THE SPIRIT OF INNOVATION REARS ITS HEAD
It was clear at first glance the five-level binary symbols in the full-length version of Napoleon’s Book of Fate were based on the sixteen symbols from Geomancy/Ifa. The originator of Napoleon’s Book of Fate, whom I believe was a seventeenth century Egyptian occultist named N.M. Cozhor, had to double the number of existing Geomantic symbols, creating whole new ones, in order to serve as an answer-key for his divination system. These five-level binary symbols appear nowhere else I have seen, but in Napoleon’s Book of Fate. They were designed only to guide users to the proper answer to the pre-arranged set of questions.
But as I looked at the thirty-two binary symbols in the Book of Fate, an idea started brewing in the back of my mind. Ideas of possible meanings for the various symbols started bubbling to the surface. Some of the meanings I assigned to these Book of Fate Symbols are derived from the original sixteen Geomancy/Ifa symbols and expanded-on. As for the other symbols specific to the Book of Fate Symbol Deck, which were clearly created from scratch, I drew on both the Geomancy/Ifa symbols which appeared to influence their creation, and Runic lore, as well as my own intuition, in order to assign them meanings.