Talk:Fortune-telling/Archive 1

Vandalism
I think sometimes fortune tellers are good at there job, but why is it that many people dont believe half the stuff there told?... maybe it is because they think it is unreal, but if people cant believe in it then it may seem unrealistic...

Graffiti/vandalism on main page should probably be reverted by a registered user.

Fortune Telling is not a pseudo science
Why is this classified as a pseudo science? that makes no sense. There is nothing in fortune telling that suggests that it is a form of science, pseudo or otherwise. it belongs in another category, such as magic or the occult, or divination. pseudo science is a slanderous term that certain wiki users label anything paranormal, mystical or religious with. to call it pseudo-science is uneducated and biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.103.42.81 (talk) 15:42, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. There is a sort of campaign on Wikipedia, ill-guided in my opinion, of militant rational skepticism which brands anything that is connected with spiritualism, religion, transcendance or occultism as "pseudoscience". This is very much a misapplication of the term "pseudoscience", which should be strictly reserved for publications that purport to be science. A shaman beating a drum is not "pseudoscience", it is a shaman beating a drum. The same holds for divination,  and other occult or spiritist practices the world over. --dab (𒁳) 09:00, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Took out pseudo-science
There are things in life that no science can explain.I believe that fortune telling exists,necause its one of the oldest human being practise ever.And did you know about the Napoleon "Fortune Code"?? When Napoleon Bonaparte was in the great pyramids of Egypt, he discovered a way of finding fortune.And this really works!! He translated it from Ancient hyrogriphis to "dots" we can say...In my opinion,Fortune telling exists,although there are people who lie your fortune and take a lot of money for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.42.21.53 (talk) 15:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think most scientists would have any problems with the role that fortune tellers play in Chinese business/society once they understood their cultural role.

This is personal observation/research so I can't include it in the wiki, but fortune tellers provide some non-determinism which is useful. If you try to figure out what stock to buy through a deterministic algorithm, then you'll buy the same stock as everyone else who uses the same algorithm, and you'll lose your shirt when the market bubble pops. If everyone consults their fortune-tellers, and the fortune-tellers consult the spirits, the spirits will give everyone a different answer about what stock to buy. The result is that by consulting the spirits (i.e. using a non-determinstic random algorithm) you actually make better business decisions.

The reason for invoking spirits, fate, and luck is that this gives the fortune teller moral authority to make a decision stick. One thing that I've seen is Western businesses waste endless resources trying to decide Burham's ass type problems. Fortune tellers provide a way out.

Roadrunner 14:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I erased the term "Furtune telling is so fucked-up no one knows what they are talking about" User:theguys 17:00, 24 September 2006

I would like to see more source material on this topic. --TheMadChild 17:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Most scientists, or indeed rationalists, materialists and atheists, would have less problems with the role of religion and spiritualism in their own cultures if they could live up to their ideals of rationalism and abstract their judgements from their own cultural biases. If they would do that, western religion and occultism would seem no different to them than any other practice in any other culture and they could appreciate it for their anthropological and cultural importance without feeling compelled to counter-punch against it all the time any more than they feel compelled to publish diatribes against Siberian shamanism. --dab (𒁳) 09:04, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

This is not the place to note criticisms of any/all religion or mystical practices. This is the place to discuss fortune telling, whit at is, its history, and so on. Criticisms are covered in plenty of other articles, and nor relevant, in the same way that Christian attitudes towards other religions are not relevant in articles on those other religions. Graidan (talk) 18:38, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Is anyone else interested in developing this article?
This article has sat around for quite a while with a major portion in non-standard English and with no sources. I have done a quick cleanup and established parallel development of the Western and Eastern sections, but there is no time for me to add sources tonight. If anyone is interested in developing this page, please post here. I have a collection of books on fortune-telling and would be glad to contribute more if the interest is there.

I am also of the opinion that the Scientific evaluation section is far too long for an article of this brevity -- it unbalances the piece and looks like another case of the big SCICOPS/sceptic tail wagging the little occult dog, as has been seen in many other Wikipedia articles that deal with spirituality, paranormality, and mysticism. If the article were longer, the "scienific" section would not stand out so prominently, but right now i looks like it was intended to derogate the topic, acting as a slap in the face of those who are interested in the topic and/or believe in or utilize fortune-telling in their daily lives.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.142.90.32 09:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC) (talk • contribs)
 * About the science stuff, anything is fair game. Though in this article, it is ironic that the scientific section doesn't sound very scientific at all.  Benjwong 01:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, it is not "sceintific" in the least, and so, per your comment, the heading "Scientific theories" has been changed to "Opposing theories" -- a more accurate description. How does that sit with you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.142.90.32 22:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC) (talk • contribs)

Eastern/Western Dichotomy removed; making room for other cultures
I woke up this morning with the realization that the article, in the state found by me yesterday, contains a dichotomy between "Western" and "Eastern" methods of fortune-telling that reflects a fairly dysfunctional division of information. The sections actually deal with Eurepean and Euro-American fortune-telling on the one hand and Asian fortune-telling on the other hand. There are no sections on, for instance, African fortune-telling, Native American fortune-telling, or Indian fortune-telling. As the subject is world-wide in scope, and the world simply does not cleave into "Eastern" and "Western" halves, culture-wise, this seems like a good time for me to change the headings, with the intention of returning later to write a brief overview of African fortune-telling, its major methods, and the role of it plays in African society. This will also allow me to explain why so many different and non-European methods are now popular among Americans, with their diverse cultural backgrounds.

If anyone is interested in cooperating on the development of this article, please post here. Thanks!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.142.90.32  18:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC) (talk • contribs)
 * It would be great if you just add a separate African or Native American section. This article is pretty wide open.  If anything it is more of a central link to all the fortune telling methods.  Benjwong 01:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I will open up the African section tonight, from my knowledge and memory, as yet unsourced (note to self: check that collection edited by Middleton). I am not informed enough to write a Native American section. I hope someone else does that. This article has a long way to go before it becomes truly encyclopedic.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.142.90.32 03:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC) (talk • contribs)
 * Are you sure the African methods are fortune telling? It looks more like divination. Benjwong 02:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I personally believe that disctinctions between "divination" and "fortune telling" are articifical and culture-bound, and i do not subscribe to them. On the wikiedia divination page there is a batch of what i consider to be very weak and unconvincing reasoning that describes divination as a formal ritual and fortune telling as a casual "everyday" sort of divination. I consider that attempt to draw a firm line between the two terms to be little more than unsupported blather. You mileage may vary. cat yronwode Catherineyronwode (talk) 00:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Quote-farm pruning and ESO fixes
I want to thank whoever took the time to add extensive material on the business of fortune-telling in North America. I regretfully pruned a lot of it off, leaving the choicest parts. The pruning was necessitated by the fact that it had become overly long and, in addition, the persons quoted are just "man-in-the-street" interviewees who happen to be "psychics" (only one of many branches of fortune telling). I also fixed up the English language usage of a recent Chinese contributor. Hope this helps! --cat yronwode Catherineyronwode (talk) 07:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Organization of topics
This article has suffered from random additions which have led to content forking and lack of coherence. I have reorganized it in what i believe to be a more coherent format. I have also pruned back the content forking "opposing theories" section. cat yronwode, not logged in, sorry... 64.142.90.33 (talk) 05:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Small syntax error
to what they are doing (and thus delude themselves

the parentheses in this phrase (1st paragraph) has no matching closing parentheses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.153.226.168 (talk) 19:01, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

definition of fortune-telling
Fortune-telling is "the act or practice of predicting the future," per both dictionary.com and wiktionary. I changed the definition in the lede to reflect this, but it got reverted to a dubious un-sourced definition. Any thoughts?--Other Choices (talk) 06:41, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
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Assessment comment
Substituted at 14:48, 1 May 2016 (UTC)