History of Cartomancy: From Playing Cards to Etteilla and Lenormand

Cards for Playing, Not for Guessing

It is often believed that cards were invented for divination. The documented history tells a different story. Playing cards reached Europe in the 1370s by way of the Islamic world (Mamluk cards) and spread as a game. Tarot decks, playing cards with extra allegorical cards (the trumps, or “triumphs”), are attested in northern Italy from the 1440s, used for trick-taking games. For more than three centuries, nothing indicates that these games were used in any notable way to predict the future.

Divination by chance existed (dice, written lots, bibliomancy), along with printed “lot games” where answers were drawn. But it was ordinary playing cards that, in the 18th century, became a full-fledged tool of divination.

The 18th Century: Etteilla and Piquet

Historians of playing cards, including Michael Dummett, place the beginnings of divination with ordinary cards in France in the 1750s–1760s. In 1770, a manual by Etteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette, 1738–1791) appeared. Etteilla was a former merchant who called himself a “professor of algebra” and made his living from consultations. It gives meanings for the cards of the piquet game, the 32-card pack (sevens to aces in four suits), plus one additional card. It is the oldest known book devoted to this subject.

The choice of the 32-card pack was no accident: it was the popular game of the period, found everywhere. The basic meanings that have been passed down date from this era: hearts for feelings, clubs for business, spades for setbacks, diamonds for news and money, with variations between authors. See cartomancy with 32 cards for the method.

The Tarot Becomes an Oracle

The turning point for the tarot is famous. In 1781, the Protestant scholar Antoine Court de Gébelin, in Le Monde primitif, claimed that the tarot trumps were a hidden Egyptian book, the “Book of Thoth.” This thesis has no basis: Egyptologists found no support for it, and the tarot is an Italian game of the 15th century. The idea nonetheless proved very influential. Etteilla seized on it: he assigned divinatory meanings to the 78 cards (1783), published a treatise (1785), founded in 1788 a society of “interpreters of the Book of Thoth,” and had a tarot printed for divination.

In the 19th century, Éliphas Lévi linked the 22 major arcana to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and to Kabbalah, Papus published Le Tarot des Bohémiens (1889), the Golden Dawn (1888) built a complete system, and the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (1909) fixed the imagery of the minor arcana. For these stages, see the history of the tarot.

Marie-Anne Lenormand and the 19th-Century Decks

Marie-Anne Lenormand (1772–1843) was the most famous fortune-teller of her century. Her clients are said to have included figures of the Directory, the Consulate and the Empire; several of these accounts come from her own memoirs, written with a sure sense of staging. She did not invent the deck that bears her name: it derives from the German “Game of Hope” of the late 18th century and was published under the Lenormand name after her death. See the Lenormand oracle guide and its introduction.

The 19th century also saw the rise of 52-card cartomancy, notably in the English-speaking world, and of “fortune-telling” tarots at fairs. The myth that the Romani invented card divination is a legend of the period, which historians consider unfounded before the 20th century.

Law, Morality and Current Use

Cartomancy has always provoked debate. Churches often consider it contrary to the faith. In France, the law, which for a long time punished “fortune-tellers” (diseurs de bonne aventure), now mainly targets abuses (fraud, abuse of vulnerability) committed under the cover of fortune-telling. Serious practitioners now present it as a tool for reflection rather than prediction, with a counselling approach rather than one of pronouncement.

If you want to try it, start with a simple spread and read the cartomancy guide.

Chronological Landmarks

Frequently asked questions

Also read

The meanings mentioned belong to tradition and symbolism. They are neither promises of results nor medical advice. Back to Other divinatory arts.