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DIVINATION & AUGURY IN A MODERN LIGHT 197 life are a necessary result of our conduct in previous existence-existence and subsistence being alternate and continuous as the swing of a pendulum. Hence the belief that our destiny is pre-ordained and written is not absurd to Theosophists, but this does not justify their belief in the practice of Palmistry or Astrology unless they can show proof of the invariable connection of the marks and signs with the written, fixed destiny. This is the one part of augury that wants more scientific light thrown on it.
Practitioners of these arts claim that the connection between the signs and the events has been established by an observation extending over many thousands of years, and appeal to the antiquity of the practice, and the fact that many eminent mathematicians, astronomers and philosophers who have taken the trouble to observe the connection, have established the fact. On the other side, disbelievers in this connection point to discrepancies between the Western and Eastern systems as to Astrology and Palmistry, and the fact that both claim their system as the true one : they admit that Astrologers have often been able to make correct prognostications as to destiny by being given the hour of birth of a child, and Palmists by seeing the palm but they say such right guesses are explained sufficiently by either thought-reading and clairvoyance, or by the impression of a spirit. We want more light on this subject : we want careful testing of each affirmed connection. Personally I have given the system of astrology a study, and have come to the following
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