Fortune Telling With Cards

By P. R. S. Foli

This short book on fortune telling, is an essential read if you want to learn about cartomancy. Within it’s pages it covers a diverse amount of methods for classic styles of reading.
There is a short two-chapter section at the end about the Tarot. Described are several different spreads, including the 32-card method, the French and Italian methods, the Grand Star, and Etteilla's Tarot spread.
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Oct 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473370753

Book preview

Fortune Telling

with Cards

by

P. R. S. Foli

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Fortune Telling with Cards

Fortune Telling

Introduction

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

Fortune Telling

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, however in practice the two differ substantially. The disparity results from the fact that divination refers to 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. In the latter environment, belief in occult workings behind the prediction is less prominent than the concept of suggestion, spiritual or practical advisory or affirmation.

Historically, fortune-telling grew out of the folklorist reception of Renaissance magic, specifically associated with the Romani people. During the nineteenth and twentieth century, methods of divination from non-Western cultures such as the I Ching (a classic Chinese text) were also adopted as methods of fortune-telling in Western popular culture. Common methods used for fortune telling in Europe and the Americas include astromancy (by the stars), pendulum reading (by the movements of a suspended object), spirit-board reading (by planchette or talking board), tasseography (reading tea leaves in a cup), cartomancy (fortune telling with cards), tarot reading, and chiromancy (palmistry, reading of the palms).

Tarot reading is one of the more common types of fortune telling, and practitioners are split as to the exact nature of the process. Some claim they are guided by a spiritual force while others believe the cards help them to tap into a collective unconscious or their own creative, brainstorming subconscious. The divinatory meanings of the cards commonly used today are derived mostly from cartomancer Jean-Baptiste Alliette (also known as Etteilla) and Marrie-Anne Lenormand (1776-1843). Their history delves much deeper however and many involved in the occult arts have traced their practice back to ancient Egypt and divine hermetic wisdom. ‘Hermeticism’ is an especially old and venerated tradition, based primarily upon the writings of Hermes Trismegistus, who greatly influenced Western esoteric tradition during the Renaissance and the Reformation. Its doctrine affirms that a single, true theology exists which is present in all religions, and was given by God to man in antiquity. Despite this long history, the first documented complete tarot deck only dates from fifteenth century Northern Italy.

One of the other most widespread methods for divining the future is astromancy; based on the premise that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world. Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, and Mayans developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. In the West, astrology most often consists of a system of horoscopes purporting to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict future events in their life based on the positions of the sun, moon, and other celestial objects at the time of their birth.  Most newspapers and magazines carry predictive columns based on these celestial influences – although it should be noted that no scientific studies have shown support for their accuracy.

Western fortune-tellers typically attempt predictions on matters such as future romantic, financial and childbearing prospects as well as more specific ‘character readings.’ In contemporary Western culture, it appears that women consult fortune-tellers more than men, and some build substantial, life-long relationships with their ‘tellers.’ Despite this popularity, there is often extreme opposition against fortune-telling in Christianity, Islam and Judaism based on biblical prohibitions against divination. It is banned in the Book of Micah (5:12) and many civil laws have also forbidden the practice. This has caused discord in the Jewish community especially due to prevalent views on mysticism.

As is evident even from this incredibly brief introduction to the art of fortune telling, it is a branch of human mysticism and belief that has an incredibly long and intriguing history. Over the centuries, and across the globe, some form of ‘divination’ has always been practiced. We hope that the current reader is inspired by this book to find out more about this fascinating subject.

Fortune-Telling by Cards

By

Professor P. R. S. Foli

Author of Fortune Teller Dream Book, etc.

Introduction

THIS goddess Fortune frustrates, single-handed, the plans of a hundred learned men. In this saying the Latin author has given us the key to all the restless striving to search out the Unknown and the Unknowable which marks our own age, just as it has marked previous periods in history which we are apt to look back upon as being but little removed from the dark ages.

Of all the methods by which men and women seek to penetrate into the mysteries of Fate and Futurity, Cartomancy is one that can claim the distinction of having swayed the human mind from prehistoric times right down to this twentieth century of ours.

It may be that this book will fall into the hands of those who agree with the words of L’Estrange: There needs no more than impudence on the one side and a superstitious credulity on the other to the setting up of a Fortune-teller. This attitude of cynical superiority is sometimes genuine, but in many cases if we could read what lies beneath the surface we should find that it is but a cloak worn to conceal a lurking fear, an almost irritated condition of mind, born of a half-confessed faith in the power at which it is so easy to scoff.

There is a vein of superstition in every human heart, and many men who have played a great part in the world’s history have not been ashamed to seek help from occultists, when the tangle of life seemed too involved for them to unravel with the ordinary means at their disposal.

The pages of history are full of the penalties meted out by kings and rulers to those who were accused of working evil spells upon them. It needs but to mention the names of Wallenstein, Murat, King of Naples; Bernadotte, afterwards King of Sweden; and the merciless Robespierre, as types of a vast number over whom the fascinations of Astrology and

Cartomancy, which are so closely allied, have cast their witching spell.

Pope treats the cards as sentient entities:

                            "The king, unseen,

 Lurked in her hand and mourned his captive queen."

While in another passage he says:

"Soon as she spreads her cards th’ aerial guard

 Descend and sit on each important card."

In the following pages we have given information that will, we hope, afford interest and amusement to many. We have not dwelt on the gift of prophecy, or on the power of second sight claimed by apostles of the occult. We would in no case obtrude the subject of Cartomancy upon the notice of those whose susceptibilities would be wounded, or whose sense of right and wrong would be outraged by the practice, and we have ventured to speak a word of warning to the morbidly minded.

We give this method of Fortune-telling for what it is worth. It may be either a pastime seasoned with a flavour of mystery, a study in the weird ways of coincidence, or a test of skill quickened by intuition. We would have all our readers amused and interested, but none saddened or enslaved by it.

CHAPTER I

How we got our Pack of Cards

Where do they come from?—The Romany Folk—Were they made in Europe?—Suits and signs—The power of cards—Their charm and interest—Necessity for sympathy—Value of Cartomancy.

Where do They Come From?

WHEN we take up an ordinary pack of cards to deal them out for a rubber, or to lay them down in the careful deliberation of Patience, or when we watch them being used as the inexplicable instruments of a something that, with a feeling akin to superstitious dread, we prefer to call coincidence, we do not often stop to think of the varied and eventful history represented by those smooth, highly-glazed playthings.

The actual and authentic history of playing cards only goes back about five hundred years, and various theories have been mooted as to the source from which Europe obtained them. It is an established fact that in past ages many eastern peoples, notably those of India, China, and Chaldea, possessed cards which differed materially both in use and design from those known in the West at a later date. It is impossible to trace these prehistoric beginnings of card-lore, but there seems little doubt that the Wise Men of eastern lands regarded their cards with none of the contempt usually bestowed upon them in the West. They held them in high

Reviews for Fortune Telling With Cards

[nukykola · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good book!
The messages inside provide reader the information of fortune telling by using playing cards.

[Ryan Gary Edmonds · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the classics! Start here before studying modern texts