It seems highly probable that at no
previous period of the world's history have
there been so many persons as there are at
the present moment anxious to ascertain in
advance, if that be humanly possible, a
knowledge of at least 'what a day may bring
forth.' The incidence of the greatest of all
wars, which has resulted in sparse news of
those from whom they are separated, and
produces a state of uncertainty as to what
the future holds in store for each of the
inhabitants of the British Empire, is, of
course, responsible for this increase in a
perfectly sane and natural curiosity; with
its inevitable result, a desire to employ
any form of divination in the hope that some
light may haply be cast upon the darkness
and obscurity of the future.
It is unfortunately the case, as records of
the police-courts have recently shown, that
the creation of this demand for
foreknowledge of coming events or for
information as to the well-being of distant
relatives and friends has resulted in the
abundant supply of the want by scores of
pretended 'Fortune-tellers' and diviners of
the Future; who, trading upon the credulity
and anxieties of their unfortunate
fellow-countrywomen, seek to make a living
at their expense.
Now it is an axiom, which centuries of
experience have shown to be as sound as
those of Euclid himself, that the moment the
taint of money enters into the business of
reading the Future the accuracy and credit
of the Fortune told disappears. The
Fortune-teller no longer possesses the
singleness of mind or purpose necessary to a
clear reading of the symbols he or she
consults. The amount of the fee is the first
consideration, and this alone is sufficient
to obscure the mental vision and to bias the
judgment. This applies to the very highest
and most conscientious of
Fortune-tellers—persons really adept at
foreseeing the future when no taint of
monetary reward intervenes. The greater
number, however, of so-called
Fortune-tellers are but charlatans, with the
merest smattering of partly-assimilated
knowledge of some form of divination or
'character-reading'; whether by the cards,
coins, dice, dominoes, hands, crystal, or in
any other pretended way. With these, the
taint of the money they hope to receive
clouds such mind or intuition as they may
possess, and it follows that their judgments
and prognostications have precisely the same
value as the nostrums of the quack
medicine-vendor. They are very different
from the Highlander who, coming to the door
of his cottage or bothie at dawn, regards
steadfastly the signs and omens he notes in
the appearance of the sky, the actions of
animals, the flight of birds, and so forth,
and derives there from a foresight into the
coming events of the opening day. They
differ also from the 'spae-wife,' who,
manipulating the cup from which she has
taken her morning draught of tea, looks at
the various forms and shapes the leaves and
dregs have taken, and deduces thence such
simple horary prognostications as the name
of the person from whom 'postie' will
presently bring up the glen a letter or a
parcel or a remittance of money; or as to
whether she is likely to go a journey, or to
hear news from across the sea, or to obtain
a good price for the hose she has knitted or
for the chickens or eggs she is sending to
the store-keeper. Here the taint of a
money-payment is altogether absent; and no
Highland 'spae-wife' or seer would dream of
taking a fee for looking into the future on
behalf of another person.
It follows, therefore, that provided he or
she is equipped with the requisite knowledge
and some skill and intuition, the persons
most fitted to tell correctly their own
fortune are themselves; because they cannot
pay themselves for their own
prognostications, and the absence of a
monetary taint consequently leaves the
judgment unbiased. Undoubtedly one of the
simplest, most inexpensive and, as the
experience of nearly three centuries has
proved, most reliable forms of divination
within its own proper limits, is that of
reading fortunes in tea-cups. Although it
cannot be of the greatest antiquity, seeing
that tea was not introduced into Britain
until the middle of the seventeenth century,
and for many years thereafter was too rare
and costly to be used by the great bulk of
the population, the practice of reading the
tea-leaves doubtless descends from the
somewhat similar form of divination known to
the Greeks as "??taß??" by which fortune in
love was discovered by the particular splash
made by wine thrown out of a cup into a
metal basin. A few spae-wives still practice
this method by throwing out the tea-leaves
into the saucer, but the reading of the
symbols as they are originally formed in the
cup is undoubtedly the better method.
Any person after a study of this book and by
carefully following the principles here laid
down may with practice quickly learn to read
the horary fortunes that the tea-leaves
foretell. It should be distinctly
understood, however, that tea-cup fortunes
are only horary, or dealing with the events
of the hour or the succeeding twenty-four
hours at furthest. The immediately
forthcoming events are those which cast
their shadows, so to speak, within the
circle of the cup. In this way the
tea-leaves may be consulted once a day, and
many of the minor happenings of life
foreseen with considerable accuracy,
according to the skill in discerning the
symbols and the intuition required to
interpret them which may be possessed by the
seer. Adepts like the Highland peasant-women
can and do foretell events that subsequently
occur, and that with remarkable accuracy.
Practice and the acquirement of a knowledge
of the signification of the various symbols
is all that is necessary in order to become
proficient and to tell one's fortune and
that of one's friends with skill and
judgment.
There is, of course, a scientific reason for
all forms of divination practiced without
hope or promise of reward. Each person
carries in himself his own Destiny. Events
do not happen to people by chance, but are
invariably the result of some past cause.
For instance, in the last years a man
becomes a soldier who had never intended to
pursue a military career. This does not
happen to him by chance, but because of the
prior occurrence of la European war in which
his country was engaged. The outbreak of war
is similarly the result of other causes,
none of which happened by chance, but were
founded by still remoter occurrences. It is
the same with the Future. That which a
person does today as a result of something
that happened in the past, will in its turn
prove the cause of something that will
happen at some future date. The mere act of
doing something today sets in motion forces
that in process of time will inevitably
bring about some entirely unforeseen event.
This event is not decreed by Fate or
Providence, but by the person who by the
committal of some act unconsciously compels
the occurrence of some future event which he
does not foresee. In other words, a man
decrees his own destiny and shapes his own
ends by his actions, whether Providence
rough-hew them or not. Now this being so, it
follows that he carries his destiny with
him, and the more powerful his mind and
intellect the more clearly is this seen to
be the case. Therefore it is possible for a
person's mind, formed as the result of past
events over which he had no control, to
foresee by an effort what will occur in the
future as the result of acts deliberately
done. Since it is given to but few, and that
not often of intention, to see actually what
is about to happen in a vision or by means
of what is called the 'second sight,' some
machinery must be provided in the form of
symbols from which an interpretation of the
future can be made. It matters little what
the method or nature of the symbols chosen
is—dice or dominoes, cards or tea-leaves.
What matters is that the person shaking the
dice, shuffling the dominoes, cutting the
cards or turning the tea-cup, is by these
very acts transferring from his mind where
they lie hidden even from himself the
shadows of coming events which by his own
actions in the past he has already
predetermined shall occur in the future. It
only remains for someone to read and
interpret these symbols correctly in order
to ascertain something of what is likely to
happen; and it is here that singleness of
purpose and freedom from ulterior motives
are necessary in order to avoid error and to
form a true and clear judgment.
This is the serious and scientific
explanation of the little-understood and
less-comprehended action of various forms of
divination having for their object the
throwing of a little light upon the occult.
Of all these forms perhaps divination by
tea-leaves is the simplest, truest, and most
easily learned. Even if the student is
disinclined to attach much importance to
what he sees in the cup, the reading of the
tea-leaves forms a sufficiently innocent and
amusing recreation for the breakfast- or
tea-table; and the man who finds a lucky
sign such as an anchor or a tree in his cup,
or the maiden who discovers a pair of
heart-shaped groups of leaves in conjunction
with a ring, will be suffering no harm in
thus deriving encouragement for the future,
even should they attach no importance to
their occurrence, but merely treat them as
an occasion for harmless mirth and badinage.
Whether, however, the tea-leaves be
consulted seriously or in mere sport and
love of amusement, the methods set forth in
succeeding chapters should be carefully
followed, and the significations of the
pictures and symbols formed in the cup
scrupulously accepted as correct, for
reasons which are explained in a subsequent
chapter.
Reading Tea Leaves |
