Fifty-Four Devils: The Art & Folklore of Fortune-Telling with Playing Cards

Ye are twenty-five cards. Become twenty-five devils Enter into the body, into the blood, into the soul . So begins a nineteenth century Italian charm making use of a small deck of playing cards. This brief-but-richly drawn book explores the practice of divination by playing cards-known as cartomancy. It reveals the secrets in plain sight which hide within the pips, kings, queens, and jokers of a standard deck. Explore one method of divination in-depth as you meet the fifty-four devils-the symbolic spirits of each card-and learn about invoking ancestral blessings for card readings, the folklore of playing cards, and how to relate fairy tales to a spread along the way. -From the back cover