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So earlier this year, my dad came back to visit me in Vietnam. We have some distant cousins who live nearby to where I live but I dont bother to visit because I don't know them. Moving on, one of my cousins married someone who can do fortune telling. Here, people are super duper superstitious about everything (anywhere that has money as in cash register, etc has bulbs of garlic to ward off bad spirits).
On my dad's recommendation, I drive an hour just to get there with my wife. We get to the house and it's more a mini temple than a real house. She's got a big statue of buddha, murals lining the walls and chanting playing on the speakers. The whole shebang. First thing, we introduce ourselves and all that. Next she asks us to write our names and date of birth, I'm guessing a mix of astrology, some palm reading mixed in. Well not to delve too deeply into the specifics, she says when's a good time to have a kid, what months are bad luck, will business be good/bad, and all that jazz. She also describes our past, persoanlities, etc but since we're young, not too much there. Apparantly, my dad had a lot more said to him.
On our way back, my wife and I give our impressions on what she says. Overall, I think it's alright, hit and miss. My wife wasn't too keen on it either. Anyways, one of the bad months she told me beforehand happened to coincide with when I lost my laptop.
TL:DR - I don't believe in "knowing" or predicting the future because I want to determine my own destiny. But it's interesting to hear anyways.
 
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Calgary25997 Posts
I went to a fortune teller once in Korea. It was $5, but the lady wanted to charge me $10 to have my friend translate to English.
Fuck that. I walked out. I'm not paying foreigner tax.
That's my one experience with fortune telling.
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Anyways, one of the bad months she told me beforehand happened to coincide with when I lost my laptop.
Counting the hits and ignoring the misses  I'm sure in any of the "bad" months, you could have thought about something pretty good that happened, or something bad. It's a lot like horoscopes, where the answers are so generic or broad that you find your own meaning because you're looking hard for meaning. Fortunately, you don't seem to be as gullible as some other people. Cold reading + broad statements + counting the hits and ignoring the misses = convincing enough for most superstitious people to throw away their money.
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Here's an interesting insight: fortune telling and the like are 'passive' activities. They're not you doing anything, they're about stuff happening to you. Good/bad luck, happiness/pain etc. They don't give you anything to work on, with, or towards, just moot "well this is gonna happen, :/ ". In fact then, they're not very empowering, as there's precisely nothing you can do to change 'how things will be' , so why bother? "If this bad stuff was gonna happen to me, well, it was gonna happen, that wierdo lady said so. Oh if imma fall into wealth, it will happen, so why bother working towards it? "Lol then how does that coincide with 'karma' ?
Then there's a different type of spiritual focus, those which are 'active'. "Take heed before that bad stuff gets the best of you! Take strength and courage, to prepare yourself for a hard time ahead, so that you are not defeated." This type IMO does not lead to withdrawn defeatism (there's nothing I can do, why bother), but rather is conducive to development, maturity and growth. It gives you a framework to work at being a better person. Why wouldn't you want that instead?
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Yea fortune tellers aren't real. They have no powers. People who believe in that stuff are generally uneducated.
"Have you lost someone you have loved and has it left an emotional scar?"
They ask questions like the one above that almost everyone can answer.
"Yes, my uncle died recently."; "Yes my gilfriend dumped me", "Yes my cat ran away".
Your cousin married someone that is giving people false hope. Therefore she is a bad person and a giant douche.
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On September 07 2012 03:15 Smancer wrote:
Yea fortune tellers aren't real. They have no powers. People who believe in that stuff are generally uneducated.
"Have you lost someone you have loved and has it left an emotional scar?"
They ask questions like the one above that almost everyone can answer.
"Yes, my uncle died recently."; "Yes my gilfriend dumped me", "Yes my cat ran away".
Your cousin married someone that is giving people false hope. Therefore she is a bad person and a giant douche.
On September 07 2012 03:15 Smancer wrote:Therefore she is a bad person and a giant douche.
One could say the same about you 
Can't really judge someone based on almost no information, or even a ton of information most of the time for that matter.
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On September 07 2012 03:30 Jonoman92 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2012 03:15 Smancer wrote:
Yea fortune tellers aren't real. They have no powers. People who believe in that stuff are generally uneducated.
"Have you lost someone you have loved and has it left an emotional scar?"
They ask questions like the one above that almost everyone can answer.
"Yes, my uncle died recently."; "Yes my gilfriend dumped me", "Yes my cat ran away".
Your cousin married someone that is giving people false hope. Therefore she is a bad person and a giant douche. Show nested quote +On September 07 2012 03:15 Smancer wrote:Therefore she is a bad person and a giant douche. One could say the same about you Can't really judge someone based on almost no information, or even a ton of information most of the time for that matter.
Sorry, I was failing at referencing the South Park Episode about John Edwards.
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Hmm.
I have done fortune telling, of a sort. Not for money, and not seriously - because really, it's a crap shoot, there's no science involved unless you do cold reading based on statistics, and for the most part because if such an ability exists, it can't possibly be good enough to get me the winning lottery numbers for tomorrow.
Mostly, using various tarot card decks. (There is a game played with tarot cards, but it's pretty arcane of rules and I never did bother to learn the ins and outs.) Here's the thing... there are "traditional" interpretations, but for the most part you don't use them. You look at the picture, and speak in generalities about what you think the card means in this case. (There's only one "bad" card in any tarot deck, and it is universally "bad" - the Tower.) In reality, you can tell fortunes and say sooth without any kind of props... and astrology, cards, palms are all props. For the most part, what you're really doing is integrating verbal and non-verbal cues along with any innate understanding of human nature to spin a nice long line of BS. As others have mentioned, the vast majority of people that actually remember fortunes focus on the good things, and the things that hit the mark. The cloud of generality, and those places where it's wrong... not so much. In a more rural environment, a fortune teller may be a traditional post which is generally just giving people good advice. "Good" months to have kids could just be traditionally decent months, "bad" months could likewise be a read on cyclical trends, business... well, insurance is paid to tell the future about business but have better methods.
As for if any kind of prophecy might have any basis in reality? I dunno. I don't think there is any convincing evidence for it. But I bear in mind that the brain has biological structures that can possibly interface with the universe on a quantum level, and there's some spooky stuff in quantum physics. Other than that... canny manipulations of expectations, perception of general trends, some hearth psychology, and enough coincidence to shake a stick at can account for most of it.
Then again, some people believe that you can ask invisible people for favors and not call it witchcraft.
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my girlfriends grandma was a fortune teller. she was quite popular in the zion, ill. area. she wouldn't use tarot cards because she believed that shit was for the devil, instead she used regular playing cards.
she told my gf who was 14-15 at the time that her first car would be a red sports car. my gf always wanted a jeep and never would have thought of a sports car. so when she turned 16 there was a lady down the street who made a really good offer on a red miata. my gf bought it and that was her red sports car.
also she told me a story that her grandma told her sister she would meet the love of her life who drove a blue compact and also enjoyed movies. well turns out the video store she goes to, the clerk would always hit on her and finally got her to go on a date. when he came to pick her up she noticed he was driving a blue compact lol. they married and have 4 kids one who is in college.
i dont believe in a lot of that shit, but with her grandma she was something really special.
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EPT
