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 Providence rough-hew them or not.  Now this being so, it follows that he carries his destiny with him, and the more powerful his mind and intellect the more clearly is this seen to be the case.  Therefore it is possible for a person’s mind, formed as the result of past events over which he had no control, to foresee by an effort what will occur in the future as the result of acts deliberately done.  Since it is given to but few, and that not often of intention, to see actually what is about to happen in a vision or by means of what is called the ‘second sight,’ some machinery must be provided in the form of symbols from which an interpretation of the future can be made.  It matters little what the method or nature of the symbols chosen is—­dice or dominoes, cards or tea-leaves.  What matters is that the person shaking the dice, shuffling the dominoes, cutting the cards or turning the tea-cup, is by these very acts transferring from his mind where they lie hidden even from himself the shadows of coming events which by his own actions in the past he has already predetermined shall occur in the future.  It only remains for someone to read and interpret these symbols correctly in order to ascertain something of what is likely to happen; and it is here that singleness of purpose and freedom from ulterior motives are necessary in order to avoid error and to form a true and clear judgment.

This is the serious and scientific explanation of the little-understood and less-comprehended action of various forms of divination having for their object the throwing of a little light upon the occult.  Of all these forms perhaps divination by tea-leaves is the simplest, truest, and most easily learned.  Even if the student is disinclined to attach much importance to what he sees in the cup, the reading of the tea-leaves forms a sufficiently innocent and amusing recreation for the breakfast- or tea-table; and the man who finds a lucky sign such as an anchor or a tree in his cup, or the maiden who discovers a pair of heart-shaped groups of leaves in conjunction with a ring, will be suffering no harm in thus deriving encouragement for the future, even should they attach no importance to their occurrence, but merely treat them as an occasion for harmless mirth and badinage.

Whether, however, the tea-leaves be consulted seriously or in mere sport and love of amusement, the methods set forth in succeeding chapters should be carefully followed, and the significations of the pictures and symbols formed in the cup scrupulously accepted as correct, for reasons which are explained in a subsequent chapter.

CHAPTER II