I don’t think this was made before, so here’s a topic about fortune telling! I don’t mean to discuss if it’s valid or not, just about the various ways of doing it, etc. Let’s chat about it! Say your opinions! The techniques/methods/tools you use! Share your wisdow!
To get things started, I ask you: Do you do any kind of fortune telling? Anything that you can teach us about it?
So… let’s hope this works out!
I’ve never really called it fortune telling, it’s seems really Hollywood and rip-off cold readers in fairground attractions to me.
There are several methods you can use, the pendulum. A crystal or light metal weight on the end of a chain. You always start off with a couple of “control” questions that you know the answer to to determine the “yes” and “no” answers.
I recently did this on a forum member. So far the results are correct. 
Then there’s the tarot cards. I’ve done a fair bit of tarot reading on my friends, with mixed results.
I’ve also been using a method that is kind of like dream incubation but while being awake. I work on a “topic” and try to visualise or “hear” what I am trying to learn.
Rodrigo… Since when did that stop me!?
[color=darkblue]Also, can I add that various ways of doing it are synonymous with weather it is valid or not.
If you understand how it is done, you understand how it is fake…[/color]
Let’s not get off-topic. When this topic was started, I checked to see if it could be merged into the cloud one and decided they were 2 completely different but complementary topics.
So let’s keep the validity discussion in the cloud topic 
I’m generally using tarot cards (Tarot of Marseilles). And sometimes i-king for important questions.
I used astrology sometimes ago but I don’t like it anymore. It’s too much complex for exactly the same result and you need lots of books, many years of learning, a software, etc.
By the way, I’m unable to tell all the life of somebody, or what will happen in many years, etc. I don’t like this cause it’s based upon fears and expectations. I just use this in order to reply a precise question and resolve practical problems which happen here and now. I’m using this mainly for me and sometimes for very close friends.
As an advice, I would say it has not to become a bad habit or else you’ll soon find yourself asking the tarot about the color of your socks! 
It’s too much easy to become a divination addict and to ask for answers about anything. By the way, if this happens, the answers you get will be fuzzier and fuzzier and you’ll no more understand anything.
As for me, I think it’s just a way of developing intuition, especially tarot. You have to be in the good mood, to empty your head and to listen to what your heart says. If you project something, your answer will be wrong.
As a second advice, I should say it’s better to develop a technique according to which future events depend on the behavior. Divination is useless if there is a fatality that you can’t change. Then it would be better to know nothing. So it better to work on a technique in which you give an advice: “do this, don’t do this”, instead of “this will happen”.
i-king is great about this cause it explains why such kind of things will happen if you have such behavior. But it’s a big book, I’m unable to interprete hexagrams and I’ve to read what is said in it.
I use the tarot a lot as well. I also use runes. I use them a lot more for guidance than anything else. People always forget to tell those they are doing readings for that any outcome is probable.
Meditation can give you a good understanding and like Basilus mentioned, listening to your heart is key.
That’s true. All in heart’s desire. I love meditation.
My thoughts exactly, but that’s not to say it can’t be fun or interesting. I don’t have a problem with tarot cards, fortune telling, etc., as long as nobody is being taken advantage of or being mislead about how these things work. That is to say, I don’t feel they are actually magical or supernatural, but you can think of them kind of like ink-blot tests, they may help you get perspective on something you need help with (much like dream interpretation).
That being said, there are a number of ‘fortune telling’ or psychic tricks I like to use for magical effects. In magic, it’s called mentalism. Such techniques include, like you mentioned, cold reading, as well as billot reading and hot reading.
I would like to get a crystal ball, and try it out. If I understand it right your see shapes in the reflection. I remmber one time where I asked a friend of mine what time it was, and it was about 7pm, I told him that sence he looked at the clock in my bedroom which was a digital clock with red numbers on it that the next card he picks up from the deck will be a red 7 of dimonds, or hearts. Then. I broke the dimonds, and hearts down by telling him if its after 7:30 it would be a dimond, and if its before 7:30 it would be a heart. The card turned out to be the 7 of dimounds. So he takes the deck, and draws a random card, and it was the 7 of dimonds. I dont know if it was mentalisem or just luck.
[mod] I deleted a further post which was not replying the initial questions but continuing to discuss about validity of fortune telling in this thread (though it has been told above there was already an existing subject about it).
Now the content of this deleted post was refering to the article of wikipedia about mentalism and as Josh Redstone was talking about it, I added this link in Josh Redstone’s post. BW. [/mod]