Cartomancy

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The Fortune Teller (1895) by Art Nouveau painter Mikhail Vrubel, depicting a cartomancer Michail Alexandrowitsch Wrubel 001.jpg
The Fortune Teller (1895) by Art Nouveau painter Mikhail Vrubel, depicting a cartomancer
The Cartomancer fortune-teller (c. 1508, Lucas van Leyden) Lucas van Leyden - The fortune teller.jpg
The Cartomancer fortune-teller (c. 1508, Lucas van Leyden)

Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. [1] Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were introduced into Europe in the 14th century. [2] Practitioners of cartomancy are generally known as cartomancers, card readers, or simply readers.

Contents

Cartomancy using standard playing cards was the most popular form of providing fortune-telling card readings in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The standard 52-card deck is often augmented with jokers or even with the blank card found in many packaged decks. In France, the 32-card piquet stripped deck is most typically used in cartomantic readings, although the 52 card deck can also be used. (A piquet deck can be a 52-card deck with all of the 2s through the 6s removed. This leaves all of the 7s through the 10s, the face cards, and the aces.)

In English-speaking countries, the most common form of cartomancy is generally tarot card reading. Tarot cards are almost exclusively used for this purpose in these places. [3]

Methods

The most popular method of cartomancy using a standard playing deck is referred to as the Wheel of Fortune. [3] [4] Here, the reader removes cards at random and assigns significance to them based on the order they were chosen. [3] Though the interpretation of various cards varies by region, the common significators for the future are as follows:

Most Common Interpretations in Cartomancy [3]
CardSignificance
King of HeartsAn adult man with sandy, dark blond, or light brown hair, with brown, blue, or hazel eyes. Usually a family member or other loved one. Paternal and family-oriented.
King of DiamondsAn adult man with red or light blond hair with blue, green, or gray eyes. Usually a wealthy man in an authority position.
King of ClubsAn adult man with medium or dark brown hair, with brown, blue, or hazel eyes. Usually a married businessman (although business could have a sexual, rather than commercial, interpretation.)
King of SpadesAn adult man with dark brown to black hair, and dark brown eyes. Usually a widower or divorced man, or a man from a foreign country. Ambitious and powerful, can be arrogant and deceptive.
Queen of HeartsAn adult woman with sandy, dark blond, or light brown hair, with brown, blue, or hazel eyes. Usually a family member or other loved one. Maternal and family-oriented.
Queen of DiamondsAn adult woman with red or light blond hair with blue, green, or gray eyes. Usually a wealthy woman in an authority position.
Queen of ClubsAn adult woman with medium or dark brown hair, with brown, blue, or hazel eyes. Usually a businesswoman or social butterfly.
Queen of SpadesAn adult woman with dark brown to black hair, and dark brown eyes. Usually a widow or divorced woman, or a woman from a foreign country. Ambitious and intelligent, can be cold, calculating, or spiteful.

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Playing card</span> Card used for playing many card games

A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a finish to make handling easier. They are most commonly used for playing card games, and are also used in magic tricks, cardistry, card throwing, and card houses; cards may also be collected. Playing cards are typically palm-sized for convenient handling, and usually are sold together in a set as a deck of cards or pack of cards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stripped deck</span> Playing cards

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarot</span> Cards used for games or divination

Tarot is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, tarot-playing cards spread to most of Europe, evolving into a family of games that includes German Grosstarok and modern games such as French Tarot and Austrian Königrufen. In the late 18th century French occultists made elaborate, but unsubstantiated, claims about their history and meaning, leading to the emergence of custom decks for use in divination via tarot card reading and cartomancy. Thus, there are two distinct types of tarot packs in circulation: those used for card games and those used for divination. However, some older patterns, such as the Tarot de Marseille, originally intended for playing card games, are occasionally used for cartomancy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fortune-telling</span> Practice of predicting information about a persons life

Fortune telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination. The difference is that divination is the term used for predictions considered part of a religious ritual, invoking deities or spirits, while the term fortune telling implies a less serious or formal setting, even one of popular culture, where belief in occult workings behind the prediction is less prominent than the concept of suggestion, spiritual or practical advisory or affirmation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Major Arcana</span> Trump cards of tarot decks in occult practices

The Major Arcana are the named or numbered cards in a cartomantic tarot pack, the name being originally given by occultists to the trump cards of a normal tarot pack used for playing card games. There are usually 22 such cards in a standard 78-card pack, typically numbered from 0 to 21. The name is not used by tarot card game players.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etteilla</span> French occultist and astrologer

"Etteilla", the pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Alliette, was the French occultist and tarot-researcher, who was the first to develop an interpretation concept for the tarot cards and made a significant contribution to the esoteric development of the tarot cards to a wide audience, and therefore the first professional tarot occultist known to history who made his living by card divination. Etteilla also influenced the French divination professional Marie Anne Lenormand. In the years 1783–1785 Etteilla published his work Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées tarots, which is still considered the standard reference work of Tarot cartomancy. Etteilla published his ideas of the correspondences between the tarot, astrology, and the four classical elements and four humors, and in 1789 he published his own tarot deck, which, however, differed significantly from the classic tarots such as the Tarot de Marseille in terms of structure and card designations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wheel of Fortune (tarot card)</span> Tarot card (X)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarot of Marseilles</span> Standard pattern of 78 cards

The Tarot of Marseilles is a standard pattern of Italian-suited tarot pack with 78 cards that was very popular in France in the 17th and 18th centuries for playing tarot card games and is still produced today. It was probably created in Milan before spreading to much of France, Switzerland and Northern Italy. The name is sometimes spelt Tarot of Marseille, but the name recommended by the International Playing-Card Society is Tarot de Marseille, although it accepts the two English names as alternatives. It was the pack which led to the occult use of tarot cards, although today dedicated decks are produced for this purpose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Anne Lenormand</span> French bookseller, necromancer, fortune-teller and cartomancer

Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand (1772–1843), also known as Marie Anne Le Normand, was a French bookseller, necromancer, fortune-teller and cartomancer of considerable fame during the Napoleonic era. In France, Lenormand is considered as the greatest cartomancer of all time, highly influential on the wave of French cartomancy that began in the late 18th century.

The tarot refers to a pack of playing cards used from the mid-15th century to play games and, later, also for cartomantic packs of cards used for divination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychic reading</span> Discerning information through heightened perceptive abilities

A psychic reading is a specific attempt to discern information through the use of heightened perceptive abilities; or natural extensions of the basic human senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and instinct. These natural extensions are claimed to be clairvoyance (vision), clairsentience (feeling), claircognisance and clairaudience (hearing) and the resulting statements made during such an attempt. The term is commonly associated with paranormal-based consultation given for a fee in such settings as over the phone, in a home, or at psychic fairs. Though psychic readings are controversial and a focus of skeptical inquiry, a popular interest in them persists. Extensive experimentation to replicate psychic results in laboratory conditions have failed to find any precognitive phenomena in humans. A cold reading technique allows psychics to produce seemingly specific information about an individual from social cues and broad statements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ace of Wands (tarot card)</span> Tarot card of the Minor Arcana

The Ace of Wands is a tarot card of the Minor Arcana, arcana being Latin for mysteries. The cards of the Minor Arcana are considered to be lesser compared to the Major Arcana because they discuss the minor mysteries of life, less important archetypes. Modern tarot readers interpret the Ace of Wands as a symbol of optimism and invention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarot card reading</span> Using tarot cards to perform divination

Tarot card reading is a form of cartomancy whereby practitioners use tarot cards to purportedly gain insight into the past, present or future. They formulate a question, then draw cards to interpret them for this end. A traditional tarot deck consists of 78 cards, which can be split into two groups, the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana. French-suited playing cards can also be used; as can any card system with suits assigned to identifiable elements.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cary Collection of Playing Cards</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piquet pack</span>

A Piquet pack or, less commonly, a Piquet deck, is a pack of 32 French suited cards that is used for a wide range of card games. The name derives from the game of Piquet which was commonly played in Britain and Europe until the 20th century and is still occasionally played by connoisseurs. In the Netherlands it is referred to as a Jass pack, a term derived from games of the Jass type.

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Tarot games are card games played with tarot packs designed for card play and which have a permanent trump suit alongside the usual four card suits. The games and packs which English-speakers call by the French name Tarot are called Tarocchi in the original Italian, Tarock in German and similar words in other languages.

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References

  1. "In the Cards: A Brief History of Divination and Cartomancy". The Odyssey Online. 11 July 2016. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
  2. Huson, Paul (2004). Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancient Roots to Modern Usage. Vermont: Destiny Books. ISBN   0-89281-190-0
  3. 1 2 3 4 Knight, Jan (1980). A-Z of ghosts and supernatural. Pepper Press. pp. 15–6. ISBN   0-560-74509-5.
  4. "Cartomancy". The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World. Harper Element. 2006. p. 99.