Margarita de Borja's Twenty Card Spread Tarot Layout
Margarita de Borja (alias Ana Escribano), was a well-known witch in Toledo, Spain. She was tried by the Spanish Inquisition in 1615 for sortilege with cards. When torture was applied, she "talked up a storm". Here is a record of that trial.
Margarita de Borja had a different system. She would lay five rows of cards on the table, each row containing four cards face up. Then she picked them up and shuffled them while saying:
“Lady Saint Martha
you are in the church
you listen to the dead
and inspire the living:
so tell me through this cards what I am asking you about.”Having the cards coming up in pairs: kings near kings, Pages near pages and so on, was a good omen, but having the cards came up in any other configuration indicated a bad omen.
From Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, Los procesos de hechicerías (1942)
