Fortune Telling with Playing Cards by Jonathan Dee is a useful book for finding what the future holds with a simple deck of cards. Published originally in 2007, this book has been re-released by Red Wheel/Weiser Books. It provides a wonderful introduction to the art of reading playing cards.
Many people are familiar with tarot as a divination system, But then many maybe don’t know that it was derived from playing cards. These cards still hold some of our same meanings today. While I prefer using an entire deck complete with trumps, there is a lot of knowledge and information to be gained from doing readings with regular old playing cards. For me the system is ideal finding out information about day-to-day life.
The book starts with the basics, and Tarot readers will be helped by covering some of these topics. For example, the suits correspond to the lesser arcana suits in a direct way.
- Hearts correspond to Cups
- Clubs correspond to Wands
- Diamonds correspond to Coins
- Spades correspond to Swords
Dees then goes on to give more detailed information about the meaning of each card. Finally there are the fortune telling spreads. One can use playing cards to do a single card spread, a three card spread, a date of birth spread and many more. A particular favorite is the elemental spread, where the cards are set out in the shape of a pentacle. Each one then corresponds to an element like: earth, air, fire, water, or spirit.
Unfortunately, Jonathan Dee passed away in 2010. His publisher tells us “Dee was born in Wales and discovered his psychic abilities at an early age. He was a highly regarded professional astrologer, tarot card reader, and clairvoyant who worked throughout the UK and the US. Jonathan wrote a vast number of books covering Egyptology, mythology, astrology, tarot, and history, including Face Reading Plain & Simple, Tarot Mysteries, and Chinese Astrology Plain & Simple.” Dee’s books have sold over 5 million copies to date.
As always if you have enjoyed what you read here please remember to like, comment, and share.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In