Christopher's Lamp

The tarot (first known as tarocchi, also tarock and similar names), pronounced /ˈtæroʊ/, is a pack of cards (most commonly numbering 78), used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot. From the late 18th century until the present time the tarot has also found use by mystics and occultists in efforts at divination or as a map of mental and spiritual pathways.
The tarot has four suits corresponding to the suits of conventional playing cards. Each of these suits has pip cards numbering from ace to ten and four face cards for a total of 14 cards. In addition, the tarot is distinguished by a separate 21-card trump suit and a single card known as the Fool. Depending on the game, the Fool may act as the top trump or may be played to avoid following suit.^[1]
Rabelais gives tarau as the name of one of the games played by Gargantua in his Gargantua and Pantagruel;^[2] this is likely the earliest attestation of the French form of the name. Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play card games. In English-speaking countries, where these games are largely unknown, tarot cards are now used primarily for divinatory purposes.^[1][3] Occultists call the trump cards and the Fool "the major arcana" while the ten pip and four court cards in each suit are called minor arcana. The cards are traced by some occult writers to ancient Egypt or the Kabbalah but there is no documented evidence of such origins or of the usage of tarot for divination before the 18th century.<sup>[1]




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Palmistry or chiromancy (also spelled cheiromancy, Greek cheir (χειρ), “hand”; manteia (μαντεία), “divination”), is the art of characterization and foretelling the future through the study of the palm, also known as palm reading, or chirology. The practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations. Those who practice chiromancy are generally called palmists, palm readers, hand readers, hand analysts,or chirologists.
The practice of chiromancy is generally regarded as a pseudoscience. The information outlined below is briefly representative of modern palmistry; there are many ― often conflicting ― interpretations of various lines and palmar features across various schools of palmistry.

History

Palmistry can trace its roots back to India in (Hindu) Astrology (known in Sanskrit as Jyotish), Chinese Yijing (I Ching), and Roma (gypsy) fortune tellers. The Hindu sage Valmiki is thought to have written a book, whose title translates in English as "The Teachings of Valmiki Maharshi on Male Palmistry", comprising 567 stanzas. From India, the art of palmistry spread to China, Tibet, Egypt, Persia and to other countries in Europe^{[citation needed]}. From China, palmistry progressed to Greece^{[citation needed]} where Anaxagoras practiced it. However, modern palmists often combine traditional predictive techniques with psychology, holistic healing, and alternative methods of divination also .

• Captain Casimir Stanislas D'Arpentigny published La Chirognomie in 1839
• Adrien Adolphe Desbarolles published Les Mysteres de la Main in 1859
• Katherine Saint-Hill founded the Chirological Society of Great Britain in 1889
• Edgar de Valcourt-Vermont (Comte de St Germain) founded the American Chirological Society in 1897
• Count Louis Hamon (Cheiro) published Cheiro's Language of the Hand in 1894
• William Benham published The Laws of Scientific Hand Reading in 1900
• Charlotte Wolff published works from 1936–1969, contributed to scientific chirology
• Noel Jaquin published works from 1925–1958, contributed to scientific chirology
• Arnold Holtzman (Psychodiagnostic Chirology)

Information courtesy of Wikipedia