Reading the signs...

Do you think it’s possible to foretell the future? It was once a commonly held belief that you could. Back in the 1660’s William Lilly would foretell the future by observation of the patterns and pictures in the clouds, cloud scrying he called it. As you know I look at the pictures in the clouds all the time but I’ve never tried to tell the future with them – perhaps I may start. Then again, if the future is as dark as the storm that I saw across the sea to Harlech this afternoon maybe it would be better if I didn't.

I’ve never been to a fortune teller. My daughter Cloe has though, a few times. She tells me that her fortune teller is ‘fantastic’ – her words not mine. Madame… lets call her Madame X, has told Cloe about her past, her present, and her future. I wonder how she does it?

I have no interest in knowing what the future has in store for me – well, when I say no interest, of course I’m interested, but… well the future can be a scary place, particularly as it begins to run out for you, and you could get to know when that will be and I don’t think that I really want to know when that is – who would?

I do like to know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow though, and next week, even next month, and I guess that’s predicting the future of a kind. I’m sure that in the middle-ages Sian Lloyd would have been burnt as a witch and Michael Fish would have been heralded as High Court Alchemist. Rather a sexist attitude towards precognition, but then the Middle Ages can hardly be described as a liberated period in our history.

And what about seismologists? The ones that predict earthquakes (or at least try), aren’t they predicting the future? They are beginning to be able to predict when the earthquakes are coming, it could save thousands of lives when they perfect it – and that has to be a good thing doesn’t it? Financial analysts, doctors, traffic forecasting units, even system gamblers - they all in their own way are trying to read their own brand of tea leaf in order to work out what the future looks like in their own particular tea cup.

Is what they are doing so very different from the Tarot card readers, or the rune casters, or the Delphi Oracle staring long and hard into the entrails of a gutted goat? Isn’t it all about reading the patterns and applying those patterns to the situation?

Climatologists all over the world are building models based around the patterns that have warmed and cooled our earth for millions of years in an attempt to predict what our climatic future looks like. Computers are now so powerful that it is possible in theory to input enough data, financial, historical, medical, cultural, political, run a program, analyse the patterns, and predict the future situation – NASA do this all the time to predict potential faults with their missions.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the US Government has a ‘Nostadamus’ computer hidden deep inside a bunker under the Arizona desert. Perhaps it’s trying to predict who will win the next world-series, or when the next killer hurricane will hit New Orleans, or even who will be the first woman president. On the other hand, the UK equivalent, ‘Old Mother Shipton’, somewhere deep inside a flyover in Milton Keynes, is probably working on the price of French grown tea in 2030, Wimbledon winners for the next five years (Federer, Federer, Federer, Federer, Murray) and which MP’s are going to get away with fiddling their expenses (next time around).

Data and patterns – that’s all we need.

Perhaps that’s what Cloe’s fortune teller is doing, reading the patterns of Cloe’s speech, mannerisms, reactions and comparing and predicting from data she’s gathered from a lifetime’s experience. Perhaps she’s simply reading Cloe’s patterns and applying them to Cloe’s situation. Maybe she doesn’t even know that she’s doing it.

Alternatively, perhaps she really can see into the future.

One day science and technology will give us the means of looking into the future without the need for entrails, axes, or mystical stones. We’ve already begun to become techno-seers with our modelling, forecasting, analysing, and diagnosing. One day we might be able to access a website and find out what life has in store for us today, next week, next year, in five years time, when we are ninety – IF we will become ninety.

What a scary thought.

ALECTRYOMANCY, divination through birds
ALEUROMANCY, divination with flour
ALPHITOMANCY, divination using a leaf of barley
AMNIOMANCY, divination by means of the caul
ANTHROPOMANCY, divination by using human entrails
ARITHMANCY, divination by numbers
ASTROLOGY, divination by the movement of the planets
AXINOMANCY, divination by axe
BELOMANCY, divination by arrows
BIBLIOMANCY, divination using a book
BILLETTESTOMANCY, divination via an envelope
CARTOPEDY, divination by feet
CELONTESOMANCY, divination by mystical stone
CEROSCOPY, divination by wax on water
CLEDONIMANCY, divination by use of words
CLEIDOMANCY, divination by use of a suspended key
CLOUD SCRYING, divination by the clouds
COSCINOMANCY, divination practised with a sieve
CRITOMANCY, divination by cakes
CRYSTAL GAZING, divination by use of a crystal, often a ball
CURSED BREAD, divination with bread
DACTYLOMANCY, divination with rings
DAPHNOMANCY, divination with laurel branches
OVUMANCY, divination using eggs
EROMANCY, divination using air and water
GYROMANCY, divination by going round in circles
HEPATOSCOPY, divination of entrails
LAMPADOMANCY, divination using a lamp
LECANOMANCY, divination by throwing stones into water
LYCHNOMANCY, divination by candle flame
MOLYBDOMANCY, divination by dropping metal into water
MYOMANCY, divination involving rats
OMPHALOMANCY, divination by the navel
ONIMANCY, divination by observation of the angel Uriel
ONYCHOMANCY, divination by fingernails
ORNITHOMANCY, divination by birds
PALMISTRY, divination by the patterns and lines of the palm
PESSOMANCY, divination with beans
PHRENOLOGY, divination by the reading bumps on a skull
PHYLLORHODOMANCY, divination with rose leaves
TASSEOMANCY, divination by the reading of tea leaves