
The Raven’s Crucible
Musings on magic, divination, and the occult.
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Playing Card Cartomancy XIV: The Queens
We started talking about court cards in divination last week with the jacks, this week we’re continuing that conversation with the queens. The queens are a little more straightforward than the jacks, in that they more consistently signify people. The jacks all have alternative meanings related to news or messages; the queens don’t. When a…
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Playing Card Cartomancy XIII: The Jacks
We’ve now covered the meanings of all the pip cards, ace through ten, in playing card divination. That brings us to the court cards: jack, queen, and king. Compared to the numbers, the court cards – especially the jacks – can be a little slippery. They each have a number of possible meanings, depending on…
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Playing Card Cartomancy XII: The Tens
If the playing card suits tell a story, the tens are the epilogue. The nines are more about the climactic result of the forces and patterns that have been building within a suit. The tens are the aftermath of that climax, once everything has settled down into a new equilibrium. All the tens deal with…
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Playing Card Cartomancy XI: The Nines
We’re in the home stretch talking about the numbers in playing card cartomancy. Last time we covered the eights, this week we’re looking at the nines. I said back in our discussion of the aces that the progression of cards within a suit tell something of a story: beginning with the first impulse in the…
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Playing Card Cartomancy X: The Eights
We mentioned previously that the numerology of the fives, sixes, and sevens within the deck is somewhat specific to playing card divination. The eights return to more standard numerological interpretations. The eights are associated with Mercury. Specifically, the facet of Mercury that governs language. All four eights embody their respective suits in the realm of…
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Playing Card Cartomancy IX: The Sevens
Last week we talked about how, in playing card divination, the sixes all represent facets of direction and movement. Perhaps because the pips on the card themselves look like a road. On the sevens, this pip-image becomes a road with an obstacle in the middle. The sevens all encompass downsides and pitfalls. In our discussion…
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Playing Card Cartomancy VIII: The Sixes
Where the divinatory meanings of the fours in a deck of playing cards are all about stasis, the meanings of the sixes are all about direction and forward movement. This theme, like that of the fives, is somewhat unique to playing card divination (rather than being associated with standard numerology). The best explanation I’ve heard…
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Playing Card Cartomancy VII: The Fives
Last week we talked about the divinatory meaning of the fours in a deck of playing cards, which are all variations on the theme of stasis. This week we’re talking about the fives. Up until now, the numerology informing our interpretations of the pip cards has been pretty standard. It’s not identical to the meanings…
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Playing Card Cartomancy VI: The Fours
Where the divinatory meaning of the threes in a playing card deck are all about plenty, the fours are all about stasis. Numerologically, the fours are very stable – think of the four legs on a table or a stool, preventing it from tipping in any direction. In the context of divination, this stability shows…
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Playing Card Cartomancy V: The Threes
Where the divinatory meanings of the twos in a playing card deck are all about polarity, the threes are all about plurality. What started as a singular relationship is multiplied again and again, into a dynamic web of interaction where nothing can be perfectly isolated from anything else. The threes are about bounty, about plenty.…