Using Playing Cards as a Stealth Tarot Deck

Have any of you developed a way to use a regular deck of cards--or 2 decks of cards--as a stealth tarot deck?

In an old thread last year about a friend in prison we talked about this a little bit, I think.

I remember trying to combine a regular and jumbo deck, but stalled out in figuring out which cards to assign to each major.

Now I'm using just one deck and trying to find out a way to assign the majors when certain combinations come up.

I use playing cards as minors only a lot. Not sure how to incorporate majors... Let me know what system you figure out though

Use a different deck (Deck B) with different typeface or backs to signify the minors.
Pull four courts from the first deck to serve as Knights.

In Deck A:
Joker = fool.
Ace through 10 of a chosen suit = I through X. (For example, specify hearts in Deck A will be the first ten majors + fool)
Ace through 10 of another chosen suit = XI through XX. Choose two courts to serve as XXI and XXII. (for example, specify that diamonds in Deck A will be the last 12 majors)

Right now I have written astrological symbols on the cards, that I got out of "Tarot and Astrology" and "Phantasmagoria" (the book included in the Tarot of Vampyres kit).

Then I've been using the chart in "Phantasmagoria on page 19 to assign majors by how much zodiac, planet, or elemental activity I see. For example I will assign the Magician if I see a lot of mercury symbols on the cards, or the tower if I see a lot of mars, or the star if I see a lot of aquarius.

I'm thinking of buying a matching regular face deck to match the jumbo face deck I've already marked up and adding 22 more cards to my deck. maybe the 4 pages too...but...I'm not sure. From the back the decks look identicle.

I'd like to add the majors in a way that they match up better elementally and by planet and zodiac, maybe using the chart I've been using. But death would be scorpio and the knight of cups or the king of cups, depending on which author's court assignments I used. Hmmm...??? Ace of air would be the fool. Ace of water the hanged man. Ace of fire Judgement, Ace of earth the world.

I've barely touched "Who are You in the Tarot" by Mary K. Greer, but it might have some good ideas for assigning majors. She seperates all the cards into 9 constellations. So there are about 2 or 3 majors assigned to each number 1/10 -9. For example 3s are world, hanged man and empress. Okay hanged man could be 3 of water, but both world and empress seem 3 of earth to me.

I'd like to avoid all aces and courts in assigning majors, if I can. The extra jacks could be pages though.

For years I used the playing cards as they were, but certain pairs meant something as well as combos or three of this/ four of that...but they were on the most part very accurate and were light compared to the tarot which is why I chose them over everything else. Now I use the lenormand, but the other day I picked up my playing cards for the first time in 3 years and gave then a whirl. Really good info! Babies being born, someone winning money, someone buying a car, lawyer being seeked out, someone going to hospital. All that fun everyday stuff!

The PLAYING CARDS can be read without them being converted to TAROT equilavents.

I know of no natural way to use a playing card deck as a Tarot. It can work fairly well as a Tarot without Majors or Pages, but the distintuishing characteristic of a Tarot deck is lost. If you remove pips 2 through 5 from a playing card deck, lo and behold you have an authentic Lenormand like Mlle Lenormand probably used!

For some reason I find the removal of cards from the 52 deck to be abhorant. I just cannot do it. The feel of a new deck of cards just feel so absolutely perfect in my hands. It's nothing that I can properly explain, but I judge the feel of every type of deck against a 52 card deck of poker cards and NOTHING else is good enouigh.

I've been playing around with a variety of systems today. I still haven't settled on one...and maybe never will :-0

I really like the meanings of cards 2-10 of RWS tarot, applied to the playing cards. After that I get a little undecided about how to proceed.

Today I was reading through the moon lessons at Druidnetwork and thinking of applying the courts to the moons, and all the correspondances and journaling activities, and making the queens be the crossquarter moons, and then fitting in the jacks as kings to the moons inbetween, according to the elements listed in the lessons.

Ah, I see. I thought you were aiming to have a totally secret use of the cards so no one could figure out what you were doing.

If you're willing to write on them, you can set up any correspondence that seems right! I don't use astrology or kabbalah so all I need is indications of the 78 by title/suit/number.

I WAS wanting to secretly use a poker desk as a tarot deck.

I got off track yesterday, playing with the courts in non tarot fashion. I need to get back on track. I'm on some drugs that make me fuzzy :-( I'm apt to get off track often in the near future before I go off of them, or adjust. I apologize in advance.

Okay...so I need 52 or 78 cards and want to read them with traditional RWS meanings.

The biggest trick is to assign the majors in a way that doesn't disrupt the golden dawn astrology. For example if the Hanged man is piscies I hesitent to just assign him to the queen (12) of any suit. Hmmm...that might not be the best example as queens are at least watery.

I don't mind writing on the set of cards I'm experimenting with.

I'm over thinking this. I should just go buy a double set of cards--one regular and one jumbo--scribble the names of the majors on some cards and stop being so OCD about all this. Sigh!

I need to add 22 majors and 4 pages from the secondary deck. I think I will study Mary Greers tarot constellation ideas today and then just "do it". For better or worse assign the majors tonight and start USING them.

Right. That would be my approach.

Why not make it easy on yourself. If you want to quickly identify which playing card corresponds to which tarot card, the less complex your system, the better off you'll be (less to memorize).

It just occurred to me to ask the purpose.