A brief history of fortune telling
I recently viewed this circa 1630s painting, The Fortune Teller, by Frenchman Georges De La Tour, at the European Masterpieces exhibition at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art, a week or so before Brisbane went into lockdown. (Now I’m in lockdown in northern NSW as a result, but that’s another story.)
The painting says everything there is to say about how fortune tellers, predominantly women, and often Roma women (known by the derogatory term, ‘Gypsies’) were regarded in Europe at the time. The old Roma woman tells the young man’s fortune while her young female companions pick his pockets. In the meantime, he watches her warily, as if expecting that she will do the thieving.
The word ‘fortune’ is derived from ‘Fortuna’. Fortuna was the Roman goddess of prosperity and luck, and she represented fertility, both of women and the earth. Fortuna spins her wheel of fortune, and the randomness of fate leads to some prospering at the top while those at the bottom suffer terribly. The Wheel of Fortune is one of the major arcana, the archetypal cards of the Tarot. It loosely represents turning points and change.
Shakespeare invented the term ‘fortune teller’ in The Comedy of Errors, in the late C16th. His fortune teller is ‘a hungry lean faced villain’ and ‘a threadbare juggler.’
‘A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A dead-looking man: this pernicious slave.’
Hardly an endorsement! It was likely he referred to someone (a teller) who could provide an account of or a reckoning of fate, although judging from this venomous description of character, they were doing so under false pretences.
Fortune tellers fared no better in Australia. According to The Conversation (see links below), which provides much of the local material for this blog post, they were all the rage in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, primarily as a form of entertainment. Interest in the occult reached its peak during and after the First World War, as the grieving public attended seances and sought means of contacting the husbands, fathers, brothers and sons they’d lost. Fortune tellers read tea leaves or cards, or crystal balls to predict the future at all sorts of public gatherings, including church fetes, and private parties, but their activities were regarded as fraudulent, so governments legislated against them. Fortune telling is criminalised to this day in South Australia and the Northern Territory.
Impoverished women who had no other means of survival often turned to fortune telling, as did a smaller number of men. It was possible to earn a decent living, despite prosecutions (247 between 1900 and 1918, mostly of women), and confected moral outrage. Perhaps there were echoes here of the persecution of witches in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.
It was believed that fortune tellers would prey on the supposedly ‘weaker minded’ female sex and potentially provide information about contraception and abortion. There was no such concern that fortune tellers would hoodwink male clients as they were considered more likely to seek guidance about important matters such as investment decisions.
The tarot is having a resurgence at the moment, as people seek guidance in a turbulent world. In the early days of the first Sydney lockdown, I did a six-week tarot course via zoom. In my small group, I found that the cards were a conduit for supporting each other in realising our dreams and aspirations for the future. They provided a foundation for some deep listening and hopeful therapeutic conversations, although one person who was highly distressed and probably needed professional help didn’t stick around.
Fortune telling features in our story telling and mythology. Who can forget Emma Thompson’s turn as the occasionally psychic Professor Trelawny in Harry Potter? Or dark and twisted Melisandre from Game of Thrones?
There will always be clashes between those who believe in the occult, and the sceptics. These two opposing narratives contribute to the tension between Claire and Leo in my book, The Fortune Teller’s Daughter. Another historical point of difference is played out when Claire uses the cards to help her clients take steps toward solving the problems they identify in their lives, whereas her mother believed she could predict the future.
The tarot emerged from 15th century Italy, possibly as a card game. Whichever way they’re used, the tarot and other methods of fortune telling have been around for a long while, and they’re unlikely to disappear any time soon.
For a comprehensive history of the tarot go to: https://theconversation.com/tarot-resurgence-is-less-about-occult-than-fun-and-self-help-just-like-throughout-history-139448
And for a feminist take on fortune telling in Australia: https://theconversation.com/did-they-see-it-coming-how-fortune-telling-took-hold-in-australia-with-women-as-clients-and-criminals-130134