Sometimes the Sibilla’s chattiness is exasperating: there you are, trying to get a straight answer about whether he loves you or not, and she just wastes your time telling you about what his aunt thinks about the whole thing. At other times, though, the Sibilla is a drama queen in the type of language she uses. Here’s a simple example of the latter behavior.
It’s an old reading from at least ten years ago, when a friend and I were relatively fresh out of college. She had been desperately looking for work for some time but without success, and, like most desperate people, she’d started looking in unconventional places. She’d answered an ad that would require her to move to Poland or the Czech Republic (can’t remember) for a stage followed by a part-time offer if all went well.
The first contact was by phone, yet she had some suspicions. She didn’t seem to be able to get a straight answer out of the guy interviewing her. So she asked me to pull some cards on the dude, and here’s what came up:
Can I trust him? Vera Sibilla Reading
I don’t think we need much interpretation to see that there’s something fishy at best about the offer, and at worst it’s a total swindle. The Thief and the Enemy can obviously show anything from an actual thief to a mobster to an assassin, depending on the other cards. Here we have no hint of violence, so we’ll stop at swindle.
The most interesting card here, though, is the reversed Six of Spades. When it is upright, the Six of Spades represents someone who sighs after someone or something, whether because he or she longs for it or because they have pangs of conscience about it.
When it is reversed, the Six of Spades can be a good card if surrounded by positive cards: it can indicate letting go of an addiction, for instance, or of an unrequited love. Broadly speaking, it indicates not sighing anymore.
In this case, though, the reversed Sighs card is surrounded by terrible cards, cards that indicate someone who would hurt others, at least financially, for his own profit. Therefore, the Six of Spades reversed simply shows he has no pangs of conscience about it, which in turn makes him even more dangerous.
Well, my friend did some snooping around and she soon came into contact with other people who had answered the ad. By piecing together the information they had, it turned out that it was a swindle. I am not sure what would have happened, had they gone to the “stage”. Probably they would have been duped out of some money. Anyway, I’m sure glad she didn’t go.
I’ve been having some fun with the answer spreadwith my playing cards but so far I had never used it with the Sibilla. This is an example of a spread I did two days ago, when hubby invited a colleague over for dinner. My question was simply how the dinner would go. It is a mundane question, useful for trying out a new spread.
Regina Russell’s answer spread, adapted for the Vera Sibilla
The Sibilla is, thankfully, very clear here. The first column, the one that supposedly gives us the background of the question, shows hubby (the King of Hearts) extending an invitation (the Gift, a proposal).
The central column generally gives us the answer to the question. Usually, the Hope card, when reversed, makes things go up in smoke. Together with a card such as the Conversation, which talks about gatherings, clearly the appointment does up in smoke or is at least dalayed.
The final column usually gives us additional information. The reversed Ace of Spades is generally less dangerous or less disappointing than when it is upright, but another meaning it has is that of a repeated occurrance. What repeated occurange? The Reunion, i.e., another gathering card.
What ended up happening was that the colleague had to cancel on us to take care of her ailing mother, but we rescheduled for next week.
An interesting Experiment
According to Regina Russell’s instructions, we only read the cards in the answer spread in columns. However, let us try to read them in the order in which they were pulled, which is:
In this case, the situation doesn’t change that much. The Gentleman, i.e., my husband, repeatedly gifts an invitation which, with some delay (Hope rev.) ends up happening (Reunion). Though, to be fair, in this case I would have probably pulled an additional card to make sure.
In the Vera Sibilla there are a couple of cards that connect more or less directly to the topic of work. Here we review them quickly to show their similarities and differences. As usual, this isn’t meant to be exclusive.
Six of Hearts – Money
Not directly related to work per se, the Six of Hearts is the money card, and as such it shows where money comes from, where it goes, whether one has it or not, etc. However, in a consultation about work, it can also indicate whether the pay is good or not, whether the business one works for flourishes or not, etc.
Seven of Hearts – The Scholar
This card is always welcome when we want to know whether we’ll get a job, as it can show the signing of a contract. It is also related to talent in one’s field, as well as certain types of job (intellectual or desk jobs).
Ace of Clubs – Marriage
Again a card that can represent the signing of something. Marriage is anything that gives us rights and obligations with respect to someone else, and a job contract is exactly that. It is also an important card for business deals and partnerships
Six of Clubs – The Surprise
This is a small money card, but because it represents money being received, it can symbolize the wages and therefore being employed. For instance, together with the House card it can sometimes represent the place where you gain money, i.e. the workplace.
Seven of Clubs – Realization
The Seven of Clubs is the card of worldly ambition and it can therefore stand for the querent’s career (I’m always reminded that in German the word Beruf, work, comes from the word Ruf, fame, the name you make for yourself in the world).
Eight of Diamonds – The Handmaid
This is another card that is strongly connected with money and where it comes from and where goes toward, but it is also a card of employment (a handmaid works for someone else). When it signifies the querent’s work, it is essentially a synonym of the Merchant card.
King of Diamonds – The Merchant
This is THE work card, the one you usually want to see in a question about work, and four times out of five, when it pops up in a different kind of question it still indicates the influence of the querent’s job on question, though the card also has other less common meanings.
King of Spades – The Priest
Not directly related to the querent’s job, but this card can represent the institution or company the querent works for (especially if it is relatively big). Needless to say it can stand for many other things, such as works related with the law or religion (with specific cards) or even works where one wears a uniform (the Soldier also represents a uniform, but usually it shows less socially important types of employment, such as being a builder).
One of the things I enjoy the most about cartomancy (not just with the Sibilla. Most decks will do it) is how they tell a story of the querent’s life, either in general or in a particular sector, and we get to experience it as if it were a slide show of someone’s vacation. Here is an example about a querent who asked, generally, about her career (don’t mind the chaotic layout. The cards are essentially to be read in a row. I started with five cards and I had to rearrange the spread to take the picture once the layout had become too unwieldy from drawing additional cards).
A career reading with the Vera Sibilla
The first thing that caught my eye was that Scholar (Seven of Hearts) showing a legal contract, caught between the reversed Sickness card and the Death card. I enquired if the querent had recently lost her job or if she was about to, then the King of Spades (the law) popped into view, next to the Death card which shows unbalanced things, so I added if she considered the termination to be wrongful in some way.
It turned out that the querent had just been fired, a couple of weeks prior, from her job and that she thought they had fired her after wringing her dry of her business contacts.
Notice, though, how the cards immediately clear up as soon as that nasty initial constellation is overcome: we have important contacts (Letter and Messenger) that will put her on the right track (the Peacock). There is still anxiety (Sighs) surrounding her work (Merchant) but she is going to get a temporary job (the Five of Hearts) probably working with people (all the people cards) and that will solve quite a bit of her problems (the Four of Diamonds reversed at the end).
She ended up getting in contact with a smaller business than the one she had worked for, but one with a more positive environment, where the boss offered her a very well-paid temporary position to be a representative of their product to new clients. I also told her that if she was thinking of suing her old employers for wrongful termination, she probably had a leg to stand on. She said she was thinking of suing, but wasn’t sure.
We’ve already talked about the cards in the Vera Sibilla deck that indicate change. Now let’s see which indicate stability. As usual, do not take this as an attempt at exhausting the meanings of the cards. We are just comparing some similarities.
Two of Hearts – The House
Your house is, of course, pretty much the most stable thing in your life, considering its imposing structure. The Two of Hearts therefore represents stability, especially in love readings: it shows serious intents, the desire to start a family and a constructive attitude. It represents those couples that stay together and work out their problems together. It is, therefore, a positive stability.
Nine of Hearts – Faithfulness
Unlike the Love card, the Nine of Hearts show stable success, especially in love, and it represents deep attachment to someone or even something (this is the card of patriotism, attachment to ideology, etc.) On a less positive note, when surrounded by difficult cards, it can show those difficult situations remaining faithful to us, while in fact we’d much rather they cheated on us.
Ten of Hearts – Perseverance
This is THE card of stability. When surrounded by positive cards, it shows that those positive situations will persevere, but unfortunately the same applies to negative cards. Either way, the Ten of Hearts indicates a situation that perseveres. It also shows constancy of character.
Two of Clubs – The Peacock
Due to its symbolism of completeness and totality, which is similar to that of the World card, the Peacock represents situations that reach their peak, their complete perfection, and if it is not followed by negative cards it says that the situation will stay that way for the forseeable future.
Seven of Clubs – Realization
A card of strong material realization, the Seven of Clubs is responsible for the concretization of our aspirations, allowing them to take root in our life. In general, when surrounded by bad cards, it indicates the lack of this kind of stability rather than the stabilization of the negative things (such as was the case with the Ten of Hearts).
Ten of Diamonds Reversed – The Thief
When reversed, the Thief card represents, in the main, insurmountable problems. It therefore indicates situations that remains blocked, possibly forever depending on the other cards. Therefore, the stability brought by this card is always negative, as it shows situations that are unlikely to ever improve.
Four of Spades Upright/Reversed – The Sickness
When upright, the Four of Spades signifies sickness, but also a situation that is structurally compromised and is therefore unable to flourish or to offer positive solutions. When reversed, it is a card of long blockages and delays, among other things, so it indicates being stalled, isolated, unable to change a situation.
Nine of Spades – The Prison
The Prison card indicates something binding us, restricting us, whether physically, mentally or emotionally. It represents tight bonds (sometimes, when surrounded by positive cards, even positive bonds). More generally, it shows obstacles that last a long time, and therefore situations that stagnate. Similarly to the reversed Four of Spades, it can show isolation.
Change is a vague concept. Much of contemporary occultism is predicated on the equation of change and stability, so that essentially everything is change. Still, even if we subscribe to this notion, our everyday life is made up of things that change relatively as opposed to things that remain relatively stable. It may be true that my body is a Swiss cheese of chaotic particles constantly being swapped with new ones, but from the standpoint of our daily experience, my body is a relative constant.
Therefore, divination does deal with what changes and what stays the same. Here I talk about cards that indicate change. As usual, the list is not meant to be exhaustive.
Ace of Hearts Reversed – The Conversation
When upright, the Ace of Hearts, aside from being the card of words, represents a relatively stable situation (as indicated symbolically by the table in the image). When reversed, the Ace of Hearts represents change, transformation, revolution. This may be good or bad, depending on the cards that follow.
Two of Hearts Reversed – The House
Again, when upright this card indicates a house, a very stable thing. When reversed, it shows instability. This time the connotation is quite negative, as it can indicate a couple breaking up, a family falling out, and similar situations depending on the other cards. This is rarely a positive card when reversed.
Five of Hearts – Happiness
As I discussed in the article for this card, the Five of Hearts is the card of commitment to someone or something. Traditionally it is the card of engagement, a transition phase between being single and being married. As such, the Happiness card symbolizes a positive, happy transition (when upright). It often rids us of problems and shows fidelity and the ability to honor commitments.
Ten of Hearts Reversed – Perseverance
When upright, the Ten of Hearts represents things that persevere, go on, stabilize. When reversed it shows situations going legs up, becoming shaky or stormy. It is a wildly negative card of volatile emotions and deep instability.
Three of Clubs Upright or Reversed – The Journey
When upright, the Journey card is indicative of travel, that is, change of place. However, it also indicates physical movement, or even mental movement, such as changing one’s mind. It is a card of transition, seen in a neutral to slightly positive sense (but always take the other cards into account). When reversed, the Journey card becomes intensely positive, representing the interruption of negative trends, freedom from addiction or vicious cycles in general. It represents situations starting to evolve in a positive direction, unless followed by very negative cards.
Five of Clubs Upright or Reversed – Fortune
Representing the power of fate in our life, the Five of Clubs is emblematic of strokes of luck, situations taking a different (usually positive) turn, things getting into motion in a positive way. When reversed, the card is slowed down and weakened, and it acquires the meaning of long-term transformations.
Ten of Clubs Reversed – Levity
Much like the Fortune card, the Ten of Clubs reversed represents strokes of luck shaking up the routine, offering us opportunities and chances. Its power, however, is much smaller.
Five of Diamonds – Melancholy
The Melancholy card is rather static in itself, especially when hemmed in by cards indicating a negative situation. However, it can also show situations which were once positive and are starting to show some cracks or situations that are negative but which won’t be negative forever. Therefore, in spite of its mild negativity, often the card implies future change.
Eight of Diamonds – The Handmaid
A symbol of social and personal ascent thanks to its symbolism of the stairs, the Handmaid indicates positive evolution, transition from one phase to the next, entering new segments of one’s life. This is especially true when it shows between cards indicating different situations, or when it shows up at the beginning of a spread. In general it represents positive change.
Two of Spades – The Old Lady
It may seem strange to find the static Old Lady card on this list. However, when we think about it, the Two of Spades is about things that are old and are reaching their natural conclusion. When followed by cards indicating a different situation, therefore, the Old Lady can act as a card of transition (for instance, showing that a contract is expiring.)
Four of Spades Reversed – Sickness
The Sickness card reversed is usually a card of deep stasis and blockage. There is, however, one exception: when it is preceded by negative cards and followed by positive cards. In this case, it indicates the end of the negative situation (tha situation is blocked in favor of what followed.) Of course, when the situation is reversed, i.e., with positive cards before and negative ones after, it shows a change for the worse.
Five of Spades – Death
The most archetypal card of change, the Death card usually indicates a sharp and often difficult cut in one’s life. The result is not necessarily bad, as the outcome depends on what follows. However, since it is a Spade card, it is always difficult and comes at a great price.
Six of Spades Reversed – Sighs
When upright, the Sighs card signifies sighing for something, pining and waiting. It is very static. When reversed, one of its (many) meanings is of showing the end of sighing. This doesn’t necessarily mean you get what you’ve been sighing for. Often, it shows giving up on something and moving on, letting go of it.
Seven of Spades – Tragedy
In spite of its name, the Seven of Spades can indicate a sharp turn for the better if followed by positive cards (if followed by negative ones then, yes, it can indicate being struck by tragedy). What it does imply is that the situation followed by the other cards strikes us from the outside, without us planning it, and usually in a very sudden way.
Nine of Spades Reversed – The Prison
This card acts in very much the same way as the Sickness card reversed. Attention must be paid to the cards preceding and following it.
In the Vera Sibilla, every card can indicate some type of feelings. I have singled out some of those that indicate positive feelings. As usual, the list is not meant to be exclusive.
Ace of Hearts (A♥️) – Conversation
This card is broadly connected with words and self-expression. However, when discussing someone’s feelings, they indicate someone who is capable of expressing their feelings to someone else and reaching some kind of communion with them. In general, it shows an attitude of openness toward others.
Two of Hearts (2♥️) – The House
Usually the Two is the card of the house and of places in general. However it is also connected with harmony between two people, and it shows a constructive attitude, especially, though not exclusively, in a love reading.
Four of Hearts (4♥️) – Love
The Love card is, wouldn’t you know, the card of love, but also of strong feelings of affection in all personal relationship. It is connected with the motions of our heart, and as such it shows emotions above and beyond reason. The caveat here is that this card is not stable, and it requires other more grounded cards to promise lasting happiness.
Five of Hearts (5♥️) – Happiness
The Happiness card indicates everything connected with joy and good intentions. Being the card of the bethrodal, it also shows a certain degree of commitment to someone, and is therefore also a symbol of fidelity.
Seven of Hearts (7♥️) – The Scholar
The Scholar is a rational card, one of planning and long term prospects. When not damaged by the presence of difficult cards it shows the desire to create something lasting, as well as a helpful attitude.
Eight of Hearts (8♥️) – Hope
Hope is the positive feeling par exccellence. It represents optimism, honesty, someone who takes the high road, is elevated, spiritual, reliable. The exception is when the Hope card is not supported by stronger cards, as in this case it tends to show flirts, due to its connection with ease and lack of trouble.
Nine of Hearts (9♥️) – Faithfulness
Contrary to popular belief, the Nine of Hearts (not the Four) is the best card when it comes to feelings. Not only does it show love, but unlike the Love card, it also represent a strong bond and commitment that goes beyond those feelings and is pursued systematically. It is the card of the diehard supporter, of the best friend, of the lifelong love commitment.
The Heart Court Cards
Court cards tend to be neutral. However, the Heart court cards, when upright, indicate a person who is in love or who has a positive attitude toward the question or the querent.
Four of Clubs (4♣️) – The Friend
Similar to the Nine of Hearts, the Friend can indicate friendship (when it doesn’t show a literal -female- friend). The difference is that the concept of friendship of the Four of Clubs is not as strong and it is often connected with practical matters. When reversed, the Friend card can indicate a helpful attitude that takes the form of tips, recommendations, etc.
Six of Clubs (6♣️) – The Surprise
The Surprise card is connected broadly with things that come to us easily. As such, it indicates people who are similar, have similar interests and find it easy to grow together and pursue similar activities. Relationships tend to flourish with this card.
Seven of Clubs (7♣️) – The Realization
In general, this card speaks of ambitions in a positive sense, so it can show people having common goals and projects.
Eight of Clubs(8♣️) – The Reunion
The reconciliation card of the deck, the Eight of Clubs is indicative of a willingness to compromise and to find common ground. Furthermore, it shows someone who is social and moves toward others with positive intents in mind.
Nine of Clubs (9♣️) – Merriment
In keeping with the energy of the suit, the Nine of Clubs indicate positive bonds, though not necessarily deep. It is a card of fun and of playing, drinking and having a good time together.
Ace of Diamonds (A♦️) – The Room
The Room has, among its meanings, that of intimacy. As such it represents someone who seeks closeness and contact. However it is not a card of love, as it is in the suit of Diamonds, not that of Hearts.
Seven of Diamonds (7♦️) – The Child
As the card of children, the Seven of Diamonds shows someone to be open, good-hearted and inoffensive, unless with cards that bring out the worst qualities of children (immaturity, etc.). It represents also someone who wants to start new things and is unprejudiced and innocent.
Eight of Diamonds (8♦️) – The Handmaid
This is the card of someone who is serviceable, dependable and hardworking. It is also a card of politeness and the desire of peace. It can show someone of a noble character who is helpful, friendly and improving himself to be better with others.
Two of Spades (2♠️) – The Old Lady
As pretty much the only card of this suit that is not outright negative, the Old Lady can indicate feelings of affection toward others, though these feelings tend to be tenuous and not very dynamic. It can also indicate someone who uses the wisdom and experience they gained in life to be of service to others in a detached, serene way
When we read for people and they only give us a broad question, I think it’s important to remain open to the twists of fate the cards are showing us, as well as to have an open dialogue with the querent Sometimes querents lie, but more often they are either confused or fail to focus on the ‘real’ question. In the following case, the querent’s question wasn’t wrong, but it hid more than it showed. The querent is a woman of around 25. She asked me about her career without specifying anything.
A career reading using the Vera Sibilla
The querent is anagraphically covered by the Queen of Clubs, the young maiden, so we can initially assign this card to her. She is reversed, showing trouble.
The first line of the pyramid indicates the influence of a (probably older) woman. She is surrounded by the House and Love, but on the same line we find the Seven of Spades reversed. This is one of the worst cards in the deck, so whenever we see it we must tread carefully.
I asked the querent if an older female relative, possibly her mother, is involved in the issue, and at this point the querent tells me she works with her parents in the family business.
The Seven of Spades reversed represents tyranny and oppression, so I ask her if her mother is somewhat authoritarian, and she confirms. Note though that the mother is surrounded by two positive cards, hence the ‘somewhat’ in the statement. Furtermore, look at the angles of the spread: Good feelings, oppression, but not too much (Butterfly). I am aware that smothering mothers are how some serial killers get started, but this mother, while not positive, could be worse. She smothers the querent out of (real) love. She is oppressive, but not a sociopath.
Be it as it may, the querent clearly suffers from this situation (she is reversed) and therefore hopes to move away (Hope + Journey), as the Hope card can indicate the hopes of the querent or of the person preceding it, which in this case is again the querent. Probably the querent wants to find her sense of self and freedom. This would be understandable even under normal circumstances, let alone in this case. I asked her if she wanted to leave and again she confirmed.
But, woe and alas, look how the spread ends! Money is tight (Money + Sickness) so whatever job she is looking for is going to probably make her start at the very bottom. Thus we end with the Ten of Clubs, the Butterfly. This card indicates all those things that are fleeting and not rooted in the querent’s destiny. Thus her hopes are just fleeting, at least in the foreseeable future, due to the rotten (Sickness) money situation.
The following is an attempt at reorganizing some old notes I have taken on the subject of divinations without a specific question, adding to them some new insights,
Divination Without Questions Is Possible (With Exceptions)
There is a relatively well-known tarot reader who says that a reading without a question is basically two people talking over a bunch of colored cardboards.
This is not true. It was customary, among old-time fortune-tellers, to have the querent sit in front of them and never have them speak anything that wasn’t their name at the beginning of the consultation. I know for a fact that this is a tradition in the Italian countryside, and I believe it is the case all over the world as soon as one leaves the hipster pseudointellectual tarot community bubble and seeks the real deal.
Let’s leave aside the fact that, technically speaking, there is always a question. Even if the querent sits with their arms crossed in front of you waiting to be astounded, the implicit question is “What’s going on in my life, now and in the near future?”
Times change, and sensibilities change with the times. Many querents nowadays wish to take a more active part in the reading. Furthermore, readings without a question are obviously more difficult, and the modern diviner who doesn’t have time to waste is certainly happy to get more cooperation. I know I do. But this doesn’t mean that a reading without a question isn’t possible.
There are exceptions to this, of course. Some oracles do require a question. Horary Astrology, for instance, usually needs one, and the more specific and focused it is, the better. True, some old authorities give rules for judging “Universal Questions“, but these universal questions were asked back when many people didn’t know their birth time and often had to travel for days to see the astrologer for probably the one and only time in their life, so instead they asked the astrologer to tell them about their future in general in more than one sector of life.
Confronted with the impossibility of looking at the person’s birth chart, the astrologer erected a horary chart for the time the consultation took place, a moment that was probably significant, since the querent had gone to great trouble to visit him. Today, the astrologer is one Zoom call away, so this hardly justifies vague Horary questions.
The peculiarity that makes Horary more sensitive than other oracles is that there is no manipulation of physical counters involved: you don’t reshuffle the planets whenever the querent’s whim settles on a new fancy. Therefore, the question put to the heavens must be meaningful and at least relatively important to the person asking it. In a way, this limitation of Horary is due to Astrology’s nobility, seeking as it does answers from the heavens themselves.
Cartomancy is not noble. It spreaded like wildfire among the lower classes exactly because you didn’t need to have studied trigonometry in order to deal out a spread. Cartomancy is therefore as sturdy as the beasts of burden that the lower classes used in the fields. Like all beasts of burden, of course, cartomancy too has its limits: you can ask random questions (“Tell me about my life. Now tell me about my sweatheart. Now tell me about my job. Now about my neighbor”) but if you abuse it, it collapses to the ground exhausted.
But the fact remains that cartomancy (and tarot reading is a form of cartomancy) is a trusty, resistant beast.
Another common myth is that if one asks a general question the reader is entitled to give them a general answer. Even worse, some readers say that, in the absence of a question, they can read “the general energies surrounding your life.” The problem is that there is no such thing as a (meaningful) general answer. “Tell me about myself.” Well, you seem to be a featherless biped with one heart, two lungs, etc.
The thing is that when the cards have been shuffled and dealt, they always tell a specific story. Sometimes this story is not what the querent secretly wishes us to talk about, but that’s not our fault–we are merely reading what’s there. Furthermore, we as readers may sometimes not be able to decipher the story in the cards, but it’s there. We may, as a result of our confusion, try to string together the cards in a looser way than usual (“There seems to be a woman next to you whom you love dearly and is going through a rough patch in life. It could be health-related, but I may be wrong. Can you help me with this?”). The cards, however, are always specific, never vague.
As a matter of fact, our life is never vague. It is always made up of details. These details may be mundane, but they are specific. In our life there is never “the general energy of the moment”. You don’t go the supermarket and find the general energy of the moment on sale. There is no such thing.
There is the coffee I’m brewing, the floor I’m sweeping, the feeling of dread I’ve been struggling with for some months, the mom I just talked to on the phone, etc. And the mom I talked to is my mom, not a general mom floating in the world of Platonic ideas. No energy. No universals. Universals are always embodied in our limited existence. I don’t talk to “momness in itself”. I talk to my mom. Therefore, the fact that our querent asks us a general question cannot embolden us to give a general answer, though it CAN justify us in being more cautious and loose in the interpretation.
Again, if we don’t have a specific question, it may be harder to interpret the cards, especially because certain cards together may appear to be open to more than one interpretation if we don’t have enough context.
And here we come to an important point. Some diviners think they need to be able to awe the querent with incredible details without missing a beat and think they should never ask them for clarification. I say that the querent exists in order to be tortured until every last bit of useful information that I need in order to interpret his damn spread has been wrung out of his writhing body, because at the end of the day it’s him who wants to know about his future, not I.
This authoritarianism is all the more justified in case of a general question. I am not going to talk for ten minutes straight without catching my breath only to be told “no that’s not me.” I’d much rather proceed cautiously and ask the querent for clarification step by step (and, if nothing makes sense, start anew).
BUT, the point remains that when we lay out the cards, the cards are going to talk about specific situations in the querent’s past, present or future. They are not going to give us “the general energy”.
There is a number of cards in the Vera Sibilla that can indicate groups or at least hint at them. Each card stresses a different aspect of the experience of groups, and must be read within the context of the whole spread. As usual, this list is not meant to be exhaustive. Context is key.
Ace of Hearts (Conversation)
The Conversation card represents the act of talking, and therefore (except the querent is a lunatic) it implies someone else. It can broadly refer to the ability to express one’s thoughts or even one’s qualities with others, and is a deeply interpersonal card. It also refers to a usually tight-knit group of people, often people living together or family members,
Two of Hearts (House)
The House card does not directly refer to people, but it does refer to a close environment where people either live (a literal house) or are found (any kind of building). For instance, next to negative cards, or if reversed, it can show that the querent isn’t happy in their house, usually due to interpersonal conflict with family members or other people who spend time in that place.
Five of Hearts (Happiness)
The Happiness card can refer to relatives and blood relations or, in general, one’s “clan”. It can be another significator for the querent’s family, but it refers to relatives in a usually broader sense. However, it can also indicate groups of people held together by common interests, a clan of sorts, such as a political party. This is quite rare though. When reversed, it shows trouble with relatives.
Ten of Hearts (Perseverance)
Traditionally this card can refer to the querent’s town or motherland. Occasionally it can show how they are seen or if they are talked about in their town. This is somewhat rare.
Ace of Clubs (Marriage)
The Ace of Clubs represents all official acts binding two or more people together. It is the card of pacts, agreements, marriage, contract, partnerships. It can represent a business where people cooperate in the creation of something (a product).
Four of Clubs (Friend)
The Friend card can refer to a literal (female) friend or relative, but it can also represent a circle of friends, and the idea of a supportive environment where the querent is taken care of in a spirit of friendship or cooperation.
Eight of Clubs (Reunion)
Traditionally this is the card of reconciliation, of meetings, etc. However, it represents also a coming together, and this coming together doesn’t need to involve only two people. It can also more generally represent the querent’s interpersonal skills. When reversed, these skills are not present or are put to the test by difficult people. This is also the “more than one” card of the Sibilla (e.g., more than one job, more than one child, etc.)
Nine of Clubs (Cheerfulness)
This card can indicate one’s wider circle of acquaintances, but in general also friends or groups of people, often not tied by very deep bonds of affections. When reversed, or when near negative cards, it can refer to bullying by other people or serious problems in a particular environment due to being hated. Traditionally it also represented people from the countryside, but this is an older reading.
Ace of Diamonds (Room)
Like the House card, the Room doesn’t refer to people directly, but it can represent them indirectly by pointing to the environment they spend time in, usually an office, a shop or similar.
Nine of Diamonds (The Fools)
This card is the opposite of the Cheerfulness card, and is the only (upright) card that directly points to interpersonal problems, problematic groups, enmity and instability in a group setting and similar situations. It can represent hooligans, gangs, rioters or, more simply, a disunited family.
Three of Spades Reversed (Widower)
In general, the Widower reversed is the card of trauma, of serious loss and of bad behavior. However, it can also point to ritual settings that involve more than one person. The ritual setting needn’t be negative (it can be a christening, for instance). However, with negative cards it can signify dangerous groups, especially sects.
