reading poker cards

leftovercrizack

I have a friend that reads poker cards, he accually prefers them over Tarot cards. And he is very accurate. I was just curious to know if anyone in this forum does it, knows somone who does, and has an opinion about it.
 

psychicbody

This might be better suited for the Oracle section.
By poker cards, you do mean "playing cards" right? Those are actually what the "original" Tarot used to be lol
 

Little Baron

I have done before and found a great site (via here) that shows you how to - working with them in sequence as apose to memorising meanings. Many have found it a great way to start. There are two or three essays on there that have you reading them straight away.

http://www.hedgewytchery.com/cartomancy.html

LB
 

Ho Kok Hong

The playing cards we use actually comes from tarot,except it doesn't have the major arcana and the page in the court cards. It can also used as divinations and there are many ways that people create ways for divinations using playing cards but may not be useful by using tarot cards.
 

psychicbody

Before I had gotten a real Tarot deck recently, I usually did cartomancy with playing cards, instead. The numbers system does not always match up, which is one thing that does not make sense about the Tarot.
 

rainwolf

Under oracle decks is cartomancy in the forum index. I think it was expanded into its own section a few months ago.
 

Abrac

There are many ways to read and many things to read with, playing cards being one very good way, imo. Whatever you believe in strongly will work the best.

fools_fool
 

levannah60

I use playing cards regularly as well. I used to use them a lot growing up when I was in a place where tarot or readings were not allways excepted. You can get a suprising amount of information regarding them. In the beginning, I didn;t know much about other people using playing cards for readings, but I thought that you could assostate each playing card with a tarot card. SO that's what I did. There were not enough cards in that 52 deck to put the majours, so I just counted them out. Some playing cards are easy to tell whether they are reversed or not. But that was back when I actully used reversals, and nowl I don't. I wasn't sure which suit of the playing cards belonged to the suits of tarot except for hearts being cups. SO I sat for a whille and looked at the playing cards untill I had decided what suits went where. To me, Diamonds looked like wands, clubs looked like swords, hearts were cups and Spades were pentacles. Now days I know better. Every book on Cartamancy says diffrently. I cannot remember how diffrently except I know that in those books plus the various diffrent oppions of those on the forum and elsehwere belive that the diamonds are swords. I have tried to sit down with an open book and follow those rules, but I can't as I am so used to the other way. I also picture regular tarot cards when I look at regular playing cards, and I am so used to it now, that even if I am going to the casino with my husband and he sits down to play black jack, I automaticly look at each set of cards that everyone has on the table and wondering whether or not those cards refer to just the game or if they are his reading! So to make a long story short, and I am one of those nice ladies who LOVE long stories, when it comes to playing cards and oracle decks, you eventually come up with your own way to read them, often contradictory to what you read or how they should be read. The same can be done with tarot, and not just with the cards, but with the spreads as well. For instance, I no longer read reversals, not because they make me nervous or I don't belive in them, but because everytime a reading came up with the reversals it would confuse me and I would wonder what the heck I was sopost to do or what it meant. To me, they can mean the same thing reversed and right side up as well as sideways, horizontal, or even face down. To me, wands are air and swords are fire. It just feels better to me that way. It may be diffrent for everyone else, but it seems to 'click' with me. I said I don't use regular spreads as well. For years and I used the celtic cross, but it didn't click with me. After buying at least three diffrent books on spreads I came to the conclusion that anyways you lay the cards down can be a spread, it's the pattern that emerges from it that makes the reading. SO, that is what I do, and most times I get something. I have my own little favorite 'spreads' now, And I like it. On a hummourous note, some people who ask for readings themselves read, so when you drag out a deck that they may not know, or playing cards and read them in a completely mind warping way then what they are used too, you might feel a bit less nervous in thinking that you are an idiot or that they might be able to spot you as an amature. For me, these knew patterns of reading help me delve deeper and make me feel less nervous. But for you it might be a set way or no way. Also, read, read, read, read....read if you feel like it, read if you don't. Read even if you suck and are the worst reader in the world. Continue to read whether you are right are wrong. Read even if you are doing cold readings. Contiue even if your whole tarot world is turned completely upside down or inside out. Read for whatever reason, and if you don't feel like reading the cards, read every book that you can get your hands on about it. Study the cards whenever you can. You don't have to take everything like gospel, but take what you can and disgard the rest. Sooner or lator, if you have been reading the cards for years and years and years, as in more than three often more than five, you might notice that certain decks have memories for you, or the cards might remind you of certain places your were at. Like does that sunset on the ace of cups cards in the robin wood tarot you remind you of the last day you spent with your friends before returning to your mother one fall (For me it did!) or how about that 5 of pentacles....does that look like my mother when she was doing drugs? (Again a real example). And the three of cups in the robin wood tarot, does that remind you of when you and two other of your girlfriends went out to the woods for a hike? Or partied? How about the three of swords.....does that ever remind you of a time that you were so heartbroken? And what about certain decks? After my first Robin Woods got destroyed by a 'well meaning' relgious person in athority, and I had to rely on my playing cards to survive, A very good friend of mine gifted me his riderwaite tarot and I have used it regliously since. I have soooooooo many memories attacted to those cards and things that have happened, readings that I have done, etc: Eventually this will happen to you. On a lighter note, and as another example, I got the tarot one day a few months back, and the very same day, my computer crashed off the desk and the only thing standing was the 'tower' of my computer. Now whether the reading was meant as the computer falling, the tower still standing or my agonising scream of it after words, I am not sure....but it is another example of how tarot works well in my life. One more thing. Record your readings. Buy a journal or put together loose sheets of note book paper that you use only to record your readings on. Write down the date, day, time began, time ended. Write the moon phase if you wish. Jot down who the reading is for or for what purpose it was for. Record the cards you got in the reading. Number them so when you look back a month or so from that day, you will be able to lay out those cards EXACTLY how you laid them out before, and study that particular reading. A note: On september 11, 2001 when I got home from the airport and I first ever heard the name 'Bin laden' and 'Al Qaida', I thought of doing a reading, which I recorded on a sheet of paper. One of the cards in that reading was 'The Emperor.' To me, that represented Bin laden in a way, and knowing what everyone else who watches the news relgiously knows, that the mountains or caves is where he hides out. Intresting huh? You may never meet some people you may practice your readings on, but it's good exercies anyways. That's enough for now, Got to go and make dinner.