1. Biorhythem ——“生命节律周期”
The theory of biorhythms claims one's lifecycle is affected by rhythmic cycles and makes approximate predictions of cycles of physical, mental and emotional characteristics. A rhythm or a cycle is a characteristic that is periodically repeated in a predictable and measurable way. Biorhythmics is composed of forecasting the synchronized rhythm by division into equal parts by time in one's life cycle. These inherent rhythms are said to control or initiate various biological processes and are classically composed of three cyclic rhythms that are said to govern human behaviour and the innate periodicity in natural cyclical physiological change. In its simplest general form, the theory states that from birth to death every human is governed by internal biophysical cycles: the physical, the emotional, and the intellectual. Others state there are more rhythms than the basic three. Some proponents think that biorythyms are related to bioelectricity and its interaction in the body.
Basic rhythms include certain facets of physiological cycles, though it may include others and the details may vary pending the specific source. The three classical cycles of biorhythms are endogenous infradian rhythms.
The theory's basis lies in physiological and emotional cycles. They are represented as a symmetrical or asymmetrical (though most theories rely on a symmetrical form) waveforms. The most commonly used form is the sinusoidal waveform. This is said to be a graphical approximate representation of the bioelectric activity. The cycle flow of bioelectric activity undergoes periodic reverses in direction. A waveform is just a visual representation of the cycle's forecast. Each cycles oscillates between a positive phase [0%..100%] and a negative phase [-100%..0%], during which bioelectric activity strengthens and weakens. The waveforms start, in most theories, at the neutral baseline (0%) at the time of birth of each individual. The purpose of biorhythms is to enable the approximate calculation of critical days for performing or avoiding various activities.
The classical definition (derivatives of the original theory exist) states that one's birth is an unfavorable circumstantial event, as is the day about 58 years later when the three cycles are again synchronised at their minimum values. According to the classical definition, the theory is assumed to apply only to humans. In the classical theory, the value of each cycle can be calculated at any given time in the life of an individual, and there are web sites that do exactly that.
2. Dowsing——探测棒 利用榛树棒或金属棍（古代被称之为点金棒）来探测地下水或矿藏的位置。
Dowsing is a controversial practice which dowsers claim empowers them to find water, metals, gem stones, and hidden objects by carrying or waving a stick or other apparatus over a piece of land and watching for any movement. However repeated tests under controlled conditions have never provided support for this claim.
Dowsers (sometimes known as diviners) may also use a forked branch of a tree, bent pieces of metal or plastic wire, or a small pendulum. Some people use no pointing device at all.
Most dowsers look for things hidden under the surface of the earth. Most claim to be able to detect moving water. Some believe they can find standing water, oil, precious metals, base metals, minerals, or lost items. Many dowsers believe their success rate is near perfect, over 90 per cent, but none have ever done better than chance in controlled tests.
Some proponents claim to be able to find water or minerals by dowsing a map. Like dowsing by walking, this method is unsupported by any scientific hypothesis, which leads most to classify it as pseudoscience, although some proponents claim it is some kind of extra-sensory perception. Magician Uri Geller claims to have done such dowsing for oil and mining companies.
When done using a pendulum, it is called radiesthesia.
There also seems to be a cultural preference attached to dowsing. While waterdowsing is the most common, dowsers in Great Britain often look for 'magical' lines, called Leylines, connecting ancient Celtic monuments, such as Stonehenge. In Germany, and to a lesser extent the surrounding countries, dowsing is popular to detect so called 'earth-rays'. These alleged rays supposedly emanate from deep within the earth. Being on an earth-ray hotspot is supposed to cause myriad negative effects, from sleeplessness to cancer. In the USA, dowsing for precious metals and oil seems to be more popular than elsewhere on the planet. This may be due to the history of the gold rushes that have taken place in the USA and the American dream of striking it rich.
Dowsing has existed in various forms for thousands of years. The original use seems to have been for divination purposes - to divine the will of the gods, to foretell the future and divine guilt in trials. During the Middle Ages dowsing was associated with the Devil. In 1659 dowsing was declared Satanic by the Jesuit Gaspar Schott. In 1701 the Inquisition stopped using the dowsing rod in trials. Dowsing as practiced today probably originated in Germany during the 15th century, when it was used to find metals. The technique spread to England with German miners who came to England to work in the coal mines. An extensive book on the history of dowsing was published by Christopher Bird in 1979 under the title of The Divining Hand.
Most dowsers use simple brass rods bent in an "L" shape known as divining rods. According to dowsers who use divining rods, the choice of brass allows the rod to attune to the magnetic fields emanated by the target without the earth's EM field interfering, as would be the case with a metal such as steel. The end of the rod to be held by the dowser is often encased in a material that provides a constant electrical impedance, to prevent the dowser's own conductivity from interfering with the dowsing process.
According to skeptics, the L-shape is necessary to create an unstable system in which the tiniest (involuntary) movement on the part of the dowser causes the rod to move (see ideomotor effect). A similar unstable system can be made with a pendulum, which is also sometimes used in dowsing, particularly map dowsing.
Some books on dowsing insist that dowsing or divining rods should be made only from freshly cut twigs, because only these can tune into the forces of nature, while other books by different authors insist on the use of brass or steel rods. Dowsers say that what works for one dowser would not work for another. They claim that each novice dowser must experiment to find a tool that works for him.
Some rods also utilize a "witness chamber", especially those claimed to be able to find minerals. The user places a sample of what he wishes to find in the witness chamber, usually located at the end of the rod, and the rod is supposed to respond only to material of the same type as that placed in the chamber.
In recent years, electronic dowsing rods, also known as long range locators have sprung up on the market, often costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The makers claim that these devices have specially tuned electronics that allow one to find anything from water to gold to (hidden or lost) humans. In every known case, however, it has been found that the locator electronics are either totally nonfunctional or do not perform as claimed when tested under rigorous scientific conditions, such as a double-blind test. It has been found that there always is an electronics part and a moving indicator part which are unconnected, with the moving part clearly movable by the ideomotor effect. To people unfamiliar with the ideomotor effect, these devices often seem so convincing that even police and rescue teams have spent significant amounts of money on such devices.
Skeptics of dowsing, and many believers as well, believe that the dowsing rod itself does not have any special power, but only serves to amplify small, otherwise imperceptible movements of the hands. Such amplification is known as the ideomotor effect. The difference between skeptics and believers is that the skeptics believe the small movements arise from the expectations of the dowser, while believers believe that the dowser has a real although subliminal sensitivity to the environment, perhaps via electroception or magnetoception.
Dowsing is better classified as a paranormal belief than as pseudoscience. In pseudoscience, scientific sounding jargon is used and explanations sometimes sound farfetched but possible. Dowsers however give no coherent explanation of how it is done, apart from frequent mentioning of magnetic fields and auras. Dowsers 'believe' they can dowse, thus making it more a matter of religion then science. While every dowser who has ever tried to prove his/her claims has failed completely, they invariably continue to believe in their abilities.
3. Geomancy ——泥土占卜
Geomancy (from the Latin geo, "Earth," mancy "prophecy") is a method of divination to interpret markings on the ground or how handfuls of dirt land when you toss them.
It was explained as divination (in the same sentence with pyromancy and hydromancy) in the best-selling Travels of Sir John Mandeville (1400, ISBN 0140444351), as "geomantie that superstitious arte" in a book of alchemy (1477), and defined in a book of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's Philosophy of Natural Magic: Complete Work on Natural Magic, White & Black Magic (1569, ISBN 1564591603) as a form of divination "which doth divine by certaine conjectures taken of similitudes of the cracking of the Earthe."
In Africa the traditional form of geomancy consists of throwing handfuls of dirt in the air and observing how the dirt falls. In China, the diviner may enter a trance and make markings on the ground that are interpreted by an associate (often a young boy).
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "geomancy" appeared in vernacular English in 1362 (vernacular English at this time was the language of the lowest classes; Latin and French were the common languages of the middle class, gentry, and nobles).
Geomancy's first mention in print was Langland's Piers Plowman where it is unfavorably compared to the level of expertise a person needs for astronomy ("gemensye [geomesye] is gynful of speche"). In 1386 Chaucer used the Parson's Tale to poke fun at geomancy in Canterbury Tales: "What say we of them that believe in divynailes as ... geomancie ..." Shakespeare also used geomancy for comic relief.
The English version of geomancy involved groupings of marks on the ground called "constellations" with names like Puella and Rubeus.
In the 19th century CE Christian missionaries in China unfortunately translated Feng Shui as geomancy, but this is an obvious misnomer.
In recent times the term seems to have become a catch-all for a variety of cultic, fringe, and pseudoscientific pastimes, another misnomer.
In traditional Western occultism, Geomancy is a practice which involves either marking sixteen lines of dashes in sand or soil with a wand, or nowadays on a sheet of paper with pencil. The dashes aren't counted as they are made, as the geomancer is focussing on an issue at hand.
The geomancer counts the number of dashes made in each line and draws either a single dot (for an odd number) or two dots (for an even number) next to the lines. The pattern of dots produced by the first to fourth lines are known as a figure, as are the fifth to eighth lines and so on.
Those four figures are entered into two charts, known as the Shield and House charts, and through binary processes form the seed of the figures that fill the whole charts. The charts are subsequently analysed and interpreted by the geomancer to find solutions, options and responses to the problem quesited, along with general information about the geomancer (unless the geomancer is performing the divination for another, in which case information is shown about the person the charts were cast for) providing an all-round reading into the questioner's life.
This form of Geomancy is easy to learn and easy to perform. Once practiced by commoners and rulers alike, it was one of the most popular forms of divination throughout the middle ages, and it was actually suggested to the Pope that it be integrated into Catholic teachings.
The four binary elements of each figure allow for 2×2×2×2, or 16 different combinations. As there are 4 root figures in each chart, the total number of possible charts equals 16×16×16×16, or 65536. The charts are also interpreted differently depending on the nature of the question, making it one of the most thorough kinds of divination available, and with only 16 figures to understand is extremely simple.
4. Graphology ——笔迹相法
Graphology is the study of handwriting and its connection to behavior, and related data points. Critics cite the lack of supporting empirical evidence as a reason to not use it. Supporters point to the anecdotal evidence of thousands of positive testimonials, as a reason to use it.
Graphology is based upon a number of basic assertions:
"Every system of handwriting analysis has its own vocabulary. Even though two or more systems may share the same words, the meaning of those words is different. Except in very rare instances, the technical meaning of a word used by a handwriting analyst, and the common meaning are not congruent. Resentment, for example, in common usage, means to feel or exhibit annoyance. In Graphoanalysis, the term indicates a fear of imposition."
There are no reliable figures on the usage of handwriting analysis.
The best one can do, is state that on such and such a day, this media outlet claimed that this many organizations used handwriting analysis. The basis for the claim is wishful thinking.
Handwriting analysis has a very high face validity. This explains why supporters have so many positive testimonials.
Going through the published research, Crumbaugh, James C & Stockholm, Emilie (1977) ("Validation of Graphoanalysis by 'Global' or 'Holistic' Method." Perceptual And Motor Skills April 1977, 44(2), 403-410.) stands out as being one of the few studies that supports handwriting analysis.
Far more common are studies such as Ben-Shakar, G., Bar-Hillel, M., Blum, Y., Ben-Abba, E & Flug, A., Journal of Applied Psychology, 1986 (71), 645-653, which indicates that graphology has little or no validity.
The field is rife with practitioners of one approach calling practitioners of the other approach charlatans, frauds, and the like. Carroll v State [276 Ark 160; 634 SW 2d 99, 101-102 (1982)] being one demonstration of what each side resorts in the courtroom.
5. Gyromancy ——先在地上画一个圈圈，然后让要问事的人来循着圈圈一直走，一直走，走到体力不支卧倒时，再看其身体所躺的位置与圈圈的相对关系，据之来推断吉凶祸福的一种占卜术。
Gyromancy is one of the many forms of divination, or fortune- or future-telling that has been used throughout the ages. Gyromancy is not used much in today's modern times, and involves what could be deemed a rather silly practice. Gyromancy involves writing the alphabet on the ground in a largish circle around the diviner. From there, the diviner will spin on their feet until they stop and stumble upon a letter, which then is recorded.
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