Divination by means of small bones or dice.
I used to enjoy the feeling of being had by psychics and soothsayers promising glimpses into my future through palmreading or other bodily review. The act of consulting (and paying) someone to tell you your future is an open joke, I think. Still, there is a comfort and even reassurance in hearing a kindly voice offer encouraging news from the future.
I recall with bemusement a night in college when a friend and I tried to see into our futures with a Ouija board. I don’t recall what my friend’s questions were but I asked the Ouija (silently) where I was going to live after college. Only I knew the question as my friend and I placed the tips of our fingers on the planchette and waited for mystical adumbration to ensue.
At first the planchette moved to L, then Y. Then it went to H, then back to Y. Then it went back and forth over a dozen times between N and Y. At first we asked what "LYHYNYNY" might mean, until we noted that the planchette seemed to have settled in on NYNYNY, moving confidently between those 2 letters for many passes until we lifted our hands from the object.
The LY and the HY must have been warm-ups, we decided. The planchette had moved very slowly to those letters, but then very quickly and confidently between the N and the Y.
The Ouija, we decided, said I would live in New York, NY.
And I do.
