LURE OF THE FUTURE

Evening Star, Issue 19020, 15 August 1925, Page 19

LURE OF THE FUTURE

QUACK SOUL DOCTORS THE CRAVING FOR FLATTERY From the beginning of time mankind has been interested in every kind of device intended to reveal to the eyes of the beholder his personality, ins future, and his past (writes W. L. George, in the ‘Sunday Chronicle'). Palmistry, astrology, crystal gazing—ali this is as old as the proverbial billsPerhaps for thirty centuries the East has been fixing a drop of China ink into the palm of a joung girl and bidding you look at this dark mirror there to see yoursolf as you are and ns you may bo. For just as long men have sought in the stars some indication of their destiny, and in ancient Egypt, as in London of to-day, people have declared themselves learned in the lines of the hand. Omens have been found in playing cards, in the grounds of coffee, just as the Roman augurs found them in animals slaughtered as a sacrifice to the goda. NEW LINKS. Now we are in the twentieth century in a period of telephones and card indexes, and yet we not only maintain the old links with the infinite, but wo have forged new ones. We have discovered telepathy, we have given to Spiritualism a vast development, and in our midst thousands of people flourish and make money in thcse_ strange ways. While the old religions ’are questioned, while some of the churches empty while others receive new recruits fleeing from materialism, the quack doctors of the sou! stand and increase. It is as if mankind could not bear a state of things where everything is understood and every form of knowledge can be found in_ the text book. In other words, while the old faiths decay superstition increases because it offers an outlet to the need for mvstical communion that we all reel. That, I believe, is a largo part of the explanation. People are far too fond or talking of idle and hysterical women who pay their guinea to a palmist because thev have nothing better to do. jW is only, part of the story j in

fact, when you go to a fortune teller you are doing something very human, and it seems" to me preposterous that fortune tellers should bo prosecuted. Even supposing that they tell lies, we do not regularly prosecute all the people who obtain money by telling lies; why, a number of people called novelists and dramatists are allowed to make largo fortunes, not only by telling lies, but by boldly proclaiming that their works arc fiction!

In fact, our prejudice in favor of lies is so strong that wo sue our novelists for libel if wo find out that one of their characters is a real person. Fortune tolling, whether by the hand, by the crystal, or any other method, may be a' childish amusement or may be "a bad influence, but it is not very important, and the police would be better occupied in catching thieves than in chasing shadows. However, the present state of the law has this advantage: it enables us to find out one of the strands of the rope which draws so many of us to the fortune teller; the police have made_ fortune tolling so risky that it is npt easy to discover anyone _ who for a brief hour will open the window and allow you to look out upon tomorrow.

Therefore the great majority of palmists, crystal-gazers, etc., to whom can be added phrenologists and hand-writ-ing exports, refuse to tel) your fortune. Instead they reveal your past and analyse your character.

FORETOLD FREE. \ What does this meanp At first sight one might think that no one would pay anything between a shilling and five guineas lor a statement of their past, as to which they surely must be well informed, or for details of their temperament; indeed, it ought not to interest anyone to be told that four years ago they had a serious illness or that they are of an impulsive nature. Yet people do go to fortune tellers for that and no more; I ought to add that some fortune tellers get over the law by making a charge for character reading and then revealing the future for nothing. I came across one who would not tell my fortune, but who sold mo a bottle of scent and then, without payment, exposed my destiny. -However, most of the practitioner.' of these arts do not find it necessary to _go so far. They make a sufficient living by revealing character. The season is obvious enough, JYhj fa i

that so many scores of millions of people practise confession? Why does the Church of England number a growing section which is practising confessionf Why do so many rich people send for their doctor every day? Because the doctor and the priest are the only people who will allow you to talk endlessly of yourself; because they are interested in your soul or your body; because they will talk of you, you, you! There is the secret which draws you into a stuffy little parlor often inhabited by a fat old woman all ringlets and brooches, or places you _in the hands of a man whose education doss not fit him to bo your friend. Yet you will beg that queer stranger to become as Intimate as possible with your past life and your present being. _ There is the root of modern superstitions; they satisfy our demand that we should be made important. ALL IS POSSIBLE. Few of us are important in our borne or our office; for a small sum we can become the centre of the world, for that we shall have our thoughts understood and palliated. The psychometrist says; “You have a strong will, but you should beware of being led away by your generous impulses . ._ . you have an artistic nature which would develop properly in favorable surroundings . . . you are one of the people who are not easily understood.” How delicious! So strong, generous, sensitive, mysterious. Aud yet all this so well guarded that one must say: “How true.” It is perhaps not untrue; I am not prepared to say that every person who for money reveals character or the past is a fraud. Ido not know. I have had several astounding experiences. _ Had tilings said to me which were intimately true. It is hard to believe in the powers of these frowsy folk, and yet all is possible.