Reading ordinary playing cards

In this lesson you will read an ordinary deck of playing cards with a simple suit and number method, and learn where cartomancy comes from.

You may already own a divination tool without knowing it: an ordinary deck of playing cards. Reading them is called cartomancy, and it is cheap, discreet and a lovely bridge to tarot and Lenormand.

Where card reading comes from

Historical Playing cards reached Europe in the late fourteenth century, and people used them for games long before fortune telling. One of the first books on reading them was published in Paris in 1770 by Jean-Baptiste Alliette, who called himself Etteilla. He used a 32-card piquet pack, which has only the seven to the ace in each suit.

Later tradition In the nineteenth century card reading became a popular parlour art, and many systems appeared. They disagree with each other, so there is no single “correct” meaning for a card.

How playing cards came to Europe

Historical Playing cards reached Europe in the late 1370s, probably from the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria, whose cards had suits of cups, coins, swords and polo sticks. In 1377 a Dominican friar in Switzerland, Johannes of Rheinfelden, described a new card game, and cities such as Florence soon issued rules about them. The four French suits used in most of the world today, hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades, appeared in France around 1480. They were cheaper to print because they used simple stenciled shapes.

Historical The first well-documented system of fortune-telling with cards was published in 1770 by the Parisian Jean-Baptiste Alliette, who wrote under the name Etteilla (his surname spelled backward). His book Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes (“Etteilla, or a way to entertain oneself with a pack of cards”) used a 32-card piquet deck. Later he moved on to tarot. Many nineteenth-century fortune-telling books gave meanings for playing cards, and the system you learn here is a simplified version of that tradition.

A note about stereotypes

Modern In popular culture, card reading is often linked with “gypsy fortune-tellers”. This stereotype has been used to mock and discriminate against Roma people for centuries. Some Roma did and do read cards, as do many other people, but the image of the mysterious Romani fortune-teller is a stereotype. Avoid using the word “gypsy” for decks, spreads or methods, and learn about Roma history and culture from Roma sources.

A three-card practice, step by step

Shuffle a standard 52-card deck while thinking of your question. Cut it once. Lay three cards from left to right: situation, challenge and advice. Read the suit first: hearts for feelings and relationships, diamonds for money and practical matters, clubs for work and ambition, spades for difficulties and change. Then the number: low cards for beginnings and small matters, middle cards for development, high cards and court cards for people and culmination. Then put them together as a story. Write the story in your journal before looking anything up.

A simple system to start with

Modern Many readers today use suits for the area of life and numbers for the stage of a story. In one common system, hearts mean feelings and relationships, diamonds mean money and work, clubs mean action and growth, and spades mean challenges and decisions. The ace is a beginning, low numbers are early steps, ten is completion, and the jack, queen and king are people or attitudes. These match the four tarot suits loosely, which is why this is a good step towards tarot.

Your card reading practice, step by step

What you need: an ordinary deck of 52 cards (take out the jokers), your divination journal, a pen and a quiet table.

1. Write the four suit keywords and the number keywords on a small note.
2. Shuffle while you think of an open question, such as “What should I notice this week?”
3. Draw three cards and lay them left to right for start, middle and end of the week.
4. For each card, combine suit and number into one sentence, for example “seven of diamonds: halfway through a money matter”.
5. Read the three sentences together as a short story.
6. Write the date, question, cards and story in your journal.
7. At the end of the week, write what actually happened next to it.

Journal prompts: Which suit did you draw most often, and does that fit your week? Did any card feel wrong, and what would you have chosen instead? How does reading a plain deck feel compared with picture cards?

Questions beginners ask

Beginners often ask whether reversed cards are used. In many traditional playing card systems they are not, because most court cards look the same either way. Keep it simple and ignore reversals at first.

People also ask what the jokers mean. Many readers remove them; some use a joker as a wild card or a surprise. Choose and stick to your choice.

Others wonder whether a new deck is needed. Any clean deck works, even one you have played games with.

Myths to drop: Playing cards did not come from tarot; both developed from earlier cards. The “death card” does not exist in playing cards. And card reading is not a Romani invention.

Court cards: people or qualities

The Jacks, Queens and Kings are the trickiest cards for beginners. Older systems often read them as particular kinds of people, sometimes by hair colour or age, which can feel dated and even uncomfortable. Many modern readers prefer to read them as qualities or roles instead.

In that approach, a Jack is learning, youth or a message; a Queen is care, understanding and inner strength; a King is authority, responsibility and outward action. Combine the role with the suit: the Queen of Diamonds becomes practical care around money or work, while the King of Clubs becomes confident leadership in a project.

Reading court cards as qualities also keeps your readings kinder. Instead of “a dark-haired man will bring trouble”, you might say “a situation that calls for firm leadership”. You can still notice when a court card reminds you of someone in your life, and write that down as well.

Why reversals are rare with playing cards

In tarot, many readers give a different meaning to a card that appears upside down. With playing cards this is less common, partly because the court cards in most modern decks are printed double-ended, so they look the same either way up, and many number cards are symmetrical too. Most cartomancy systems therefore read every card upright. That makes playing cards a good first deck: you have only 52 meanings to learn, not 104.

A week-ahead line of seven

Once the three-card reading feels comfortable, try a simple seven-card line on a Sunday evening, one card for each day of the coming week. Shuffle, cut and lay seven cards in a row from left to right, Monday to Sunday. Read each card briefly as a theme for that day, then look at the whole line. Are there many cards of one suit? A week full of diamonds might be busy with work and money; a week full of hearts might be about people and feelings.

Each evening, glance at that day’s card and write one line about whether the theme fitted. At the end of the week, count how many fitted well, partly or not at all. This turns the reading into a small honest experiment, just like the accuracy log in the last lesson of this course.

Learning one suit a week

A gentle way to learn is to take one suit per week. In week one, take out only the hearts, from Ace to King, and draw one each morning. In week two, add the diamonds, then clubs, then spades. By the end of a month you will know the whole deck, and you will have built your meanings slowly from real days rather than from memorising a list.

A worked example

A learner asks what to notice this week and draws the ace of hearts, the five of spades and the ten of clubs. She writes: “A new feeling or friendship starts, a decision gets tricky in the middle, and a project finishes by the weekend.” On Friday she notes that a colleague invited her for coffee, a scheduling problem came up midweek and she sent off a long task on Saturday.

Try this

Take an ordinary deck, write the suit and number keywords from this lesson on one card-sized note, then draw three cards for your week and write one sentence for each.

A variation for busy days: draw one card each morning and write one sentence about how its suit might show up that day. In the evening, add one sentence about what actually happened.

A beginner’s worry, answered. “My book says the Nine of Spades means disaster.” Older systems often gave spades very dark meanings. In this course, spades stand for challenges, decisions and truth-telling. A difficult card is a prompt to prepare, not a prediction of doom.

A variation for travel. A pack of cards fits in any bag, and nobody looks twice at someone shuffling on a train. Draw one card on a journey and ask, “What should I bring with me into this trip?” Write the answer on the back of your ticket or in your phone. It is one of the most discreet ways to keep a daily practice going wherever you are.

Keep one deck for reading. Many readers keep a separate deck just for readings, so the cards stay clean and familiar. It is a practical habit rather than a rule.

Recap

Cartomancy means reading ordinary playing cards. Etteilla published an early system in 1770 using a 32-card pack. Meanings vary, but a simple suit and number method gets you reading today, and it leads naturally to tarot.

What next

Press “Mark as done” and continue with Dreams and a dream journal. If you enjoyed this, compare it with the Minor Arcana.

Further reading: Michael Dummett, The Game of Tarot (Duckworth, 1980), on the history of playing cards. The International Playing-Card Society publishes accessible articles online.

Sources

• Etteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette), Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes (Paris, 1770).
• Ronald Decker, Thierry Depaulis and Michael Dummett, A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot (London: Duckworth, 1996).

Go deeper: the tarot and runes pages on this site

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