We’ve gone through the meanings of all the cards in a standard deck of playing cards. The vocabulary of playing card divination, if you will. This week we’re looking at how those cards interact and relate to each other and to the question being asked. The grammar and syntax of our divination system.
One of my biggest pet peeves (in the context of playing card divination), is when novice readers post pictures of their spreads online and ask for help interpreting, with no context whatsoever on the spread in question. They will often have drawn some huge number of cards (well over a dozen in some cases) and laid them all out in a line. What does this indicate? Not much.
Remember, the vocabulary of playing card divination is fairly limited. There are at most fifty-four different cards that can come up. Drawing a dozen of them in a single spread is like trying to write a coherent essay that uses 25% of the words in the English language – each exactly once. It’s more an exercise in frustration than a useful practice. A three-act story is easy to follow, a sixteen-act story is gibberish.
If you’re going to draw more than a couple cards (and generally even then) it is enormously helpful to define upfront what each position in the spread will mean. Know how many cards you’re planning to draw before you start, and have a clear idea of what concept or domain each of them map to. “This first card represents the root cause of the issue, this second one represents other people’s perspectives on it…” and so on. People are almost always taught to do this when learning tarot, but often miss it with playing card divination. Going back to our essay analogy, it’s like including an introduction, thesis, conclusion, etc. The structure itself provides a helpful framework that facilitates interpretation.
And with divination, as with essays, brevity is king. More words do not necessarily convey more information. The vast majority of the readings I do for myself consist of two or three cards. Enough to provide some color, but not so many as to make interpretation overwhelming. If I have further questions, I’ll then do a series of follow-up readings to clarify those. It works like a conversation, rather than a legal contract. There’s no need to enumerate every possible ambiguity up front.
Even when I put together complex spreads, they are almost always composed of simpler spreads. A three-card yes/no or past/present/future spread, paired with one or more two-card spreads to speak to specific aspects of the situation.
Because playing cards – unlike tarot cards – have no reversals, it can be helpful to include positions in your spread that provide the same functionality. Build in space for cards to indicate things which are lacking or things holding you back. This effectively doubles the vocabulary you have available to you.
Two-card spreads are perfect for this. You can easily pair a direct, positive position with a complementary negative position: What you need to bring to a situation to accomplish your goals, and what you need to refrain from. What you’re pursuing and what you’re avoiding. What you have in abundance in a relationship, and what feels like it’s missing. It’s easy to define two-card spreads on the fly, that speak directly to the question you have in mind.
Which brings us to the framing of the question itself. I have a whole post on how to ask good questions for divination, which I recommend you take a few minutes to read, if you haven’t. The most relevant bit, for playing card divination, is to frame your questions such that an affirmative response is a positive outcome.
Early in the series, in our discussion on color, we mentioned that red cards are generally more positive and black cards are generally more negative. Red cards are also usually interpreted as an affirmative response to a yes or no question, while black cards are the reverse.
This can lead to some weird interactions if you ask questions about outcomes you fear. Say you ask a question like “will my boyfriend break up with me?” and get a card like the Eight of Hearts – which we had said was associated with flirtation and pillow talk. Does that mean yes, because the card is red? Does it mean no, because there’s still a flirtatious spark in your relationship? Will your breakup prompt you to go flirt with new people? It’s not immediately clear.
In contrast, if you were to frame the question as “will my relationship with my boyfriend continue to grow stronger?” then the cards have a number of options to choose from. The Six of Hearts: yes, and he will be loyal to you. The Two of Hearts: yes, and the sex will be good. The Five of Diamonds: yes, and you will make each other laugh. There are a whole host of positive cards that can show up here, all with their own shades of meaning that can add to the interpretation.
Which is all great in theory. But one of the best ways to learn to communicate effectively with your deck – how to ask good questions and confidently interpret the answers you get – is to practice. Start simple, with a card or two, and go do some readings. Write down your question, exactly as you stated it, the cards that came up, and how you interpreted them. A few months down the line, go back and look at that record again. You’ll be amazed at how much more fluently you can interpret things, and the kinds of details that will jump out at you with the benefit of both hindsight and experience.
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