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).
Do playing cards and tarot cards have the same dimensions?
How big are tarot cards? Tarot cards typically measure 2.75 inches by 4.75 inches. Our tall playing card is the same size as this.
Infuse the cards with your energy
Spend some time with your tarot deck to imbue it with your energy before you begin plucking cards. The creator of Soul Cards, Kristine Fredheim, advises giving them a good shuffle while imagining or stating your name and birthdate. You might also think about sleeping with your cards under your pillow if you want to get really close to them.
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.
What does it signify when you play cards?
Facts and trivia about playing cards 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.
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 number of tarot cards do you draw?
Howe advises to be calm and believe in your own agency if this sounds daunting. “In order to see it less as “This holds all of these secret meanings that I have to do all this work to access” and more as “I know all the meanings; it’s just a matter of establishing the connections and being able to articulate them,” use language or knowledge that you already possess. She points out that the four elementsearth, water, fire, and airplay a significant role in the tarot, which is advantageous because the majority of people already have an understanding of the meanings of each element. ” If you do that, your viewpoint will be more personal, and you will be able to express yourself more freely.
Howe suggests the Celtic Cross and the three-card pull as the two fundamental spreads for beginning readers. In the former, three cards are chosen at random from the deck to symbolize the subject’s mind, body, and spirit, or past, present, and future. According to Howe, you could even up the stakes and use a six-card draw, with one card for each location.
What spiritual meaning does the joker card have?
Surprisingly, the Joker’s connection to the TAROT is NOT a coincidence.
purely because the Tarot inspired the entire deck of playing cards!
There are 78 total cards in the Tarot, which are split into the major and minor arcanas.
The main Arcana are 22 cards that are frequently referred to as “trump cards,” consisting of laws and principles that are given to the Quaballah and thus relate to different portions of the human body, which is essentially the Quaballah tree of life. The Minor Arcana, which consists of 56 cards, is related to life paths that come from one’s spiritual, emotional, cerebral, and physical bodies. So you might be wondering how this relates to a playing deck or the joker in general. Simple! The court cardsKing, Queen, Page, and Knights or Princesses in some decksas well as numbers 1 through ten are all part of the minor arcana. Princes and princesses are both male and female of the same energy, therefore their positions in the minor arcana reflect this. Since the court cards are the king, queen, and page, or more commonly known as (Jack), when the knight or, in some cases, the prince card is removed, the 56-card deck becomes a 52-card deck with the following suits: Clubs (wands or fire Spiritual Body), Hearts (cups or Emotional Body), Spades (swords or air Metal Body), &.
a diamond (Pentacles or coins physical body) This is now exactly like the minor arcana, and many readers just use the minor arcana because it is the journey and the major only clarifies the laws and principles you are working with. WOWWW!!! Amazing, huh? Therefore, how does the Joker fit in? The joker or fool is the highest card in the tarot. Because playing the fool helps safeguard the knowledgeable from the gullible masses. The fool’s number is 0, which denotes eternity and the highest level of spirituality one can achieve by controlling all the elements while traveling. However, the fool’s position in the deck is 22, which is the bridge between the major and minor arcanas, so despite being perceived as a trump card, it actually serves as a link between the two arcanas. The majority of readers are unaware that each card in the tarot represents a different aspect of the fool or the fool’s journey toward self-discovery or completion. As your mind but not your heart may trick you, the fool on the body symbolizes the heart, and the devil represents the mind. However, each card has a pro and con based on the card that comes after it to define the reading’s precise meaning. As a result, the idiot is occasionally shown as a traveling man, a youngster, the stupid fool, or a guy ravaged by the elements. Regardless of the artwork, the characteristics of any given tarot deck remain the identical. Once more, how does this relate to the joker or jokers in a deck of playing cards? The minor arcana, the four bodies of one’s self, and the adventures that arise from them are all included in the deck of playing cards, along with two trump cards. The black-and-white joker of the mind and the heart represents the mind of practicality and the joker of color representing the heart or occasionally imagination. The joker was returned to the deck rather than being added to it since it was dealt later. The tarot was originally scrolls or tablets from the Alexandrian library that were given to gypsies after the library burned down; it wasn’t until three hundred years later that they were transformed into cards. They have always been used for divination, but the game Tarot developed from it to cover up their meaning and be played for fun. Bridge is the name for playing Tarot without using the main arcana. However, playing card decks and Tarot decks can both be used for card games and divination. Of course, there are more specifics and background information, but that is the gist of it.