I've just finished reading through the Cortez book.
I have to say, I'm completely blown away by the reading method. The author uses geomancy to guide the reading and give it a structure, in an ingenious way.
I had never even heard of geomancy before, but apparently it's a genuine, although now mostly forgotten, divinatory tradition which is straightforward, easy to use, and effective. What makes it particularly interesting is that it involves patterns of dots which could be interpreted visually in different ways.
The way it works is, there are 16 figures, each of which has its own pattern of dots, its own meaning, its own name, and a correlation with one of the seven planets of antiquity. You can see the figures
here.
Each figure is composed of four rows. Each row contains either one or two dots. And this is where Cortez's four-card spread comes in. In her spread, which is laid out vertically, each card can be matched to one row of a geomantic figure. Her method is to derive the geomantic figure from the four-card spread by a simple binary analysis of the cards. If the card number is odd, the geomantic row receives one dot. If the card number is even, the geomantic row receives two dots. Thus, a geomantic figure (called a Witness) is derived from the four-card spread. This geomantic figure, since it has its own meaning and astrological correlation, can be interpreted so as to provide an overall direction for the spread.
Then, a second geomantic figure (another Witness) can be derived, this time by analyzing the cards by color rather than by number. The differences between the two Witnesses can be seen as either providing a temporal framework (first this, then that), or a psychological framework (inner mind, outer personality).
Finally, the two Witnesses together can be used to generate a third geomantic figure, called the Judge, by adding together each row of the two figures. The Judge provides an ultimate outcome, and Cortez has a list of six rules governing the analysis of the three figures together (i.e., what if you have two negative Witnesses and a positive Judge, etc.).
Besides all this, the author recommends examining the four-card spread in terms of color and suit considerations. So, between color, suit, and geomantic figures, there's a great deal of information that can be gotten from the four cards, and that's even before any consideration of the individual card meanings.
Then she describes the grand 16-card reading, which covers a full year, and which uses four rows of four cards and the resulting 12 geomantic figures. Her method of reading this spread (which she says takes her a full hour) sounds much like an astrology reading, where the astrologer looks for overall trends and directions first, and then looks for individual factors which support the main storyline which emerges, without necessarily methodically analyzing every single piece of information in the chart.
What amazes me about all this is that the combination of cards with geomancy seems completely unforced. She and her father have created a way of combining the two which seems perfectly natural, as if the two systems were designed to fit together.
I also found it very interesting that Cortez uses the often-cited correspondence between the 52 cards and the 52 weeks of the year in her reading methods. She considers the shuffled deck to represent the entire year for the questioner, and so if the questioner wants to know about a particular time period, she'll count off cards (representing weeks) until she gets to the appropriate week, and that card and the three after it become the four cards for the spread.
Or, as an alternative, if the time period is unknown, she cuts the deck, turns over the top card of the lower pile, replaces the top pile, then lays out groups of four cards (to represent lunar months) until she gets to the upright card, and then that card and the four following cards become the four-card spread. In this way, the reader can count the number of previous four-card piles (i.e. lunar months) to arrive at an answer as to what the relevant time period will be, then read the four-card spread for an answer as to what will happen in that time period.
I'm intrigued enough that I've decided to go ahead and start memorizing her card meanings. At this point, I can see the benefit of having her deck. Although I don't like the coloring, the drawings are very well-done and interesting, and it would certainly be easier to work with the images rather than memorizing 52 card meanings. But I'm still going to persevere with my ordinary playing-card deck. I think in the long run I'll be glad I did. For one thing, while the Cortez pictures are great for analyzing the individual card meanings, much of the reading method relies on analyzing various patterns of the layout before one even gets to the card meanings, and I would think that for that pattern analysis, the Cortez illustrations might distract one.
Besides... I love the look of plain playing cards! The cool whiteness, the sterile, calm beauty, the impersonal sets of suit signs... like a blank slate, or a crystal ball, waiting to be filled with our own impressions, visions, dreams...
-- Lee