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.