By Rev. Tom White, January 29, 2020 — The older I get, the more some things that I considered as black-and-white matters become issues of various shades of gray. Statements of definite opinions become issues of “I don’t know.” Such is the matter of fortune-tellers. Are they for real? Are they fakes? Shams? I don’t know. I will relate two experiences shared with me by members of my extended family.
The first story comes from an in-law I respect. She and a friend went to a woman who read the palms of people’s hands. She read Connie’s fortune first. It was simply a series of probabilities. She turned to Connie’s friend and looked at the palm of her hand. She, the palmist, spoke slowly. She said, “I’m sorry, I just don’t see anything there.” When the friend gently probed the palmist to try again, she simply repeated the words, “There is nothing there to report on, again, I’m sorry.” The palmist then returned the fee that the woman had paid.
Connie and her friend left for their respective homes. On the way home, the friend who was told she had nothing to be read was killed in an automobile accident.
The second story involves my son’s wife. In May of 2003, she told us that her fortune-teller experience was somewhat disturbing. The fortune-teller asked June (my daughter-in-law) if she had any dark-haired sisters. June replied, “Yes, I have two dark-haired sisters.” The fortune-teller said, and these were her exact words: “A dark-haired sister will die in six months.”
As she commented further, June said to her two sisters, “You girls better watch yourselves, a dark-haired sister is going to die within six months.”
To my knowledge, both of those dark-haired girls are still alive today, which is 17 years later. But June hadn’t considered the exact import of those words. She didn’t say “one of your dark-haired sisters will die in six months’ time.” She said, “ A dark-haired sister will die within six months.” June had dark hair also. Five-and-a-half months later, 37-year-old June was dead, the result of complications from brain surgery.
As I said at the beginning of this report, I simply suspend judgment on what was happening in this whole issue. But one question that always stuck in the back of my mind: Could that palm reader actually have, “seen” the imminent death of Connie’s friend but disguised the prophecy with the “simply nothing there” report? And could that fortune teller see that June was the one who would die in six months, but sort of softened the blow with the generalized “one of the dark-haired sisters” response?
I don’t know. There are things that go beyond the ken of mortal minds. I don’t judge. I just don’t know.