tea-leaves may be consulted once a day, and many of the minor happenings
of life foreseen with considerable accuracy, according to the skill
in discerning the symbols and the intuition required to interpret
them which may be possessed by the seer. Adepts like the Highland
peasant-women can and do foretell events that subsequently occur,
and that with remarkable accuracy. Practice and the acquirement of a
knowledge of the signification of the various symbols is all that is
necessary in order to become proficient and to tell one's fortune and
that of one's friends with skill and judgment.

There is, of course, a scientific reason for all forms of divination
practised without hope or promise of reward. Each person carries in
himself his own Destiny. Events do not happen to people by chance, but
are invariably the result of some past cause. For instance, in the
last years a man becomes a soldier who had never intended to pursue a
military career. This does not happen to him by chance, but because
of the prior occurrence of la European war in which his country was
engaged. The outbreak of war is similarly the result of other causes,
none of which happened by chance, but were founded by still remoter
occurrences. It is the same with the Future. That which a person does
today as a result of something that happened in the past, will in its
turn prove the cause of something that will happen at some future date.
The mere act of doing something today sets in motion forces that in
process of time will inevitably bring about some entirely unforeseen
event.

This event is not decreed by Fate or Providence, but by the person who
by the committal of some act unconsciously compels the occurrence of
some future event which he does not foresee. In other words, a man
decrees his own destiny and shapes his own ends by his actions, whether