Concept in Definition ABC

There are individuals who claim to possess some kind of faculty or power with which they can predict the future of events. These people are called by various names: fortune tellers, clairvoyants, prophetesses, witches or fortune tellers.

The origin of the fortune tellers is in Ancient Greece

In the Greek city of Delphi there was the famous Oracle of Delphi. This sacred enclosure was dedicated to the god Apollo. Greeks from all over the world flocked to this place to find out what the future would bring.

According to mythological accounts, the God Zeus recommended to Apollo that he settle on Mount Parnassus and build the Oracle of Delphi there. Before starting your edification, Apollo had to kill a snake named Python. Once the sanctuary was built, Apollo introduced some priestesses who received the name of pythonesses, so called in reference to the python.

The Greeks went to the Oracle at Delphi and addressed the fortune-tellers with their concerns about the future. They transferred the men's questions to the god Apollo and the answer obtained was communicated to the interested party.

Therefore, the fortune tellers were the intermediaries between men and the God Apollo

It was claimed that these women had a special gift for predicting the future and for this reason men of all walks of life flocked to them at any dilemma or personal concern.

The queries to the fortune tellers did not have an immediate answer (normally it took several days for the god Apollo to give them a definitive answer). In Plato's dialogues it is stated that Socrates was the most wise of Athens because a fortune teller had affirmed it after being consulted by a citizen Athenian (it is said that when Socrates was communicated the statement of the Oracle, he claimed that he only knew that he knew nothing).

Consultations with the Oracle of Delphi were held on the seventh day of the month and this day was chosen in commemoration of the birth of the god Apollo. When the men arrived at the precinct of the holy place they had to purify themselves in a fountain and then they paid the priests responsible for the temple for the service they were to receive.

The fortune tellers today

In the 21st century there are still fortune tellers who predict the future through some technique divination (for example, the reading of the tarot or the interpretation of the lines of the hand). Now the fortune tellers do not need a sacred temple or consult the god Apollo, but use the means of communication conventional to develop their activity.

There are two interpretations about the divination power of these women. Some firmly believe in the gift of fortune tellers to predict the future and others affirm that in In reality these are people who feign extraordinary powers but are nothing more than scammers.

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