I have no faith in these occult predictions, but in view of what many Bible scholars are saying about 2013, this is interesting.

Those who make predictions according to the study of feng shui -- or literally "wind-water" -- are influential in many parts of Asia, where people adjust their lives or renovate houses and offices based on the advice.

As they bid farewell to the Year of the Dragon, the fortune tellers warn that the "black water snake" that emerges to replace it on February 10 -- the first day of the Lunar New Year -- could be a venomous one that brings disaster.

Previous Snake years have been marked by the September 11, 2001 terror strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people, the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The 1929 stock market plunge that heralded the Great Depression also occurred in a snake year.