From ancient Greece and Rome, when people turned to oracles to solve problems, to the Psychic Friends Network of today, a variety of fortunetelling and divination methods have evolved to provide that much sought-after look into destiny.

"People like the spooky and strange -- the stuff that your mother told you not to touch -- so, of course, you've got to," said Wolf Erickson, a psychic counselor who works in Albuquerque, N.M. "It all relates to the other-worldly influences and the spirits of the earth."

Today, when oracles may be difficult to find, people turn to Tarot cards, rune stones or tea leaves to answer their questions about the future.

Tarot cards, the most popular method, were developed around 1040 A.D. and were standardized by Stuart Waite in 1904, Erickson said, adding that other Tarot designs have been based on the original design.

Card-based methods of fortunetelling are so popular that other systems have been adapted into card systems, said Rene Doberneck, an employee at the Tower of Glass, 137 W. Beaver Ave.

And Tarot cards are a lot more convenient than relying on runes (small stones etched with designs), which are thrown like dice to create patterns of images to tell the future, she added.

"If Tarot cards weren't so popular, we wouldn't have so many different types of them," she said. "It was easier for people to carry around a deck of cards than to deal with rune stones and things, so they adapted them."

Futures can also be read from images left by tea leaves in the bottom of a cup, as well as by studying relationships between numbers or planetary movements, Doberneck (senior-integrative arts) said. But fortunetelling has never been limited to established methods, she added.

"As long as you create a system to translate symbols into meanings, you can tell the future to some degree," she said. "If people want to look at patterns in the clouds to divine things, it doesn't matter."

Understanding the meanings of any of the patterns, either in cards, stones or tea leaves, requires a great deal of study. Because Tarot cards are relatively easier to understand, they remain one of the most popular forms of telling the future, Doberneck said.

"Tarot works on intuition -- making correlations between the symbols on the cards," she said.

Once a method is chosen, fortune seekers must remember the difference between divination and fortunetelling, Erickson said.

Fortunetelling often ignores the fact that there can be personal choice involved in the outcome, while divination is more geared to determining the exact destiny, he said.

And whether a seeker chooses to look into the future with stones or wants to explore the possibilities of contacting the dead with a Ouija board, Erickson said the journey is completely natural.