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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What turns an ordinary pack of playing cards into a way of asking about the future?
Telling Fortunes by Cards, attributed to Mohammed Ali, introduces the old practice of reading fortunes with playing cards. This small handbook explains a working method: shuffling, cutting and laying out the pack, then reading the meanings assigned to the cards. Love, money, work and trouble become subjects for interpretation.
The inquirer—the person asking the question—takes part in a ritual that gives the reading its weight. Behind that ritual lies a popular custom, taken seriously by some and enjoyed as entertainment by others. The book offers a window into that tradition, rather than scientific proof of prediction.
What you’ll discover
- An ordinary pack transformed Explore how suits, numbers and fixed order lend themselves to a system of meanings.
- Meanings behind the cards Discover the associations that connect cards with everyday hopes, concerns and questions.
- The ritual of reading Follow the shuffle, cut and layout that give a card reading its shape.
- A window into custom Meet a practice that sits between serious belief and amusement at social gatherings.
- Something to try with friends Find a way to turn a familiar pack into a shared parlour game.
Who will love it
This book is for curious readers who love fortune-telling lore, collectors of folk customs, writers hunting period detail, and anyone who wants clear card meanings to try with friends.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Practice turns symbols into a story
- Direction changes what cards mean
- Fixed meanings gain force from neighbors
- Layouts give the reading its shape
- Neighbors can change a card's message
- Learn meanings before widening their scope
- Each card becomes a connected phrase
- Wishes and games make room for play
- The methods remain a practical toolkit
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- Large print hardcover
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25 languages, side by side
Telling Fortunes by Cards in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Telling Fortunes by Cards
by Mohammed Ali
A seeress lays out a plain deck and tells Josephine an imperial crown awaits her in Notre Dame.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to read20 languages
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In short
Picture Paris in the bitter days of the Reign of Terror. Josephine, widow of General Beauharnais, slips into the Faubourg St. Germain dressed as a waiting woman.
Telling Fortunes by Cards at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 50 min1 h 30 min fast, 2 h 15 min slow
- Length
- 26,700 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Card reading is a skill anyone can learn
The book opens with a bold claim. No seer, it says, has ever called card divination a natural gift. It comes from study and practice alone, so anyone who works at it can master it.
Josephine's story is the example. The seeress used a simple deck to read a disguised stranger's past with great accuracy. She described the prison, the guillotine, a young soldier who would save her, and a crown in Notre Dame. Then the editor steps back. He does not know that the old authors are wrong, and he only presents what people who sincerely believed taught. Readers may place as much or as little faith in the cards as they choose.
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Details
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Cite this edition
Ali, Muhammad. Telling Fortunes by Cards. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/telling-fortunes-by-cards.
Ali, M. (2026). Telling fortunes by cards. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/telling-fortunes-by-cards
Ali, Muhammad. Telling Fortunes by Cards. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/telling-fortunes-by-cards.
@book{ali2026telling,
author = {Ali, Muhammad},
title = {Telling Fortunes by Cards},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/telling-fortunes-by-cards}
}
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What is Telling Fortunes by Cards about?
It is a manual of cartomancy, divination with playing cards. It collects ancient and modern card meanings, many ways to lay out the cards, wish tests, marriage oracles and parlor games, and it shows how to build a connected reading.
What is cartomancy?
Cartomancy is the art of telling fortunes with cards. In this book it uses an ordinary pack of playing cards, either all fifty-two or a selected thirty-two, and reads each card by suit, rank, position and neighboring cards.
What does a reversed card mean in card reading?
In this book a card dealt upside down often carries a different meaning from the same card upright. The nine of diamonds, for example, means enterprise upright and delay or ruin reversed, which is why cards with otherwise indistinguishable ends are marked.
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