The Playing Card Oracles by Cortez/Freeman

What I like about watching Ana read is the way that she teaches the pictograph method, letting the figures on the cards interact and then using that as part of the reading. In that method she doesn't use the reversals, but allows reversals so that characters aren't always upright and they are more interesting and communicative. Normally I try very hard to keep my decks all upright, and so this is going to be a little hard for me!

I did a reading recently where the center card was the The Enemies, and then on either side of them a picture in the corner of the other cards created a new sort of consciousness in the minds of the enemies. (the pictures were placed exactly in the enemies heads!) So that you could see what they were fighting about...it was really cool. It was something that I might not have noticed if I hadn't seen Ana reading. I have learned alot from watching her videos.

I hadn't thought to really use the PCO as an intuitive deck. Today I read for a friend with it. I have to tell you that the reading was incredibly helpful to her. It was instructive to me as well.

Now I have not mastered the 4 card columnar reading that Ana did in the new video today, but still, it was pretty amazing. Two wind cards (4's) showed up one above the other, showing a push and pull energy, and the sitter was really amazed at my skill with the deck!!! Hah! Skill? Not sure about that, but I was able to offer her a great reading. And, she said that another reader who had read for her recently had said the same things to her in a slightly different way. So that was a nice corroboration for me.

I love the deck. I find that the 9's sometimes baffle me, the community service boys of Gallahad and Gawain....so like knights or Kings...but I'm figuring it out.

There are new surprises every time I use the deck. I like that. Now I have to say that some of the art isn't my taste. But I still like the deck very much.

A little late to the party but I'm away at the moment. This is a fairly new deck and system to me, by a few months and so I'm using her suggestions in the book until I get more familiar with using it. But what captures my attention about this set is Ana herself and the way she encourages people by her own reading style to being creative with the deck. She has her system laid down but also happens across things which she plays along with and this way of reading is so refreshing to see, especially in her videos.

When I get home I'll try to join in with the readings.

It has only been a few weeks now but I am 100% hooked on this deck! Thanks to Marina and lark for twisting my arm!

Thanks also to Marina for sharing her PCO readings on her blog:

http://saturness.blogspot.com/

It will not be suitable for all types of readings (some say it is too psychological) but I believe that we need different tools for different problems. It may even help me reconnect with Tarot in the longer term (I much prefer working with other oracles these days).

In case anyone here finds it useful, I found a sample of the book online:

http://www.argentbooks.com/samples1.html

There is no Look Inside feature on amazon and the book does not seem to be viewable on google books either so this may help anyone sitting on the fence decide whether or not to get it.

Wow IheartTarot, thanks for the link to the sample of the book. Now I can share it with friends who still don't know if they want the book or not!

IheartTarot said:

It will not be suitable for all types of readings (some say it is too psychological) but I believe that we need different tools for different problems. It may even help me reconnect with Tarot in the longer term (I much prefer working with other oracles these days).

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Well, it was painful for me to confess to myself that after 9 years learning tarot and 3-4 learning the Playing Card Oracles, I read much better with the latter than with the former. And it has worked for me for all kinds of readings from spiritual to sex life readings. But that also, I suppose, is a matter of personal practice and preference.

Like I said once, the Playing Card Oracles is a deck that sings to me. I love reading with it!

Thank you for the link to my blog, I will start updating it more often with my PCO readings and studies. Maybe it can help fellow playing card readers!

Marina said:

And it has worked for me for all kinds of readings from spiritual to sex life readings.

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That is what I meant by psychological (sort of), coming from the other end of the oracle spectrum where I have been hanging out lately i.e. Lenormand.

I would place PCO somewhere between Tarot (subtle and psychological) and Lenormand (blunt and practical like me ).

I used the PCO for a witch party recently, a Halloween event.

I was doing back to back readings, people were in line for so long, like 30 women in my line alone. Anyway, I had the PCO and a tarot deck as well as a few other oracles, but I kept using that PCO deck and the revelations were really amazing.

Did I know every definition for every card? No, but I just trusted I'd say what needed to be said.

Overall, I had great readings. My first read of the night was one of the hostesses and I could not zero in on her. The rest of the night it was great, culminating in a reading with a woman who sat there sobbing while the PCO wove a pretty amazing story. She'd had a hard life and needed something to sort of hold onto. I think she went away feeling more loved and actually was able to say she could surrender to accepting some hard things that had happened to her, but that no longer needed to define her. Wow.

The Wind cards were doing some interesting things in terms of pushing and pulling other cards in and out of the reading....which was one of the biggest lessons of the night. I was laying out according to my own freeform pattern that I have been using for many years now and the picture relationships with the PCO deck are amazing.

I really like using the PCO. It is a refreshing change from other systems, and I admit that it does have a very unique way of zeroing in on things. People were actually surprised at times at what I was digging up. I mean I had to get in and out in a few minutes, and try to give people something real. The PCO delivered.

IheartTarot said:

I would place PCO somewhere between Tarot (subtle and psychological) and Lenormand (blunt and practical like me ).

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I love Lenormand too!

I love Tarot, but it started to become too subtle to me. I could not put the cards in a more practical perspective, and that's what most of my sitters want. I don't mind being subtle when reading for myself, but for others a more "practical and blunt" is usually prefered. Thus I chose to make the PCO my main deck (because I a Lenormand beginner! ).

Satori said:

Overall, I had great readings. My first read of the night was one of the hostesses and I could not zero in on her. The rest of the night it was great, culminating in a reading with a woman who sat there sobbing while the PCO wove a pretty amazing story. She'd had a hard life and needed something to sort of hold onto. I think she went away feeling more loved and actually was able to say she could surrender to accepting some hard things that had happened to her, but that no longer needed to define her. Wow.

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Wow Satori, thank you for sharing this beautiful experience.

I did a love-life reading for my mother (she's divorced) in February, using the Cat Spread. It pointed that some changes in her love life would happen in mid-September, but that the guy would not be exactly what she wanted.

We both forgot about the reading. In the beginning of September she travelled to Rio and - tada!. Met a guy who stirred her love life, but he's not quite what she expected... and now we wait for the rest of the story.

I was surprised by the accuracy, it was the first time I watched the Cat Spread weave a story in front of my eyes.

Satori said:

The Wind cards were doing some interesting things in terms of pushing and pulling other cards in and out of the reading....which was one of the biggest lessons of the night. I was laying out according to my own freeform pattern that I have been using for many years now and the picture relationships with the PCO deck are amazing.

Click to expand...

The dynamic energy of the Fours (the Winds) is very interesting to watch in readings! I like that in the PCO the fours are stable energy (I mean, the kind that flows constantly), but not boring and stale like they usually are in other divination systems. They have their own personalities - there are many different ways to be constant, after all.

Satori said:

I really like using the PCO. It is a refreshing change from other systems, and I admit that it does have a very unique way of zeroing in on things. People were actually surprised at times at what I was digging up. I mean I had to get in and out in a few minutes, and try to give people something real. The PCO delivered.

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The PCO was the deck that helped to believe in my reading skills. The deck that gave me confidence, the deck that taught me to trust my own impressions when doing a reading. So far it has been a good and faithful friend to me!

PCO is now officially OOP

Yesterday I heard that the PCO had been discontinued by US Games and I emailed them for confirmation which came today:

"Per our warehouse manager we only have books remaining for this deck. Unfortunately the deck is no longer available."

There are still some book and deck kits and decks at amazon and other places but it is only a matter of time before they are all gone and you can only find OOP copies at OOP prices. Don't say I didn't warn you!

I have ordered a back-up copy of the deck.

Thanks for the heads up on that one IheartTarot. Off to find a back up copy now...

*paging Marina*

Will Ana be able to make the book info available through her website, etc?

Is it ok to drop links here?
http://anacortezhome.blogspot.com/