Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves | Page 7

it is that the symbols would be
right in their verdict, and you would be wrong.
It is usually easier to prophesy smooth things rather than unpleasant
facts, but to do this in the face of obvious contradictions will lead to
disaster in foretelling the future.
Divination by tea-leaves or cards has the candour to be frankly
disagreeable when necessary. This is one great argument in favour of
its unerring truthfulness. There is no means by which symbols may be
coaxed into proclaiming false statements.
The most practised clairvoyant may occasionally make mistakes in her
reading of the symbols, but no genuine seer should ever deliberately
give a wrong interpretation of them to please her consultant. The
business of the diviner is to give what she believes to be a correct and
unprejudiced translation of the symbols before her.
It is sometimes a vexed question as to what extent information of a

gloomy nature, which may appear in a divination, should be given to a
client. Some are in favour of withholding such matter altogether, whilst
others announce it frankly without modification. It seems impossible to
lay down any hard and fast rule. There are so many things to be taken
into account, and each case should be treated on its merits and
according to its peculiar circumstances. There are some who would fret
themselves ill at the least mention of coming misfortune, others would
be the better prepared to meet it by having been warned of its approach.
One rule can be safely made for guidance on this point. Do not
minimise danger when a timely warning may avert an accident, or other
misfortune, nor should symbols of ill omen be exaggerated. As students
become proficient, they will find many meanings in the tea-leaves in
addition to those which they learn from this book. Much will depend
upon circumstances and individual temperaments.
These personally discovered meanings should be carefully noted and
verified with events as they occur.
It is necessary to remember that divination by the tea-cup is by no
means limited to personal information. Forthcoming public events are
frequently revealed. This adds largely to the interest and usefulness of
the divination. It is important to point out this to consultants, so that
they may not be too ready to fix the whole reading of their cups to
purely personal matters. It will be found that public news is usually
foretold in the cups of those who seek information of the future as a
regular practice.
For those who rarely do so, private affairs alone will appear, probably
without even a forecast of the weather to be expected within the next
few days.
It is a curious fact that the wider knowledge should seem to be reserved
for those who practise divination constantly, but so it is.
Some remarkable instances of the accurate foretelling of public events,
which have quite recently been brought to my notice, may be
interesting.

For some weeks before the coal strike of 1920 was declared, a pickaxe
was seen on several occasions in the cups of two persons, both of
whom read their tea-leaves regularly. This symbol, as will be seen in
the dictionary which follows, stands for "labour trouble and strikes." A
spade was also in evidence at intervals, a further sign of "trouble and
unrest." So that it was through no fault of the tea-leaves if some of us
were not in the superior position of knowing all about the strike before
it came to pass.
The symbols already mentioned would of course apply equally to
railway disturbance, and some time before the threat of a strike was
announced, these symbols appeared again, together with an engine, and
a signal at the angle of "Danger." This seemed ominous. But within a
few days the signal was evident once more; but on this occasion set at
"All Clear." So it was easy to decide that the threatened strike would
not take place. The accuracy of this prediction by means of the
tea-leaves was shortly afterwards made evident.
Again, a week before there seemed to be even a hope of a settlement of
the coal strike, a mining shaft presented itself in one of the tea-cups
which had previously been indicating the strike. This symbol appeared
at the top of the cup standing out clearly by itself, evidently predicting
the miners' return to work within a short time. There was no need to
depend upon information from the newspapers as to the end of the
strike, for here in the tea-leaves was all necessary evidence of the fact.
Another very remarkable instance of symbolism was given to me by a
friend a short time ago. On Monday morning, October 26th, 1920, the
three following symbols appeared in her cup:--
A vulture resting on a rock. An