Some people like to know what the future holds for them, and others would prefer not to know and build their own path to make their own future. Many games have been created for entertainment to suggest to you how something in your future may turn out. Whether the prediction is good or bad, your responses to those situations may change the outcome.
Fortune telling was also very popular in the Victorian Era. Most of the time it was seen as thrilling entertainment, something to do to pass the time. There still were plenty of people, from highly intelligent to very gullible who believed in the supernatural and fortune telling. The desire to contact the dead or simply know one’s future increased the popularity of fortune telling. There were many scammers and well-paid actors doing the readings. While the upper class treated fortune telling as entertainment, the lower classes were often being scammed into wasting their money or the scammers were at risk of being arrested under the Vagrancy Act, which was created in 1807.
There are many ways that one's fortune could have been read, through crystal ball, cards or simply by looking at the palm of your hand. Crystal gazing, which was one of the ways, was done by someone who had “purer eyes” compared to others and could see figures that appeared at the surface of the ball. Palmistry, more known as palm reading, was a method that did not involve having a gift to indulge in this activity. Diagrams and charts were all readily available. The most common form of fortune telling was cartomancy which involved having a simple deck of cards available to you. The cards all were assigned certain attributes and when drawn in a certain way or at random would predict your future.
Fortune telling was a simple party game but also was very profitable to frauds who could easily get away with it. In 1878, a 49-year-old woman was arrested for running an expensive and successful business which involved pretending to tell fortunes. The business's extraordinary revelations were quite popular with people with weaker minds and servant girls. The woman was sentenced to 2 months in prison.
The museum has one fortune telling set. If you are interested in the staff looking into your future or want to take a look at all the other artifacts, please stop by for a tour. If you have any questions feels free to email us at [email protected] or phone us at 1 (204) 748-1659.
