The Daily Note (12.28)

From China to Scotland, by way of ancient Persia . . .

I promised a Note about divination in post-Mao China—but that seemed a little dry all by itself, so I ended up going (very) far afield.

The starting point was Emily Baum’s article “Enchantment in an Age of Reform: Fortune-Telling Fever in Post-Mao China, 1980s–1990s.” Although abstracts don’t usually serve very well as summaries, this one actually does: