Ancient times ====
Code of Hammurabi ==== Second article of the Code of Hammurabi stated: : If anyone accuses someone else of sorcery, the accused shall jump into a river, and if they drown the accuser shall take possession of the accused's house and their belongings. ====
Code of Ur-Nammu ==== Article 13 stated: : If a man is accused of sorcery [
translation disputed], he must undergo
ordeal by water; if he is proven innocent, his accuser must pay 3 shekels. ====
Hittite laws ==== Code of the Nesilim had one paragraph prescribing unspecified penalty: : [If] anyone forms clay for [an image] (for magical purposes), it is sorcery and a case for the king's court. ====
Assyrian law ==== : If a man or a woman practice sorcery, and they be caught with it in their hands, they shall prosecute them, they shall convict them. The practicer of magic they shall put to death.
Old Testament Laws prohibiting various forms of witchcraft and divination can be found in the books of
Exodus,
Leviticus and
Deuteronomy. These include the following (as translated in the
Revised JPS, 2023: • Exodus 22:18 – "You shall not tolerate a sorceress []." • Leviticus 19:26 – "You shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practice divination or soothsaying [
tənaḥăšu wəlo t̲əʿonēnu]." • Leviticus 20:27 – "A man or a woman who has a ghost or a familiar spirit [
ob̲ o yiddəʿoni] shall be put to death; they shall be pelted with stones—and the bloodguilt is theirs." • Deuteronomy 18:10-11 – "Let no one be found among you who consigns a son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead [
dorēš el-hammēt̲im]."
United Kingdom Religious tensions in England during the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in the introduction of serious penalties for witchcraft.
Henry VIII's Witchcraft Act 1541 (
33 Hen. 8. c. 8) was the first act to define witchcraft as a felony, a crime punishable by death and the forfeiture of goods and chattels. The
Witchcraft Act 1735 (
9 Geo. 2 c. 5) marked a complete reversal in attitudes. Penalties for the practice of witchcraft as traditionally constituted, which by that time was considered by many influential figures to be an impossible crime, were replaced by penalties for the pretence of witchcraft. A person who claimed to have the power to call up spirits, or foretell the future, or cast spells, or discover the whereabouts of stolen goods, was to be punished as a
vagrant and a
con artist, subject to fines and imprisonment. The Act applied to the whole of Great Britain, repealing both the 1563 Scottish act and the 1604 English act. The Witchcraft Act 1735 remained in force in Britain well into the 20th century, until its eventual repeal with the enactment of the
Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 (
14 & 15 Geo. 6. c. 33). The Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 was repealed on 26 May 2008 by new
Consumer Protection Regulations following an EU directive targeting unfair sales and marketing practices.
Russian Empire In the church council of 1551, the Russian Orthodox church asked Czar
Ivan the Terrible to persecute Paganism and introduce the death penalty for pagans such as the sorcerers, astrologers and fortune tellers, and allow for the church to banish them and the secular courts to execute them. Ivan the Terrible did not introduce the death penalty for sorcery, but he banned the use of magic and authorized secular courts to prosecute it as a crime.
Sweden Magic was legalized gradually in Sweden. Witchcraft which was punishable with death was removed from penal code in 1779. Fortune-telling and magical healing was a crime of superstition until 1864, when it was reframed as a crime of fraud which it remained until 1942.
Denmark In 1686, the local courts were banned from performing executions without confirmation from the national high court. The final person to be legally executed for sorcery in Denmark was the grenadier
Johan Pistorius, in 1722. The laws against witchcraft were only repealed in 1866.
Nazi Germany In 1934 Nazis outlawed fortune telling making publication of any almanacs or astrological journals illegal.
Australia New South Wales adopted the British The Witchcraft Act 1735 before finally repealing it in 1969. New South Wales repealed laws against fortune telling in 1979.
Canada Canada repealed its Witchcraft Act in 2018.
New Zealand While still applying the 1735 Witchcraft Act New Zealand passed the
Tohunga Suppression Act 1907 banning local faith healers. The Act was repealed by the Maori Welfare Act, 1962. The Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1961 with the passage of Crimes Act.
United States States and municipalities that used to have laws against fortune telling include:
Michigan (1931 – 1993),
Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana (1971 – 2000),
Petoskey, Michigan (?–2022),
Huntington, West Virginia (?–2024),
Savannah, Georgia (1945 – 1974, license now required),
Front Royal, Virginia (?–2014),
Norfolk, Virginia (1979 – 2024). == Modern laws ==