Fortune-telling is considered a rather exotic way of predicting the future in the age of reason and science today. In traditional Chinese society and, in some way, even today, however, divination and fortune- telling are interwoven with a great variety of social and individual practices. Their significance refers to a broad range of social institutions, practices and beliefs in cultural and religious authorities. Divination and fortune-telling, therefore, take great part in patterns of coordinating knowledge and structuring social and individual activities. The arts of fortune-telling vary greatly in their techniques, ideologies, communicative strategies, and social recognition. It may be neither possible nor desirable to attribute a unitary pattern of reasoning to them. Nevertheless, many mantic traditions developed patterns of reasoning for predicting the future which are highly compatible with each other and comparably can be attributed to different techniques. The present paper aims to discuss certain common patterns of reasoning and structuring knowledge among divinatory techniques in Chinese traditional society. A focus will lie on methods which are used to link these patterns to particular situations and individual cases.