Fortune Telling and Divination: Now Available!

 

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This collection of fortune telling lore is parsed into several sections and spans a couple of centuries. It is a compilation of materials from my own edited works on subjects such as dream interpretation, astrology, oracles, and other practices used to discern ones' fate. I wanted to provide as broad and lengthy an overview of these systems as possible in this excellent work, which is a companion to my collections on demonology and alchemy.

With a short suggested reading list and expansive preface, this work can be used by a modern audience just as it could in times past.

388 pages.

Stars of Destiny: Now Available!

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This is quite a good work, relatively lengthy and somewhat dense. It is purely astrological and includes the basic meaning of the twelve signs, the meaning of each celestial bodies' movements in each of the twelve houses, and the categorization of the twenty four hours of the day and what to do (or not do) in basic terms for business, travel, etc, based on the reigning planet. It gives some explanation using astrology with a few charts as well.

82 pages.

Planting, Harvesting, etc, According to the Signs of the Zodiac: Now Available!

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This short, obtusely-titled booklet is nonetheless absolutely worth reading for those interested in the topic of astrology; I don't know of another comparable work; one which suggests that surgical and medical acts should be relegated to an astrological timeline. The agricultural tips in here are a bit more mystic than in most works with similar, almanac-esque content, but are definitely fun to read.

At the end it contains a relatively mundane twelve-month zodiac and the basic traits for each sign. Notably, it does include the concept of "cusp" signs (days overlapping two signs.) For example, I am on the cusp of Capricorn and Aquarius. This has significance in some zodiacal interpretations, but is not regarded as valid by some others.

38 pages.

Ars Paulina: Now Available!

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This is one of the four (true) works comprising the Lesser Keys of Solomon (the Notoria is not of the same era.) Less well known than the Ars Goetia, it is nonetheless 1. a distinct work and 2. important to the general tradition it is part of; specifically, it is an astrological work before anything else, which fails to give the sort of detailed list of powers for each of the angels it purports to allow one to summon.

It is broken into two sections. The first details the angels of the hours and the second one the twelve signs of the zodiac. In both cases, seals are constructed and used with a complex table of practice in combination with several invocations. It's quite a good work overall albeit shorter than the Goetia it shares tradition with.

44 pages

The Astrological Physician: Now Available!

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This manuscript is honestly one of the most bizarre things I have ever come across and edited within the occult. A fusion of astrology and medicine, it proposes to diagnose and help treat ailments (often outdated ones with new names) by observing the planets so forth in their movements at the time of complaint and diagnosis. It also says it can determine whether a disease is being caused by witches or demons.

Equally at home as a quack/ folk medicine work and as one purely astrological, it's a strange but interesting fusion.

44 pages.

Witchcraft Detected and Prevented: Now Available!

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This work is a bit on the odd side because the title is utterly useless in determining its content; reading the title (which proposes the work to purely oppose witchery) and the preface, one would assume it's nothing more than Christian zeal or, at most, white magick. It is in fact based partly on the work of Magnus, partly on the Petit Albert (or some intermediary text) and partly on the fortune telling tradition of the late 1700s with the Norwood Gypsy and other content. As such, it is a bric-a-brac, a gray magick grimoire, and a miniaturized compiling of herbal and folk lore and magic, all combined with some protective incantations and plenty of superstition.

In fact, altogether, it almost rivals the Petit Albert or Hohman's "Pow Wows" for interest in my own opinion- this kind of work is uncommon, and extremely interesting. It also contains some basic chemical works (alchemy!) and weather prognostication with astrological overtones.


92 pages.

The Language of the Stars: Now Available!

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This particular booklet is both well made enough for a total novice of astrology to understand its content and in depth enough to cover things other than the standard "twelve signs and their overlap with other categories" material which shorter astrological works tend to cover.

Written by Burgoyne and explicitly recommended as a good astrological primer by Magnus Jensen (which, honestly, is how I found out that it existed!) it goes fairly deep into drawing up nativity charts, the meaning of and calculations of the planets, their influence into the twelve houses (and the meaning of the same) and far more.

67 pages.

Everybody's Astrology: Now Available!

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This booklet is a compact little guide to the basics of astrology both theoretical and pragmatic. Some of the content here is Magnus Jensen's own theory and opinion, the rest is fairly standard zodiacal lore.

It contains a pair of rising sign tables among other things as well as references to a half dozen other astrological works, admonishing that the world would be a far better place if astrology were more widely understood and practiced.

38 pages.

General Update Time!

Things are going along quite smoothly at present; due to the sudden coming of snow (far earlier than usual) I've gotten a little ADHD addled I suppose and I have three works not complete but all more than half complete; namely the (very good) South Sea Herbal, the Asuri Kalpa, and A work called "Everybody's Astrology." I figure at least one will be done before November ends, and the other two in the first week of December, with three more works to go before the big #100.

That completes the first stage of my work; but there is an enormous load ahead for 2017; namely at least one and probably two entire categories' worth of work ("medical" will combine herbals with homeopathy, and I envision a new category for works related to the psychic arts, mediumship, mesmerism, and similar topics), as well as a planned massive addition of new subjects to the occult playlist I have made.

This is in addition to two side projects; tomorrow I should receive the three booklets I grabbed off ebay, and with my patreon-based donations far higher now I have the cash necessary to seriously look at some of the better booklet lots on ebay over time and grab a few to roughly double the occult archive- this has been actively planned for some time but until now I had so much else to do that I didn't have the time; I want to field at least 200 free scans by the end of 2017 and another 100 on top of that by the middle of 2018.

The second side project is, of course, finalizing the kindle ebook releases and adding links to them to the categories on this blog; unfortunately at least four separate editions were messed up (I'm good at dealing with createspace' system for paperbacks, but I am not used to the kindle process) and I had to completely redo them. If you do find that any of my ebook releases are not properly formatted, please do not hesitate to tell me here in a comment or by message on my Youtube channel.

I am also happy to announce that more than 120 copies of Sickness in Hell have been sold since its release about five weeks ago- this doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that the genre is the literal fringe of the fringe being self released without commercial advertisement by a largely unknown author of fictional works.

The Omnium Gatherum: Now Available!

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The Omnium Gatherum is a bizarre but interesting fortune teller. Written in the 1870s and pairing a social oracle with temperance propaganda, it is the offspring of JT Yarrington, who was an activist for this latter cause.

The social purpose is clear; get a group of people together to tell their fortunes with one another and subsequently ponder the evils of alcohol (the "grog sellers" and so forth!) It also contains a dozen testimonials from the press of its age. Indeed, the oracle can be used solo by making slips of paper for each possible answer to the questions but getting a group together really helps when your purpose is to get them talking about the evils of beer and liquor.

44 pages.

The Seaside Sybil: Now Available!

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The Seaside Sybil is a strange little work. Written in 1882 and almost entirely New York-centric in style, it proposes a rather simple oracle system; 100 possible fortunes are present, and the numbers 1 through 100 placed on slips of paper and one drawn at random to consult the oracle.

The oracle itself is what concerns, of course, the occult audience- also of interest here though is the addition of ads for quack medicine, often ads of a rather outmoded and at times hilariously bigoted nature; for example, an ad featuring a "chinaman" charicature eating a box of rat poison- the ad states "They must go!" It is not clear if the rats, or the chinaman, are the primary subject.

28 pages.

Divination, Fortune Telling, and Astrology Books for Sale

The following is a continuously edited list of texts related to fortune telling, prophecy, astrology, and prognostication, which I have edited and released. This list will be updated over time as new titles become available.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL MERLIN
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A British work from 1822 dealing with astrology and divination.

HIEROGLYPHICAL FORTUNE TELLER
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A lengthy oracle with no additional content. Circa the 1870s.

THE UNIVERSAL FORTUNE TELLER OF MRS BRIDGET (1790)
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A longer, earlier fortune teller including palmistry, astrology, card tricks, dream interpretation, and more.

THE UNIVERSAL FORTUNE TELLER (1860)
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A series of charms and astrological divination. Also Americana.

NAPOLEON'S ORACULUM
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An elaborate system of fortune telling, which also contains charms and divination-related practices which use nothing more than playing cards, dominoes, and other simple things. Pure Americana.

THE SEASIDE SYBIL
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A short oracle using slips of paper. Contains many vintage quack medicine and joke ads.

THE HINDU BOOK OF ASTROLOGY
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The twelve signs, the cusps, and various Western occult lore masquerading as Hindu.

YOUR FUTURE REVEALED BY THE GODS OF GREECE
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A simplified oracle in Shakespearean verse.

THE OMNIUM GATHERUM
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A social oracle paired with temperance era propaganda. Mostly relationship related.

EVERYBODYS ASTROLOGY
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A short astrological work mainly speaking of the signs and their meaning.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE STARS
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An excellent primer on beginner-to-intermediate astrology.

THE NEW DREAM BOOK
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An excellent, mid-length work of dream interpretation including moles and cards as used to prognosticate. Contains an early proto-oraculum.

THE TRUE FORTUNE TELLER
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A short work half plagiarized from the 1790 version. Includes prognostication by nails and a unique tree-oracle.

MYSTIC DREAM BOOK
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A lengthy list of dreams and their meanings, from a late 19th century perspective.

PLANTING, HARVESTING, ETC BY THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC
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A short work that subjugates crops and surgery to the movements of celestial bodies.

STARS OF DESTINY
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A work on astrology with the signs, houses, and hours as well as their various natures.

DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS
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A Theosophical work detailing how to remember dreams, some material about their meaning, and a large number of anecdotes about premonitions in dreams.

MEHMET ALIS ORIENTAL INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS
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A long, obtusely titled work of dream interpretation, phrenology, general divination, also with a full sized oracle system.

TELLING FORTUNES BY TEA LEAVES
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A comprehensive encyclopedic system of interpreting tea leaves, with a fairly large and illustrated section giving examples.

FORTUNE TELLING AND DIVINATION
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A collection of divination and fortune telling lore. Oracles, dream interpretation, tea leaf reading, and much more.

A METHOD OF CHIEROGNOMY
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A palmistry work focusing on the hands' shape and size, its mounds, and on finger and thumb types.

THE ORIGINAL NORWOOD GIPSY
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A short fortune teller with palmistry, tea leaf reading, divination by cards, lucky and unlucky days, etc.

MOTHER BUNCH'S CLOSET
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A short combination fiction story and fortune telling work re-edited from an even older work which might even predate mention of the Norwood Gypsy.

THE NATURE OF DREAMS
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A short work by Carrington categorizing dreams and speaking about how to remember them, some prognostication by dreams, and more.

PRACTICAL PSYCHOMANCY
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A short Atkinson work on crystal gazing, astral projection, and other associated topics, with anecdotes, and more.

HINTS FROM THE HORNOGRAPH
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A quasi-theosophical prophetic work using allegory and symbolism and linguistics to (correctly) predict the fall of the British Empire and rise of the United States.

A New Booklet I Obtained; And More!

I have obtained a copy of Dr. Pierces' "What your Neighbors Say about You." This long-running quack pharmaceutical pamphlet is half dream interpretation and half other material- the "other" category is mostly medical ads for quack healing but also contains some herbal at-home remedies, recipes, and other stuff. The particular edition I purchased from ebay isn't like any of those I have seen on the internet as pdf scans so I can only guess at some of the content.

Obviously I plan to scan this for the occult archive (as the first new file available there in several years! Huzzah!) as well as to create a paperback edition for others to purchase. The dream interpretation section appears to be almost as long as that found in Napoleon's Oraculum.

I am currently editing "The Hieroglyphical Fortune Teller" which is similar to the early 1900s Oraculum but has Hebrew lettering instead of nativity symbols and has several different questions and a dissimilar casting system. It will take quite a bit of time to complete despite its short length because I am simultaneously writing "Sickness in Hell" (I am now done with the epilogue and first three chapters!) and editing The 1875 work "The Secret Book of the Black Arts" (not to be confused with the similarly titled work by Cavendish much later.) It's a somewhat longer work (about 200 pages) so I will release three or four shorter manuscripts while editing it.

The Universal Fortune Teller of Mrs. Bridget - Now Available!

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The 1790 Universal Fortune Teller is not attributed to Napoleon, although later works containing similar (and sometimes utterly plagiarized) content were. This text contains an elaborate backstory in which the editor claims to have obtained a manuscript from the thatched hut of an old wise woman who had recorded her occult findings in heiroglyphic form. Subsequent to cracking this mysterious code the work was then released.

It's fairly obvious that this backstory was an attempt to increase its circulation- but that doesn't detract from the work, which manages to cover astrology, palmistry, and other tricks, rites, and knowledge into just under 100 pages of content. The astrological system here goes well beyond the simple Zodiac and into terms and meanings as well as arcane minutiae.

With a slimmed down dream interpretation section and a buffed up card trick section, this work is comparable to Napoleon's Oraculum in style, minus, of course, the oracle itself. It is also a rather bawdy work, mentioning whoredom, vixens, cuckoldry, and adultery quite frequently in the divination-by-card section.

98 pages.

From the Universal Fortune Teller (1790)

The 1790 version of the Universal Fortune Teller is indeed far stranger than the one I've already released which post-dates it by seventy years. One look at the content and you know you're not exactly reading something from modernity.

The work is substantially more dense than I originally predicted; the astrological content alone stretches well past 40 pages, and that's really only half the work. All told, it might approach or slightly exceed 100 pages in length with a modern format (bibliophiles will know, of course, that many works from the 1700s had what we would now consider tiny typesetting.) Take a look at this passage from the book:

On the seventeenth day the child that shall be born will be foolish to that degree that it shall be almost unnatural, and thereby become a great affliction to his parents. To go on messages this day is unfortunate, yet to contract matrimony, to compound physical preparations, and to take physic is good, but by no means let blood.

On the eighteenth day the child that shall be born, if a male, shall be valiant, courageous, and eloquent; and if a female, chaste, industrious, and painstaking, and shall come to honor in her old age. It is good this day to begin buildings; and to put out our children in order to be brought up in learning. Have a care of being let blood this day for it is very dangerous.

On the nineteenth day the child then born, if a male, shall be renowned for wisdom and virtue and thereby arrive to great honor, but if a female, she will be of a weak and sickly constitution, yet she will live to be married. This day they may bleed that have occasion.

These three short sections are from the end of the astrological work, regarding the birth of children at various stages of the lunar phases. As we see, bloodletting is encouraged according to the day, and what we term a "voyage" or "trip" is (and this is replicated in the work at least two other times) referred to as a "message." I am leaving some of the antiquated English intact in this work for stylistic purposes, where a modern individual will still be able to infer the meaning from context.

This work, oddly, appears to contain less of the "females are only interested in marriage and lovers" content than the 1860 version; indeed, some of the passages refer to women of a vaguely heroic or brawny constitution depending on the circumstance of their birth. This probably relates to the growing moralism of the mid 1800s as opposed to the lingering flames of the enlightened times of the 1700s and the philosophy from that same era.

Work Begins On 1790 Universal Fortune Teller of Mrs. Bridget

I have begun the editing process on the late 1700s Universal Fortune Teller; the forerunner of the 1860 work released by Tousey with the same title.

This version has an enormous astrological section which takes up about half the work and cuts palmistry down significantly. That being said, it's equally as good as Tousey's later version. However, it will take quite some time to edit; the manuscript is not easily legible and some content has to be inferred by context. Honestly, I prefer this older version as being more "original" within the convoluted interweaving of the "Oraculum x Fortune Teller" tradition.

I have completed and uploaded the files for both Agrippa's "Female Preeminence" and the Book of Tobit also, as both were short, quickly completed editions- they will both be available in the next two days.

A Comparison Of Five Overlapping Occult Books

What follows is a comparison of five different occult works from two overlapping traditions; the Oraculum and the Fortune Telling hand guide. What might have otherwise been two disparate traditions overlaps so significantly that each time I encountered one of the texts I was surprised to a fairly large degree.

What culminates is a fusion and evolution of two literary traditions; the late 1700s fortune teller and the early 1800s oracle book. I intend to release an edition of Mrs. Bridget's Fortune Teller, although I am hesitant to bother releasing the second version of the Oraculum when Tousey's version is so much more interesting; the former version, from the early 1900s, is heavily stripped down.

It is worth noting a second layer of interesting comparison: Fortey released a work in 1860 alongside his version of the Universal Fortune Teller on dream interpretation containing a similar catalog of interpretations to the 1790 work of Mrs. Bridget, while there is also a work from 1823 which stylistically is almost identical to the Philosophical Merlin and also contains an expose on the meaning of moles on the body.

Here, thus, are the comparisons based upon content:

Napoleon's Oraculum Version 2: Fisher and Brothers (1908?) NOFB

Napoleon's Oraculum: Tousey (1884) NOF

Universal Fortune Teller: Fortey (1860) UFTT

Universal Fortune Teller: Mrs. Bridget (1790) UFTB

Philosophical Merlin: (1822) PM

----

An Oraculum

NOFB: Yes, expansive question oracle
NOF:  Yes, shortened question oracle
UFTT: No
UFTB: No
PM:   Yes, a nativity casting oracle

Prognostication for Children

NOFB: Yes, simple
NOF:  Yes, simple
UFTT: Yes, simple
UFTB: Yes, expansive
PM:   No

Charms And Rites Section

NOFB: No
NOF:  Yes
UFTT: Yes
UFTB: No
PPM:  No

Dream Interpretation

NOFB: No
NOF:  Yes, very expansive
UFTT: No
UFTB: Yes, moderately expansive
PM:   No

Tricks with cards

NOFB: No
NOF:  Yes, several tricks
UFTT: Yes, one fortune-telling trick
UFTB: Yes, one fortune-telling trick
PM:   No

Tricks with Dominoes

NOFB: No
NOF:  Yes
UFTT: No
UFTB: No
PM:   No

Tricks with Dice

NOFB: No
NOF:  Yes
UFTT: No
UFTB: No
PM:   No

Choosing a Husband by the Hair

NOFB: No
NOF:  No
UFTT: Yes
UFTB: Yes
PM:   No

Astrology

NOFB: No
NOF:  Yes, simple horoscopes
UFTT: Yes, simple horoscopes
UFTB: Yes, complex horoscopes and astronomy
PM:   Technically yes

Palmistry

NOFB: No
NOF:  No
UFTT: Yes, complex
UFTB: Yes, simple with illustration
PM:   No

Tea Leaf Reading

NOFB: No
NOF:  No
UFTT: Yes
UFTB: No
PM:   No

Moles and their Importance

NOFB: No
NOF:  Yes, moles and their meanings
UFTT: No
UFTB: Yes, moles and their meanings
PM:   Yes, their likely presence as determined via Oraculum

Largely Fictional Backstory Regarding Origin

NOFB: Yes, of Napoleon
NOF:  No
UFTT: No
UFTB: Yes, of the Norwood Gypsy
PM:   Yes, of Napoleon

Unlucky Days List

NOFB: No
NOF:  No, but contains a list of days not to cast the oracle
UFTT: Yes
UFTB: Yes
PM:   No

Origin

NOFB: United States
NOF:  United States
UFTT: England
UFTB: England
PM:   England

The Universal Fortune Teller: Now Available!

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The Universal Fortune Teller of Fortey's fame is a work vaguely similar to Napoleon's Oraculum- containing some of the same material (in not quite the same form) a full 24 years before the Oraculum was crafted, adding several new elements to the work and removing several others.

This specific work revolves mainly around the reading of tea leaves, palmistry, and a section on charms and simplistic rituals mostly involved with love and marriage.

Indeed, the Fortune Teller is itself based upon a similar work from 1790 by some anonymous author called "Universal Fortune Teller: Mrs. Bridgets Golden Treasury." This latter text is attributed to the "Norwood Gypsy" and contains the same prognostication for children born on each day of the week (omitted from the Oraculum; but I added it back for continuity's sake) and a lengthy astrological exposition included in the Oraculum in modified form and absent from the 1860 Fortune Teller.

The convoluted and interconnected content of these three works, as well as the second version of the Oraculum is interesting enough to warrant a future post specifically delineating the content.