Part 54

NINE.--Do not expect to gain riches by means of games of chance, lotteries, etc. Your fortunes will not be increased by them.

TEN.--You have the habit of looking on the bright side of things. This is a quality worth more than all the gold in the world. Cherish it.

THE MAGIC SQUARE

This is a very old way of divining what the Fates have planned for yourself, your friends and your enemies. The first thing is to take out of the pack all the court cards, as well as the twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes. Thus, all that is left are the cards ranging between the sevens and the tens--sixteen in all.

The second thing is to take your matching card, as described under the previous heading, and to place it with the sixteen cards. These are, then, well shuffled and cut with your left hand.

The next step is to turn over the cards from the pack, one by one, preserving the order carefully, until the matching card is reached. When this is found, the cards that have been turned over are placed at the bottom of the stack that is left in hand and the "lay-out" is commenced.

The first card in hand is placed on the table and the eight that follow are arranged around it to form a square. This square will thus consist of three rows, each made up of three cards, with the matching card in the center.

It is very important that the eight cards are placed in definite positions, as follows: The first is set down to the right of the matching card; the second to the left of it; the third immediately above it; the fourth just below it; the four remaining cards are placed in the upper left-hand corner of the square, the upper right-hand corner, the lower right-hand corner and the lower left-hand corner, respectively. (See the diagram.)

All these cards are read in the following manner: The three above the matching card refer to the past; the card on either side of it to the present; and the three below it to the future. Next, the three cards on the left-hand side of the matching card refer to your friends; the card above and below the matching card refers to yourself; and those on the right of it to your enemies.

Following this, you must note that a heart stands for very fortunate things, a club for good things, a diamond for things that are passable, and spades for things that are no good at all.

Thus, should a heart come in the middle of the bottom row it shows that you are to be very fortunate in the future; if a diamond fills the same position in the upper row, it is clear that your past was only passably happy; and if a spade comes immediately on the right of the matching card, it is a clear proof that the particular enemy you have in mind is being harassed by a period of ill-luck. And so on, according to which suit fills each of the remaining positions.

THE FORTUNETELLING PYRAMID

A simple way of discovering what kind of luck is awaiting you in the future consists in taking a complete pack of fifty-two cards, shuffling them well, and cutting them with the left hand.

Following this, you place one card on the table, face up. Below it you set out two cards, also face up, and continue with a row of three cards below the two. Other rows follow with four, five, six, seven, eight and nine cards in each, so that the whole forms a pyramid. This accounts for forty-five cards. The surplus of seven are placed on one side when the figure is completed or they may be thrown aside, one at a time, while the figure is being made at any point desired, but it is important that they must be rejected before being seen.

To estimate the amount of luck or good fortune that awaits your future, pick up the last card that was laid down in each row. Naturally, there will now be no card left in the first row, one in the second, two in the third row, and so on until the ninth row will consist of eight cards only. Take the nine cards picked up and sort them into suits. If there are most hearts, you are to be a very lucky person; if there are most clubs, you are to be just lucky; if there are most diamonds you will be passably lucky; but luck will not come your way at all if spades are in the majority.

Should two suits tie for first place the Fates require you to make the pyramid over again.

SEVENS AND THREES

The following method of consulting one's luck must have been attempted many millions of times, but it is not known so well now as it was a century ago. The first thing is to shuffle a full pack thoroughly. This, of course, must be done by the person whose luck is being tested. And then, it is necessary that he or she cuts with the left hand.

After these preliminaries, someone takes the pack and deals the cards one at a time, face downwards, on to the table, placing them in a heap. The consultant who is seeking to find out what the Fates are determining should really be blindfolded, but this is unnecessary if the cards are new and cannot be recognized by any markings on the backs.

The consultant has to choose any three cards as they are being slowly dealt. They can be three cards coming together, or widely separated, or just as he or she fancies.

As each card is selected, it is set aside and, when the three are chosen, not before, they are turned face up and arranged in the order of selection. Each card from one to nine stands for its own value, but tens and all court cards stand for nought. Thus, if the three cards are a seven, a ten and a five, the mystic number derived from them is 705.

The final step is to find out if the mystic number is divisible either by seven or by three. If the total is divisible by either of these numbers, then there is good luck awaiting the consultant; if the total is divisible by both seven and three, the luck is doubled. On the other hand, should there be a remainder when dividing, bad luck is not claimed.

YOUR LUCK IN THE COMING WEEK

A hundred years ago, this method of reading what the Fates were likely to provide for us in the coming week was resorted to in almost every house where a pack of cards existed.

The first step is to pick out your matching card from the pack, as explained under the heading "The Three-Card Divination." This card is set out on the table, face up. Then you shuffle the remainder of the pack and cut it with your left hand. That done, you form a ring round the matching card, using the first seven cards from the pack for the purpose. All the cards in the ring should be face down and none should overlap.

The next thing is to discard the three top cards from what remains of the pack and then to take the third, sixth, ninth, twelfth, fifteenth, eighteenth and twenty-first cards, placing them one each on the seven cards already set out in a circle. These cards must not be looked at while this is being done, and they may be set on the original seven in any order thought fit. But this should be noted, whichever card is paired first must be taken to represent the coming Sunday and the other days follow in a clockwise arrangement.

Thus, the arrangement now consists of a circle, formed of seven heaps each consisting of two cards. Read them thus:

(a) Two hearts in the same heap represent a day of exceedingly good fortune.