From the begining of time, people have wanted to know what will happen next, why something is happening and why something has occurred. Kabbalistic seers and tarot readers, African witch doctors and soothsayers have warned of evil, answered lovers' questions and decided innocence or guilt, each in their own special way.

Wanting to know the future and how to predict it is a fundamental urge and driving force of all mankind. Some of the earliest cave paintings show people who lived in the Sahara using divining rods to psychically locate water well before recorded history began and, as we all know, the bones will tell all. The basic tenet of all religions is to affect the future, usually through the intervention of a superior being. At one time tironmancy (prediction by the placement of holes in cheese) was used to predict the serious business of the future. In fact almost every type of random event has been used in the past for divination

Divination is the basis for all the sciences. When Newton developed his Laws of Motion it was believed that by calculating the motion of all particles their future postions would be predictable, including those that make up the minds of men and hence what is in the minds of men and hence how they would act. When the ancient philosophers claimed to be searching for 'truth', the 'truth' that they were searching for was the truth about tomorrow.
In the Middle Ages, smoke from laurel branches thrown on a fire provided ways to determine the cause of action. On Saint Valentine's Day in Regency England, unmarried women were known to toss molten lead into icy water. The letter formed by the metal was believed to coincide with the first letter of the man's name she would marry. The way to foretell the unborn child's sex in some parts of the United States is by suspending a teaspoon or wedding ring by string directly in front of a pregnant woman's belly. As any student of history or literature knows, Julius Caesar was warned of the Ides of March by a soothsayer.

The compulsion to know the what and why of the future is timeless. The renewed fervor perhaps can be attributed to the instantaneous reporting of the media. We expect to see instantly what is happening in China, Russia or Iraq and in our own city or town, and often we become anxious when we are unable get the news now. It is quite understandable, therefore, that. we want to know what will happen in the coming days and months ahead. It follows, too, that the most sophisticated, educated, and successful are often the first to consult with psychics and those able to predict forthcoming events.

Here in these pages some of you might find the Philosphers Stone, or maybe just your very own lucky stone.