New York city. And a few of us were transferred to the Brooklyn headquarters. Thus, after thirty years at Kingdom Farm, I am back at Brooklyn Bethel. In 1965 I suffered a heart attack but recently my health has greatly improved so that at ninety years of age I am still able to spend two hours each forenoon and two hours each afternoon doing clerical work.

Now as I look back over forty-four years of Bethel service, I daily thank Jehovah for his goodness and feel like the psalmist David, that goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in Jehovah’s house to the length of days.—Ps. 23:6.

Do Not Turn to Divination!

EVERYONE wants to know what will happen in the future. It may only concern the weather. “Can I plant my corn tomorrow?” “Will I be able to cut the hay next week?” “What will the weather be like a month from now during our festival?”

Nor is curiosity about the future limited to mere weather forecasts. People everywhere are concerned about coming events in national and international affairs, in commerce and trade, and especially about matters that personally affect them and their loved ones. It is this strong natural desire that urges so many people to turn to divination for answers to their questions about the future.

The word “divination” comes from the Latin divus (“pertaining to god”), and information received by divination is believed to be from the gods. The subject of divination embraces the whole scope of gaining secret knowledge, especially about the future, through the aid of spiritistic occult powers. It differs from magic-working sorcery in that divination generally involves seeking only to know future events rather than attempting to alter and control them as is the case with magic.

Practitioners of divination claim that superhuman gods are capable of revealing the future to those trained to read and interpret certain signs and omens that they say are communicated in various ways: By celestial phenomena (the position and movement of stars and planets, eclipses, meteors); by terrestrial physical forces (wind, storms, fire); by behavior of creatures (howling of dogs, flight of birds, movement of snakes); by patterns of tea leaves in cups or oil configurations on water or the direction falling arrows take; by the appearance of the liver, lungs and entrails of sacrificed animals; by the lines in the palm of the hand and by the “spirits” of the dead.

So broad is the field of divination that it has been broken down, and the individual