The best kind of tea to use if tea-cup
reading is to be followed is undoubtedly
China tea, the original tea imported into
this country and still the best for all
purposes. Indian tea and the cheaper
mixtures contain so much dust and so many
fragments of twigs and stems as often to be
quite useless for the purposes of
divination, as they will not combine to form
pictures, or symbols clearly to be
discerned.
The best shape of cup to employ is one with
a wide opening at the top and a bottom not
too small. Cups with almost perpendicular
sides are very difficult to read, as the
symbols cannot be seen properly, and the
same may be said of small cups. A
plain-surfaced breakfast-cup is perhaps the
best to use; and the interior should be
white and have no pattern printed upon it,
as this confuses the clearness of the
picture presented by the leaves, as does any
fluting or eccentricity of shape.
The ritual to be observed is very simple.
The tea-drinker should drink the contents of
his or her cup so as to leave only about
half a teaspoonful of the beverage
remaining. He should next take the cup by
the handle in his left hand, rim upwards,
and turn it three times from left to right
in one fairly rapid swinging movement. He
should then very slowly and carefully invert
it over the saucer and leave it there for a
minute, so as to permit of all moisture
draining away.
If he approaches the oracle at all seriously
he should during the whole of these
proceedings concentrate his mind upon his
future Destiny, and 'will' that the symbols
forming under the guidance of his hand and
arm (which in their turn are, of course,
directed by his brain) shall correctly
represent what is destined to happen to him
in the future.
If, however, he or she is not in such deadly
earnest, but merely indulging in a harmless
pastime, such an effort of concentration
need not be made. The 'willing' is, of
course, akin to 'wishing' when cutting the
cards in another time-honored form of
fortune-telling.
The cup to be read should be held in the
hand and turned about in order to read the
symbols without disturbing them, which will
not happen if the moisture has been properly
drained away. The handle of the cup
represents the consultant and is akin to the
'house' in divination by the cards. By this
fixed point judgment is made as to events
approaching the 'house' of the consultant,
journeys away from home, messages or
visitors to be expected, relative distance,
and so forth. The advantage of employing a
cup instead of a saucer is here apparent.
'The bottom of the cup represents the
remoter future foretold; the side events not
so far distant; and matters symbolized near
the rim those that may be expected to occur
quickly. The nearer the symbols approach the
handle in all three cases the nearer to
fulfillment will be the events
prognosticated.
If this simple ritual has been correctly
carried out the tea-leaves, whether many or
few, will be found distributed about the
bottom and sides of the cup. The fortune may
be equally well told whether there are many
leaves or few; but of course there must be
some, and therefore the tea should not have
been made in a pot provided with one of the
patent arrangements that stop the leaves
from issuing from the spout when the
beverage is poured into the cups. There is
nothing to beat one of the plain
old-fashioned earthenware teapots, whether
for the purpose of preparing a palatable
beverage or for that of providing the means
of telling a fortune.
Reading Tea Leaves |
