THE MEANINGS OF THE SUITS AND PIPS
When divining with the standard playing card deck, all you really need to know are the essential meanings of the four suits plus court cards, and a basic grounding in numerology. Know those two things, and you’ll always be able to read with playing cards, even if you don’t have a book of meanings with you. This is what makes memorizing the meanings of the playing cards so quick and easy to learn. We’ll start with the meanings of:
THE FOUR SUITS
HEARTS
Rulership: Love, emotions, romance, marriage, divorce, friendship, feelings, pleasure, laughter, companionship, joy, happy times, relationships of every kind, and all matters of the heart. Those with a child-like nature. Season: Spring. Element: Water. Planet: Venus. Tarot Suit-Equivalent: Cups. Section of Medieval Society: the Clergy.
CLUBS
Rulership: Enterprise, hard work, opportunity, the mind and mental pursuits, communications, the acquisition of knowledge, law and legal matters, enthusiasm, creativity, plans, ambition, honesty, and reward. The eternal student, and young people. Season: Summer. Element: Fire. Planet: Uranus. Tarot-Suit Equivalent: Wands. Section of Medieval Society: the Peasants.
DIAMONDS
Rulership: Values and all things of value, money, finance, business, power, acquisition of wealth and property, perseverance, logic, hard work. Adults in the prime of life. Season: Autumn. Element: Earth. Planet: Jupiter. Tarot-Suit Equivalent: Earth. Section of Medieval Society: Administrators and Merchants.
SPADES
Rulership: Change, challenges, unexpected happenings, confusion, difficulties, misfortunes, illnesses, negativity, mystery, warnings, and the unknown. Old age. Season: Winter. Element: Air. Planet: Mars. Tarot-Suit Equivalent: Swords. Section of Medieval Society: Aristocracy
NUMEROLOGICAL MEANINGS OF THE PIPS:
ONE: the individual, independence, attainment, beginnings, new things, starts, birth
TWO: cooperation, relationship, receiving, passivity
THREE: Creativity, Expression, Sociability, the joy of living
FOUR: order, structure, hard work, systems, organization, foundation, security
FIVE: freedom, and the constructive use of freedom; change, variety, excitement, expansion
SIX: home and family matters, responsibility, harmony, understanding. Also Karma
SEVEN: learning, knowledge, spirituality, doubt, reflection, meditation
EIGHT: material success, large-scale enterprises, having a lot of money and liking it.
NINE: humanitarianism, selfless-giving; endings, completions, culminations
TEN: God’s blessing and assistance in new beginnings; a lot of something
I have reasons to believe that Spade element is Fire and Club is Air.
I have seen that same attribution of element-ownership, Spades=Fire and Clubs=Air somewhere, but I can’t recall exactly where. Since Clubs seemed to me to be roughly-analogous to Wands in function (both get waved in the air), and Spades struck me as being roughly-analogous to Swords in function (both cut), the elements I assigned to both followed-on from that. But your correspondences make sense. Clubs and Swords are weapons (which are wielded in Air), and Spades and Wands are tools. Also, Clubs are associated with communications, which is a very ‘air’ thing. Richard Webster, in his book “Playing Card Divination for Beginners” says Spades=Fire and Clubs=Earth(!). I always thought Diamonds were Earth, since Diamonds are analogous to Pentacles/Coins. I’m going to have to do more research on this matter. Thank you for mentioning this!
Hi! Great information in this article & thank you for sharing.
Question, for Spades the Section of Medieval is missing. What is their medieval section?
Thanks!
Thank you for calling this to my attention! I overlooked that detail. It is now corrected.