The Playing Card Oracles: A Source Book for Divination

by Ana Cortez, C.J. Freeman (Illustrator)

Reveals the secrets of ordinary playing cards through delightful poetry and insightful prose.

Genres: Divination, Reference

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2007

Reviews

[Jean-Pierre Vidrine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quite insightful guidebook about playing card divination. It goes into a lot of detail about the history of playing cards and their use as divinatory tools. There is a lot of speculation in those parts, but the speculation is very informed.
The section on geomancy has its points of interest, but on the whole (contrary to the authors' claim) is not so easy to comprehend. Perhaps I will revisit this part of the text in the future. Speaking of contradicting the authors . . .
The book states that it can be used as a guide for using any playing card deck in divination. I haven't done an exhaustive comparison as such, but checking here and there, I see that certain interpretations don't quite match with those given in another volume I have on the subject. In some cases they differ entirely. Admittedly I have only recently begun to incorporate playing cards into my personal cartomancy practice. Hence I will still likely read more books on the subject.
Thusly, I see the interpretations herein as adding nuance to cards' meanings; but mostly this will be the guidebook for the specific oracle deck created by the authors.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book and a beautiful deck of cards. Definitely more complex than other playing card methods I have seen, but the author seems to have gone to a lot of work to provide supplemental material. Her YouTube channel (52CardMagic) is great for seeing her methods in action. And the whole geomancy with cards thing is very cool! I'm excited to try it.