We live in a scientific age, which

We live in a scientific age, which means that everything we do is based on rational decisions and careful investigation of the facts. Nobody is given a job because his eyes are blue, even though we sometimes refer to the boss's favourite as his "blue-eyed boy." Nobody buys a house because the moon shines through the bedroom windows on certain nights in the month. We would not dream of marrying someone simply because of the shape of their fingernails. No, we all agree that we act, or try to act, sensibly and as a result of using our brains.
If this is the case, I should like to know what makes so many people read the horoscopes which are to be found in practically every newspaper and magazine in the country. They will tell you, of course, that they do not believe a word of it, that it is all nonsense, just a bit of fun. And yet horoscopes are big business. There is a good living to be made from writing "professional" horoscopes for people who are prepared to provide their full name, and the date, time and exact place of birth, together with a handsome fee. I recently got someone to do my horoscope. (I did not pay for it, so to that extent I feel superior!) and I would not mind reproducing part of it for you to see. I say "part of it" because it is very long and you might get bored after a while, although the lady who did it for me asserts that I only want you to see the bits that are most flattering.
Now, of course, I do not believe in what she wrote, and I think she describes my character accurately for the simple reason that she knows me very well anyway. But I have been unnerved more than a few times in my life by being identified at once as a "Gemini" type by people who did not know anything about me, except what they had been able to learn from a short acquaintance.
Similarly, I once had my palm read by a young lady who did not know me at all. Please understand that I did not really believe in palmistry at the time. My reason for letting her read my palm was that she was a very pretty young lady, and it seemed an excellent excuse for holding her hand, or rather letting her hold mine, and getting to know her better. Our relationship, I regret to say, did not develope owing to the sudden arrival of her regullar boy-friend, but she had had enough time by then to do a character sketch of me that was devastatingly accurate.
I was so impressed by her performance that I got another lady (who was not quite so young or pretty, so at least I had no ulterior motive this time) to show me how to interpret the lines of the hand, and other features such as hand shape, relative length of the fingers and so on. I tried out my new-found knowledge in a number of light-hearted situations, but it soon became something more than a mere party trick. I have sometimes been so accurate in my interpretations of the good and bad features of character that I have unintentionally offended people I liked.
It is important to distinguish between reading hands to interpret character, and reading hands to predict an individual's future; the former seems much more likely to have some basis of truth than the latter. All the same, we have all met people who have been told things about their future by gypsies, clairvoyants and the like, and who swear that these things have come true. Many quite ordinary people, who make no special claims to have the gift of foresight, have had premonitions of such misfortunes as illness, deaths in the family and accidents; so many, in fact, that there must be more to this business of foretelling the future than meets the eye.
The paradox is that in this scientific age, when we claim to believe only what we can prove, we go on reading horoscopes or visiting the fortune teller at the fair, which are almost certainly worthless; but at the same time, we refuse to take seriously the few scientific investigations that have been made into what we might call the paranormal or the supernatural. Obviously, we want to have our cake and eat it. Personally, I remain completely sceptical about astrology, but I am convinced that our minds and our bodies are much mroe complex than we realise. Therefore; it is foolish to reject some kinds of human experience just because at the moment we cannot find any rational scientific explanation for them.