In the Old Testament it is stated, "If you will enter into eternal life, keep the commandments." We are in the process of examining these all important laws of God.

The 1st Commandment commands us to adore God alone. The old English "penny" catechism warns us: "The 1st Commandment forbids all dealing with the devil and superstitious practices, such as consulting spiritualists and fortune-tellers, and trusting in charms, omens, dreams, and such-like fooleries." We saw that Holy Mother Church forbids her children to attend seances, the objective being to communicate with the dead. Consulting spiritualists is a form of superstition.

You might ask, "What do you mean by superstition?" To put it simply, superstition is giving to things certain powers that they cannot have either by nature, by the prayers of the Church or by divine appointment.

Let us consider another superstition today, that of fortune-telling. In the United States alone, people are paying millions of dollars a year to an army of over l00,000 fortune-tellers of all kinds - including crystal-gazers, numerologists, palmists, astrologers, phrenologists, card-manipulators, tea leaf readers, and other quacks who infest the country from one end to the other.

Love and money are the bait which lure thousands each year to the lair of the fortune-teller. You know, "the dark handsome man will cross your path, and after a sea voyage with fortune in the offing (at the end of the rainbow), etc." Their platitudes and hazy glimpses into the future act on thousands of unfortunate souls as a cup of strong coffee might act on a tired body. These are the people who cannot "get up steam" alone. They require something in the way of a whoop and a promise. In every age and in every time, their kind has been hurt by the world and has sooner or later fled to some stronger spirit for help. They are the mainstay of soothsayers, medicine-men and witch-doctors ever since time began.

Their methods differ, but their technique is always the same. It consists in getting, by hook or crook, all the information they can about a customer, presenting it in the most impressive way, and convincing victims, by means of all sorts of tricks, of the truth of their assertions. Like the Oracle of ancient Greece, they are experts in the art of giving hazy answers. They give a general indefinite answer which, with a little pressure can be made to fit fairly well any one of a half-dozen subsequent happenings. The enthusiastic will to believe 99 times out of 100 readily provides the pressure.

Fortune-telling is a direct and positive violation of the Commandment: "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange Gods before Me." The evil consists in attributing to a creature a power or perfection which belongs to God alone. Only God knows the future. Of course, fortune-telling at socials, at school or private parties is permitted, when done in a joking way. God does lift the veil partly to certain chosen men and women, the prophets and the saints. He doesn't, however, give this power to wandering gypsies, smirking Oriental fakers, or neurotic damsels. You would think that common sense would dictate how silly it is to believe in fortune-tellers. If they can foretell the future, there is plenty of money to be made betting on horse races or athletic games. To a limited extent, and in a hazy, uncertain way, human intelligence can forecast the future. But if a professed fortune-teller has more than human range and clarity of vision into what is to happen, it is not God but the devil who sharpens his mental vision. That they are not taught of God is clear from his words: "neither let there be found among you anyone that. . . .consults soothsayers, or observeth dreams and omens, neither let there by any wizard, nor charmer, nor any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune-tellers, or that seeketh the truth from the dead." (Deut. 18-10)