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I was born of the 15th of the month. And I discovered recently that people like me who are born on the 15th tend to consult fortune tellers.
Who told me this? Why, a fortune teller, of course. Or, more specifically, a numerologist.
When Peter, my numerologist, noted my birthday, he remarked straight away that he was not the first person I consulted. He did not have to ask. He knew. He was right.
Some months later, I asked a friend who shared the same birthday as I.
I was not as sure as the numerologist. So I asked instead of making a statement. I was right. My friend did see a few.
Strange, huh?
The swimmer
The strangest story about fortune telling that I ever come across is this:
Once, a man was told by a fortune teller that he would die by drowning. He did not believe. For he was a strong swimmer.
In the end, he did die at a relatively young age. He had a motorcycle accident and fell into a drain as a result of it. He was unconscious. He drowned in two inches of water.
Strange, huh?
Whether or not my interest in such matters was due to my birthday, I can never say for sure. All I can say is that Peter was spot on about most of the things he said about me. He could even tell what my numbers were. When he learnt that I used to live in a house whose address was Block 8, #04-08, he said with full confidence, "Your name must be an eight."
True enough when he wrote out my full name and calculated the numbers it added to 8.
Every one else I consulted was also generally spot on.
Around the time my wife and I were splitting up, we went separately to consult a palm reader. We went about six weeks apart and we never told him we were related. Yet he told both of us exactly the same thing - that our marriage had "died" 10 years ago.
Strange huh?
Tarot reader
Also around that time, I was in the US and chanced upon a Tarot card reader at a bookshop. I asked for a general reading, without mentioning about difficulties in my marriage. By the second or third card, she already knew. Well, maybe she knew from the start. But as she flipped the cards, she began to describe in detail the exact nature of my difficulties.
According to one feng shui man - whom I consulted while choosing my new house after my wife and I had separated - the environment for those marriage difficulties had been with me from birth! I was born in, and lived the first 33 years of my life, in a house facing North-east. Then my wife and I bought our own house, also facing North-East.
Such a facing, the feng shui man said, favoured intellectual development - which is true, I tended to be intellectual - and could lead to marital difficulties if other supporting elements were missing. It did not help that my second house stood on atop a hill and did not have any backing.
The man already knew I was separated, sceptics would point out. Yes. But those statements he made about North-East facing were statements of general principles. He was not trying to "read my fortune".
This man's teacher was even more remarkable. Once, I had asked him to do a feng shui reading for my shop, and he brought along his teacher from China who happened to be in town. The teacher wore very thick glasses and is nearly blind. He has to be guided when walking. Yet he took one look at my face and told me all about my life situation.
I cannot remember now what exactly he had said. But I remember that it upsetted me considerably. Because what he said was absolutely true. It was the sort of truth that hurt. This man was practically blind. Yet he could "see".
Strange, huh?
A temple in India
Probably the most internationally famous of "fortune tellers" is not a person but a place - a temple in India. This temple has a library of ancient texts written on leaves. Go there, give them your birth data, and they will retrieve your personal leaf, with the story of your life all written out - your past, present and future.
I have not been there myself, but I have met at least five people who had. They all said the same thing - that it was amazingly, uncannily accurate, down to specific details like the exact names of your family members and partners.
How they get the names of Chinese, Americans, Europeans and others when the text are written in an Indian language, I don't understand.
Well, lots more things I don't understand. Like how do they keep the records of 7 billion people on earth? Seven billion leaves is a lot! How long did it take to write on them? In fact, it's a lot more if you count all the people who lived previously plus those who will live in the future.
Perhaps, since this temple "knows" everybody's life history, it will also know who will turn up and it only has their records?
Strange, huh?