Cartomancy

Cartomancy comes from the French cartomancie, card divination. It covers any reading done with cards, and in much of Europe ordinary playing cards were used long before tarot. The earliest clear records of card fortune-telling date from the 18th century, and in Paris in the 1780s Etteilla turned tarot into a fortune-telling tool. In the 19th century Lenormand decks and simple playing-card methods were sold widely. Tarot reading is one branch of cartomancy, not the whole of it; a cartomancer may never touch a tarot deck. Today readers use the cards both to look ahead and to reflect on where they stand.