Did the Lord Buddha say anything about magic and fortune telling? I just want to know because in this modern world everyone is following some astrology (Fortune tellers). People believe what ever these people say. media also giving high priority to them.
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2 Answers
These are examples of wrong livelihood. The Kevatta sutta discusses fortune telling and magic
"Whereas some brahmans and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such lowly arts as:
reading marks on the limbs [e.g., palmistry]; reading omens and signs;
interpreting celestial events [falling stars, comets];
interpreting dreams; reading marks on the body [e.g., phrenology];
reading marks on cloth gnawed by mice; offering fire oblations, oblations from a ladle, oblations of husks, rice powder, rice grains, ghee, and oil; offering oblations from the mouth; offering
blood-sacrifices; making predictions based on the fingertips;
geomancy; laying demons in a cemetery; placing spells on spirits;
reciting house-protection charms; snake charming, poison-lore, scorpion-lore, rat-lore, bird-lore, crow-lore; fortune-telling based on visions;
giving protective charms;
interpreting the calls of birds and animals —
he abstains from wrong livelihood, from lowly arts such as these.
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1wrong livelihood specifically for laity is defined in a different sutta accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.177.than.html Sep 24, 2016 at 13:29
The Buddha prohibits magic and fortune telling in the first sutta of the Digha Nikaya (therefore the first sutta of the Suttapitaka), referring to them as "base arts," along with astronomy, meteorology, medicine, accounting, mathematics, poetry, philosophy, surgery, and pediatrics.