Two Book Finds

[FindYourSovereignty]

Out and about this weekend I went to a book sale out of a man’s old barn/garage. He had some fabulous books and I managed to obtain a few on divination. Two of them were Fortune Telling with Playing Cards by Jonathan Dee and What the Cards Tell by Minetta. I’ve loved playing card games in general my whole life and I’ve collected some unique decks here and there just because of the court images. I don’t know to what degree I will use these books, but I am fascinated. Anyone have experience with either of them? Please share. 

[flora]

I have no experience with those books. But at least I heard of the Jonathan Dee book and put it on my endless reading list.

 

I did dabble a bit with cartomany after I found a german book second hand. After researching there seemed to be different schools and traditions in reading cartomancy like german/french, english/american etc.

What I did after researching a lot online and reading the book at hand, is to take a cheap,old deck of playing cards and write the most common meanings on them.

Helped playing,reading and a bit of learning. It did remind of Lenormand and Tarot alike at times. It felt very divinationary to me. But not very subtle, rather an in your face method. That's mostly the reason why I gave up on it again, besides being lazy. God knows where I put that deck. Somehow I managed to loose it.

 

Sorry, I know that's not what you asked. But maybe somewhat helpful along the way.

 

If you would do a review I would be most interested. 🙂

[akiva]

On 9/23/2024 at 2:53 PM, FindYourSovereignty said:

I don’t know to what degree I will use these books, but I am fascinated. Anyone have experience with either of them? Please share. 

I have both of these books! They both approach cartomancy very differently because they were written about a century apart afaik.

 

Minetta's book focuses on the piquet/32 card deck, and methods which were popular at her time of writing. Her older book contains information on the Tarot (RWS) and the full 52 card deck. But I think What The Cards Tell has removed that? It's a fun book nonetheless, and has lots of interesting methods, some of which can be used with tarot and other decks too. 

 

It's worth noting that Minetta's method is an adaption of Sepherial's cartomancy method, found in his Manual of Occultism page 233. Cicely Kent also adapted his system and wrote a book very similar to Minetta's, but goes into a bit more detail. 

 

Jonathan Dee's book is definitely a more modern approach. He includes astrology, which I personally don't like in playing cards, but ymmv! 😄 The numerology behind his meanings seems a little too RWS for my liking aswell. He also gives 'traditional' names for some cards, and for the courts these traditional names come from French cartomancy. But the pips? I have no clue what tradition he's referencing. For instance, the 7 Spades he says is called "the eye of the storm". I have never in my life seen it referenced like this! 😅 In older french cartomancy it's known as "the star" because it represents hope. 

 

All of this is why I've avoided using this book tbh. Though he does touch upon some traditional cartomancy at the end of the book in the chapter "Telling fortunes the romany way". The meanings referenced in that chapter are basically old French piquet (Thylbus), with a few of his own twists.

 

He also references Lenormand, and gives meanings. And The Master Method too, which is it's own beast to tame! 🤣

 

I guess the choice between the two is night and day, as they're so opposite each other. Ones for the 32 card deck, the other the 52. One's old, the other modern. You could have a lot of fun exploring both, especially if you have no prior experience. It's so cool you found Minetta's book in a barn sale like that too! 😊

Edited September 28, 2024 by akiva

[FindYourSovereignty]

23 hours ago, flora said:

What I did after researching a lot online and reading the book at hand, is to take a cheap,old deck of playing cards and write the most common meanings on them.

Helped playing,reading and a bit of learning. It did remind of Lenormand and Tarot alike at times. It felt very divinationary to me. But not very subtle, rather an in your face method.

Thank you, @flora, for sharing. I’ve wanted to do this many times with an old deck of cards and simply haven’t taken the time or made the effort. I’m not exactly sure how much energy I want to put into learning this method of reading. It seems like there is a lot of memorization required with so little imagery to help me along with some hints or cues. I’m also not super comfortable with reading future divination in this manner.

 

 

22 hours ago, akiva said:

I have both of these books! They both approach cartomancy very differently because they were written about a century apart afaik.

 

Minetta's book focuses on the piquet/32 card deck, and methods which were popular at her time of writing. Her older book contains information on the Tarot (RWS) and the full 52 card deck. But I think What The Cards Tell has removed that? It's a fun book nonetheless, and has lots of interesting methods, some of which can be used with tarot and other decks too. 

 

It's worth noting that Minetta's method is an adaption of Sepherial's cartomancy method, found in his Manual of Occultism page 233. Cicely Kent also adapted his system and wrote a book very similar to Minetta's, but goes into a bit more detail. 

 

Jonathan Dee's book is definitely a more modern approach. He includes astrology, which I personally don't like in playing cards, but ymmv! 😄 The numerology behind his meanings seems a little too RWS for my liking aswell. He also gives 'traditional' names for some cards, and for the courts these traditional names come from French cartomancy. But the pips? I have no clue what tradition he's referencing. For instance, the 7 Spades he says is called "the eye of the storm". I have never in my life seen it referenced like this! 😅 In older french cartomancy it's known as "the star" because it represents hope. 

 

All of this is why I've avoided using this book tbh. Though he does touch upon some traditional cartomancy at the end of the book in the chapter "Telling fortunes the romany way". The meanings referenced in that chapter are basically old French piquet (Thylbus), with a few of his own twists.

 

He also references Lenormand, and gives meanings. And The Master Method too, which is it's own beast to tame! 🤣

 

I guess the choice between the two is night and day, as they're so opposite each other. Ones for the 32 card deck, the other the 52. One's old, the other modern. You could have a lot of fun exploring both, especially if you have no prior experience. It's so cool you found Minetta's book in a barn sale like that too! 😊

 

Thank you for the great and detailed review, @akiva. This is very helpful. I am fascinated by ‘reading the cards’ yet have never dabbled in it because of my christian upbringing. It has left me apprehensive at best so, even though I played cards avidly in my childhood, I wasn’t brave enough to delve into reading them. I think if I approach these as you suggest, having fun exploring both of them, I will enjoy the education. 
 

It is all so fascinating. 
 

PS I did feel like I had found a treasure with Minneta’s book. Thank you for the links for further information. This book does not reference RWS at all. 

[akiva]

1 hour ago, FindYourSovereignty said:

Thank you for the great and detailed review, @akiva. This is very helpful. I am fascinated by ‘reading the cards’ yet have never dabbled in it because of my christian upbringing. It has left me apprehensive at best so, even though I played cards avidly in my childhood, I wasn’t brave enough to delve into reading them. I think if I approach these as you suggest, having fun exploring both of them, I will enjoy the education. 

No problem! It's likely that once you try a reading or two it will help get rid of your apprehension. Reading them for everyday subjects does take away a lot of the scariness too. Questions like "will I get my parcel?" or "how will the party go?" work really well with this style of divination. It keeps it lighthearted aswell, which can be good for beginners 😊

 

2 hours ago, FindYourSovereignty said:

PS I did feel like I had found a treasure with Minneta’s book. Thank you for the links for further information. This book does not reference RWS at all. 

It is a bit of a rare book to find, especially in a barn sale! So it's a treasure indeed, and probably an omen of luck too, as you're just beginning 😄

[FindYourSovereignty]

Almost a year later, I had the joy of finding two more books this weekend at the same book store. Tenth printing in 1975 for the Behold the Sign Ancient Symbolism book and a 1959 edition of The Pictorial Key to the Tarot.