You may have used an oracle deck or heard of tarot cards, but did you realize you could perform a reading with a standard deck of playing cards for a friend or yourself? Anyone is welcome to try this method of divination, known as cartomancy.
Here, we go into all there is to know about cartomancy, including its history, the meaning of the cards, how to perform readings, and more.
In This Article...
Can you use a tarot deck to play cards?
With the exception of Minchiate, an extinct game that required 97 cards, a full Tarot deck, such as one for French Tarot, contains the full 78-card complement and can be used to play any game in the family. However, the smaller subsets (of 63, 54, 40, or even 36 cards) used in the Austrian-Hungarian Tarock and Italian Tarocco decks are exclusively appropriate for those games. The Latin suits of Cups, Coins, Clubs, and Swords are common in Italy and Spain, and the French suits of Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades are used in France, Quebec, West Germany, and the majority of the English-speaking world. Regional tarot decks frequently include culture-specific suits. For example, the German suits of Hearts, Bells, Acorns, and Leaves are used throughout most of Germanic Europe. Even non-Tarot decks, such those used in the German card game Skat, are following this pattern (played with a deck of similar-value cards as in the French piquet deck used for Belote; players in most of western Germany use French suits while players in Bavaria and eastern Germany use German suits).
Questions you don’t really want answered
Even though it might seem apparent, it’s advisable to refrain from asking the tarot cards questions that you aren’t prepared to hear the answers to. That’s because answers to these questions can reveal information you’re just not quite ready to hear.
“Tarot can definitely come off as offensive if you’re not willing to hear the truth or consider an opposing point of view. Tarot reading Nicole Fortunaso
According to tarot reader and life coach Nicole Fortunaso, “tarot may truly come out as offensive if you are not willing to hear the truth of the problem or look at an alternate viewpoint.” She advises considering why you’re responding the way you are in order to reflect on the best way to address the underlying cause if you ask the question and are unsatisfied with the response.
What does a deck of cards represent?
Each of the four major pillars of the Middle Ages’ economy is supposed to be symbolized by one of the card game’s suits: Hearts stood for the Church, Spades for the military, Clubs for agriculture, and Diamonds for the merchant class.
My Tarot deck needs to be cleaned.
There are occasions when you might want to perform something more particular and ritualized rather than simply shuffling the tarot deck to purify and clear the energy of the cards. Cleaning your deck could seem like a nice place to start if you’re just starting to understand tarot.
You might want to clean your tarot deck for a variety of reasons, including:
- beginning with a fresh deck
- readings for other people
- You think you need to recharge.
- Your card readings seem a touch “odd” or “disconnected”
- Your deck hasn’t been used recently.
- Your deck has been handled by others
- You think you’ve been utilizing your deck a lot. A LOT, especially for books with strong emotional content
Why should you cleanse or clear your tarot deck?
Tarot deck cleansing helps keep the energy flowing between you and your deck. To keep the link strong and clear, think of it as a little spiritual hygiene. It’s not necessary, but if you have any of the aforementioned symptoms, try a few of the energetic cleansing techniques listed below and note which ones seem to work the best for you.
How often should you cleanse your tarot deck?
This is another way of stating USE YOUR INTUITION: there are no hard and fast laws. Don’t worry about it if you don’t think your deck need it. Alternately, if you like to cleanse them once per week or once per month, that’s great. If it feels appropriate to you, you can even place your favorite crystal on the balcony each night.
If you frequently place crystals on your deck and store it on an altar while not in use, you might not feel the need to cleanse it frequently because this quick ritual will likely be sufficient to keep your deck feeling nice.
There are numerous ways to cleanse your cards, just as there are numerous reasons why you might desire to do so.
Different ways to cleanse your tarot deck
Use holy smoke. Light a dried rosemary, lavender, cedar, sage, or palo santo cleansing wand until it begins to smoke. Hold the smoke a safe distance below the deck while holding the burning herbs in one hand and the deck in the other so that the smoke drifts upward onto the cards. Turn the deck so that the smoke covers it from all angles. Next, safely put your deck to the ground and put out the fire.
On the deck, set a selenite stone (or a black tourmaline or a transparent quartz). Although an hour would suffice, I prefer to let it rest like this for the entire night.
Set them on display during a new moon. The New Moon is energy of a blank slate; you can purify the deck by setting it on a window sill on a new moon night. At this moment, you can also make a brand-new intention for your deck.
Place the cards in a salty dish. A strong and stabilizing cleaner is salt. My preferred choice for a thorough cleansing is this. Allow it to sit anywhere from one to eight hours in a dry area.
Shuffle in chaos. Spread the cards out on the ground, then shuffle them around like a child playing in dirt. This method’s freedom and randomization serve as an excellent reset.
the shuffle and sort. Set up the deck in rows of seven cards across, commencing with the Major Arcana numbers 0 to 22. (see photo above). Next, arrange the cards, Ace through King, one for each suit, as follows: Swords, Pentacles, Cups, and Wands. View the deck in this configuration, then mix everything up (like the chaotic!) and shuffle it thoroughly.
Can I use Tarot cards to play solitaire?
With as many comparable rules as feasible, the objective is to make a Tarot card play as much like Microsoft Windows Klondike Solitaire as possible. Solution: Use six 13-card suits in place of four. Remove the Knights, leaving 13 cards per suit for the Cups, Coins, Swords, and Clubs.
Who invented the tarot?
The first tarot decks were created in Italy in the 1430s by adding a fifth suit of 21 specially designed cards called trionfi (“triumphs”) and an odd card called il matto to an already existing four-suited pack (“the fool).
What is reading a cartomancer?
Using a deck of cards, cartomancy is a form of divination or fortune-telling. Soon after playing cards were originally introduced to Europe in the 14th century, various forms of cartomancy started to emerge. Cartomancers, card readers, or just readers are common names for people who practice cartomancy.
In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, the most common method of giving fortune-telling card readings was cartomancy using regular playing cards. Jokers and even the blank card that may be found in many packed decks are frequently added to the conventional 52-card deck. Although the 52-card deck can also be used, the 32-card piquet stripped deck is more frequently used in cartomantic readings in France. (A 52-card deck can be converted into a piquet deck by eliminating all of the 2s through 6s. The remaining cards are all 7s through 10s, face cards, and aces.)
Tarot card reading is typically the most prevalent type of cartomancy in English-speaking nations. In these places, tarot cards are virtually always employed for this reason.
How do I create my own tarot card deck?
How to make your own tarot cards: the steps
- Select a smooth or linen card stock for your project.
- Choose how many cards you want, then complete.
- For your deck, provide an optional box.
- Here’s our tarot card generator online.
- Upload picture files, then drag and drop them onto the front and back of cards.
- Preview and checkout.