The Intriguing Practice of Fortune-Telling
In my crystal ball, I spy a look into your future that seems bright. Or did you prefer to call in for a tv card reading? The art of fortune telling is an art form that has been practiced since 4000 BC. For a practice that has been with us for over 6000 years, it is weird to notice that there is so much skepticism towards it. Questions arise like; “How is it done?” “Is it factual?” or “What does it mean?” Answering these types of questions will be too difficult to do in a blogpost. However, it is possible to look into why people are so fascinated in the idea of fortune-telling.
Fortune-telling is a practice that comes in many shapes and forms. Some more known forms of it are scrying (the crystal ball), cartomancy (cards and tarot cards), and chiromancy/palmistry (shape and lines in the hands). However, since the practice is so old there are many other less known ways of fortune telling. Some examples being pyromancy, nephomancy, parrot astrology, and onomancy. These examples being fortune-telling practices of: fire, shapes of clouds, parakeet picking tarot cards, and names. Even dreams, a subject whose meaning has been hypothesized and discussed over years, has a form of fortune-telling named oneiromancy.
But why are we so intrigued in fortune-telling? According to Rui (2022), who researched the topic of horoscopes, there are two reasons why people are so intrigued in the practice of fortune-telling. These two reasons being the Barnum effect and the locus of control.
The Barnum effect, created by Bertram Forer, is a psychological phenomenon that states that individuals give higher accuracy ratings to descriptions that seem tailored towards them individually. However, in reality, these descriptions are vague and general enough to apply to a broad range of people. Therefore, individuals who have had experiences with fortune-telling could have been affected by the Barnum effect, which causes a positive view for fortune-telling. This positive view then makes people more likely to become more intrigued with fortune-telling.
The locus of control, more specifically the external locus of control, is also a reason why people can be more intrigued in fortune-telling. The external locus of control focuses on the fact that situational variables are more influenced by the outside environment than by the person themselves. Individuals that have an external locus of control also tend to be more intrigued in fortune-telling, as it is seen as a factor of the outside environment.
Thus, we humans are intrigued by fortune-telling because it may seem accurate and allows us to give reasoning for some outcomes that occur. Therefore, I would advise you to read your horoscope the morning of your test. If you then fail, it wasn’t because you forgot to study, instead it was because your horoscope said “the flow of your knowledge would be blocked by the shade of the moon”.
