today, far away from childish fantasies, i’m rather occupied – and i think i’m not the only one – with the question: what will come tomorrow? in an era where a permanent position in a company is considered pure luxury and the idea of a state pension has almost become unthinkable, it has become difficult to imagine one’s long-term future. that’s why “tomorrow” – meaning next year at the most – is quite a reasonable concept. and what comes afterwards – i’ll still have enough time to think about that. however, what would come in quite handy for the time after tomorrow – i.e. the future – is a crystal ball, or being able to read tea leaves like harry potter’s bizarre fortune-telling professor sybil trelawney, to see what the future holds in store for us. but is there such a thing as real fortune tellers who only need to consult our hands or their magic cards to tell us if we will roll in money by october or meet the love of our life tomorrow at 3.30 pm at the brandenburg gate in berlin? according to our christian ancestors from the third millennium before christ, the answer to this question is yes. for this though we would have to consult the entrails of butchered animals – if it doesn’t spoil our appetite. the entrails were considered a sign of the gods, enabling you to foretell the future. of course, the entrails couldn’t just be taken from any stray cat; they had to come from special sacrificial animals. these animals often led a better life than many humans, and were later slaughtered during elaborate rituals. the process of interpreting malformations of those animals was called “teratomancy”, while the reading of their entrails was referred to as “haruspicy”. enjoy your meal!

in ancient greece, select people were blessed with the gift of prophecy by the gods. this gift allowed the celebrated heroes to understand messages from the gods and pass them on. unfortunately, this often happened in a quite complicated and confusing way, leaving the people even more at a loss than before and requiring new prophecies … later, the greeks thought this divine gift to be a “science” one could learn through more than 230 different methods: oracles, astrology … no means was left out. the dream readers, or experts of “oneiromancy”, even can be considered the ancestors of today’s psychologists, combining wisdom with the knowledge of the human soul. could we maybe even call today’s psychologists the fortune tellers of our times?

much later, during the middle ages, medieval prophecies were based on two very different things: on the one hand people turned to the holy bible with its many signs to be interpreted; on the other hand it was the service of witches and the dark forces they consulted. every means was fair to learn about one’s future and be able to win battles that the oracle might already have proclaimed as lost. and it wasn’t just kings, popes or rich businessmen who were keen to know their future. all social classes consulted the so-called sages. and today it is not much different. who would say no to six correct numbers on the lottery ticket? who wouldn’t want to know when the love of his life will finally come along? because of these and many other promises, professional tarot card readers and dubious masters of the pendulum are currently experiencing a real boom. how often have you caught yourself reading your horoscope in the papers and being happy to see that the stars predicted a lucky week for you? some of us might even have called an astrologer at dead of night, “armed” with the birth hour of our beloved, and ended up riding off into a romantic sunset with her – if only in your dreams …

do we simply believe what we want to believe in times of trouble? because who of our “generation insecure” has not been through such times of trouble in his search for happiness? in these moments, we turn to malformations, entrails, shooting stars and aces of hearts, and enter our details including the minute of our birth into a fortune-telling computer program; we have the relation of our toe nails to our eyebrows interpreted and turn to any other potions that might be invented in the future. this is another thing only a fortune teller could tell us – provided you ask the right person at the right time and pay him the right amount of money …