Card Divination Poll

Do you believe cards were used for divination before the 18th century?

  • Yes

    Votes: 66 68.0%
  • No

    Votes: 8 8.2%
  • Don't know enough about the subject to say.

    Votes: 17 17.5%
  • Have looked into this and still don't know.

    Votes: 6 6.2%

  • Total voters
    97

lark

How do we know what people did (in the privacy of their own homes) to amuse themselves around the old card table when they were tired of playing Tarocchi.
Unless some giggly young girl wrote it down in her now dusty musty diary.
We used to divine with our Old Maid cards when we got tired of playing Old Maid and we didn't even know that's what we were doing.
So yes...and I have no historical reference for that, just good old observation of human nature.
Where there is bordom there will be divining
 

cardlady22

I voted yes because I don't think human nature has changed that much. And the reasons are probably just as varied as they are today- boredom, curiosity, money-making, a desire to shock an authority figure, searching for direction, wanting to be absolved of responsibility, etc.
 

frelkins

No, we have no evidence for it. Histories of the times were replete with all kinds of crazy forms of divination, but cards are never mentioned, which makes their use seem unlikely. They were just too new to have been adapted to that purpose, probably.

And witchcraft laws at the time were really fierce. The Church authorized the Inquisition to hunt witches and those practicing "demonology" in 1326. That alone would have been serious discouragement to inventing cartomancy or new forms of divination anyway. Italy passed a draconian set of witch burning laws in 1498; execution of witches first stopped in France in 1745.

To divine with cards would have been just too dangerous to do; and most people probably sincerely believed in witches and that fortune telling was evil. Only after the laws begin to change in France do we see cartomancy develop.
 

Alan Ross

frelkins said:
No, we have no evidence for it. Histories of the times were replete with all kinds of crazy forms of divination, but cards are never mentioned, which makes their use seem unlikely.
Both Paul Huson and Robert Place mention specific pre-18th Century documentary sources for card divination in their respective books. I mentioned Huson's citations previously in this thread. Robert Place, in "The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination," mentions the "Mainz Fortune-telling Book," published 1487, and "Le Sorti," published in 1540, stating that both "provide instruction for the use of an ordinary four-suit playing-card deck for divination or fortune-telling."

Is Huson's and Place's information incorrect?

Alan
 

frelkins

Alan, I just have trouble understanding how such books could have been published at a time when the Church censors/authorizes books, and witches were being actively burned in Germany and France. You can publish a book on fortune-telling with cards in Mainz, in the Holy Roman Empire? Do you see how much cognitive dissonance is here?

I have Place's book, but I don't find him very credible on this and several other points - I've always wondered if the source is mis-dated. If I could get a quotation, a scan of a page, anything - I'd have more belief. But I'm skeptical so far. The Huson book I don't have, so I can't speak to that.

If I can get better evidence I'll be happy to change my mind. Please feel free to offer it. :)
 

Sheri

I voted yes, because humans can't help but divine. If they read entrails in caves, it isn't crazy to think they read with other things, like palms, and cards when they were available. I also think that divination took place whether it was legal or not in the Church's eyes, because once a family of diviners, always a family of diviners. They just hid it.

I have no basis for my ideas, just a study of human nature. We are imaginative and come from a storytelling history (before the written word). It would not be a stretch of my imagination to believe that a few stories get told and then people are inserting themselves or friends in the stories and then the stories become "what if" stories and they come true... and these stories are created with whatever is available, such as cards.

:love: valeria
 

Debra

For all the reasons listed above, I voted "Have looked into this and still don't know." :p
 

Rosanne

I know of four Fortune telling paintings with cards between 1480 and 1550
I could only find one online for linking- the Lucas van Leyden one.(last post 1st page) One was also done by an Italian woman Sofonisba Anguissola in aprox 1550- her sketches in preparation still exist for the painting. Her painting that is extant in Italy is of women playing Chess- a pastime that was not approved of for women.
Caravaggio painted a palmistry picture between 1560-1650? and a few card playing paintings.
~Rosanne
 

Jyscal

I voted dont know enough about the history to know for sure. This year i plan to devote alot more time to learning the history. I can recall having a very long conversation with a friend not so long ago on the same matter. To me, the idea of around 1400's seems more logical but i like to keep an open mind. Thanks for an interesting poll.
 

Teheuti

frelkins said:
Alan, I just have trouble understanding how such books could have been published at a time when the Church censors/authorizes books, and witches were being actively burned in Germany and France. You can publish a book on fortune-telling with cards in Mainz, in the Holy Roman Empire? Do you see how much cognitive dissonance is here?
Frelkins - here's the evidence you asked for:
http://trionfi.com/0/p/41/