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:

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