Playing Cards Through the Decans

Over on Base, we are going through a decan walk — contemplation on the 36 decans of the zodiac, as the Sun transits through them.

As I’ve been recently getting into playing card divination, I’ve decided to refract the decans symbolism through the lens of playing cards, looking at possible ways of reading the meanings of both of them through each other.

Playing Card Traditions

I’ll be using the “English” folk tradition meanings of the cards, ones that developed around the now-standard 52 card deck, rather than meanings associated with Tarot cards or piquet decks that developed in continental Europe.

This means the meanings of the cards are often very different from the imagery and meanings of their associated Tarot cards — something that makes them ripe for reflection!

It is extremely unlikely that the meanings of playing cards developed with any conscious reference to the decans, or even astrology generally — we are looking here at ✨ synchronicities ✨ rather than intentional meanings, nor am I claiming that the more literal predictions of some cards will occur while the Sun is in that decan (go watch the thread on Base, if you’re curious to see me relate these playing cards to my experiences).

The meanings are from, in order as given in each post:

1. Phillip Breslaw — The Art of Fortune-Telling by Cards, 1784
2. Robert Chambers — The Folklore of Playing Cards, in Chambers Book of Days, 1864
3. Mother Bridget — The Universal Dream Book, c. 1816, in Donald Tyson
4. Charles Platt — Some English Methods of Telling, c. 1920
5. A. E. Waite — The English Method of Fortune-Telling by Cards, in A Handbook of Cartomancy, 1909

I found these through Donald Tyson’s excellent Essential Tarot Writings (2020).

Why?

There is no better way to get to know a divinatory symbol than to spend time with it. The decan walk will go through every card in the deck, except the court cards and the aces. This means that what’re often the “hardest” cards to understand and embody the core meanings for, the pips, are the focus of this contemplation.

Correspondences

The decan correspondences for the playing cards are those popularised by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which are based on assigning Tarot cards to each decan. By corresponding the Tarot suits to playing cards, we can then easily find a playing card for each decan.

I’ll be using the most common set of suit correspondences, which matches with different styles of playing cards across Europe.

1. Hearts = Cups
2. Diamonds = Pentacles/coins
3. Clubs = Wands/batons
4. Spades = Swords

There’s a whole history to these things, but I won’t go too deep into them now, as the purpose of this exercise is to focus on the traditional verbal meanings of the cards in relation to the decans, rather than numerological or elemental correspondences (although those might come in!).

Posts

• Taurus I, the Five of Diamonds

Peace,
⭕

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