Clearing the Waters: A Monograph on Saint Cyprian Divination from the 17th to the 19th Century

Card divination has long been a particularly iconic aspect of the Portuguese Book of Saint Cyprian, featuring in the cover illustrations of most of its nineteenth-century editions. Included in many of the cartomancy systems within this grimoire is a small pseudo-hagiographical narrative and incantation, which mentions a supposed seven-year seafaring journey made by Saint Cyprian himself. This incantation, when looked upon from a thematic, methodologic or historic perspective, seems out of p...