We provide variations of words throughout a card, as sometimes a slightly different way of wording the same thing, or almost the same thing, will unlock the card for you. E.g., “curiosity, learning, inquisitiveness, exploration” are almost the same things but one word will vibrate for you more than the others during a reading.
8. Thomson-Leng Tarot Cards, 1935.
The Decks
A playing card deck will vary from time to time and region to region. The study of the history of playing cards is even more dedicated than the study of tarot alone. We will provide an overview and recommend for those interested in further study the resources at the conclusion of this book, including playing card collector societies.58
The Pips
The amount of numbered cards used for playing can vary from nation to nation and region. This can be quite confusing at first when you look for the meaning of a card, say the 4 of Clubs, in an older German or English book and discover the book misses out the Twos to the Fives because it assumes a thirty-six-card deck.
The common arrangements of decks are the full fifty-two-card deck (where the court is king, queen, and jack), the thirty-two-card deck (ace, 7 through 10, jack, queen, and king) used for games such as Piquet and the thirty-six-card deck (ace, 6 through 10, jack, queen, and king) which has the same number of cards as a Lenormand deck. There are many other variations of deck, such as the seventy-eight-card Tarocco Piemontese, likely familiar to those who use contemporary tarot for divination.
It is likely, for example, that both Casanova and Lenormand used a standard Piquet deck for most of their readings long before a totally different deck was given the name “Lenormand” as we will see in a later time zone.
The Black and Red
Some romancers (or cartomantes) use the black cards (spades and clubs) to indicate a more negative slant to the reading and the red cards (diamonds and hearts) to be positive. This can be used as a general guide; however (as with tarot), the individual cards and their combinations should dictate the overall interpretation.
The Suits
The four common suits vary by country and sometimes region; however, most will recognise their correspondence to hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades:
English
Hearts
Diamonds
Clubs
Spades
French
Hearts
Tiles
Clovers
Pikes
German
Hearts (Roses)
Bells
Acorns
Leaves (Shields)
Spanish/Italian
Cups
Coins
Clubs
Swords
The Meaning of the Suits
There is a general agreement as to the overall theme of each suit, although there was little standardisation in early readings as information was either not shared widely or by word-of-mouth. The general themes for the four suits, which will later play into tarot are:
Hearts: Love and feelings, family, home, emotions, positivity.
Clubs: Resources, work, employment and career.
Diamonds: Finances, money, communication.
Spades: Argument, challenge, loss, negativity.
We can usually see the spades as being more negative than the hearts (usually positive).
The Meaning of the Numbers
Some cartomancers use a basic system of numerology to make correspondences to the pip cards and then combine that with the suit to get a bare meaning for interpretation. 59
One: Beginnings, starting, union, initiation, new plan
Two: Partnership, duality, pair
Three: Building, stability, growth
Four: Structure, expansion
Five: Movement, change (both gain and loss)
Six: Balance, equilibrium, centre, diplomacy
Seven: Spirituality, insight, mysticism, challenge
Eight: Purpose, work, energy
Nine: Novelty, pause
Ten: Completion, ending, finality, results
So, the Ace of Hearts will be the positive start to a new relationship, just as we may read for the corresponding tarot card, the Ace of Cups. The 10 of Spades will be the ending of a challenge, or a loss in the final stages of a situation, just as might be the 10 of Swords in tarot. However, we should first learn cartomancy as a system to itself before learning tarot—or try and forget our modern tarot correspondences when we journey back down time to learn cartomancy.
The Court Cards and When
Cartomancy is Better Than Tarot
In basic cartomancy, the court cards are people in the life of the Sitter or yourself. The jacks represent younger people and the queens and kings older people of their respective gender. We have always found that for situations involving lots of people, such as a workplace or family situation, or events revolving around a group of colleagues or friends, cartomancy with playing cards can be more useful than tarot. The earlier systems were naturally designed for a more gossipy and people-centric age, long before the meanings shifted towards introspection, self-development, and esoteric, psychological, or abstract concepts. We could argue, however, whether we have returned with celebrity culture to a more gossipy age—or perhaps never really left it.
Simple Readings
If we start up our cartomantic machine with just these simple cogs, we can easily perform our first reading with just one or two cards. As we will come to see with tarot and Lenormand, sometimes it is easier to learn with more cards rather than less, even if it seems more sensible to start with just one card of the day.
So let us ask our playing card deck the question, “Will I benefit from taking a new course of study this summer?”
We shuffle and draw a card: the 7 of Clubs.
It would suggest a vocational course towards a career although it is not strictly answering the original question.
If we had drawn two cards and the second card was the 8 of Diamonds, we would read the second card as “purpose, work, or energy” in the suit of money.
So, the course would be profitable if we worked at it, and it would match our purpose if it was towards our employment.
We can now be confident that we have performed our first reading and precisely answered a question: “I have drawn the 7 of Clubs and the 8 of Diamonds.
This indicates that you will profit from a new course of study this summer if it is career-focused and you work at it.”
A Note on the Ace of Spades
This card was originally the most ornate card of a playing card deck as it carried the emblem of the publisher for identification purposes. This was at a time when taxes were applied to card decks and so the Ace of Spades was often the card stamped or printed by the tax office themselves to show it had been paid.
The card also has the highest value in some games, so it became a lucky symbol. It was later used in the Vietnam War, where American soldiers used the card as a morale-boosting image that exploited a perceived superstition in the enemy.
It then began to be seen as a card related to death, a negative connotation carried to this day.
A Note on the 9 of Diamonds
The 9 of Diamonds has been called the “Curse of Scotland” since at least 1708, when a question was printed about it being so-called in The British Apollo, or, Curious amusements fo
r the ingenious. In response to the question, it was alleged that it was a proverb arising from the apparent observation that every ninth king of Scotland was a tyrant. There have been several other theories since, but there is no definitive answer.
Odd Nicknames of Playing Cards
The time travelling cartomancer may pick up some strange slang and nicknames for their playing cards along the way. Here are just a few of the curious names you can call your cards.
Dirty Gertie
Queen of Spades
Time Travel
Any 8 card
The Devil’s Bedpost
4 of Clubs
Laughing Boy
Jack of Diamonds
We encourage you to pick up more names during your travels and encounter the One-Eyed King and Calamity Jane amongst many other card characters.
Cicely Kent
One of the main sources for cartomantic re-discovery was Cicely Kent, who published Telling Fortunes by Cards in 1924. It is Kent who began to formulate much of the advice to the home-grown cartomante which is now repeated by most books about card-reading:
Do not talk whilst shuffling.
Only read and use one set of meanings at a time.
Do not try and read when tired, sad, or irritable.
Keep a clear mind ahead of a reading to avoid projecting your own concerns into the cards.
Remove all distractions from the reading space.
Do not mind difficult people or those opposed to reading, interpret the cards as you see them.
Do not try to fit what you might know about the client into your reading.
Keep one deck of cards just for your own readings so you do not influence readings for others.
She also discusses the frequency of readings, noting that “many authorities” suggest not reading more than once every three months, but she replies that she reads regularly and for herself, viewing the cards as friends, even if they give “inconvenient and unwished-for” statements. 60
Her most succinct piece of advice is one that always stands to the true tarot time traveller, in whatever age they discover themselves.
“Your business is to read exactly what you see.” 61
The Suits
As we have seen, the basic alphabet of the cards is composed firstly of the four suits. These provide us a general theme for that quarter of the deck. We give here contemporary versions of Kent.
Clubs
Business, reputation, organisation, authority.
Diamonds
Finance, decisions, risk.
Hearts
Emotions, satisfaction, love, contentment, home.
Spades
Negativity, failure, depression.
We can again see that the hearts are quite positive overall, with the spades being negative. The diamonds are slightly negative and the clubs are slightly positive. There is a far more definite meaning of good cards and bad cards in the early days of cartomancy, which we will see partially carried across into the Lenormand style of reading later in our time travels.
Clubs
Classic: Prognostic success, money, good luck.
Contemporary: Success predicted, security, wealth.
This suit indicates success in the material world, the appearance of clubs in a reading tells you about the practical side of life. Many clubs in a love reading speaks of physical passion or security.
Hearts
Classic: Sincerity in love, peace.
Contemporary: Committed to a relationship, compatibility.
Most hearts in a love reading speaks of love in abundance; you or somebody could be irresistible.
Diamonds
Classic: Precarious, dominated principally by the surrounding cards; they also predict money.
Contemporary: Uncertainty and risk, depending on the surrounding cards.
Most diamonds can either indicate a situation that comes with risk or it could mean that money is coming into your life.
Spades
Classic: Dark-haired people, widows and widowers.
Contemporary: Significator indicating that the person is dark haired. It can also signify loss in your life.
We will now add, with our own commentary (in brackets), Kent’s card meanings for the Pip (numbered) cards into our card lexicon. These cards can be read both upright and with a reversed meaning which we have put in parentheses.
Clubs
Ace: Good news (papers or documents)
Two: Shaking hands—an agreement (an introduction)
Three: Letters, news (delayed or unwelcome news)
Four: A strange bed (bad dreams, insomnia)
Five: Talk, discussion (disagreement, argument)
Six: Vexation (disturbance)
Seven: Success (uncertainty)
Eight: Short journey (a walk)
Nine: Business (delays)
Ten: A journey (an outing)
Diamonds
Ace: A good present (a small gift)
Two: A surprise (gossip)
Three: A pleasant meeting (quarrel with a friend)
Four: A friend (money)
Five: Money settlement (annoyance ahead)
Six: Pleasure (boredom)
Seven: Animals (a bicycle)
Eight: Jewellery (clothes, furniture)
Nine: Money, business (speed, decision)
Ten: Money (pleasant outlook; with spades, pain)
Hearts
Ace: The home (great affection)
Two: Time, days (departures)
Three: Time, weeks or days (arrivals)
Four: Invitation (refusal)
Five: Present (domestics)
Six: Pleasure (social duties)
Seven: Lesser wish (jealousy)
Eight: Affection (friendship)
Nine: The wish (someone dear to you)
Ten: Happiness (lucky changes; with ace, marriage)
Spades
Ace: Sorrow (ace with 9, 7, 4, 2, of spades, death)
Two: Motor or carriage (a parcel)
Three: [with 3 of clubs] Tears (minor worries)
Four: A sick bed (trials)
Five: With 2 and 3 of Spades, sharp words (domestic difficulties)
Six: Child or relation (difficulties)
Seven: Removal (indecision)
Eight: A distance away (night)
Nine: Disappointment (loss)
Ten: Sea (illness)
An alternate system using a smaller deck is given below, where you will see similarities in the individual card meanings.
Clubs
Ace: Letters, papers, luck, riches (delayed letters, paper worries).
King: Generous man, straightforward (makes him handicapped in his desires, worried).
Queen: Loving, forgiving (troubled perplexed).
Knave: Lover (a young man).
Ten: Journey, luck (across water).
Nine: Will legacy (delays, troubled journeys).
Eight: Love of a young man (papers)
Seven: Victory (financial worries)
Hearts
Ace: House, love letter (change of residence)
King: Kind man (unreliable man)
Queen: Fair woman (revengeful)
Knave: Cupid (delays in love)
Ten: Corrective to bad cards, great affection happiness (birth, change)
Nine: Wish card, success (love)
Eight: Love, marriage (jealousy of men)
Seven: Inconstancy (jealousy of women)
Spades
Ace: Love business, high building (death, annoyance)
King: Widower, lawyer (enemy)
Queen: Widowhood (enemy)
Knave: Professional man (traitor)
Ten: Distance, water, journey (sickness, trouble, mourning)
Nine: Failure; if attended by hearts it represents an anchor (death)
Eight: Night, illness (deceit, immorality)
Seven: Determination (accident, loss)
Diamonds
Ace: Ring, bank note (money, good letter)
King: Grey haired man (treacherous man)
Queen: Widow, friend (coquette)
Knave: Military (treachery)
Ten: Money (journey)
Nine: Sharp instruments; with the 8 of Spades, cross words (coffin; with the 9 of Spades, danger)
Eight: Short journey, walk (spite)
Seven: Child, pet (small sum of money) 62
We will also give below another series of keywords you may find more applicable to your readings. Our advice is to choose one system and work with it for a few weeks before trying any alternatives. You will soon find the right lexicon for the way your cards communicate uniquely to you.
An Alternate Meaning of the Cards
Hearts
Ace: House
King and Queen: Fair man and a woman
Knave: Thoughts.
Ten: Proposal
Nine: Wish, luck
Eight: Good heart
Seven: Night
Five: Strange bed
Three: Little boy, joy
Two kings coming together: A new friend
Two Red Tens: Marriage
The Four of Hearts coming between a King and a Queen: The marriage bed
Clubs
Ace: Letter
King: Darkish man
Queen: Darkish woman
Knave: Unfairness
Ten: Water, journey
Nine: Amusement
Eight: Impudence
Seven: Business
Spades
Ace: Sickness.
King: Very dark man, widower
Queen: Very dark woman, widow
Knave: Rogue
Ten: Distant journey
Nine: Affliction