Fortune-telling in the context of "Divination"

Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries, the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performance is practiced all over the world and dates back to antiquity. People engaging in this practice are called street performers or buskers, although busker is generally not used in American English.

Performances are anything that people find entertaining, including acrobatics, animal tricks, balloon twisting, caricatures, clowning, comedy, contortions, escapology, dance, singing, fire skills, flea circus, fortune-telling, juggling, magic, mime, living statue, musical performance, one man band, puppeteering, snake charming, storytelling or reciting poetry or prose, street art such as sketching and painting, street theatre, sword swallowing, ventriloquism, weightlifting and washboarding. Buskers may be solo performers or small groups.

Tasseography (also known as tasseomancy, tassology, or tasseology) is a divination or fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments.

The terms derive from the French word tasse (cup), which in turn derives from the Arabic loan-word into French tassa, and the respective Greek suffixes -graph (writing), -mancy (divination), and -logy (study of).

Scrying, also referred to as "seeing" or "peeping," is a practice rooted in divination and fortune-telling. It involves gazing into a medium, hoping to receive significant messages or visions that could offer personal guidance, prophecy, revelation, or inspiration. The practice lacks a definitive distinction from other forms of clairvoyance or divination but generally relies on visions within the chosen medium. Unlike augury, which interprets observable events, or divination, which follows standardized rituals, scrying's impressions arise within the medium itself.

The terminology and methods of scrying are diverse and lack a standardized structure. Practitioners coin terms such as "crystallomancy," "spheromancy," or "catoptromancy," naming practices based on the medium or technique employed. These practices have been reinvented throughout history, spanning cultures and regions. Scrying media encompass reflective, refractive, or luminescent surfaces like crystals, mirrors, water, fire, or smoke. Some practitioners even close their eyes, engaging in "eyelid scrying."

Tarot (/ˈtæroʊ/, first known as trionfi and later as tarocchi or tarocks) is a set of playing cards used in tarot games and in fortune-telling or divination. From at least the mid-15th century, the tarot was used to play trick-taking card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, tarot games spread to most of Europe, evolving into new forms including German Grosstarok and modern examples such as French Tarot and Austrian Königrufen.

Tarot is commonly found in many countries, especially in English and Spanish speaking countries where tarot games are not as widely played, in the form of specially designed cartomantic decks used primarily for tarot card reading, in which each card corresponds to an assigned archetype or interpretation for divination, fortune-telling or for other non-gaming uses.

A crystal ball is a crystal or glass ball commonly used in fortune-telling. It is generally associated with the performance of clairvoyance and scrying through crystal gazing. Used since Antiquity, crystal balls have had a broad reputation with witchcraft, including modern times with charlatan acts and amusements at circus venues, festivals, etc.

Other names for the object include crystal sphere, orbuculum, scrying ball, shew/show(ing) stone, and more variants by dialect.

In Greek mythology, there were at least three people named Thymoetes (/θɪˈmiːtiz/; Ancient Greek: Θυμοίτης Thumoítēs).

• Thymoetes, one of the elders of Troy (also spelled Thymoetus) and also a Trojan prince as the son of King Laomedon. A soothsayer had predicted that, on a certain day, a boy would be born by whom Troy would be destroyed. On that very day Paris was born to King Priam of Troy, and Munippus to Thymoetes. Priam ordered Munippus and his mother Cilla to be killed in order to prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled while sparing his own son. It is believed that Thymoetes, in order to avenge his family, advised to draw the wooden horse into the city.
• Thymoetes, an Athenian hero, son of Oxyntes, king of Attica. He was the last Athenian king descended from Theseus. He was succeeded by Melanthus (according to Pausanias, overthrown by him).
• Thymoetes, a Trojan and a companion of Aeneas, who was slain by Turnus.
• Thymoetes, another spelling of Dimoetes.

Cold reading is a set of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, and mediums. Without prior knowledge, a practiced cold-reader can quickly obtain a great deal of information by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. during a line of questioning. Cold readings commonly employ high-probability guesses, quickly picking up on signals as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not. The reader then emphasizes and reinforces any accurate connections while quickly moving on from missed guesses. Psychologists believe that this appears to work because of the Barnum effect and due to confirmation biases within people.