The Oracle of Love: How to Use Ordinary Playing Cards to Answer Your Relationship Questions, Predict Your Romantic Future, and Find Your Soul Mate - Softcover

Richards, Lee Ann

 
9780609808948: The Oracle of Love: How to Use Ordinary Playing Cards to Answer Your Relationship Questions, Predict Your Romantic Future, and Find Your Soul Mate
Softcover
ISBN 10: 060980894X ISBN 13: 9780609808948
Verlag: Harmony Books, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

An astrologer introduces a simple system that uses an ordinary pack of playing cards to answers questions about personal relationships, forecast one's romantic future, and find one's soul mate. Original. 15,000 first printing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

LEEANN RICHARDS counsels more than 1,000 female clients each year using playing cards and astrology. She writes the horoscope column at www.MysticalDragon.com and lives in San Diego, California.

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CHAPTER ONE

About the Cards

The History

The precise history of the playing cards is uncertain. Theories about their origin are as varied as books on fortune-telling. Some authors claim they came from China and evolved from Dominos. Many believe they originated in Egypt, while others allege they came from India. One theory says the playing deck was born of the Tarot deck while another says they emerged separately for gaming purposes.

Every writer on this subject ends up filing a similar disclaimer that goes something like this:

"To the best of my knowledge, and based on my research, the following appears to be the most likely history of the playing cards."

What follows here is my opinion, based on my own research.

My investigation shows the Gypsies brought the Tarot to Europe from Egypt centuries ago. (The word "Gypsy" is a corruption of the word "Egyptian.") The history of numbers teaches us that the Egyptians adopted mathematics from the Sumerians. The Egyptians were so impressed with mathematics that they turned it into a minor religion and a tool for divination to create the science of numerology. They also tracked the stars in the heavens to create the science of astrology, which was the forerunner of modern astronomy. Egyptian numerology and astrology combined to create the Tarot.

Here's how:

•The number of each playing card corresponds to that number's traditional numerological message.
•One astrological element (Earth, Air, Fire, or Water) governs each of the four suits of the Tarot.
•The message in each number is colored to reflect the interests of the suit.
•The combination forms the meaning of each card.

The Egyptians assigned the science of card divination to Thoth, the god of inner knowledge, or intuition. Religious Egyptians believed inner knowledge was the only true knowledge and that Thoth was the custodian of all mystical secrets.

The tradition of the Tarot spread to the Middle East through trade between the Egyptians and the Sumerians, who were a part of the vast Ottoman Empire. Around 1200 a.d., the Crusaders adopted the cards in the Middle East and carried them to the capitals of the European continent. As the Crusaders wound their way through the major cities of Europe, Gypsy fortune-tellers astounded and amused the reigning monarchs. Eventually, every ruler adopted a Tarot card reader as a part of his staff. Foretelling the future became popular among the aristocracy and clergy, and courtesans used the Minor Arcana of the Tarot to invent games of chance. But, as gambling got out of hand and Gypsy fortune-tellers rose to positions of influence, the cards underwent periods of disfavor.

For centuries, the Tarot cards alternated between periods of acclaim and periods of passionate prohibition by the heads of church or state. Card divination has enjoyed a long roller-coaster ride of acceptance and rejection since it first arrived in Europe.

I believe that during a period when gaming was legal but divination was not, the Major Arcana of the Tarot was dropped to create the playing card deck. A trimmed-down deck would have made it possible for the Gypsies to be in possession of the cards without the threat of persecution for telling fortunes. The structures of the Tarot deck and the playing card deck are so similar that they surely must have evolved from one another. Here's what I mean:

A Tarot deck has 78 cards:

•22 picture cards called the Major Arcana (the Greater Secrets)
•40 numbered cards called the Minor Arcana (the Lesser Secrets)
•16 Court cards decorated with portraits

The playing deck has 53 cards:

•One of the Major Arcana cards-the first, known in the Tarot as "the Fool" and in the playing deck as "the Joker"
•40 numbered cards
•12 Court cards decorated with portraits

The Tarot has 22 Major Arcana cards that describe 22 different philosophical principles. The meanings of the Major Arcana string together to describe a journey through life that begins in birth and travels through marriage, children, prosperity, power, and death, and ends with wisdom and maturity. The forty numbered cards, called the Minor Arcana, describe ideas and functions. They don't depict fated, unavoidable events. Instead, they foretell smaller matters. They describe problems and opinions or moods and preferences. The sixteen Court cards illustrate individuals at various stages of life.

The playing deck articulates the same philosophical journey as the Tarot. The twelve Court cards describe individuals at the same stages of life as the Court cards of the Tarot, except by trimming the Court cards from sixteen to twelve the playing deck has edited out one of the intermediate stages.

Both the Tarot and the playing deck divide the numbered cards and the Court cards into the same four groups, called "suits." Although the suits of both decks govern the same aspects of life, they have different names.

•The Hearts of the playing deck correspond to the Cups of the Tarot.
•The Clubs of the playing deck correspond to the Wands of the Tarot.
•The Diamonds of the playing deck correspond to the Pentacles of the Tarot.
•The Spades of the playing deck correspond to the Swords of the Tarot.

Disputes exist over the exact significance of each playing card, but there has been a remarkable consistency in the meanings of the Tarot cards over the centuries. The earliest illustrations of Tarot cards depict images of the Hanged Man and Wheel of Fortune that are consistent with the images used today. But, the playing cards are not so fortunate.

Some scholars believe the playing deck and the Minor Arcana of the Tarot have the same meaning. Those practitioners use the traditional Tarot card interpretations for the Minor Arcana to define their playing card equivalents. I believe the playing deck retains the Major Arcana and therefore has deeper, broader meanings than can be found in the Minor Arcana. However, the messages of the Major Arcana seem to arrive in the playing cards in an obscure, haphazard manner, which is probably a result of being passed down from one generation to the next in an oral tradition. I find that half, or the Upright version, of a philosophical point will show up in one card while the other half, the Reversed version, will appear in another. I also believe the piecemeal distribution of the philosophical points of the Major Arcana is at the root of disputes over the interpretations of the playing deck.

Regardless of which rendition of playing card history you choose to believe, one thing is certain: the ancient interpretations remain fresh today because humanity continues to wrestle with the spiritual and philosophical issues that challenged it centuries ago on the banks of the Nile.

The Suits

Two ancient disciplines are the basis for playing card interpretations:

Numerology, which explains the meaning of the number on the card

Astrology, which explains the meaning of the suit

***

Every card in the deck is broken down into two parts, a number or person (the Court cards) and a suit. The deck is divided into four suits or categories, each of which contains ten numbered cards and three Court cards. The message of the number or person shifts to reflect the interest of the suit.

For example, Fours are cards of constructive, physical effort. When the emotional suit of Hearts influences the Four, it becomes the card of caretaking and describes our efforts to nurture. But, when the practical, material suit of Diamonds influences the Four, it becomes the card of physical labor and describes our efforts to make money.

The following chart shows the correspondence between the...

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Verlag
Harmony Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2003
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
060980894X
ISBN 13 
9780609808948
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
273
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Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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