Card Divination Poll

frelkins said:

Cartomancy as we know it, let's be factual, is largely the invention of that crazy wigmaker, barber, or wheat salesman, or what have you, the guy we know as Etteilla, who was apparently at one time some kind of freemason too.

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You don't know this. Etteilla claimed he learned it from another person. Maybe, maybe not...

frelkins said:

The truth about cartomancy is fascinating enough without the ambiguous word-play. It's really a subject for ludology - why are cardboard and ink so enchanting to us monkeys? What is the purpose of play?

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Please tell us what YOUR definition of "cartomancy" is. You've used plenty of words to tell us what you believe it is not, now please tell us what you think it is.

frelkins said:

Again, we clearly just have different definitions. If you think pre-printed look-ups are cartomancy and not spreads, etc. -- all the procedures introduced by the wigster, then we have to stop the discussion. We have to agree to disagree, with all the contempt that sadly implies.

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No one is disputing that reading tarot, as it is done nowadays, is an art. But all "art" evolves over time. Cave paintings do not have the same sophistication of the Mona Lisa (both are classified as "Art"); gregorian chant is no where near as complex and polished as a modern film score (both are called "Music"), and divination using cards has taken a similar path of refinement.

Sorry to see you express "contempt" (your words, not mine) for those who see things differently than yourself.

Both the sortilege and Lenthall cards indicate that cards were used for divination before the 18th century. Whether this could be called cartomancy is still up for debate.

The discovery of the "pre-1750" manuscript of divinatory meanings for the Bolognese tarot by Franco Pratesi suggests that Tarot divination had been occuring in Bologna from at least the beginning of the 18th century.
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Bolognese_Tarot_Divination

The meanings for the Bolognese trumps are so literal that it's hard to believe that no one had thought such things before that time - especially when tarocchi appropriati had been using similar keywords.
http://trionfi.com/0/p/28/
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=83558

Here are some pages from the Marcolini manuscript:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wivs/ho_37.37.23.htm

Teheuti said:

Here are some pages from the Marcolini manuscript:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wivs/ho_37.37.23.htm

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After reviewing the evidence, it appears that cards were indeed used for divination as far back as the 16th century. I had to vote "yes".

Whether you can call the activity described in Le Sorti di F. Marcolino" cartomancy is apparently up for grabs, though using the dictionary definition you certainly can. Apparently some personal definitions of the word don't allow for earlier methods.

The word "cartomancy" is an 18th-century term, but like most modern words they apply to earlier manifestations of what they describe. For example, the word "homosexual" did not exist before the 19th century, but we have plenty of evidence that people were engaging in homosexual activity prior to the adoption of the word.

Greg Stanton said:

After reviewing the evidence, it appears that cards were indeed used for divination as far back as the 16th century. I had to vote "yes".

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Me, too.

I still wonder why a poll like this when there is evidence. What would one make of someone who still says - or believes - 'no' in spite of the evidence?

BrightEye said:

Me, too.

I still wonder why a poll like this when there is evidence. What would one make of someone who still says - or believes - 'no' in spite of the evidence?

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There were two other answers possible--both of which are significant in a group of taroists. You don't find it interesting to know what taroists believe? Or that cartomancy might be more specific than divination - and that it is not even "divination with cards" but something else?

In this case, "belief" for me includes the idea that, as I believe Pietro Aretino said in his Dialogues (early 16th century), people will use 'anything' for divination. However, some think people would 'use anything' except tarot cards.

Here's a little bit from Aretino's Dialogues (note: the characters speaking were whores and pimps whose life-style was normally not portrayed in print):
“NANNA: So it is clear that the real difficulty is keeping lovers, not acquiring them.
“PIPPA: There’s not a doubt of it.
“NANNA: Turn the card, and now you’ll find a man who isn’t jealous and yet loves you, despite all those who say that one can’t love without jealousy.” p. 209
And, in a reference that might have come from the Moon card:
“...she, who had as much good sense as a crayfish out of the moon...” p. 304.
(page numbers are from Raymond Rosenthal's translation)

In his Le carte parlanti (c. 1525), there are frequent references to the symbolism of the tarot “The temptations of the hermit is the devil,” and some very subtle irony on the function of the cards: “... They reveal the secrets of nature, the reason for things, and explain the causes why day is driven out by night and night by day.” [from Bellenghi, Cartomancy].

I find it interesting that no one objected regarding the question of beliefs about Egyptian origins - despite there not being a single piece of evidence FOR an Egyptian origin. Here we have evidence and individuals who clearly don't find the existing evidence sufficient (which is okay by me - this is, after all, about belief).

I voted yes. I have a vague recollection of it being mentioned in Shakespeare or one of his contemporaries, for a start....

I just found this description of Le Carte Parlanti in the Cassell Dictionary of Italian Literature:
"Le carte parlanti (1543) is based on the ingenious pretext of a discussion between ordinary playing cards and Tarot cards, which explain their symbolic meaning and reveal the fates of their players, including Charles V."

We are really at a disadvantage in not having a translation of this work.

Andy Pollett gives us Aretino's card titles and order for the cards:

Il matto
(the fool)
Il Bagatella
(the trivial performer)
l'Imperatrice
(the empress)
la papessa
(the popess)
lo Imperatore
(the emperor)
il papa
(the pope)
l'Amore
(love)
la Giustizia
(justice)
il carro trionfale
(the trimphal chariot)
la fortezza
(fortitude)
la ruota
(the wheel)
il vecchio
(the old man)
il traditore
(the traitor)
la morte
(death)
la temperantia
(temperance)
Plutone
(Pluto)
la casa di Plutone
(the house of Pluto)
le stelle
(the stars)
la luna
(the moon)
il sole
(the sun)
l'Angelo (le Trombe)
(the angel / the trumpets)
il mondo
(the world)

http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards26.htm

Aretino also talks about the cards in an earlier work:
Pietro Aretino, Sonetto XXXII in pasquinade for the election of Adrian VI (1521). È sicuramente divinatorio il metodo scelto dall' Aretino per scegliere il futuro papa: a ciascun cardinale viene distribuita una carta degli Arcani maggiori . It certainly was once the method chosen by 'Aretino to choose the future Pope to each cardinal is given a map of the major Arcana.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcani_maggiori

In this earlier work Aretino gives different names and a different order for the cards, including calling the Popess: "la bella papessa":

il bagatella
(the trivial performer)
l'imperatrice
(the empress)
l'imperadore
(the emperor)
la bella papessa
(the beautiful popess)
il papa
(the pope)
la temperantia
(temperance)
l'amore
(love)
il carro
(the chariot)
La fortezza
(fortitude)
la ruota di fortuna
(the wheel of fortune)
il vecchio
(the old man)
il traditore
(the traitor)
la morte
(death)
il diavol
(the devil)
la casa
(the house)
la stella
(the star)
la luna
(the moon)
il sol
(the sun)
l'angelo
(the angel)
la iusticia
(justice)
il mondo
(the world)
il matto
(the fool)
http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards26.htm

gregory said:

I voted yes. I have a vague recollection of it being mentioned in Shakespeare or one of his contemporaries, for a start....

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Oh wow, now I want to search for that. See, it's like I said, I don't know enough. But I want to believe.

Could someone please tell me what this lady is doing with her cards in 1501?
The painting is unnamed, but is commonly referred to as Fortune Teller. It has a circa of aprox 50 years but is thought to be 1501. It is said she is a gypsy-but her dress speaks of something else- that is open to interpretation. The cards are not.
I can understand that words can be applied to different things- but images are fairly self explanatory.(except symbols maybe)
I would instantly assume this Lady is practising Cartomancy.

http://www.scholarsresource.com/browse/work/2144595915

~Rosanne

gregory said:

I voted yes. I have a vague recollection of it being mentioned in Shakespeare or one of his contemporaries, for a start....

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"Last night the very gods showed me a vision-- I fast and prayed for their intelligence--thus: I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, winged From the spongy south to this part of the west, There vanished in the sunbeams; which portends, Unless my sins abuse my divination, Success to th' Roman host." Spoken by the soothsayer in Cymbeline (IV, ii)

"How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us." Hamlet to Horatio; Hamlet (V, i). It's thought to refer to the trial of Edmund Campion.

I don't know of any quotes regarding divination by playing cards, but perhaps there is one.