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Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards, Reading Example

There Is No Ghost (Example Reading)

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When we give a reading about extraordinary questions like the occult or the paranormal, it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting to confirm the querent’s bias or subjective experience.

This is why I tend to avoid queries about such things as past lives: for one, I don’t believe in reincarnation, or rather, I believe that the soul of the world constantly reincarnates through every individual that is born, but I don’t believe in the existence of seprate or individual souls that reincarnate karmically; for two, I fail to see the importance of knowing about what one might have been in a previous life; for three, suppose I tell someone that they were an illiterate farmer, when another reader convinced them they were a cool witch who was burned at the stake for her mystical powers, how is the querent going to choose who is right apart from their whim of the moment?

Still, certain topics, such as magic or spirits, are within my tradition and I do believe in them, so I accept readings, but I warn querents that the likelihood of something of the sort happening in their life is very low even if they go looking for it, let alone randomly.

This one querent thought there is a ghost haunting the third floor of the building she moved to. This is the spread that came out:

A card reading about a ghost

As can be seen, even without interpreting the spread, there is no trace of haunting in the cards. The final two cards, the Nine of Diamonds and the Ten of Diamonds, are a lucky combination, they can show success, protection or even simply the fact that the “energy” is clean, not charged with magical or paranormal forces. The querent shows up at the beginning of the spread with the Three of Diamonds, which is a doubtful card in this context. It makes me think more about random things that she, the Queen, misinterpreted.

The Jack of Hearts is even more doubtful. It could show the presence of a child (a living child, that is) or an animal (again, a living one) who does something the querent misinterprets. The querent said that there are both children and animals in the building, so that’s a possibility. Frankly, I should have either added cards or done another spread.

Still, this is enough to make me think that there is a non-paranormal explanation for the querent’s experience, so the spread is enough to answer the question in that regard.

The funny thing is that, after the reading, the querent started talking to me like I am not very competent at reading cards. I am obviously open to being wrong, and I understand that it must be frustrating being told that one’s subjective experience is probably the result of a misinterpretation (it must feel like ‘gaslighting’, to employ an overused word). All I could do was trying to be as understanding as I could in delivering the answer.

After all, for every instance of real haunting or real magic (at least, real according to the oracle) there are thousands of cases of people who spend years burning sage to smoke out a presence that isn’t there, yet the ghost who isn’t there often ends up influencing their life more than those that are there.

MQS

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards, Tarot

An Assault (Example Reading)

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I don’t often pick three cards for the day, and usually when I do they show very minor situations, for the very good reason that most days are very minor in themselves. The day before yesterday I shuffled the Bolognese Tarot and this came up for the following day:

Three cards for the day

The Sun and Moon, in the Bolognese Tarot tradition, indicate sorrow or tribulation. Usually, when the Moon falls last, the sorrow is serious or lasting, while if the Sun falls last it eventually overcomes the Moon, so the sorrow is shorter or less impactful. Still, what we have here, is sorrow knocking at the door, even though it’s passing. Curious, I decided to deal out some other cards, even though I wasn’t sure the cards would keep talking about the same thing. This came up:

The rest of the deck

Clearly this is not a happy string of cards, and it seems to be dealing with a young woman (the Page of Cups). I wasn’t sure if the young woman had anything to do with me or was experiencing something herself, so I left it at that.

Yesterday, aside from being a mentally taxing day for me, a friend of mine was assaulted by a junkie while walking the dogs, but she managed to make it out of it with nothing more than a big scare and a broken fingernail. She alerted the police, and she asked me what I thought would come of it. This time I whipped out the playing cards.

What will be the consequences of the assault?

The Jack of Spades immediately calls attention to himself, showing a criminal in this case. It is surrounded by two Spades, so trouble or inconvenience for him. The Four is also a card of violence, but I don’t think it has anything to do with it: they are describing what happens to him. Then the spread takes a sharp turn for the better (for the criminal, that is): things change (Five of Diamonds) and he walks (Two of Clubs). I doubted there would be serious consequences. Note also the absence of the law (the King of Spades) or of the prison card (the Five of Spades).

The man was stopped, since he is known around town for being a weirdo, but my friend is probably not going to press charges since she was told there were no witnesses and it would turn into an endless battle of he-says-she-says for what, in the eyes of the law, was a minor scuffle on the streets between two adults. I’ll update the post if anything new happens.

MQS

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards

The Hothead (Example Reading)

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If you ever happen to receive a comment from someone whom the cards describe in the following way:

2♠️ – 6♦️ – 2♣️

you can safely flag all their future comments as spam. Their actions (Two of Clubs) presuppose (behind) a volatile and unstable temper (Two of Spades – Six of Diamonds). It is someone who is simply looking for a target to live out their idiosyncrasies depending on the fixation of the moment.

MQS

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards

In The Name Of Love (Example Pyramid Reading)

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Yesterday we had a nice reunion with some friends. One of them asked the cards if she has a shot with her dance instructor, whom she’s crushing hard on. These were the cards:

6♣️ – Q♣️ – 10♥️ – 9♠️
K♣️ – 10♣️ – Q♥️
A♥️ – 3♣️
8♠️

The first thing that jumped at me was that nasty Eight of Spades at the end, which literally says “it will end in tears.” If we take the three angles of the pyramid, they are the Six of Clubs, Nine of Spades and Eight of Spades. Bleak.

My querent’s card falls on the first line, together with the Six, the Ten of Hearts and the Nine of Spades. If we were to read this line as a literal sentence, it would be “Coming from a place of fatigue your happiness there’s not“. In other words, my friend is not just single, but lonely, has been for a while and she’s unhappy about it. This is interesting, because it shows that her crush is more like a compensation mechanism.

Then we come to him, the King of Clubs, who is on a journey (Ten of Clubs) with a loved woman (Queen of Hearts) that leads to a house (Ace of Hearts) of union (Three of Clubs). He is engaged. The final Eight of Spades does not say that he is unhappy about the engagement, but that the engagement brings tears to the querent.

MQS

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards

Is Her Mental State Going to Improve? (Example Reading)

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As you may have read in another post, I recently lost my dad. My mother has always been the worrier type, and taking care of him in this last period has exacerbated these traits. I’ve seen her not just depressed, which would be normal, but utterly confused. A couple of days ago, when I discovered my dad’s playing cards, I asked how her mental state would evolve, and if it would improve (I used this picture as header pic of that post):

Will her mental state improve?

There are two points in this spread that immediately jumped at me:

  1. The Two of Diamonds (2♦️) followed by the Four of Spades (4♠️). The Two is a card of communications, especially written, but it is also strongly connected with attitudes, mental states etc. Followed by the Four of Spades, it gives a critical point in her inner life.
  2. The Five of Diamonds (5♦️) squished between Spades. The Five of Diamonds indicates change, transformation, the ability to move on from one state to another. This ability is negated by the surrounding spades.

Clearly she has entered a rather dark tunnel. The following cards offer hope: the Two of Hearts with a Heart court card indicates someone close to us. It could be me, it could be my uncle. The fact that two hearts follow the Spades indicates healing. It may indicate that focusing on the family, especially me, is a source of positivity for her. It could show help from me and my uncle or other close male relatives and friends

The final two cards are the Six of Clubs and the Six of Hearts are interesting. If the 6♣️ hadn’t been present, the three consecutive Hearts would have shown full recovery from the problem. Tbe 6♣️ though, is a card of fatigue, tiredness and of things slowing down, and of problems that seemed solved resurfacing.

Therefore, as may be expected, while the 6♥️ promises improvement, the 6♣️ shows relapses and that scars will remain. I expected no less.

MQS

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards

A Career Cross Spread (Example Reading)

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When I was taught to read playing cards, the cross spread was presented to me as a general spread. However, over time I discovered that it can also be used to answer specific questions of a general nature, or simply to explore certain compartments of the querent’s life. Here is a recent spread on a male querent asking about his career:

A career cross spread. Divination with playing cards

To summarise the main meanings of the various fans:

  1. Left: past-present
  2. Center: in the heart, sometimes present
  3. Right: present-future
  4. Above: thoughts, would like
  5. Below: dislikes, problem
  6. To the side: future/answer

The cool thing about larger spreads is that sometimes we can just identify a single spot that answers the question clearly, and everything else gives details that may or may not interest the querent. Here, the clear answer occurs in the right spot: 9♣️ 8♣️ 8♠️, which translates as “for a long time the job will give the querent tears”.

Now that we have identified a clear sentence, let’s fill out the details. Since the sentence is quite negative, let’s look at other negative spots. In his heart, the querent has the 3♠️ which brings difficulties, complications etc. But it is followed by cards that bring hopes of a solution (the two Hearts). Clearly there has been something that caused the querent to start hoping.

Now look at the fan above: he would like a contract (3♣️) that gives him happiness (10♥️). Between these two cards we find the sickness card (6♠️). This could indicate that it is a vain hope or a sick hope, one that is not grounded in reality. On the left we see that he has a small income (3♦️) but works hard (5♣️ J♣️) so it’s not that he doesn’t deserve job security. Below we see a difficult situation with a man that might be his boss or a superior. Clearly he is not the teacher’s pet (the Q♣️ simply shows that the querent’s troubles reflect badly on his love life).

The final fan unfortunately robs the querent of all hope, although it argues that there will be help from a man. To dig deeper I should have done another spread. As it stands, the detail is quite vague.

MQS

Card Combinations, Card Meanings, Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards

Three Court Cards! (Example Reading)

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They are the bane of many a reader: Court Cards are seen as difficult to read, in part because they clearly represent people, and so refuse to be banished into the realm of woolly platitudes inhabited by way too many readers, in part because locating them within the querent’s life can be objectively difficult.

In cartomancy with playing cards, however, the inherent signification of the cards can help us: The Queen and King of Clubs are almost always the main protagonists (the querent and his/her significant other), though there may be exceptions. I know of cartomancy systems where the querents are represented by the Heart suit, but this is just semantics.

Then we have the Heart court cards, of which the Jack is a child, a pet or something fresh and immature and small and the Queen and King represent people close to the querent’s heart. This is actually a modern interpretation: traditionally, they would be people sharing the querent’s bloodline, but modern times require modern solutions. I have found that the Heart courts can simply indicate very dear friends. For gay people, usually the significant other is a Heart card of the same sex, although occasionally the cards simply use the Club cards. We need to stay open. The Jack of Clubs can indicate friendship, help, cooperation.

The Diamond suit represents people usually unrelated to the querent, though they can indicate relatives by marriage. More usually, they show colleagues, acquaintances, bosses, rich people or people who have a more neutral or even cold perspective of the querent compared to the Hearts. The Jack of Diamonds usually represents a message.

Finally, Spades show people who are downright inimical to the querent, or who wield power over the querent’s well-being and enforce an objective set of rules, such as the police, doctors, judges, etc. This is especially the case for the King. The Jack can represent enmity, scheming, etc.

All Jacks can indicate children or very young people, though in practice this is more likely with the Jack of Hearts.

Usually, one court card within a reading is already more than we can tolerate, but sometimes we find that there are ONLY court cards. This is an example of a reading a did yesterday for a man who asked about his relationship:

A marriage-related three-card spread

When more than one court card shows up, it is important to look at the cards between them, as they show the nature of their relationship, or what’s between them.

It is easy to jump to conclusions here: there’s a woman between you two! You have a lover! This could very well be the case, actually, but it is always important to keep in mind that, with so few cards on the table, more than one interpretation is possible. Here are some possibilities:

  1. There could actually be a woman between them. He may have a lover (or, more rarely, she may have a female lover)
  2. It might be a threesome
  3. There could be a woman who interferes but who is not a lover: it could be her mother, her friend, any other person.
  4. There might be a person mediating between them in a positive way
  5. He might know her from work or from a business context, since sometimes, two queens or two kings together can represent a single person, merging the qualities of two suits.

So, how do we know which interpretation applies? Well, first off, we ought never to play Nostradamus: in doubt, we ask. This may sound unimpressive, but our aim is not to impress, but to give accurate information. Still, with experience, we may rule out a couple of possibilities as being less likely:

  1. This is a simple three-card spread. If the querent were in some kind of odd polyamorous arrangement, the cards would not lead off with three court cards, but by telling us the querent is weird. This may sound politically incorrect, but the cards are keyed to a rather traditional view of the world. This doesn’t mean they are a compass of morality: it’s just their language. They highlight the strange and untypical in rather clear ways. Three court cards together aren’t strange enough.
  2. This is a simple three-card reading. If the querent had a hidden lover they would tell us the relationship is in danger, or at least they would highlight the lover by assigning her to the Queen of Spades rather than Diamonds (The Queen of Diamonds can be a lover, but it requires more hints from the surrounding cards). Even the Queen of Spades wouldn’t necessarily be a lover, but at least we’d know she’s trouble.
  3. This is a simple three-card spread. If there were a positive influence mediating between them, the cards would have given her to the suit of Hearts, or they would have omitted the information altogether and told us the querent and his significant other are in a positive phase (the mediator isn’t that important, and a three-card spread only has space for what’s important).

With that in mind, I asked the querent if he knew his girlfriend from work or from a business context, and he denied this. I asked him then if there was a woman causing some issues between them. He smirked and said: “A friend of hers doesn’t like me, she’s trying to break us up.”

Obviously, this spread doesn’t tell us how it’s going to end. It just describes the situation rather than how it will evolve, and more cards should be drawn.

MQS

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards, Reading Example

The Proposal (Example Reading)

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Here’s a quick one I thought was interesting. A querent wanted to know if her boyfriend would propose to him. This is the reading:

K♣️ – 3♦️ – J♥️ – Q♣️ – 2♣️

Notice that the two querent cards both come up in the reading. They are separated by the Three of Diamonds and the Jack of Hearts. I didn’t think the Jack could represent a literal child, but to be on the safe side I asked the querent and she said they have no children. If they did, it could have shown a relatively loose relationship but with children.

The Three of Diamonds represents small projects within the couple. It is not negative, but falling next to the querent’s boyfriend it made me think that he was still a bit immature (especially with the Jack) or at least that he didn’t have big projects in mind. However, we find the Queen followed by the Two of Clubs which represents some steps taken. To me it looked as though she would be the one to take action, either proposing herself or pressuring him to commit further.

What ended up happening is that the querent fell pregnant and told the boyfriend she wanted to at least move together. They are apparently making arrangements to find a place, and an engagement may be on the horizion in the next few years.

Could I have foreseen the pregnancy? Maybe, with the Jack of Hearts so central to the spread. Still, it didn’t feel like a pregnancy spread (and after all it wasn’t even the question).

What I find interesting about the spread is how it describes the nature of the querent’s relationship and who wants to take it to the next level

MQS

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards, Reading Example, Spirituality and Psychology

Will She Learn to Love Herself? (New Spread Example)

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The Thirteen Card Tableau Spread

The spread used for this reading is a spread of thirteen cards that I’ve learned from the person who’s teaching me to read the Bologna Tarot, and it is typical of that tradition. It is a small tableau of cards that is generally used to explore a single issue (though nothing forbids you to use it for general readings.)

123
456
789
101112
13

There are several traditions varying from town to town. According to one, the cards are to be read in columns only, with one indicating the past, one the present and another one the future. My teacher however reads them primarily in rows, though sometimes columns can be read too, and usually, the central column holds some importance. More often than not, the last card is especially important because it will either contain a general answer or give you an important detail, or determining factor.

Although this spread is especially linked to the Northern Italian tarot tradition, I’ve seen it used with regional playing cards as well, and I don’t think there is any reason why it wouldn’t work with any deck tradition you practice. I will certainly use it with the Sibilla as well, one of these days.

Will She Learn to Love Herself?

The querent in this case is an acquaintance of mine, but the question was not about her, but rather about her sister. The question was “Will she learn to love herself?” and it came with no further detail. This is fine, as often when a querent feels the need to talk there is a risk that they end up feeding me their perspective. So here are the cards that came out:

Will she learn to love herself? Divination with playing cards, thirteen-card spread

Right off the bat, we notice that the significator for the querent (the Queen of Clubs) is present, so since this is a tableau we might as well look at the cards surrounding it. She has the Jack of Hearts, the Queen of Spades and the Eight of Spades above her. These cards could mean a number of things, such as problems with a daughter or problems with an immature woman, or problems in the person’s childhood. Let’s file all this away and move on.

Next to the Queen of Clubs we have the Nine of Clubs and the Six of Clubs, which represent long-term toil and struggle. Clearly, whatever this is, it is not something that is going away soon. But the spread ends with the Nine of Hearts which indicates triumph. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Technically, we already have our answer: the querent’s sister will struggle with self-love a long time, but she will improve. But the cards tell us more. Let’s turn to the first row, where we find the Queen of Hearts hemmed in by Spades. There is some kind of blockage or problem (Four of Spades) that causes the shedding of tears (Eight of Spades) relating to a woman (the Queen of Hearts).

Usually, the Queen of Hearts is either a relative or someone with our best interest at heart. In this case, though, she is strongly afflicted by the Spades. So I asked the querent if the issue relates to the sister’s poor relationship with her mother or another female figure close to her that impacted her self-love negatively. The querent confirmed that their mother was a raging alcoholic who worked overtime to tear them down when they were little. Note how the cards highlight the cause of the sister’s suffering by placing it right on top of the spread!

Right underneath we have the Queen of Spades, the Four of Clubs and the Five of Diamonds. This line was a little cryptic, and I must confess I did rely a little bit on my intuition, but the interpretation was still logical. There is a woman of spades who is saying words (Four of Clubs) that cause change (Five of Diamonds). Who is this woman? Usually the Spade suit is problematic, but it can also indicate certain professional figures (doctors, military figures, judges, etc.) It stood to reason that this figure could be a female therapist that is helping the sister. I asked and the querent confirmed to me that the sister is seeing a female psychologist who “means business but is very competent” (Spades).

The line just above the querent contains the Jack of Hearts, the Six of Hearts and the Three of Spades. This time I felt confident interpreting the Jack of Hearts as the sister’s “inner child” or, to avoid woo woo terminology, it represents the issues accumulated since childhood. The Six of Hearts talks about healing, and the Three of Spades indicates intrigue, but also in the metaphorical sense of a knot, something that needs to be unravelled or clarified. For the time being, therefore, the sister’s issue will persist, but the final Nine of Hearts is promising.

MQS

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Occultism and Esoterism, Playing Cards

A Water Spirit (Example Reading)

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One cool thing about moving to our new place is that we now live much closer to the countryside. Although there are a couple of major cities around us, our district is basically a cluster of small pictoresque old German villages close to the woods. This is a very good place for a magic practitioner to settle down.

I also discovered that there is a small lake or large pond (depending on who you ask) nearby. It’s been my experience that old water places, just like old caves, tend to be stably inhabited by spirits. In fact, in a subtle way, these spirits *are* the place they inhabit.

Before visiting the place I drew three cards to investigate, and these cards came up:

A water spirit – Cartomancy with playing cards

Obviously, the first thing to take note of is the presence of the Queen of Hearts, which is a motherly figure or a positive female entity. This is confirmed by the Eight of Hearts which can represent a water place, so in the context of an esoteric / magical reading it would represent a female entity of a broadly positive nature tied to water. The Ace of Clubs represents power, dominion, rulership. It indicates that the spirit has power over the place, so while she is positive, she is not the airy-fairy pushover type.

After doing the reading, I started researching local folklore. If you know of any such place near where you live, it may be wise to research local legends, as they often contain romanticized but accurate hints about the nature of the spirit.

What I discovered is that there is a medieval legend tied to the place, according to which a mother (!!!) once brought a local duke a basket of vegetables, in exchange for having a new irrigation system dug near where she lived. This irrigation system became the pond. There is no narrative reason why she should be characterized as a mother. Her being a mother serves no purpose in the legend, which makes it a very important hint in understanding the spirit: she is essentially motherly.

“But” you may be wondering “this is an artificial pond, how can it be magical?”

We must not draw strict boundaries between the world of humans and that of the great powers of nature. What we know from the legend is that a water spirit wanted to establish herself in this place and convinced the humans around her to cooperate by being motherly and nurturing toward them, and the humans were intelligent enough to accept her offer. There is nothing strange about this: in actuality, humans cooperate with nature all the time.

Note how the reading hints at a spirit that is positive (Queen of Hearts) but not submissive (Ace of Clubs). Had she been a difficult spirit she could have simply flooded the zone. There is altogether too much mischaracterization of water in the spiritual and magical community as something weak, vague and mystical. Water can be devastatingly powerful, so it is a good thing our local water spirit is a positive member of the community.

MQS