Why are playing cards not so popular?

nowment

using playing cards

I think that with so many lovely decks people are drawn to what is so different and or special about various tarot or oracle decks, I actually use various oracle decks but not the tarot that much, and regular cards are a must if I am doing a reading since the method I use I have chosen because it is the most accurate.

I first used regular cards then learned about dice, and the other was the gypsy witch cards which have been around since at least the 40's, and the images have a regular card on each deck, as well as a picture for what it might represent.

For some who read tarot this deck seems more of a game I suppose to some it is, and the tarots are some lovely decks as are the oracle cards.

But a regular deck of cards is basically the tarot without the major arcana anyway.

I am curious as to how many variations and what they may be for regular cards, I mean there is the Gypsy witch deck, of course, then there are other ways of using regular cards some I think may be word of mouth for family, and one of the most accurate I have ever used and have used since 1976 is using 32 of the 52 cards removing the 2's, 3's,4's,5's, and 6's using only King through sevens, and the aces. It is one that is written by Margaret Ward has been around since the 30's, called Gong Hee Fot Choy while learning you might use the book combined with intuition but I would recommend this to anyone interested in being able to eventually just pick up any regular deck of cards and lay them out for insight once you get an idea as to the meanings anytime anywhere you can lay the cards out with out the book and have some idea.

So right now I am reading Cortez's book since this is also showing regular deck of cards though she has added 4 cards to her deck I am very interested in what others might do for reading with regular playing cards.
 

MareSaturni

Ana Cortez calls the playing cards the "country cousin" of the tarot - not because the playing cards themselves are simplistic, but because many people still consider them boring and without the mystical aura of the tarot.

Some people even consider it an incomplete tarot, which is a historical fallacy, as they have been around for longer than the tarot itself.

I started using playing cards 5 years ago, first using the Hedgewytchery method, then using the method Ana Cortez's teaches in her book The Playing Card Oracles. I fell in love with it, and this the method I have been using for the last 3 years!

I have other books about divination with playing cards, teaching different meanings and methods, and I am always learning from them too.

Playing cards always seemed interesting to me because mostly they lack the visual stimulus of the tarot. All you have is pips. Yes, there are some illustrated decks, but these are the exception not the rule. So, it requires a different sort of "feeling" to read with them, not so straigthforward as it is with the tarot and other oracles. And the fact they have no pictures except for the face cards is a good way not to scare your sitters beforehand. There are no "death", "devil" or "tower", although you do have cards with a similar idea behind them. But it's not obvious just by looking at them.

I find it very fun to get accurate answers from a $5 poker deck! Personally, it plays with my imagination in ways the other decks don't :)

It is my favorite oracle, and I'm happy to see more and more people using it!
 

hunter

I just started studying PCs again. I keep trying, crashing, burning and returning to tarot.

I'm glad to see all these PC threads.

I think I'm going to stick with authors basing their systems on the Mystic Test Book, especially Robert Lee Camp.

All the past times, I really complicated things trying to line up the suits with the 4 elements, 4 seasons, etc. This time, I'm just going to concentrate on a divination tool and let the suits, just be the suits, without trying to force them into something larger.
 

MareSaturni

hunter said:
I think I'm going to stick with authors basing their systems on the Mystic Test Book, especially Robert Lee Camp.

All the past times, I really complicated things trying to line up the suits with the 4 elements, 4 seasons, etc. This time, I'm just going to concentrate on a divination tool and let the suits, just be the suits, without trying to force them into something larger.

Well, I read a Robert Camp's book about the Destiny Cards, and while he does give some interesting ideas, I did not like much his meanings for the cards. Some are great, other too bad, and the meanings of the suits are very limited. When you apply this to people and their personalities, it seem extremely limited and shallow, and I am not sure if I'm comfortable with treating people as if they were card meanings.

As for the whole relationship between the calendar and the playing card decks, I find it to be one of the most interesting things about PCs! It's actually a very direct relationship:

4 suits = four seasons
13 cards in each suit = 13 weeks in each season
52 cards = 52 weeks in a lunar year

...and so on.
 

celticnoodle

i started out reading with playing cards. they always fascinated me. my mother read with playing cards, and i guess this is why. tarot decks always sort of frightened me at first, as they had so many more cards.

I also tried a variety of ways, incl. the hedgewytchery and others. I am currently the proud owner of ana Cortez's deck and her book and I am fascinated with her abilities in reading the cards. I also know a psychic reader to whom i go to for readings, (it's not easy to read for yourself), and she also removes some of the cards, I believe twos through six or seven. she keeps the aces tho, i think. i really cannot remember. but she is excellent!

I like to explore new ways, but i've always had success with reading the playing cards in all of the above. one method that I did use for awhile was the Personal Prophesy method, which was also intriguing. I still use the method for the 3 card spread, to help me determine what a court card means if it is in position 1, 2 or 3. it was first pointed out to me by someone here on AT a few years back, and I now forget his name--but it works so well!

one reason i love the playing card readings are that they are much easier to carry around, don't bring in as much attention in a public place and therefore you're not as open to people giving you nasty looks and such. also, in my opinion, playing cards are more mysterious when you can read them. an ordinary item found in everyones home that holds such secrets! what could be more interesting then that? :D
 

Aerin

Because I never found a book that inspired me to bother to learn a playing card system - it's as simple as that for me. I dabbled but never became excited about it, and when I did dabble I used a mixture of number and element in the same way as I would for a Marseilles deck (except the twiddly details on a Marseilles aren't there for a plain playing card deck). I tried some transformational decks too, to see if the details would help, but I didn't find anything I liked as much as tarot.

ps tried the Ana Cortez deck and didn't like it so I traded it to someone who did :)
 

MareSaturni

celticnoodle said:
I also tried a variety of ways, incl. the hedgewytchery and others. I am currently the proud owner of ana Cortez's deck and her book and I am fascinated with her abilities in reading the cards. I also know a psychic reader to whom i go to for readings, (it's not easy to read for yourself), and she also removes some of the cards, I believe twos through six or seven. she keeps the aces tho, i think. i really cannot remember. but she is excellent!

Many people use this method, reading with less cards! It's called "french deck", if I'm not wrong, and it's a playing card deck with 36 cards. It's made of the face cards, plus the aces and 6-10 pips. Many successful readers use the deck like this. Personally, I have never tried this method. :)

I started with the Hedgewytchery and I still have the method saved in my computer. I like color patters they teach there, and find them useful for 3-card readings.


celticnoodle said:
I like to explore new ways, but i've always had success with reading the playing cards in all of the above. one method that I did use for awhile was the Personal Prophesy method, which was also intriguing. I still use the method for the 3 card spread, to help me determine what a court card means if it is in position 1, 2 or 3. it was first pointed out to me by someone here on AT a few years back, and I now forget his name--but it works so well!

I am reading the Personal Prophesy book right now, and she has many nice ideas. I don't plan on adopting her meanings for the cards, as I already work well with Ana Cortez's method, but I do find it enriching to read all the different ways you can read with a playing card deck. I am always looking for more books on the subject :)


celticnoodle said:
one reason i love the playing card readings are that they are much easier to carry around, don't bring in as much attention in a public place and therefore you're not as open to people giving you nasty looks and such. also, in my opinion, playing cards are more mysterious when you can read them. an ordinary item found in everyones home that holds such secrets! what could be more interesting then that? :D

Agreed! I find that when I spread my playing cards on a table in a public place, people give me curious looks. Is she playing? Is she reading? More than once I had someone to come and ask me about the cards - but naturally, without any fear that they are interrupting my work with "sacred tools". It doesn't look mystical, just amusing to most of people.

Playing cards are small decks, easy to carry and easy to replace if something bad happens (unless you are using an antique or special deck). They look so simple, but when you sit in front of someone and start reading the cards for them, everyone is always amazed by how mysterious they actually are!
 

cardlady22

One of my reference books has the Gypsy 32 Card Readings method:
2 through 6 are removed

listed layouts:

Circle of Ten
The Four Fans
The Four Jacks
The Half Moon
The Great Star

~ * ~ * ~

I think people get very confused by the variation in assignments. Don't worry about it! If you like the idea of a card for each Calendar Day, go for it. Mock one up using the suit symbols you prefer to associate with an element. That appears to be what Marthy Jones has done. The chart on page 6 of It's All In The Cards follows each number through in Ascending order (rather than the MTB/Camp descending) and changes the suit pretty much where the tropical zodiac sign does.
 

celticnoodle

marina said:
Many people use this method, reading with less cards! It's called "french deck", if I'm not wrong, and it's a playing card deck with 36 cards. It's made of the face cards, plus the aces and 6-10 pips. Many successful readers use the deck like this. Personally, I have never tried this method.
oh thank you for letting me know what the method is called. It is just one more method, i'll have to investigate, but may pay off anyway. this makes perfect sense too, as this woman is on the border of VT/Canada and it is very much a french influence in this area.

I am also always on the lookout for new ideas and new books and such to try and see if i like them/if they work for me. lots out there, so always another one to explore!

marina said:
Playing cards are small decks, easy to carry and easy to replace if something bad happens (unless you are using an antique or special deck). They look so simple, but when you sit in front of someone and start reading the cards for them, everyone is always amazed by how mysterious they actually are!
agreed! in fact, i bought my niece a deck of playing cards and a book as well as wrote down some 'pointers' i've picked up that work for me. she is 'in training' trying to learn the craft. she has just started college, so I mentioned to her its a great place for her to practice with the other students there. then, perhaps in her sophmore year she can begin to read for money--and earn a bit of extra spending money in the process too. :D she has tarot decks too, but the playing cards are small and easier to replace if lost or damaged. and don't you just love it when someone comes up to you, realizing you are reading the cards and ask for one. then when you finish, they get up, dazed and amazed and exclaim, "wow! i cannot believe you got all that from an ordinary deck of playing cards!" :D

yes, cardlady, i also have that book "It's all in the cards" and I think that may be the book I also gave to my niece as mentioned above. It was one of my first cartomancy books--if not THE first one. I have to get it back out and re-read it myself. I also agree that you need to be comfortable enough to assign your own meanings to cards and not be afraid if it reads totally different from what someone else put in a book. not always an easy thing to do, but as with any great ability we possess, one that is developed and one where we just have to trust ourselves with. I have also tried assigning different seasons to the different suits. I've not tried the zodiac signs yet, but I keep thinking about doing that now too.

this is one reason why i love reading cards--both oracle and tarot so much, because the cards can really be open to anything YOU as the reader feels. it's hard to trust yourself at first, and even still now and again i become a bit apprehensive about putting a meaning to a card that is not considered "the meaning" as found in a book. but I have noticed that when i do relax and trust my gut, my readings generally are much better for it.
 

IheartTarot

Marina said:
Many people use this method, reading with less cards! It's called "french deck", if I'm not wrong, and it's a playing card deck with 36 cards. It's made of the face cards, plus the aces and 6-10 pips.

Is it the French Piquet deck?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piquet