Paper short abstract:

Portuguese Inquisition trials from the 17th and 18th century reveal the existence of several recurrent method of urban divination. The 19th brings new forms of divination, but these still refer to the same preoccupations and the same semi-fixed set of relations between signifiers and significances.

Paper long abstract:

The analysis of early modern magic-related trials from the archives of the Portuguese Inquisition reveals the existence of a semi-consistent style of urban folk magic, equally detectable in Spain and South America. Relevant within this style of magic practice is the existence of several recurrent methods of divination, such as coscinomancy, favomancy and hydromancy, all of which exist within a cosmological framework of urban folk Catholicism.

Among these, favomancy appears to be the more versatile and adaptable, since it can be used to analyze complex social situations with large numbers of individuals and different relations and events happening between them.

In the mid-19th century, an anonymous grimoire by the name of Book of Saint Cyprian enters into circulation in the Portuguese market, offering, among other folk magic procedures, various methods of cartomancy; a somewhat rare divination system in the early modern period. Analyzing these new divination systems, it is noticeable that the significance given to the different cards in the Book of Saint Cyprian clearly mimics those used in early modern favomancy. Not only this, but these cartomancy systems also include elements from other early modern divination methods, making them a contemporary synthesis of several early modern divinatory systems.

This talk aims to describe these several methods of divination, their social significance and the elements from each of them which, as the centuries go by, are used in the creation of new systems, not only in the Books of Saint Cyprian, but also in the literary tradition these have created, and which is still existent.