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What Is Cartomancy? - Benefits, Card Combinations, and More!

Written by, Jelena Kabic

Updated May, 4, 2022

You’ve witnessed cartomancy in action if you’ve ever seen someone pull a card out of their deck and read your fortune.

But what is cartomancy actually? And how does it work? In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the art of reading fortunes with cards and explore some of the different cartomancy card combinations and techniques.

So if you’re curious and want to learn cartomancy, keep reading!

What is Cartomancy?

If you’re like most Americans, when you hear the word “cartomancy,” you might think of those psychic phone lines where you can get your future told for just $3.95 a minute.

But cartomancy is a form of divination that uses cards to predict the future.

In fact, the word “cartomancy” comes from the Latin words ‘carta’ (a chariot) and ‘mancy’ (to divine, divination); this type of divination has been around for a while!

Cartomancy made easy: How do you read cartomancy? What kind of deck do you need?

The practice of cartomancy is simple: the deck of cards is being shuffled, and the cartomancer offers the deck to the person that wants to know their future. They then randomly choose their cards out of the deck, not revealing them, and place them in a specific order according to the technique and deck being used.

There are a few different cartomancy spreads that depend on the type of deck used in the divine practice.

The most common way to read cartomancy is with a playing card tarot deck. A tarot deck is a set of playing cards, typically consisting of 78 cards used for divination.

Additionally, the tarot deck is divided into the major (22 cards) and Minor Arcana (56 cards), with the Major Arcana representing life-changing topics (love, loss, and death). At the same time, the Minor Arcana represents more mundane topics such as work and day-to-day problems. Furthermore, each of Major Arcana’s symbols has a meaning on its own. For instance, The Fool can represent new beginnings. However, The Tower can represent disorder and disturbance. While the Minor Arcana consists of four suits containing 14 cards.

Another way to read cartomancy is by using a regular deck of playing cards consisting of 52 cards.

Like the tarot deck, the cards in the regular deck have their meaning — mostly tied to the suit and also the number. For example, the Ace of Spades might represent success, while the Two of Hearts can represent love.

However, though both decks and cartomancy techniques have their predetermined meaning, asking your question before revealing the cards and leaning on your intuition is crucial to interpreting their meaning.

What Are The Benefits Of Reading Cartomancy?

On many occasions in life, we don’t realize what we are doing and what needs to be done to make it turn out for the better.

Cartomancy is pretty handy since it focuses on all different vital aspects of a modern human’s life, from misery to finance. In other words, cartomancy can be a valuable tool to add importance and worthiness to your important life decisions and big steps you’re about to make.

Like the following:

What are The Cartomancy Card Combinations?

Have a look at the various cartomancy card combinations:

This is the fastest and easiest way to do a reading, especially if you are new to the whole concept. Asking a question and drawing a card from the deck allows you to quickly interpret the card’s meaning and symbolism, following the guide of meanings listed below.

One of the most popular techniques to read cartomancy with a regular deck is to draw cards from it and then read them in pairs or threes to gain insight into various aspects of your life. 

Each position of a drawn card represents a different aspect of life:

This popular method allows somewhat bigger comfort for the cartomancer, i.e., the reader of cards. Using this method, the reader will get through reading the cards by the timetable they were drawn — first, second, third, etc., assigning their meaning and representation on the time of being drawn, instead of a pre-set meaning.

How To Read Cards?

If you want to know how to read playing cards – this is the cartomancy card symbolism you have to memorize or have listed.

For starters, remember that each suit of the cards has a different meaning. Then, each different number under each different suit represents a separate thing.

Here’s your free cartomancy reading cards meaning:

Spades (Swords in Tarot) – Challenging things and future events that might shake our world.

Hearts (Cups in Tarot) – Deep feelings closely tied to the family and love-life of a person.

Clubs  (Wands in Tarot) – Visions, goals, dreams, opportunities – the future aspect of life.

Diamonds (Pentacles in Tarot) – The financial aspect of life: money, career, and wealth.

What To Expect During And After The Reading?

If you’re about to try cartomancy with a professional cartomancer or start practicing with friends, here’s what to expect.

Before the reading starts, and even during picking and revealing the cards, the cartomancer will start asking questions like

As you’re picking cards from the shuffled decks or during the reading, the cartomancer might also ask questions to add to the card’s meaning for a clairvoyant reading.

After the reading, you should expect to better understand blurry events and people in your life. But most importantly, you should feel more prepared for doing or leaving the uncertain things up ahead in your life.

Cartomancy reading should clarify the most critical question you asked yourself before engaging in the reading.

Tarot Cards and Cartomancy: What’s The Difference?

In a nutshell, you can use both Tarot and playing cards for fortune-telling.

Looking at it from the aspect that there’s predetermined meaning in both decks, there’s not much difference. Additionally, the cards in the Minor Arcana have similar meanings, such as the playing cards in cartomancy. But, the apparent difference in the number of cards and the strong symbols of the 22 Major Arcana cards is inevitable.

The bigger cards span and the more complex way of reading Tarot and combinations such as the 9-card reading and the Celtic cross card positions put Tarot card reading in a more advanced position. This means it’s a valuable tool for the more crafty and experienced cartomancers.

Furthermore, the Major Arcana gives you an in-depth aspect of the numerous situations of the other Tarot suits, numbers, and symbols.

The Wrap Up: A Closure Is Near 

Cartomancy is a kind of divination that uses regular playing cards for fortune-telling.

Varying from the type of cartomancy decks used in the divine practice, the card suits symbolism interpretation changes.

However, they all represent the biggest challenges in our lives — love, wealth, health, and happiness. Though we’ve answered what is cartomancy – the answer for your future prosperity lies within your own deck of cards and depends solely on your dealing hand. 

So, play wisely!