Divination w/regular cards and Tarot the game

Ninly

two peripherally related topics:

Any experience/knowledge/luck with plain-ol' 52/54 card decks? I would guess I mean for divination rather than introspection or serious mysticism, but who knows?

Also, if you're familiar with the Tarot packs common in France for the game of tarot, does anyone know about the signifigance or history of the trump images thereon? Do they have a relation to the major arcana's imagery?
 

northsea

I have seen the French tarot playing cards on Ebay. From what I've seen, there's basically no similarity between the French tarot trumps, and the trumps in a regular tarot deck. The French tarot Fool often is playing a lute. The only regular tarot deck I know of that similarly depicts the Fool is the Renaissance-Lyle. Lyle was perhaps inspired by the French tarot in that detail.
 

Ninly

I'd be very surprised to learn that there's not some historical connection between the development of esoteric decks and the packs the french use for the game of Tarot (which is still popular in France, from what I gather). But there are marked differences between corresponding cards.

I have a gaming pack here (if only there were people to teach me the game, alas…). The fool (called the Excuse) is indeed playing a lute.

The thing that immediately sticks out and interests me is that each of the trumps (discluding the Excuse) has two different images, upright and reversed. They seem each to treat dialectical interpretations of the same theme. (I wonder if this relates to reversed meanings in reading?) Usually it's a leisure vs. upper class dichotomy, or that of gender. With only superficial examination of the deck, however, I don't see much correspondence between the themes here and the archetype-images of the major arcana.

For example, #15 depicts two class-opposed instances of representation/art. One picture has a man and a girl, neither seem fancifully dressed, and he is painting with an easel and palette. The other image shows three figures: a well-dressed woman posing, a photographer under his camera's veil, and a boy who seems to be his assistant, holding a mirror i think. I could be wrong about the class distinctions. Does anyone see anything "Devilish" about this?

#1 shows two theatrical images, one tragic and one comedic, I'd guess, though maybe not. Both depict a proscenium w/curtains. One with two men (one perhaps a classic fool?) and another peeking in from offstage. The other has a jesterly dressed man, puppet tucked into his belt, presenting a rose to a curtsying woman. Maybe there's some connection here to the performative aspects of the Magician (aka Mountebank)…

I don't know nearly enough about this to conjecture any further, but if anyone knows more, I'd love to hear or be led to more knowledge-bits!
 

northsea

Here's some tarot game links:
http://tarothermit.com/game.htm
http://pagat.com/tarot/frtarot.html

and Google searches:
The Basic Tarot Game
Reflections Of A Novice Tarot Player
Trumps by Aaron Pavao
Gin Tarot
Fortuna
Tarot Poker
Qabalistic Eights
Gnostica

:-D :p ^_^
 

Kiama

Ninly: The deck you describe sounds hauntingly like a deck I bought very cheaply from La Memorial in France when I was 13! I've thrown it out now, cuz I couldn't read with it (Now I know why!) and am really annoyed that I threw it out! The scenes you describe from the Majors are nearly exactly how I remember them...

I can't believe I was stupid enough to throw this one out! AGH!!!!!! >(

Ah well....

Kiama
 

Ninly

Kiama,
Well, don't be too hard on yourself. During my 3 months in france, I saw the same deck a few times in various households. The tarot game is quite popular there, and it seemed to be the pretty standard pack design. I could be wrong, but that's the only design I saw, and I saw it oh, three times I think.

And Tommy: Thanks!
 

catlin

Hi,

Tarot is a very popular game in France, in Austria (there it is called Tarock) and in some Southern parts of Germany we have Cego/Zego cards which look very much like the French tarot cards I have seen somewhere in the internet and missed to buy (but there is still a chance to get the German Cego cards :D As I do not know the rules of Tarock Í cannot compare it with French tarot game :( but I will get a copy of the Cego cards.

2 of my friends do pretty accurate readings with simple 24 or 36 German playing cards. Boy, they can tell you a lot with them! There are some German books availabe to learn the art of divination with playing cards and there is even a special playing cards learners deck available.
 

Logiatrix

sometimes i read with playing cards. i have a standard poker deck which i use only for reading (not for card games), and i have also recently acquired the "sophia" deck, which is very colorful; sophia wrote "fortunetelling with playing cards".
i enjoy this area of cartomancy--it's a nice alternative to tarot. if you already know tarot, learning this form of card reading is very easy.
 

MeeWah

Ninly: In answer to your first question regarding the use of regular playing cards: I
have found readings with playing cards to be
accurate with mundane queries. I do not know if they would lend themselves towards a mystical or introspective pursuit--I did not know to try to apply them in those ways; however, as I grew older (used those cards mainly during pre-teen & teen years), I began to see readings of a more serious nature. Perhaps the nature of the results were in proportion to the life's experiences.
 

raeanne

When I was in high school, I had a friend that worked at the drive-in movie theater. They were robbed one night and the next day she and I went to a card reader. We hadn’t planned on going, it was just something that we ended up doing. Serendipity, I guess. Anyway, we asked the card reader about the robbery. She used regular playing cards and she said the money was “under the street”. Well, that didn’t make any sense to either of us so we just laughed it off. Two days later the police found the money hidden in the sewer, under the street! My guess was that this card reader was more psychic than anything ‘cause I don’t know how any cards could show money under the street!