance in spell-casting and Christian prayer, through a process called “magical coaching.”

In addition to sharing and explaining their visions, fortune-tellers can also act like counselors by discussing and offering advice about their clients’ problems. They want their clients to exercise their own willpower.

Full-time careers

Some support themselves entirely on their fortune-telling business; others hold down one or more jobs, and their second jobs may or may not relate to the occupation of divining. In 1982, Danny L., and Lin Jorgensen found that “while there is considerable variation among [these secondary] occupations, [part-time fortune-tellers] are over-represented in human service fields: counseling, social work, teaching, health care.” The same authors, making a limited survey of North American diviners, found that the majority of fortune-tellers are married with children, and a few claim graduate degrees. “They attend movies, watch television, work at regular jobs, shop at K-Mart, sometimes eat at McDonald’s, and go to the hospital when they are seriously ill.”

Legality

In 1982, the sociologists Danny L., and Lin Jorgensen found that, “when it is reasonable, [fortune -tellers] comply with local laws and purchase a business license.” However, in the United States, a variety of local and state laws restrict fortune-telling, require the licensing or bonding of fortune-tellers, or make necessary the use of terminology that avoids the term “fortune-teller” in favour of terms such as “spiritual advisor” or “psychic consultant.” There are also laws that forbid the practice outright in certain districts.

For instance, fortune telling is a class B misdemeanor in the state of New York. Under New York State law, S 165.35:

:A person is guilty of fortune telling when, for a fee or compensation which he directly or indirectly solicits or receives, he claims or pretends to tell fortunes, or holds himself out as being able, by claimed or pretended use of occult powers, to answer questions or give advice on personal matters or to exercise, influence or affect evil spirits or curses; except that this section does not apply to a person who engages in the aforedescribed conduct as part of a show or exhibition solely for the purpose of entertainment or amusement.

Law-makers who wrote this statute acknowledged that fortune-tellers do not restrict themselves to “a show or exhibition solely for the purpose of entertainment or amusement” and that people will continue to seek out fortune-tellers even though fortune-tellers operate in violation of the law.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also bans the practice outright, considering fortune-telling to be sorcery and thus contrary to Islamic teaching and jurisprudence. It has been punishable by death.

Certification

Although there are a number of training and certification programs offered to North American fortune-tellers, most practitioners do not seek out teaching programs or display official documentation of training, but rely instead on alleged family teachings, natural ability, personal experience, and word of mouth as warrants of their fitness and giftedness for the occupation.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Fortune-telling, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

Divination is a cultural universal which anthropologists have observed as being present in many religions and cultures in all ages up to the present day (see sibyl). Divination may be defined as a mechanism for ascertaining information by interpretation of omens or an alleged supernatural agency and as divination often entails ritual as different to fortune-telling is often facilitated by trance.

Nechung Oracle

In Tibet, oracles have played, and continue to play, an important part in religion and government. The word ”oracle” is used by Tibetans to refer to the spirit, deity or entity that enters those men and women who act as media between the natural and the spiritual realms. The media are, therefore, known as ”kuten”, which literally means, “the physical basis”.

The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in northern India, still consults an oracle known as the ”Nechung Oracle”, which is considered the official state oracle of the government of Tibet. He gives a complete description of the process of trance and possession in his book ”Freedom in Exile” [http://www.tibet.com/Buddhism/nechung_hh.html].

Edgar Cayce

Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) was an American psychic who claimed to channel answers to questions on subjects such as health, astrology, reincarnation, and Atlantis while in a kind of sleep trance. Cayce’s methods involved lying down and entering into what appeared to be a trance or sleep state, usually at the request of a subject who was seeking help with health or other issues (the sub

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Trance, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

In 1975, the ending of the b’ak’tun cycle became the subject of speculation by several New Age authors, who believe it will correspond to a global “consciousness shift”. In his book ”Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth Age of Consciousness”, Frank Waters tied Coe’s December 24, 2011 date to astrology and the prophecies of the Hopi, while both José Argüelles and Terence McKenna (in their books ”The Transformative Vision” and ”The Invisible Landscape” respectively) discussed the significance of the year 2012, but not a specific day. In 1987, the year in which he held the Harmonic Convergence event, Arguelles settled on the date of December 21 in his book ”The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology”, in which he claimed on that date the Earth would pass through a great “beam” from the centre of the Galaxy, and that the Maya aligned their calendar in anticipation of that event.

Established themes found in 2012 literature include “suspicion towards mainstream Western culture”, the idea of spiritual evolution, and the possibility of leading the world into the New Age by individual example or by a group’s joined consciousness. The general intent of this literature is not to warn of impending doom but “to foster counter-cultural sympathies and eventually socio-political and ‘spiritual’ activism”. Aveni, who has studied New Age and SETI communities, describes 2012 narratives as the product of a “disconnected” society: “Unable to find spiritu

Galactic alignment

In the mid-1990s, esoteric author John Major Jenkins asserted that the ancient Maya intended to tie the end of their calendar to the winter solstice in 2012, which falls on December 21. This date was in line with an idea he terms the ”galactic alignment”.

In the Solar System, the planets and the Sun share roughly the same plane of orbit, known as the plane of the ecliptic. From our perspective on Earth, the ecliptic is the path taken by the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The 12 constellations which line the ecliptic are known as the zodiac and, through the year, the Sun passes through each constellation in turn. Additionally, over time, the Sun’s annual passage appears to recede counterclockwise by one degree every 72 years. This movement, called “precession”, is attributed to a slight wobble in the Earth’s axis as it spins. As a result, approximately every 2160 years, the constellation visible on the early morning of the spring equinox changes. In Western astrological traditions, this signals the end of one astrological age (currently the Age of Pisces) and the beginning of another (Age of Aquarius). Over the course of 26,000 years, precession makes one full circuit around the ecliptic.

Just as the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere is currently in the constellation of Pisces, so the winter solstice is currently in the constellation of Sagittarius, which is the zodiacal constellation intersected by the galactic equator. Every year for the last 1000 years or so, on the winter solstice, the Earth, Sun and the galactic equator come into alignment, and every year, precession pushes the Sun’s position a little way further through the Milky Way’s band.

Jenkins suggests that the Maya based their calendar on observations of the Great Rift, a band of dark dust clouds in the Milky Way, which the Maya called the ”Xibalba be” or “Black Road.” Jenkins claims that the Maya were aware of where the ecliptic intersected the Black Road and gave this position in the sky a special significance in their cosmology. According to the hypothesis, the Sun precisely aligns with this intersection point at the winter solstice of 2012. Jenkins claimed that the classical Mayans anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind. New Age proponents of the galactic alignment hypothesis argue that, just as astrology uses the positions of stars and planets to make claims of future events, the Mayans plotted their calendars with the objective of preparing for significant world events. Jenkins attributes the insights of ancient Maya shamans about the galactic center to their use of psilocybin mushrooms, psychoactive toads, and other psychedelics. Jenkins also associates the ”Xibalba be” with a “world tree”, drawing on studies of contemporary (not ancient) Maya cosmology.

Astronomers argue that the galactic equator is an entirely arbitrary line, and can never be precisely determined because it is impossible to say exactly where the Milky Way begins or ends. Jenkins claims he drew his conclusions about the location of the galactic equator from observations taken at above 11,000 feet, which is higher than any of the Maya lived. Furthermore, the precessional alignment of the Sun with any single point is not exclusive to a specific year, but takes place over a 36-year period, corresponding to its diameter. Jenkins himself notes that, even given his determined location for the line of the galactic equator, its most precise convergence with the centre of the Sun already occurred in 1998.

There is no clear evidence that the classic Maya were aware of precession. Some Maya scholars, such as Barbara MacLeod, Michael Grofe, Eva Hunt, Gordon Brotherston, and Anthony Aveni, have suggested that some Mayan holy dates were timed to precessional cycles, but scholarly opinion on the subject remains divided. There is also little evidence, archaeological or historical, that the Maya placed any importance on solstices or equinoxes. It is possible that early Mesoamericans had an emphasis on solstices which was later forgotten, but this is also a disputed issue among Mayanists. The start date of the Long Count is not astronomically significant.

Timewave zero and the I Ching

“Timewave zero” is a numerological formula that purports to calculate the ebb and flow of “novelty”, defined as increase in the universe’s interconnectedness, or organised complexity, over time. According to Terence McKenna, who conceived the idea over several years in the early-mid 1970s while using psilocybin mushrooms and DMT, the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness, eventually reaching a singularity of infinite complexity in 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur simultaneously.

McKenna expressed “novelty” in a computer program, which purportedly produces a waveform known as ”timewave zero” or the ”timewave”. Based on McKenna’s interpretation of the King Wen sequence of the I Ching, the graph appears to show great periods of novelty corresponding with major shifts in humanity’s biological and cultural evolution. He believed the events of any given time are recursively related to the events of other times, and chose the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as the basis for calculating his end date in November 2012. When he later discovered this date’s proximity to the end of the 13th b’ak’tun of the Maya calendar, he revised his hypothesis so that the two dates matched.

The first edition of ”The Invisible Landscape” refers to 2012 (as the year, not a specific day) only twice. McKenna originally considered it an incidental observation that his and José Argüelles dates matched, a sign of the end date “being programmed into our unconscious”. It was only in 1983, with the publication of Sharer’s revised table of date correlations in the 4th edition of Morley’s ”The Ancient Maya,” that each became convinced that December 21, 2012 had significant meaning. McKenna subsequently peppered this specific date throughout the second, 1993 edition of ”The Invisible Landscape.”

Popularization

In 2006, author Daniel Pinchbeck popularised New Age concepts about this date in his book ”2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl”, linking it to beliefs about crop circles, alien abduction, and personal revelations based on the use of entheogens and mediumship. Pinchbeck claims to discern a “growing realization that materialism and the rational, empirical worldview that comes with it has reached its expiration date…[w]e’re on the verge of transitioning to a dispensation of consciousness that’s more intuitive, mystical and shamanic.” Beginning in 2003, he has promoted these ideas annually in presentations at Burning Man. In April 2010, Pinchbeck and several others released the documentary film ”2012: Time for Change”.

In India, the guru Kalki Bhagavan has promoted 2012 as a “deadline” for human enlightenment since at least 1998. In the United States, the association of December 21, 2012 with a “transformation of consciousness” has also received popular attention in ”The Lost Symbol” (2009), a bestseller work of thriller fiction by Dan Brown, in which the date is associated with references to esoteric beliefs of Freemasonry and noetic theory. David Wilcock, a new age researcher, has gained increasing popularity with viral video-seminars promoting the idea of global ascension, and a golden age, in the year 2012

Adapted from the Wikipedia article 2012 phenomenon, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

* Mediumship

* Spiritual Healing

* Meditation

* Hypnosis

* Sound and Colour

* Philosophy

* Psychic Art and Auragraphs

* Qi and Prana

* Astrology

* Numerology

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Arthur Findlay College, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

William John Warner or Cheiro (November 1, 1866 – October 8, 1936) was an Irish astrologer. He was a famous and colorful occult figure of the early 20th century. His name, Cheiro, derives from the word ”cheiromancy”, meaning palmistry. Cheiro was a self-described clairvoyant who taught palmistry, astrology, and Chaldean numerology who used these forms of divination to make predictions, both personal ones for clients, and more general ones about coming world events.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Cheiro, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

Uranian astrology is a relatively recent methodological approach to astrology based on teachings of German surveyor/astrologer Alfred Witte (1878–1941), founder of the Hamburg School of Astrology. Witte revived and further developed the use of mathematical midpoints for precise astrological analysis and prediction. He was also an avid independent student of astronomy. Prior to 1970, elements of psychological astrology in Uranian astrology were sparse; however psychological astrology is today integrated by many Uranian Astrologers, who recognize that other psychological, social, genetic, and free-will variables operate in tandem with astrological indicators, and continue to affect how energies will ultimately manifest. Uranian astrology lends itself less readily to being categorized as a form of ‘entertainment’ than do more impressionistic traditional popular astrologies, due to its relative precision, examples of which can be found on well-studied Uranian Astrology websites.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Uranian astrology, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

Christianity and astrology are seen as incompatible by modern orthodox Christian doctrine. Additionally, astrology stands juxtaposed against the roots of modern scientific reasoning. Generally, the scientific community and others educated in the scientific method consider astrology a pseudoscience or superstition.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Christianity and astrology, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

1-990 – Psychology

*38-64……….Philosophy. Relation to other topics

*173-175.5……Psychoanalysis

176-176.5……Psychological tests and testing

*180-198.7……Experimental psychology

*203…………Gestalt psychology

*207-209……..Psychotropic drugs and other substances

*231-299……..Sensation. Aesthesiology

*309-499……..Consciousness. Cognition (including learning, attention, comprehension, memory, imagination, genius, intelligence, thought and thinking, psycholinguistics, mental fatigue)

*501-505……..Motivation

*511-593……..Affection. Feeling. Emotion

*608-635……..Will. Volition. Choice. Control

*636-637……..Applied psychology

*638-648……..New Thought. Menticulture, etc.

*660-685……..Comparative psychology. Animal and human psychology

*692-692.5……Psychology of sex. Sexual behavior

*697-697.5……Differential psychology. Individuality. Self

*698-698.9……Personality

*699-711……..Genetic psychology

*712-724.85…..Developmental psychology (including infant psychology, child psychology, adolescence, adulthood)

*795-839……..Temperament. Character

*839.8-885……Physiognomy. Phrenology

*889-905……..Graphology. Study of handwriting

*908-940……..The hand. Palmistry

1001-1389 –

Parapsychology

*1001-1045……Psychic research. Psychology of the conscious

*1048-1108……Hallucinations. Sleep. Dreaming. Visions.

*1111-1156……Hypnotism. Suggestion. Mesmerism. Subliminal projection

*1161-1171……Telepathy. Mind reading. Thought transference

*1228-1389……Spiritualism (including mediumship, spirit messages, clairvoyance)

*1404-2055…….Occult sciences

*1444-1486……Ghosts. Apparitions. Hauntings

*1501-1562……Demonology. Satanism. Possession

*1562.5-1584….Witchcraft

*1585-1623……Magic. Hermetics. Necromancy

*1651-1729……Astrology

*1745-1779……Oracles. Sibyls. Divinations

*1783-1815……Seers. Prophets. Prophecies

*1845-1891……Fortune-telling

*2050-2055……Human-alien encounters. Contact between humans and extraterrestrials.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Library of Congress Classification:Class B — Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.

As and is usually in the nine o’clock position of the horoscope:$endImage–> The ascendant ( or As), or rising sign, is the zodiacal sign and degree that was ascending on the eastern horizon at the specific time and location of an event. According to astrological theory, celestial phenomena reflect or determine human activity on the principle of ‘as above so below’. Thus astrologers believe that the ascendant signifies a person’s awakening consciousness, in the same way that the Sun’s appearance on the eastern horizon signifies the dawn of a new day.

Because the ascendant is specific to a particular time and place, it signifies the individual environment and conditioning that a person receives during their upbringing, and also the circumstances of their childhood. For this reason, the ascendant is also concerned with how a person has learned to present him or herself to the world, especially in public and in impersonal situations. In some circumstances, it can therefore function as a shield or mask to guard a person’s real nature – in other words the ‘defense mechanism’ every person has to cope with unfamiliar or uncomfortable situations. The ascendant also has a strong bearing on a person’s physical appearance and overall health.

The Ascendant is thus considered to be of great significance in all schools of astrology because it in effect serves as the filter through which everything in a horoscope- including the Sun and Moon- is expressed. Most astrologers believe that the Rising Sign exerts an influence equal to or more powerful than the Sun and Moon. In Jyotish, the ascendant is without question the most individual and defining element in the chart.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Ascendant, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

No related posts.