Now the question is why do we turn to fortune-tellers at all? Because of the curiosity to know the unknown - future, and since every one of us have some or the other not-so easily resolvable domestic problem, for example marriage problems, Santaan Dosham, job problems, business problems, mental, health and family problems etc etc. And every one is anxious to get out of it as quickly as possible or anxious to know how soon they will be delivered of the curses bedeviling them. Here the fortune-tellers come in handy soothing their jangled nerves and mental stress by offering some plausible palliative, assuring better, happier days ahead, even if they don't come true... Many a soothsayer, especially those from Kerala and their Mantravaadee, will suggest you to perform an expensive Poojaa and lo, all your problems would vanish into thin air.

The bottom line is, NO FORTUNE-TELLER can predict the future course of events with any degree of certainty, and if it were possible, all the countries would have happily nipped their problems in the bud, before they turned to monstrous proportions, and we all would have been living in Utopian Raam Raajya for centuries now. By the way there are many other local systems of prediction in every society besides the following.

Astrology
The Oxford dictionary defines astrology as the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies interpreted as an influence on human affairs. The definition is self-explanatory, but in simpler terms, the Moon and certain other celestial bodies orbiting around the Sun, like our own Earth does have a bearing on our the life of earthlings. The other planets, apart from the Sun and the Moon that are taken into reckon are
--Mars (Mangal in Hindi, Chovvai in Tamil and Mandi in Malayalam) hardly brought Mangal and happiness and a Maangalik girl became an accursed one;
--Mercury (Budh or Brihaspati), the one closest to the Sun, hence hottest of all planets, is credited with wisdom and knowledge;
--Jupiter (Guru) became the personification of goodness;
--Venus (Shukra, Velli) came to be associated with beauty though the planet we now learn to be one of the most inhospitable with extreme temperatures and an atmosphere - dense carbon-dioxide that can never sustain any living things.
--Saturn (Shani) portended ill-luck and worse, so people were exhorted to take measures to propitiate Shani and counter his effects.

In fact all celestial bodies are inhospitable for humans or for that matter even any other simplest of living organisms, yet we still take them to be Gods who are actually supposed to be our Protectors. The other planets in the solar system viz. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (used in western astrology only) were not considered in Indian astrology or Vaidik Jyotish for all these calculations only because they came to be discovered centuries after Astrology was born. More, if the assumption that all planets and stars do exercise their influence on earthlings is right, logically shouldn't the zillions of star systems and their planets that exist in the Universe also have a bearing on our lives?

The other essential elements to make prediction are
--Time of birth is of essence if the surmise that alignment of Planets that could mould your fate is to be believed.
--Place of birth that is of paramount importance for the prediction to come true; it's like this: you are born in say Bangalore or Patna, Delhi or New York, the alignment of the celestial objects with reference to the person's birthplace is important for greater accuracy of forecasts.
Now about the time? The Indian Standard Time (IST) is actually the time that would prevail at 73-deg. East latitude, an imaginary line that fall almost at the center of the West-East divide of India. Though for convenience sake the IST is made applicable to the entire India, the actual time difference in relation to Sun between Calcutta or Shillong on the East and Mumbai on the West coast would be as much as one hour. In other words if the sunrise for the entire country is 6.15 am IST, the time in actual fact in Calcutta or Shillong will be 6.45 a.m. and the Sun would have already risen in Calcutta a goodly 30 minutes earlier! In contrast to Bombay the Sun will actually be rising only at 6.45 am.
--Date of Birth is another essential element.

By the help of the above three facts one can find the placements of all the planets at the time of birth of the native. And then with his chart the astrologers predict the future. But the accuracy of the prediction is affected when even one of these three information is wrong for the native. Although, now with the advent of computers Birth Time Rectification has become quite possible, still other two information are required.

Crystal Ball Gazers
Some people predict through crystal balls. The object is about 3 or 4 clear spherical crystal and the practitioner concentrates on it for long before pronouncing his predictions. The reader sees all in that crystal ball.