Sinful Divination: The Spiritual Danger of Consulting Fortune-Tellers

From the standpoint of the presented religious norms, turning to fortune-tellers is considered a sinful action. As one source testifies, this attitude is due to the fact that any connection with individuals claiming the ability to contact unknown “dark forces” contradicts God's commandments and results in serious spiritual, and even physical, dangers. In one of the excerpts it is clearly stated:

"Turning to fortune-tellers, healers, psychics, sorcerers is communicating with the dark force, even if people are not aware of it. There are many testimonies of very sorrowful consequences from such practices. The Word of God warns: ‘There shall not be found among you anyone who conducts his son or daughter through fire, a prophet, an augur, a soothsayer, a sorcerer, an enchanter, one who calls up spirits, a magician, or one who inquires of the dead; for everyone who does these things is detestable in the sight of the Lord; and because of these abominations the Lord your God expels them from before you; be blameless before the Lord your God’ (Deut. 18:10–13)." (source: link txt)

Additional confirmation can be found in church canons. Thus, in the Nomocanon, which reflects canonical requirements, it is stated that resorting to witches and fortune-tellers is considered a serious deviation from the Christian faith and is accompanied by strict punishment:

"In the Nomocanon (in the large Trebnik) it is stated: ‘...he who places keys in the Psalter, from which false prophecy emerges...; he who uses a prayer of the dead’ (or of fever; here one should also include incantation or uttering spells over flowing blood); ‘all of this is operated by demons’ (section 20). For this sin a six-year excommunication is also imposed (6 all. prop. 61). One who resorts to a sorcerer may come to understand his grave guilt, his dangerous step against the Christian faith — already from the requirement that he remove the cross from his chest and even place the cross at his feet... Then, ‘to simply go to a soothsayer and act upon their divination’ — a sin that is also inexcusable under any circumstances." (source: link txt)

Finally, an important argument is the position of the entire Orthodox Church, which unambiguously prohibits turning to fortune-tellers and sorcerers because such behavior endangers a person's spiritual safety and leads to irreparable consequences for the soul:

"However these ‘sorcerers’ and ‘fortune-tellers’ call themselves in our time — healers, psychics, astrologers, whatever they claim as their ‘good intentions’ — it is deception without which ‘the murderer from the beginning’ (John 8:44) would not be able to seize the souls of people.

And if we do not believe the words of God Himself, can we truly call ourselves Orthodox?

The Church's unequivocal prohibition against consulting fortune-tellers and sorcerers is a measure for safeguarding people’s spiritual security, based on its two-thousand-year long actual spiritual experience, which shows this: consulting divination leads to imminent spiritual, and sometimes physical, death." (source: link txt)

Thus, according to these citations, turning to fortune-tellers is regarded as an action that contradicts divine commandments and church canons, and therefore—as far as religious norms are concerned—it is sinful.