In many card reading systems, the appearance of a court cart is enough to make the reader panic. This is partly because there is no fudging with real people: they are there in flesh and blood, so if you botch the interpretation, it’s gonna show.

It’s hard to place people cards in the querent’s life. But there are some tricks that can help us. These are rules of thumb, and need to be applied flexibley. Be sensible and reasonable. If something doesn’t make sense for whatever reason, don’t say it: if it doesn’t make sense in divination it doesn’t make sense in real life, and vice versa. Leave space for some intuition as well.

In general, we know that the Club court cards represent the two querents. In general, the Club court card of the opposite sex represents the significant other for straight querents (for gay querents it’s the Heart court card of the same sex, while the other Club card becomes an important figure who is close to the querent or will have an important role)

Often, Heart cards represent people the querent already knows as they have a close bond with them, shown by the Heart suit. However, if the cards surrounding them show newsness or being unknown, then the Heart suit represents that they are good to the querent.

Diamond and Spade figures may or may not be known. If they are surrounded by Hearts, they are more likely to have a close relationship with the querent, although Spades surrounded by Hearts still show a problematic relationship. Surrounding Clubs suggest a more distant relationship, while Diamonds and Spades suggest the relationship is purely transactional or even hostile (in the case of Spades.)

When two court cards show up next to each other, they are related in some way. Related doesn’t necessarily mean that they are relatives, but that they know each other and have already interacted in the past. When the two cards come up with some other cards between them, we need to pay attention to the cards that separate them. If these separating cards describe a type of relationship, they simply describe their interaction. if they describe happenings, then it may be that the two people don’t know each other yet.

A court card next to the Ace of Hearts is usually a member of the household. A court card next to the Two of Hearts is usually a relative, but usually not a sibling or parent. Obviously, a court card next to the Eight of Clubs is a colleague, and so on.

Here’s an example. The acquaintance of a friend asked me once if she would find a new boyfriend. I knew nothing about her.

K♣ – 6♣ – Q♣ – 5♠ – 10♠ – 2♦ – J♥

It is patently clear that this person is already in a committed relationship: the King of Clubs shows up at the beginning. He and the Queen do not interact directly, because their court cards don’t touch. However, the card that separates them, the Six of Clubs, represents the type of relationship they have: a tired one. This makes the Queen feel confined and unwell (Five of Spades) which leads her to sending secret flirty messages (Ten of Spades, Two of Diamonds, Jack of Hearts) probably over the internet. This spread does not show new relationships, it just shows that the querent is already in a relationship.