How often in life's journey do we come to points where ways diverge, and we stand in indecision as to which course to pursue. There is nothing to determine our election. One road presents as much or as little attraction as the other. Yet an election must be made, and eventually we discover that the whole turn of our after-life depended on the selection — a selection made with eyes blinded to the consequences. — S. Baring-Gould in The Queen of Love
The person here referred to comes to a fork in the road and stands hesitating as to which route to take, finally selecting one almost at random, and goes — to her death. The question here is, What determines our choice? We know that the outcome is the result of causes generated in the past, and this we term an operation of the law of Karma. But this Karmic action works through a chain of many links, and here we find a link to which it is usual to apply the word "chance." But chance is only a counter used to denote some unknown cause; to say that any action of ours is casual is simply to confess that we cannot explain why we do it. A competent astrologer (if such there be) might have predicted which fork she would choose; a clairvoyant or some kind of diviner might have foretold the issue. For these prophets would have been able to contact some of the hidden links in the chain. They would have seen that the person could not have chosen otherwise than she did. Yet this last statement must be qualified; for, if she had previously undergone a change of heart, then the destiny might have been changed, so that she would have selected the other path.
We learn from this and from innumerable cases of which it is an instance, that our slightest movements must be controlled by momentous causes, and that there is a vast machinery of Karmic links beyond our normal ken. We also learn the vast importance of our every thought and emotion as determining factors in our destiny, in our luck and ill-luck. Finally we can understand that divinatory arts depend on a power to discern some of these hidden links and interpret them, and on a knowledge of the correspondences between apparently casual events, such as the fall of the cards or the marks made by a geomancer, and the equally "casual" happenings of daily life.