Thelemic Waves Tarot Community Forum

All day long I do Tarot readings for clients who ask various questions such as "Will he call me?" "Will I meet someone to love?" "When will I be happy again?", all as if nothing matters to make these things happen and that the future is written by someone unseen finger which seems to make everything magically appear. But it isn't like that at all. Reality is indeed scripted, but not by some interventionist deity - but by our own desires and actions, perceptions and attitudes. One thing in common among all these ideas is the idea of "luck," an idea which presupposes something coming out of nothing - something without causes other than the magical link of "lady Fortuna and her wondering eye."

But what about those people who seem to get their every wish? It's like luck just shines on them. You hear about them every day, lucky devils. Men and women that just seem to get life handed to them on silver platters. Sometimes it looks as if they have never really had to work too hard at anything. Couldn't there possibly be something to this luck thing after all? Some people seem so unlucky and some so very lucky. What actually is this "Luck Factor?" Is there truth to the notion that benefits and/or calamities befall us without any responsibility of our own? Is there such a thing as luck?

Luck is not an accident - it is a skill. Professor Richard Wiseman of the Hertfield Institute, conducted a 10 year study on luck and presented his findings in his book "The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind." What Prof. Wiseman discovered was that people who were lucky weren't just those who felt lucky, but had an eye for opportunity and took calculated risks - thus increasing their chances of coming out ahead.

In one study, conducted at a University, students were asked to volunteer for a study in human behavior, but where never told what the study was about. Interns then took the volunteer students who thought they were only being interviewed for their potential involvement in the research. They did not know that the interview itself was the study. During the question and answer process, the interns conducting the interviews walked the volunteers down a hallway and stopped when they had reached a door in the hallway. On the door was a sign that read "Enter here to win $10." When the interviewer stopped, but continued to ask the interview questions, this sign was behind them. It was discovered that those who answered that they felt lucky, that they did tend to win prizes more often than some others they knew, those who answered that they enjoyed life and looked for opportunities happened to be the same ones who seeing the sign would decide to enter and did indeed win $10. Others, those who tended to answer that they were unlucky, weren't always aware of opportunities, tended to have a more pessimistic attitude, were walked further down the hall where at the end of the hall they were informed that they had just participated in the study and were paid $10 for their help - then where asked if they saw the sign on the door earlier. The majority of the time the answer was that they had not noticed the sign, even though it should have been more than obvious it was there. Those few who did see the sign but didn't enter the door claimed that they just didn't feel that it was a message meant for them.

As a result of his research, Prof Wiseman came up with four factors he believe anyone can use to increase their "luckiness."

Factor One: Maximise Chance Opportunities
Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and by being open to new experiences.

Factor Two: Listening to Lucky Hunches
Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. In addition, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts.

Factor Three: Expect Good Fortune
Lucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people persist in the face of failure, and shape their interactions with others in a positive way.

Factor Four: Turn Bad Luck to Good
Lucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on the ill fortune, and take control of the situation.

So, essentially, lucky people are those who keep an open eye and open mind for the opportunity to take the chances that just might pay off - as opposed to sitting around waiting for things to change. Lucky people know by instinct, through practice, just when to act. Lucky people keep a positive attitude and therefore find a positive world around them by reflection. And finally, lucky people do not let problems keep them down.

So are you going to be a lucky person from now on? I hope so.