Julian, correct. My post between Caveman and John C I admit my error and plans to purchase this deck.
Which I did today.

Also plan to purchase the period decks from Historic Games in the near future. Or so the cards tell me.

Julian - Any comments on Regina Russell's Card Reader's Handbook and Luis Martello- "It's in the cards".

I have check this website out, yes, very good.

Thanks.

All I will say is that I wrote my book with the sole intention of getting away from 'this card means that' which pretty much all those earlier books get into right from the start, which in my mind was always an immediate turn off for people starting out.

With all my books I try and write the best 'first' book one should read on any subject, and I do what I can to simplify and entertain the reader to stop them getting bogged down and giving up before they've started.

So my criticism of 'most' of these books is I feel that they obfuscate the mechanics of readings by being overly wordy and full of themselves, instead of cutting to the chase and getting on with the process of what readings are actually about.

Saying that, a lot of these books are worth reading and contain a lot of useful ideas hidden between the lines. But unfortunately, as they're so dense, a lot of this stuff is lost to the neophyte and serves to distract more than help people just getting into it by making everything appear more complicated than it looks.

Whether I succeed or not in making things clearer is a cause for debate, and I do think that some of my books succeed better than others. My cartomancy book was simply my attempt to make things learnable quickly and to free the mind from the main psychological hurdle that most people face when starting out with cartomancy or tarot, namely 'holy fk I've got to worry about learning 52 / 78 cards by rote before I can even give a reading'.

However I have had some people 'complain' (people like complaining) about the fact that I didn't include meanings for all 52 cards. My take always has been that to truly make your own meaning you need to keep things a little loose so you don't get 'stuck', but I may describe each card in turn in a future edition. Even though, especially at the start, I think trying to memorise the meanings of all cards as if they were set in stone in possibly the worst thing you can do and fills the mind with immovable objects instead of dreamlike concepts that can crystallise over the course of a reading.

Anything to avoid the favourite aunt 'ooh you've picked the seven of clubs let me just look that up in a book and tell you what it says' school of reading. That's not reading. That's reading from a book. There's no magic in that.

YMMV

But basically read all Enrique's stuff, IAIN's stuff and Voodini's stuff about giving readings and stop worrying so much about the mechanics. Learn enough about the cards, and let your memory, mind and imagination fill in the gaps.

Without, of course, telling someone they're going to win the lottery next week or that they really should dump their husband.

A great way to get started is to watch people giving readings on youtube. They're mostly so uniformly dreadful that you'll feel like a master before you've even started.

To follow on from bev's comments...if you only want to do traditional readings, just read the little booklet that goes with the cards...

i've always thought though, that as we modernise mentalism, we should be modernising readings too...(go read the nice little rant written by Annemann back in PME/Jinx about "long gone are the crystal gazers..")

so we should either hark back to the golden age and give it a twist, work with the metaphors...or go in a different direction...

i have, I've pulled in my arty background and visual nature to help me learn stuff and my oratory side to engage with story telling a lot more...

i've been experimenting with a new way of using 'oracles' over the past year or two, and its been pretty funny and it still works - even when you measure it up against the old school trad. methods...

then again, I've got very strong opinions on this subject (and always will have)...

Thank you Julian and Iain for your input.

Julian/Iain - I am attempting to follow a standard in Cartomancy, it is not necessary to be inflexible, but I want to somewhat accurate.

I started with the Gypsy Fortune Teller deck with pretty good success in the past when I was a teenager.
I have a desire to start reading again. Currently, the witchy-poo backs and the writing on the front are for me, ridiculous for a deck. Also I discovered the Gypsy Fortune follows a non-standard system. Hence my question.

Accuracy is an interesting part of it. If we trust ancient oracle's, or even a 100 year old one, sure, certain archetypes are still present. But there's lots of subtle and not so subtle changes in social, economic and pretty much any other -omic you can think of.
Demographics have changed too, so for me, it's been fascinating to see what still works and what doesn't.

Even if you look at families these days compared to 30 years ago, there was enough of a change for it to affect readings.

Definitely measure your work and outcomes. It's vital.

After that, it's all about unearthing your own biases and understanding how the affect what you are saying and seeing...

There is a 52 card Poker Deck version of Alchemy Moon's Kadar system, which is very much based on the elemental standards for the four suits and the numerological correlations for the pip cards. Despite the whimsical artwork, it is a very deep system, and while I know it does not fit the style of artwork that you are gravitating towards in terms of the historical decks or the arcana deck, I think it offers a lot in terms of doing readings in a less serious setting or for people who might be more intimidated by a serious or more cryptic presentation. I have the whole Kadar System, and would be glad to correspond with you about it, and also recommendations for some other books about readings and cartomancy. I did a search similar to the one that you are describing and found some really cool things you might not have discovered yet.

https://www.geminiartifacts.com/collecti......er-cards

As I continued my deck search, I had completely forgotten that I had this deck:

http://www.card-shark.de/index.cfm?page=......rtID=127

and this:

http://www.card-shark.de/index.cfm?page=......ArtID=24

I may have found the perfect deck in my own back yard. Both decks both require either a deck bag or box to replace the original packaging because of the printing on the cover of each reveals the true purpose of each deck.

Prof. Magic, thank you for the link to the Kadar system.

I will update on when I get Arkcana White Tarot/deck. Hopefully it arrives this Saturday.

Does anyone know if there is a common technical term for such a card?

I have been reading Robert Lee Camp's stuff and he says they are called Birth Card, Sun Card, or Soul Card.

Never knew of Robert Lee Camp. I will check out his book. It got a lot of good reviews.

So far, "Birth Card" is the most common term I have read or was aware of.

The Cartomancy system has to be taken into consideration and the content reference. Are talking about card spreads or the relationship of the cards to the client?

My research of Robert Lee Camp I discovered his YouTube channel, go here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjClo0xTWXNyqC3mqD7D2KA

It is a very good resource for Cartomancy.

Quick update:

I purchased the Deadonpaper Arkcana Deck, both the black and white version. With the supplement cards.
The version now sold is a full Tarot Deck. Standard card size deck. Can be used for Tarot or Cartomancy.
Highest recommendation.

Have look, go here:

https://deadonpaper.com/collections/fron......rot-deck

I found a source for the Card-Shark Gypsy deck. Eight decks.
Hopefully I have a life time supply as this deck is no longer made.

Thanks for the update, will check it out

I know I am responding to an old post here and I am not sure if have published your book in a future edition yet as you mentioned. However, I do think it important to devote some space in a book on the Tarot to the actual meanings of the cards. I remember thinking that this was a major omission on Ron Martin's Tarot Notebook also. It can be done in quite an abbreviated manner and doesn't have to take up more than a chapter or two. There are also certain memory aids that can be explained to the reader so he or she can learn the meanings quickly.

Having said that I agree with everything else you said about the meanings are not set in stone. I also believe that a reader should use his OWN meanings rather than stick to what is supposed to be "standard". However, a beginner should have a few guidelines and "suggested" meanings as a starting point. I do not go along with the oft stated theory that you must use standard meanings on the grounds that the people you read will know something about the Tarot and wonder why you are not abiding by those "traditional" meanings. I use my own meanings and have never been questioned once by a client whether they are familiar with the Tarot or not. The reason the Tarot works is not because of the cards themselves but because, as you correctly stated, of the imagination, creativity and intuition of the reader.

So yes. By all means explain the meanings in a book but at the same time emphasise to the reader that he or she doesn't HAVE to use those particular meanings and by all means they can and indeed SHOULD use their own interpretations. The student will probably end up using some of the meanings you suggest mixed in with meanings of their own.

The power of the Tarot is not in the cards themselves. They merely act as a random stimulator to the imagination, creativity and intuition of the reader. You do need some sort of starting point if you are a beginner. In other words describe the meanings as a bit of a guideline if nothing else!

I just read a short pamphlet today that is excellent for cartomancy.
"Carny Cartomancy" by Lewis Le Val.

19 pages. It uses a clever system for readings that require little to no memory work.
It has been discussed before, GO HERE:

https://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/view......c=651006

A really good resource for learning card reading in a day.
Bit pricey for e-book for whats amounts to about eight pages of text. He uses really huge font size to increase page count.

Anyone else enjoy this book?

I have made some modifications to the formula that works for me.

Here is the plus version:

https://carnycartomancy.blogspot.com/

This is excellent learning tool resource.
The deck is surprisingly good quality. I was expecting a cheap dollar store cards.

GO HERE:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/684777057/c......ner-deck