This hadith was narrated by Muslim in his Sahih, and it is from the category of warning, and it should not be taken literally. The intended meaning is that whoever goes to a fortune-teller and asks him without believing him will not have his prayers accepted for forty days, but it is not counted against him; as evidenced by the saying of Allah: (Indeed, Allah does not accept except from the righteous), for there must be righteousness for acceptance, and this act is far from righteousness. However, if he asks him believing in his truthfulness and that he knows the unseen, then he commits disbelief; because he denies something that is definitively established by the saying of Allah: (Say, "None in the heavens and the earth knows the unseen except Allah") An-Naml: 65, and the hadith: ((Whoever goes to a fortune-teller or a soothsayer and believes him has disbelieved in what was revealed to Muhammad)).