One thing that I often receive messages about is how to understand the order in which the cards fall. Whether it’s the Vera Sibilla or playing card, there is one fundamental rule that applies in the majority of cases: later cards modify those that fall before.

Keep in mind that divination with cards is like the reading of a book, so the cards build the equivalent of sentences with their own grammatical structure. This is why I prefer to read the cards together rather than in isolation, as would happen in many contemporary positional spreads, where to each position corresponds one card.

In the tradition I come from, there can be positions, but there are always at least three cards, and sometimes five, covering one position. When we have two or more cards together, it becomes possible to “agglutinate” their meanings.

“Boy” and “run” becomes “the boy is running.” “Boy” and “friend” becomes “the boy is with a friend” or “the boy is a friend.” “Boy” and “Australian” becomes “the boy is Australian.”

Similarly, if we put two playing cards together such as the Three of Clubs (Union, marriage) and the Ten of Hearts (Happiness) they say: the marriage is happy. In the Sibilla, if we put the Ace of Club (Marriage) and the Four of Hearts (Love) together, it becomes “a loving marriage” or “a marriage of love.”

These are the first steps only. There are many more nunaces. However, the basic thing we must ask ourselves when interpreting two or more cards together is whether they add to each other or they contradict each other.

When they add to each other, the sequence in which they fall doesn’t matter that much (though it may add shades of meaning). “A beautiful girl” is roughly the same as “A girl who is beautiful.” But if we have “War” and “Peace”, saying “Peace and then war” is very different from saying “War and then peace”.

In the Sibilla, Fortune + Death is the end of fortune (literally, “the fortune meets its end”), whereas Death + Fortune is an end that brings fortune. Generally speaking, the cards falling after have the power to modify those that fall before.

That being said, divination is an art more than a science: we should never apply our rules so rigidly that we stop thinking about what the cards are saying. In most cases, in the Sibilla, Thief + Marriage has a similar meaning as Marriage + Thief: someone or something is interfering with the marriage.

Ultimately, each spread is a world in itself and the specific key to it must be found by following the clues that the cards leave behind.

MQS