Cartomancy

Lee

I found something yesterday which I thought was really interesting.

At this site:

http://www.vitalinfocenter.com/fortune_teller/tutorial.html

the author is selling her ebook about playing-card reading, "Mara's Unique Fortune Teller." The ebook costs $14.95, and then you download it to your computer. I took a chance and ordered and downloaded it, and I'm glad I did.

The text on the site promoting the ebook is rather cheesy, but the book itself is more serious. Her approach is unlike anything I've ever seen, and totally unlike Tarot. First of all, she removes the 2's, 3's and 4's, leaving you with a 40-card deck. Next, only the suit of Spades have specific meanings. This is kind of hard to describe, and I hope this makes sense. The reader picks a court card as a significator. The suit of the significator then becomes the Questioner's Suit. The other two suits then become External Suits. There's one set of meanings for the Questioner's Suit, whichever suit that is, and then another set of meanings for the External Suits.

So, for example, let's say the Questioner's Suit is Hearts. Now, let's say you draw the 2 of Hearts and the 2 of Clubs. The 2 in the Questioner's Suit is money, the 2 in the External Suit is other people's money (these aren't the real meanings, I'm just making them up for example purposes). So the 2 of Hearts would be the questioner's money, and the 2 of Clubs would be other people's money. If the Questioner's Suit were Diamonds, then both the 2 of Hearts and the 2 of Clubs would be other people's money.

The meanings of the cards are generally the same across the numbers. The Questioner's Suit meanings are general concepts related to the questioner; the External Suit meanings are the same concepts but are either related to an external person or to the positive side of the concepts; the Spades are the same concepts but the negative side of the concepts. So, although you have 40 cards, there are only 30 meanings, and they're really 3 sets of variations on the same 10 concepts, so the system is very easy to learn.

The bulk of the ebook is taken up with Mara's elaborate reading process, which involves four different stages/layouts. I haven't read them in depth yet.

The ebook is not large, it's basically 13 short chapters (including a chapter on divination with beans). I felt it was well worth the $14.95 because of the completely original (at least to me) approach. The reading process is carefully explained and there are several reading examples. I'm looking forward to playing around with this. I was really in the mood for something different, and this is definitely different. The card meanings have nothing to do with R-W-S.

Warning: the site which contains the link above also contains some rather, um, spicy material. I'm not sure how card reading fits in with the rest of the site, but, whatever.

-- Lee
 

WolfyJames

Yikes! The book is in French, a bit old and hard to find. It was written by Delpha, the title is Nouvel art de tirer les cartes, toutes les méthodes connues: Eteilla, Lenormand, Le grand jeu, etc. les réussites, les patiences et les tours de cartes.

http://www.tw-buchversand.de/d/Delpha.html

http://www.livre-rare-book.com/Matieres/bd/379.html

It shows you how to use 32, 52 or 64 cards. Then, the cards meanings, with their neighbours's meanings, cards alike together (two threes per example). There are many spreads in it too. You can use patiences as a way of divination as well, if you suceed the patience, the answer is yes. Stuff like that.
 

lisa-pisces

Now this is where my passion lies!

I read gypsie cards (playing cards). I have for the last 18years, just as old grandma used to do.
It's the same as a tarot deck in the sense that you can't just pick up someone elses card and away you go!
I find them to be very detailed and accurate.
What gran used to tell me was, "you can use anything that works for you, they are after simply a tool", and I really do believe that.
Once you know your tool so well that you don't even have to think about it, all the pictures and 'just knowing' all starts to pop into your head.
I'll be quiet now...lol... I could go on forever!
 

zorya

hi lisa :)
would you please share with us how you interpret the cards? do you use numerology and suits or does each card have a set meaning? i'm very interested in the methods that have been passed down to people.
 

yaraluna

cartomancy...

hola there

well, i have playing cards, but the spanish (Spain) type, which have no majors, and they look kind of like a marseilles type deck. they are very accurate and i like working with them. right now i am 'studying' some new spreads with them. I have other oracle (tarot/nontarot) cards, but i am very puled to my 'playing' cards for that's what we use the most where i come from.

any ideas, suggestions, comments, sharing about this subject is most welcome.

yaraluna
 

WolfyJames

Seeing back this thread, I can update my informations. I got lately the deck Le jeu du destin antique. The meanings of the cards in it are the same as the meanings included in the book I mentionned earlier, except that, in the book, there are a lot more informations given than what is given in the deck. Plus, in the book, you can use the entire deck of 52 cards, while in the deck, it only uses the 32 cards methods.
 

tatsi

WolfyJames said:
Seeing back this thread, I can update my informations. I got lately the deck Le jeu du destin antique. The meanings of the cards in it are the same as the meanings included in the book I mentionned earlier, except that, in the book, there are a lot more informations given than what is given in the deck. Plus, in the book, you can use the entire deck of 52 cards, while in the deck, it only uses the 32 cards methods.

There is some interesting information in this thread, so I'm bumping it.

I too am interested in the old French book WolfyJames mentioned because of the 32-playing card method. My Mom's family has passed down through four generations a method using a reduced deck (32 cards: 7-A) of playing cards. Because of my interest in methods using the same cards, I got the Le Jeu du Destin Antique deck by Piatnik. I haven't used it yet, but I see similarities to my family's German method.

I wish I spoke German or French because there is a wealth of cartomantic information that just isn't there in the English language. :( I hope this will change someday in the near future.

tatsi
 

Logiatrix

Good idea!

I'm glad you 'bumped' this thread up, tatsi...
Playing cards have been my divinatory tool of choice lately; I'm just more comfy when I read with them.
I'd be more interested in who uses what meanings for the cards, and if/how the tarot plays into this type of reading.
As for myself, I just came up with my own method of applying the standard tarot assignments...
 

Phoenix Rising

As for myself, I just came up with my own method of applying the standard tarot assignments

I had a look at this thread a few days ago, and I decided to make up my own interpretations as well. One of my best friends have used playing cards for 25 years..actually Lisa-pisces, who's posted on this thread earlier. Atleast with playing cards, you can pick them up for $2 anywhere, and it isn't as complicated with symbolism. The courts were always hard to interpret, even with Tarot. So the courts I assigned Heart courts as family or very close friends. Then whatever the other suit type personalities are I assigned occupations to them. Swords- medical, Diamonds-govt officials, Clubs-Business man.
It was easier to assign just 2 meanings to each card, eg: Ace of cups: Love or home
I also went by numerological meanings then assigned it with the suit.

I might just try a couple of practise readings with it later on the forum