♠ Fortune Telling with Regular Cards

Have you ever tried to do a Tarot reading with (regular) playing cards? This is my entry for this week’s 🔮 Weekly Witchy CHALLENGE- Fortelling the Future!

・* .:。:spades:゚ ゚・ :clubs:.。. * * .:。✧゚ ゚・ ✧.。. * . *.:。:heart: *゚ ゚・ ✧.。. :diamonds:.

If you have a deck of poker cards you can do a simple reading by combining the meanings of each suit and the number in the card. I’ve designed a printable cheatsheet for playing-card Tarot

Tarot with Regular Playing Cards :black_joker:

Playing-Card Tarot Cheatsheet :page_facing_up:

fortune-telling-with-regular-cards

I used some information from the book Cartomancy by Julian Moore. You can also learn more about Tarot in the Whole Tarot Video Course, which will have new lessons later this week.

How to Read Tarot with Playing Cards?

The four suits in the Poker deck fit each of the four suits in a regular Tarot deck. Each suit will have a specific meaning, for interpreting general aspects of the spread. Any type of Tarot spread will work.

:clubs: Clubs are like the wands in the Tarot deck. They represent fire. Fire is action, work, and growth as the leaves in the wand grow.

:diamonds: Diamonds are the element Earth. They represent money, finances, the material world, and also stability and health.

:heart: Hearts are Cups, the symbol of water. It has to do with emotions and feelings. Relationships and family.

:spades: Spades are Swords. The element Air, of Reason and the intellect. It can also mean conflict or challenges.

Tarot-with-Regular-Playing-Cards

Note: Some people alternate the elements Air and Fire, depending on their tradition.

The suits act as general aspects or spheres of influence, and each number represents a stage or scenario in that field.

  • Ace: Beginning and initiatives.
  • 2: Balance, union and cooperation.
  • 3: Creativity and movement.
  • 4: Stability, security, matters of the family.
  • 5: Challenges, conflict or risk.
  • 6: Harmony and communication.
  • 7: Mystery, wisdom, or making a choice.
  • 8: Self-mastery and inspiration.
  • 9: Growth and manifestation.
  • 10 Completion and renewal.

When reading regular cards, if we see a face card :black_joker: it’s telling us about a person.

Jack: A young person (male, female or other). A messenger.
Queen: Older woman such as a mother figure. Intuitive
King: Older man such as a father figure. Expressive.
Joker: The Fool. Adventurous, inexperienced, curious for learning and exploring.

I hope you find it useful, even if just for a quick beginner fake-Tarot session!

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Oh, this is AWESOME Francisco! :heart_eyes: There is so much wonderful content about tarot around the internet, but surprisingly little (at least that I could find) about how to best use a normal playing deck as tarot. Before I got my first tarot deck, I tried with normal cards and really struggled. I wish I had this guide back then! :grin:

This guide covers everything and is so thorough- a really great walkthrough for anyone interesting in trying tarot reading but doesn’t have a special tarot deck yet :flower_playing_cards: . Thank you so much for sharing! :clap:

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This is great! I’m going to give this a try at the weekend :blush:

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This is awesome @Francisco! I’ll definitely be giving this a try later :heart_eyes:

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Very cool @Francisco! I know my Mom talking about reading playing cards a little but never got much into it with me. Thanks for sharing!

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Ooh ooh! Thank you! I needed this cheat sheet bc I don’t have tarot cards yet. I’m an oracle card person. But thanks!

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Thank you @Francisco, I bookmarked this great info! I’m going to give it a try.
I keep wanting to try Runes, but I think I feel inept to do it, maybe. I just got a book on my kindle to study about them.
Blessed Be,

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Runes have really been calling to me lately as well - I keep seeing runic symbols in my teas and when I read some descriptions in ‘Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner’ and then some tarot symbols a few days later in ‘A Witch’s Guide to Happiness’ they really stuck with me so I’m putting some rune stones in my next witchy order! I’ll figure them out as I go along :joy: This week’s divination challenge has really encouraged me to mix and match and push the boat out with divination - it’s exciting!

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Thanks everyone for your kind comments! Let me know how the readings went! :smiley:

I wanted to add:

While I called it “Tarot” this isn’t technically Tarot… Not without a Tarot deck! It’s just a style of Cartomancy, which simply means “divination with cards”.

Because of that, you could leave the jokers aside and not have the Fool, which is more unique to Tarot. Or you could leave both jokers in the deck and treat them as wild cards.

Anyway, I felt this method is perfect for beginners because there aren’t so many things to remember, and because you can do a reading at anyone’s home even if they don’t have a Tarot/Oracle deck.

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I also found this. I’m doing a reading now. I’m really into this! Thanks so much for sharing your teachings!

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That’s a great addition to the guide! Thanks!!

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Interesting, I have seen this before by one of our psychic at our expos

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Yes, the method outlined here could be used with Spanish cards or even with a deck like Tarot de Marseille:

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It looks like and interesting deck to use for fortune telling. I have collect a lot o different decks

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https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:6063053b-7df3-48c6-a3ce-b9f6e14821aa
I thought this would fit here too.
Let me know if you can see it

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Thanks for this @christina4! It looks like a great shortcut page!

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Christina,
Thank you girl!! Number 8 is my Lucky Number!
Jeannie

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Oops I didn’t realize that it’s the same dang thing :rofl:

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Oh! I just posted an article about the meanings of playing cards in Massachusetts in 1925. I was researching my family tree & came across this newspaper article on the same page as my relatives obituary.

(They would give you so much information about the deceased. Their full address, birthday, family members names & addresses… its crazy! They could never do that now. :thinking: )

Something I Found About a Deck of Playing Cards

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I have several different sets of cards both playing and tarot cards…:thinking: I think 27 decks of cards is what I was at the last time I counted… I’ll have to count now…

Absolutely love reading cards… I have a lot to learn still but I have also come so far :grin:

Amazing work!

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