Prognostication and prediction are a pervasive anthropological phenomenon found in all cultures, but with different characteristics. The research pursued in this field will make a contribution to uncover the historical foundations of prognostication with their impact on our immediate present and our way of "coping with the future" (Maul 1994). This approach will enable us to find new answers to the question of whether different views on fate and strategies of coping with destiny in Chinese (or indeed East Asian) modernity constitute a characteristic difference to Western modernity.