The origin of playing cards goes back more than a thousand years to ancient China. They were carried by traders and travellers, soldiers and pilgrims through Mongolia to the Middle East and then into Europe. Cards provided games of chance, skill and entertainment and they developed as they passed from one hand to another. The casting of lots with sticks, bones and dice was common throughout many cultures and cards became yet another way to give advice.
Playing cards with 4 suits and including court cards in each suit with the 10 pip cards, created a card deck of 52 cards. Some believe that the cards were used to represent the weeks of the year and the four weeks of the month or perhaps the seasons, so cards may have been an educational value. Playing cards came to Europe in late 1300s and by 1440 there is a letter from the Duke of Milan requesting several decks of playing cards for a game known as ‘triumph’ which was similar to bridge and included the playing card deck and 22 extra picture cards. Around 1530, in Italy, these cards were called ‘Tarocchi’ and in France ‘Tarot’. By 1781, they were used in England for divination. During the Victorian era in England, there was a revival of alternative spirituality and occult pastimes became popular. From that time to the present day, Tarot cards have been increasing in popularity; the market has grown and developed with new ideas and understanding for using the cards in sophisticated ways for fortune telling, personal development and meditation, and are now made in their thousands with creative focus far beyond the original images, such as animals, angels and fairies.
To read Tarot cards, a three card reading can be used for ‘past, present and future’. Larger spreads are possible, such as the 10 card Celtic Cross spread. There are hundreds of books on the market with suggestions on how to perform a reading, lay out the cards and relate their meanings. Usually, the Querent comes to the Reader with a question that they wish to have answered. Shuffling, cutting and spreading the cards out face down and turning the cards over, one by one to reveal their faces can be a moment of high drama and expectation. The Reader will partly rely on standard card meanings and partly on their mediumship abilities. Tarot cards are read both upright and reversed, creating the possibility of very large numbers of combinations.
Lenormand Cards are named after the most famous fortune-teller of all time, Mademoiselle Marie Anne Lenormand who was born in 1772 in Normandy (as her name suggests). She was 5 years old when her parents died and she entered a convent orphanage. Though her personal history is unclear, she was sent to Paris at 14 years of age and apprenticed to a milliner but by the age of 30 she was known as the ‘Sibyl of the Parisian Salons’. Many celebrities of the day met with her and reported on her style and methods. The telling of fortunes was described as a ‘black art’ and was illegal so she designed her own card decks to double as ordinary picture cards. They were small enough to hide in the volumes of her lace and pearls should she be confronted by the police. Her drawing room, the ‘Sanctum Sanctorum’ was guarded by a servant and Mademoiselle Lenormand would appear from a hidden door within the panelled walls. The room was extravagantly decorated and perfumed and she wore highly exotic costumes. She would shuffle and the Querent (a derivation of a Latin word meaning ‘seeker’ and denoting someone who seeks the advice of a cartomancer or medium) would cut the cards with their left hand and she would lay the cards out in rows, side by side, asking, as she did so, a number of questions, such as the Querent’s date of birth, favourite colour or animal.
Mademoiselle Lenormand was reputed to be an advisor to the Empress Josephine and to have read cards for Napoleon Bonaparte, who was said to have had her thrown into the Bastille for a reading that was not to his liking. She was also imprisoned in Belgium in 1821. She read cards for Tsar Alexander of Russia and the leaders of the French Revolution, foretelling the deaths of Robespierre and Marat. She wrote approximately a dozen books and created a publishing house for self-promotional writing which was a front her divinatory activities but she never revealed her methods. Upon her death in 1843, at 71 years of age, she had no close heirs so her Catholic nephew inherited her Fr 500,000, a vast sum of money earnt during her forty year career as the world’s most famous Cartomancer. He burned her cards and writings. Soon decks were being created in her name.
A small 36 card deck is known as Petit Jeu Lenormand Cards. Alongside selected playing card images, they featured a house, child, birds, garden, ring, stars, key etc., and were used for every day fortune telling. Le Grande Jou Lenormand, is a deck of 52 playing cards with 4 suits and 3 court cards with each suit. They bear images of constellations and signs of the zodiac, classical myths, flowers, talismans and numbers. Both Lenormand card decks contain two cards with an image of a man and a woman, one chosen to represent the gender of the Querent. Early decks were used with dice and known as a ‘Game of Hope’.
To read Le Petit Lenormand, cards, it is recommended to use the entire 36 cards laid in six rows of six cards, called Le Grande Tableau. This includes the male and female cards, one of which will represent the Querent. Cards are read from the Querent’s card horizontally, vertically and diagonally, using the direction that the Querent’s card is facing and taking into consideration the images of the cards closest to this card. No reversals are appropriate. You take for example, an anchor and its meaning could be positive or negative according to the cards at any position close to it, so it could mean stability or it could be restriction.
To read Le Grand Jeu de Mlle Lenormand, due to the amount of information illustrated on each card, far fewer cards are required for an in depth reading. Five cards are usually sufficient. Once again, the cards assume a different reading according to their position within a spread. Of the five cards, the middle card represents the Querent. The two cards on the left represent habits and future possibilities, and the two cards to the right reveal plans, hopes and desires. Larger spreads can be used, and the male and female cards can be included for a more personal reading.
Kipper Cards were first seen in Munich around 1900 and named after their creator, Frau Susanne Kipper. However, some say that there is a river in Germany called the Wipper and that the people from this area invented the deck and some say the word comes from a type of tipping scales used for the devaluing of coinage! There are 36 cards with straightforward meanings, all read upright. Unlike Lenormand, they have no playing card images, just a number, title and image. Kipper also has main male and main female cards to represent the Querent and there are several images of people alongside titles, such as success in love, a gift, house, court, work, etc. Some Readers like to combine the Petit Lenormand of 36 cards with the 36 cards of the Kipper for a fuller deck of 72 cards.
Tarot, Lenormand and Kipper are used throughout the world and there are specialised card decks for every taste and pocket, from the earliest of known card designs to classical, modern, hand painted, roughly sketched, computer created, mass produced and limited editions. Many card readers like to create their own. One of the beauties of card decks is often the wonderful pictures that appear on the cards, so to possess a deck is also to possess many wonderful artworks, some so finely detailed that they can be viewed under a magnifying glass to completely appreciate the detail. Cards can be used for readings for oneself or for readings for other people. Most decks include an insert with instructions on how the cards are to be used and interpreted, though many card readers rely entirely on their intuition.
We must not leave this article on cards used for divination without mentioning the many highly polar and exceptional Oracle card decks that are also available. There are a huge number of designs to choose from and most decks have approximately forty cards. Choosing a card for the day is easy for any beginner, no matter of age or understanding. Many Oracle decks have specialities, such as animals, the goddess, runes, kabbalah, etc. Most are used for entirely positive readings and are only read upright. The cards usually have a number, title and subtitle on the card front and are sold in a box, with an explanatory booklet.
Wendy Stokes for Psychic New Magazine. https://wendystokes.co.uk
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