Lee Chul-yong, a former lawmaker, is now more famous as a fortuneteller.

After a stint as a member of the National Assembly, the 63-year olds, who was born as a disabled person as he had inherited tuberculosis from his father, began to probe deeper into the life’s big question: whether there is such a thing as destiny.

He wanted to know whether it was his destiny to be born as a disabled person.

“I plugged in my own life data (such as the date of birth, etc) into the fortune-telling scheme. But it wasn’t even close,” he told the newspaper, Chosun Ilbo.

He attributed the reason to different social situation today, which is different from the one a few thousand years ago when it was an agriculture-based rural society from which the fortunetelling scheme, known as Saju, was based.

“At that time, the reasons for people to become disabled were wars or natural disasters. But now there are so many different reasons, such as industrial hazards or drug additions that can lead to disability,” he said, giving an example.

Nonetheless, he continued his probe. Slowly, his accrued a reputation.

Lee, now a famed fortune-teller, advises people against trusting too much into fortunetelling. “There is no fortune teller who can be correct 100 percent.”

“Fortune telling is like a weather forecasting. It can warn people to avoid something bad to come. But it’s only 70 to 80 percent correct, which was extrapolated from tge larger and general trend,” he said.

Essentially, he sees fortune telling as statistics, based on probability. Currently, he has data about 3000 people, including their medical records, life history, in addition to that of other 8,000 people whose medical records he was able to access while he was a lawmaker in charge of the nation’s welfare system.

Lee believes that a person’s fate is not fixed, but evolves continually. “Your words, greed, anger, temper control, and good acts are the factors that can influence your fortune,” he said.