Natural Magic - Doreen Valiente 1998

Magic of the Cards

Many learned volumes have been written about the origin of playing cards; yet this remains one of the world’s mysteries. We may feel fairly sure that our present pack derives from the more elaborate Tarot pack. Even so, our simpler four suits of hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades have considerable antiquity of their own.

They seem to have originated in France in about the fifteenth century, when the old Tarot emblems were modified into a simpler pack that was easier to use for gaming. In his book Playing Cards: The History and Secrets of the Pack (Spring Books, London), W. Gurney Benham shows how the playing cards we know today have originated from the designs of cards produced at Rouen, France, in about 1567.

The full Tarot pack consists of 78 cards, having in addition to the four suits a suit of trumps, which are a series of symbolic pictures, and having an extra court card, the Knight, in each of the suits. As a result of the revival of interest in occult matters, packs of Tarot cards have again become available at the present day. These cards have long been used on the Continent of Europe for fortune-telling, especially by the gypsies. In England, however, the ordinary playing cards were more frequently used, as Tarot cards were difficult to obtain. Consequently, the playing card pack has acquired an occult lore of its own.

It is a very curious fact that, although the pack of 52 cards was ostensibly produced simply for gaming, it contains a numerical symbolism which is related to the year and to nature.

The four suits correspond to the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. They also remind us of the four elements and the four winds. The two colours, red and black, represent day and night. The 52 cards represent the 52 weeks of the year. The four suits of thirteen cards each, correspond to the four quarters of the year, each having thirteen weeks. The twelve court cards are analogous to the twelve months of the year; and to the twelve hours between noon and midnight.

The face values, or pips, of each suit, from Ace to ten, add up to 55. If we call the jack 11, the Queen 12, and the King 13, then the total of pips for each suit is 91. Multiply this by 4, and it gives a grand total for the whole pack of 364—plus 1, the Joker and we have 365, the number of days in the year!

Furthermore, the four suits of thirteen cards each remind us of the four phases of the moon: new moon, first quarter, full moon and last quarter. These four phases make a lunar month and thirteen lunar months are reckoned to the year.

There are many books today dealing with cartomancy, or divination by cards. Most of them give different sets of meanings for the cards, so that one becomes completely confused. In this book, therefore, I suppose to go back to what, so far as I know, is the oldest set of meanings in print for divination by playing cards, in the English language at any rate.

These meanings and the method of laying out the cards associated with them were given by Robert Chambers in his monumental two-volume work, The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities. The first volume, in which the article “The Folk-Lore of Playing Cards” appears, is dated 1869, and was published by W. & R. Chambers, London and Edinburgh.

A Card Party in olden days

Robert Chambers was born in 1802 and according to him he learnt the art of divination by cards from a soldier’s wife who took care of him as a child. This would have been about the time of the Napoleonic Wars. If we presume that the soldier’s wife had learnt it in her turn when she was younger, then this may be reasonably supposed to take us back at least to the eighteenth century for the origin of this system. Indeed, the meanings given for the cards themselves contain evidence of their antiquity. They refer to dangers from “a duel”, or from “death on the scaffold”, to which people could only have been exposed in the years before such things were banished by our present system of law. Such card meanings today would have to be interpreted in a figurative sense only.

I think it worth while for antiquarian interest to give Robert Chambers’ description in his own words. He refers to this method of card-reading as “the English system” and tells us that it is used

in all British settlements over the globe, and has no doubt been carried thither by soldiers’ wives, who, as is well known to the initiated, have ever been considered peculiarly skilful practitioners of the art. Indeed, it is to a soldier’s wife that this present exposition of the art is to be attributed. Many years ago the exigencies of a military life, and the ravages of a pestilential epidemic, caused the writer, then a puny but not very young child, to be left for many months in charge of a private soldier’s wife, at an out-station in a distant land. The poor woman, though childless herself, proved worthy of the confidence that was placed in her. She was too ignorant to teach her charge to read, yet she taught him the only accomplishment she possessed—the art of “cutting cards”, as she termed it; the word cartomancy, in all probability, she had never heard. And though it has not fallen to the writer’s lot to practise the art professionally, yet he has not forgotten it, as the following interpretation of the cards will testify.

DIAMONDS

King. A man of very fair complexion; quick to anger, but soon appeased.

Queen. A very fair woman, fond of gaiety, and a coquette.

Knave. A selfish and deceitful relative; fair and false.

Ten. Money. Success in honourable business.

Nine. A roving disposition, combined with honourable and successful adventure in foreign lands.

Eight. A happy prudent marriage, though rather late in life.

Seven. Satire. Scandal. Unpleasant business matters.

Six. Marriage early in life, succeeded by widowhood.

Five. Unexpected news, generally of a good kind.

Four. An unfaithful friend. A secret betrayed.

Trey. Domestic troubles, quarrels and unhappiness.

Deuce. A clandestine engagement. A card of caution.

Ace. A wedding ring. An offer of marriage.

HEARTS

King. A fair, but not very fair, complexioned man; good natured, but rather obstinate, and, when angered, not easily appeased.

Queen. A woman of the same complexion as the king; faithful, prudent, and affectionate.

Knave. An unselfish relative. A sincere friend.

Ten. Health and happiness, with many children.

Nine. Wealth. High position in society. The wish card.

Eight. Fine clothes. Pleasure. Mixing in good society. Going to balls, theatres, etc.

Seven. Many good friends.

Six. Honourable courtship.

Five. A present.

Four. Domestic troubles caused by jealousy.

Trey. Poverty, shame and sorrow, caused by imprudence. A card of caution.

Deuce. Success in life, position in society, and a happy marriage, attained by virtuous discretion.

Ace. The house of the person consulting the decrees of fate.

SPADES

King. A man of very dark complexion, ambitious and unscrupulous.

Queen. A very dark complexioned woman, of malicious disposition. A widow.

Knave. A lawyer. A person to be shunned.

Ten. Disgrace; crime; imprisonment. Death on the scaffold. A card of caution.

Nine. Grief; ruin; sickness; death.

Eight. Great danger from imprudence. A card of caution.

Seven. Unexpected poverty caused by the death of a relative. A lean sorrow.

Six. A child. To the unmarried a card of caution.

Five. Great danger from giving way to bad temper. A card of caution.

Four. Sickness.

Trey. A journey by land. Tears.

Deuce. A removal.

Ace. Death; malice; a duel; a general misfortune.

CLUBS

King. A dark complexioned man, though not so dark as the king of spades; upright, true, and affectionate.

Queen. A woman of the same complexion, agreeable, genteel and witty.

Knave. A sincere, but rather hasty-tempered friend.

Ten. Unexpected wealth, through the death of a relative. A fat sorrow.

Nine. Danger caused by drunkenness. A card of caution.

Eight. Danger from covetousness. A card of caution.

Seven. A prison. Danger arising from the opposite sex. A card of caution.

Six. Competence by hard-working industry.

Five. A happy, though not wealthy marriage.

Four. Danger of misfortunes caused by inconstancy, or capricious temper. A card of caution.

Trey. Quarrels. Or in reference to time may signify three years, three months, three weeks, or three days. It also denotes that a person will be married more than once.

Deuce. Vexation, disappointment.

Ace. A letter.

“The foregoing”, says Robert Chambers, “is merely the alphabet of the art; the letters, as it were, of the sentences formed by the various combinations of the cards.” He then continues with instructions about how the cards are to be laid out and interpreted. The person on whose behalf the cards are being read is represented, if male by the king, and if female by the queen, of the suit which accords with his or her complexion. If a married woman consults the cards, then the king of her own suit represents her husband; and if the consultant is a married man, then the queen of his own suit represents his wife. In the case of single people, however, a lover, whether present or future, is represented by a card of his or her own colouring.

All cards when representing persons, lose what other significations they have. Thus, for instance, the Knave of Spades could represent either “a lawyer” or “a person to be shunned”, or the thoughts of the people represented by the King and Queen of Spades. All the knaves represent the thoughts of their respective kings and queens, and consequently the thoughts of the persons whom those kings and queens represent, in accordance with their complexions.

Two exceptions to these rules, however, apply. A man, whatever his complexion, if he wears the uniform of one of the armed forces, should be represented by the King of Diamonds. A widow, whatever her colouring may be, should take as her card the Queen of Spades.

The Ace of Hearts always denoting the house of the person consulting the decrees of fate, some general rules are applicable to it. Thus the Ace of Clubs signifying a letter, its position, either before or after the Ace of Hearts, shows whether the letter is to be sent to or from the house. The Ace of Diamonds, when close to the Ace of Hearts, foretells a wedding in the house; but the Ace of Spades betokens sickness and death.

The pack of cards should be well shuffled and then cut into three parts by the person for whom the reading is being done. The card-reader then takes up these parts, reassembling the pack, and proceeds to lay out the cards in rows of nine, face upwards. A pack of 52 cards, not being exactly divisible by nine, will thus give five rows of nine cards and one last row of seven cards.

Nine is the mystical number. Every nine consecutive cards form a separate combination, complete in itself; yet, like a word in a sentence, no more than a fractional part of the grand scroll of fate. Again, every card, something like the octaves in music, is en rapport with the ninth card from it; and these ninth cards form other complete combinations of nines, yet parts of the general whole.

So says Robert Chambers, in rather involved and old-fashioned language. In practice, you lay out your pack of cards as described above and then count from the card which is the significator of the person you are reading for. Reckon the card you start from as ’one’ and keep counting like this, from one to nine, the ninth card being the first of the next count and so on. Count from left to right, like reading the lines in a book, recommencing at the top if you reach the bottom of the spread. You will find that eventually you come back to the card you started from and this ends that part of the reading.

Note in addition what sort of cards are next to the significant cards and whether they are cards of good omen or ill. They may modify what you have to say about the meaning. Look also at the Knaves, representing people’s thoughts, and at the Ace of Hearts, which is the ’house’ card. These cards, too, are en rapport with the ninth card from them, which may be counted to and read.

The Nine of Hearts is the ’wish-card’ and according to whether it is near to your significator or far off, you may deduce whether or not a particular wish is likely to be realized. After the general fortune has been told, another spread may be laid out to enquire if the consultant will obtain some particular wish and the answer is deduced from the position of the Nine of Hearts, as described above.

As with all systems of divination, practice and experience will bring greater facility to the diviner. Frivolous questions will get only frivolous answers. Naturally, a person who has some psychic powers to start with will make the best diviner; but at the same time the practice of divination, if carried out faithfully, will tend to develop psychic gifts.

In describing the practice of cartomancy among the poorer people of his own day, Robert Chambers declared his belief that, on the whole, its practitioners did good. They brought sympathy and consolation to people in distress and often gave good moral advice. Moreover, they did not present their readings as being fatalistic: “They always take care to point out what they term ’the cards of caution’, and impressively warn their clients from falling into the dangers those cards foreshadow, but do not positively foretell, for the dangers may be avoided by prudence and circumspection.”

This is a wise attitude for the present-day card-reader to adopt also. To delight in filling people’s minds with fear, by prophecies of inescapable doom and disaster, is irresponsible. Divination is meant to be helpful; otherwise there is no point in it.

The system of cartomancy given above is certainly a relic of olden days and at the same time eminently practical. Village wise women have used it, and probably the English gypsies also, as the latter seem less acquainted with the Tarot cards than their Continental brothers and sisters.

It may be appropriate, therefore, to end this chapter by describing the correct way to carry out the old custom of ’crossing the gypsy’s hand with silver’. This is often referred to, but its real significance is little known. It is really a little ritual to ward off ill-luck, both from the diviner and the person whom the reading is for. Gypsies believe that silver is a sacred and magical metal, which wards off the evil eye. Today, unfortunately, the era of real silver coins is past and the coins we have to use are only an imitation of silver; but that is better than nothing.

The person who is seeking the reading should hold the coin between the thumb and fingers and make with it an X-shaped cross over the gypsy’s outstretched palm. Then they should place the coin in the centre of this imagined cross, and leave it not merely as a fee, but as an offering to the spirits who are believed to assist in divination. A true gypsy seer who was approached in this way, even if the enquirer could only afford a silver coin of small value, would try sincerely to give them a psychic message.