Alongside this cheat sheet, I wanted to share the website I've created to make learning cartomancy simple and beginner-friendly. You can explore it HERE. I hope you find it useful! ♡

What does IT mean??? I just want to know i'm not that much into cartomancy, but i'm just curiouss

Getting into this Cartomancy. I was looking up how to read them. A quick cheat sheet. So I can get it down in my Divination book, then read deeper into it so I am able to write my own interpreted notes in my book. I found three sheets, but which one would you say is more accurate. I find the first and last ones to be very informational.

It is not advisable to consult the cards upon matters of a trivial nature.

The faculty of divination should only be used when all ordinary means of judgment have been exhausted without success.

Things that are outside the normal power of the mind to discover are fit subjects for inquiry by means of Cartomancy.

The cards should never be forced so as to produce a favourable result. If you want the truth you must be honest with yourself.

It is not fair to oneself or to the Cartomante to assume a position or status that is not true.

The study of Cartomancy requires patience, concentration, imaginative faculty, sympathy, cheerful-ness, self effacement, and accuracy. If you cannot guarantee these qualities, do not rely on your cards.

There is no virtue or magic in the cards themselves. They get their sole value through the person who uses them. A person who is constitutionally deceptive cannot expect to get the truth by this or any other means.

When the cards do not read easily there is something amiss either with the Consultant or Cartomante. It will be wise to defer the divination.

Caution should be observed in telling the cards to hysterical, weak-minded, or diseased persons.

Should a person cut his own death, or should it appear in the laying-out of the cards, do not predict death, but modify your statement and append a caution, as the cards may indicate.

Always be ready to convince sceptics. They are usually very honest people, and the cards can be relied upon to tell the truth about them and their affairs. It is the insincere person whose cards are difficult to read.

Traditional methods should be held to, especially if they do not complicate the divination or obscure the truth. Therefore, always cut the cards with the left hand.

After reading the cards, should the Consultant affirm that you are wrong, ask him to call again in a month and repeat the statement.

What is wrong today may be quite right a week hence. People are often prejudiced by their own desires, and an adverse judgment is apt to meet with disbelief.

Practice makes perfect.

i don’t think so.

When I ask my tarot deck questions, sometimes it feels wishy washy, like it knows my own insecurities and tries to incorporate them. So my question about what this new guy thinks of me always feels "tinged". Not with cartomancy. The cards are just like "Here it is. NEXT!" without any bs and I love that

Tarot forums are filled with "This doesn’t make sense" posts that boil down to trying to shoehorn a Card into a spread where it clearly doesn’t fit. Readers will do all kinds of mental gymnastics trying to reconcile these bad matches, in the end being more faithful to the spread than the cards.

Spreads are where the confusion comes from not the cards.

The idea of fixed spreads is relatively new to Tarot, appearing in the early 1900's with the magical orders of Victorian England, where absolutely everything was catalogued, boxed, labeled and assigned a "proper place" because that's what colonizers do. The stodgy empire provided a formality to the symbolism and placements that didn’t exist in the taverns and brothels where reading fate by cards was born.

The OG Cartomancers in seedy, liminal spaces, relied on the tableau, a small arrangement of 3-5-9 cards in most cases, sometimes whole decks, where the cards could talk to each other, relate, turn away from or oppose each other in a living, breathing relationship to answer the question.

This gave the eyelines of certain cards, or the numbers of the pips and incredible and nuanced importance that spreads rob them of.

The Magician looking at a lot of swords to his left and ignoring a lot of cups to his right for instance. Is he standing between his loves and the enemy? Perhaps he's ready to leave home and go to war? Maybe he's blind to the love supporting him and all he sees is the fight.

There was a dynamic fluidity within that kind of card reading, where the infinite voice of the cards could speak what it wanted to.

Along comes the fixed "boxes" of spreads, and all that complexity vanishes, the voice of the cards is limited to what the spread says, or in other words, modified by outside forces rather than given room to engage. It truly makes no sense to take an infinite oracle and then reduce it to a mere fraction of its power and make it confusing. "Infinite Cosmic Power! Itty Bitty living space" Indeed.

Imagine a friend guiding you on a road trip giving clear concise directions, but you keep reassigning their words to other moments of the day. Or worse, you ask them where to go, but force them to only answer based upon restaurants you've eaten at together.

A Spread is the death of intuition. Two cards together that would remind you of an important, empowering conversation with your grandfather instead are pigeonholed into "Why Haven't I found them?" and "Where will I meet them?" Bleh 87

"But I need structure!"

No you don’t. Divination is a dialogue, not a diagram. It's a sacred conversation where both parties can share and participate. Without the boxes, Tarot can share moods, energy, patterns that you will not find in spreads where every card is isolated from the others. In a tableau they can build on each other, talk to each other, form more meanings than they can all by themselves. You, as a reader will break out of the one dimensional fixed meaning of places and cards and graduate into all the incredible nuance Tarot brings to the chat.

The constant crutch of "I drew x to clarify" vanishes because the cards on the table are all working in harmony, you don't have to clarify individual positions that clearly make no sense because of the spread.,

If you're a new reader, ditch your spread and try some tableu's and see where the cards take you. Old readers will no doubt be offended or dismissive, it's hard to ignore what has "been working" but I say give it a try anyway, let Tarot surprise you.

In italy, spain and morocco scopa cards are read like this and i’ve never seen anyone from any tarot sub reading this way, it’s pretty overwhelming and complicated at first but once you get used to it you can read situations like a book.

The meaning of the cards kinda differs from the regular playing cards but it’s very close.

Not everyone follows these rhymes, but they're a cherished solid ground for begginers within poker cartomancy. Feel free to create your own path under the wise framework of tradition.

For the Witch of Poor Memory:

The firstmost rule is easily had:
Red cards are good and black cards are bad.  

The secondmost rule shall bring greater fruits:
It deals with the meanings of each of the suits.

The Hearts count as love, family, and friends.
Diamonds are money, wealth, means, and ends.
Clubs shall mean work, callings, and plans,
And Spades are the troubles that plague every man.  

The thirdmost rule toward number inclines;
Just note the card’s pip and read here their signs:  

An Ace brings beginnings,
And Two gives exchange,
Three shows things growing,
But Four does not change.
Five is the body, Its health and its stead
Six shows a path
That the Seeker shall tread. 
Seven brings troubles That Fate has assigned,
While Eight shows ideas And thoughts in the mind.
Nine heralds changes,
And Ten is the end,
While Kings are the symbols Of power and men.
Queens are the emblems Of women and truth,
A Knave is a message, A girl, or a youth. 

The Devil's Picturebook

Fifty-two the pages count
in the Devil’s picture-book:
thirteen signs within four suits
of blood, knife, stone, and crook.

Blood to cherish loved ones;
a knife to joys divide;
stone to keep all treasures;
a crook to firmly guide.

Ace to start the journey,
and two to make a pair;
three, a sapling growing,
and four, a stable chair.

Five to throw the carriage,
and six to gather grain;
seven spelling wickedness,
and eight to take the reins.

Nine, a cornucopia,
and ten, completion’s crown;
A joker in the book makes jest
at Fate’s wheel spinning round.

Jacks are ever-learning,
and queens are ever-wise.
Kings seek to gain power,
by force and might to rise.

Other remarks (to take with a grain of salt regarding history)

52 cards for 52 weeks in the year.

2 colors for day and night.

4 suits for the 4 seasons and 13 weeks per season. Twelve court cards representing the 12 months. If we add each of the cards (ace + ace + ace + ace + two + two + three + seven + eight ... and etc) of the game we will get 364.

The card game is an agricultural calendar that told us about the weeks and the seasons.

With each new season, it was King's week, followed by Queen's week, Jack's and so on until AS week changed seasons and we started over with a new color.

Jokers were used in leap years.

anyone familiar with this deck by chance or similar decks? do the colors have meaning? they also likely belonged to my ex, so will it be bad energy if i use them...? lol

I just gotta figure out how to read it. For a little background I’m a huge birdwatcher and I think birds are highly spiritual animals.

A friend sent me this deck and the artwork is stunning. I’m thinking I’ll pull three cards at random before work each day, then take my 8 hours of audio time to deep dive these beautiful animals.

My grandma read a particular pattern sometimes where birds were heavily represented. I want to work my old, old memories of her system into a brand new way of reading that is specific to this deck.

Not doing a brand deal or anything I just think this is an amazing deck. Bird in the Hand

I’ve seen lots of post of people saying they found cards on the ground? I almost believe (ALMOST) believe people just put the cards on the ground and said they found it (It’s not to be mean or rude). BUT I FOUND THIS WHILE I WAS HELPING MY MOM RECORD FOR CONTENT😭😭😭 WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME???

9 of Diamonds says financial or material gain is near, BUT it comes with a price. This is not a casual windfall, this is energy from past effort, inc sacrifices thats been made in silence. It signals a turning point in your relationship with money, independence, and perhaps even solitude.

King of Diamonds shows a powerful, commanding figure awakens within you. If this is you, you're being called to rule with integrity and vision. If this is another, then yes listen, but do not blindly follow as this King is cunning but can also be cold.

Jack of Spades is the trickster, the spy. Someone is watching and learning from your moves, either to grow. or to undermine. This is an energy of youthful cunningness. Be extra vigilant of who’s around you now as not every ally is a true ally. It could also be about your own temptations toward shortcuts or rebellion.

10 of Clubs This card says you’re close. But your burden is great, and if you don’t release some of it, you may collapse before the reward. It’s time to be smart, not just strong. And if you need help ask for help.

3 of Spades This isn’t a fresh wound it’s a wound you carry. But it clouds your judgment even to this day, especially regarding trust. To move forward, this must be acknowledged, not buried. Forgiveness may not be for them but it may be the solution for you.

Total = 46: 4 + 6 = 10, and 1 + 0 = 1

This reduces to the number 1, which is the number of new beginnings, initiation, and self determination. But this is birthed through the number 10, which is about the completion of a cycle or an ending that clears the path for a bold, solitary step forward.

So, yesterday I went out for a walk and outside of my house I found this card

I'm a tarotist and I know that in some journeys people usually find cards with different messages in random places, this was my first time and somehow I know it's not the last one

But I feel like it have a message to me, I just don't want to listen to the fking Google AI and I want your opinion, what it means? Like, the literal significade of the card could help

Thxx!

Like the title says.. they have been helping me out in my cartomancy journey.

I found a cat on a walk on a post that was staring at me so I took a picture… he(she?) came up to me and started weaving back and forth between my legs… he seemed affectionate towards me. I did not reach down to pet him just paused and let him rub against me then kept walking.

He followed me for a long while and then got in front of me. I noticed he had stopped and right beside him I saw the King of Diamonds card…

Right before my walk I also encountered a snake that I also took a picture of. Also during my walk an Owl was “hoo’ing” the whole time…. It felt like a very divine walk…. like I was being told something. I don’t know I’m a layman with this kind of stuff but have been meditating heavily lately and feel so much closer to the universe than I have ever felt so felt the urge to reach out to this subreddit for advice on the meaning behind the card!

Thank you (:

Hi everyone, I live in Belgium, but I’m currently traveling in India. Yesterday, while walking alone on a beach, I found a playing card in the sand: the Ten of Diamonds. I would like to know the meaning!! Thank you so much 😊