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