posted October 08, 2003 02:35 AM         

Well, to the best of my knowledge you are correct... the regular deck of cards we use today is a descendant of the Tarot.

The suits correspond as follows:

Clubs = Wands = Fire
Diamonds = Pentacles = Earth
Spades = Swords = Air
Hearts = Cups = Water

The court cards of each suit:

Page / Knight = Jacks
Queens
Kings

So we see that the Page/Knight has been combined and eliminates one court card from each suit. This changes the number of cards in a suit from 14 (Pieces of Osiris ???) to 13 (the number of power and dominion !!!)

And of course the Joker is a descendant of the Fool.

So we can see a one to one correspondence with the 4 Seasons (the suits), the three Modalities of Astrology, Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable (Kings, Queens and Jacks), the 10 Spheres of the Tree of Life (the pip cards Ace - 10) and the numbers of weeks in the year in the 52 total cards of he deck. As always the Joker or Fool, stands apart from the crowd.

Reading regular playing cards will accurately describe things of a material nature, the workaday world and relationship and emotional issues. More Spiritual or esoteric interpretations are best left to the Tarot as they include the Higher Arcana, which addresses the Spiritual and Universal issues.

I'm sure we can come up with more, but I think this is a good springboard for discussion if anyone is interested.

Blessed Be...
A

posted October 08, 2003 06:16 AM         

I remember someone when I was little used to read the cards as they played Gin.
She called them "folktales".