While most folks are busy fumbling with their tarot decks, the real Cartomancy connoisseurs know that humble playing cards were predicting futures long before tarot was even a twinkle in a mystic's eye.

Back in the 1300s, Europeans were already laying down regular cards with all the confidence of modern-day fortune tellers. The Victorians threw mathematics into the mix (because regular divination wasn't complicated enough). Meanwhile, Russian peasant women were keeping things simple with their "Grandmother's Cards" - just 25 cards and a healthy dose of agricultural wisdom. Even Josephine Bonaparte got in on the action, seeking guidance from the famous Marie Anne Lenormand, though one has to wonder if she saw Napoleon's exile coming.

These days, cartomancers have gone psychological, turning card reading into something between fortune-telling and therapy.