My Personal Cartomancy Journey

My small collection of divination cards

It is almost thirty years since I was first introduced to a friend's deck of tarot cards. Right from the beginning I was hooked. I borrowed those cards and studied them. Just as soon as I was able, I got my hands on a deck of my own. I continued studying the cards and began 'reading' for anybody who would let me, practicing the art of cartomancy for all I was worth. I quickly realised that this was something I was good at, I was performing accurate readings easily.

My prefered deck of Rider Waite inspired tarot cards

A very basic Rider Waite inspired deck of cards

The two decks shown above I have had for some years. To the left is a deck of cards which are my 'go to' cards when I am performing a reading with tarot. They are quite large, as are most tarot cards, and I do have some difficulty handling them on occasions; they are also part of one of those 'Learn Tarot' sets with a cheap deck and a basic book. However, they are the tarot deck I have the most instinctual connection with despite their lowly origin, the book however was discarded soon after purchase as not really being worth keeping. The cards on the right are much smaller (and easier to handle which is why I wanted them) and came free with an old periodical that I subscribed to specifically for the cards, I stopped the subscription just as soon as I had them all. Hands up all those who remember the 'Mind Body Spirit' periodical, yes, these are those cards. Unfortunately, despite being small enough to handle with ease and being Rider Waite inspired, I found the spiritual connection just wasn't as strong as with the other deck.

The 'Lord Of The Rings' tarot deck

A couple of years ago I had the misfortune to misplace my cards, which was quite upsetting. A friend bought me the Lord Of The Rings tarot, pictured above, to replace them, for which I will be forever grateful. While the cards are beautifully illustrated, and the author has tried very hard to remain true to the books, I just cannot get on with them. Each card has a reference to the books which may or may not make sense. For example, the card on the right in the image above tells us that "At Weathertop Aragorn musters his companions against the approach of the riders" while this is an accurate reference to the books, his companions are not shown in the illustration. The card is also shown as the seven of wands, wands are traditionally concerned with creative or business endeavours - surely a card depicting the anticipation of battle would be better in the suit of swords? I find this mismatch of suits and situations is rife, along with some faulty book references. I do love the artwork though and will continue trying to connect with them.

My original, slightly worse for wear, Lenormand deck

Very soon after my initial introduction to the tarot, possibly around twenty-seven years ago, another friend introduced me to the Lenormand divination deck of cards. This was a whole new concept that I embraced wholeheartedly; quickly realising I have a strong spiritual connection to these cards which, of course, I just had to purchase for myself. In pre-internet times this meant a phone call to a shop somewhere in London, I think it was somewhere near Covent Garden. I then had to send off a Postal Order, then wait what seemed like forever for the cards to arrive by return of post. Readings with the Lenormand soon became my prefered method, although I still used the tarot cards too. Accurate readings were now practically guaranteed every time; there's always that one person who tries to 'fool' the cards with a silly, nonsensical question, those readings are invariably nonsensical in return. I often offer two readings together, one with each deck, and find that the two readings always complement each other, with one expanding on the messages of the other. When I thought I had lost my cards I found a replacement Lenormand deck online, it's not as good. As you can probably see from the photograph below the verses are far more simplistic. Some of the images are not even the same, call me a creature of habit but I just couldn't 'connect' to these cards in the same way. They didn't feel right. Still, it's nice to know I have a backup should my original deck hide from me again.

My newer doesn't feel like me Lenormand deck

Over the years I have owned various decks of divination cards, some I still have, some have fallen by the wayside. I currently own six decks of cards, with three others I can call to mind that I no longer own. I did own tarot cards purporting to be those of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, they had two distinctly different Justice cards (for the purposes of meditation); I found those cards to be overly pretentious and really struggled to connect with them both visually and spiritually.

Another deck I used to own was a Lord Of The Rings divination deck that were again beautifully illustrated, and came with a convenient map of middle earth. These cards were marketed as divination cards rather than tarot cards. They didn't have the suits, pip cards or arcanas associated with the tarot. Each card depicted a character, group of characters, situation or place from the LOTR books as well as the hobbit. Each interpretation incorporated the character or personality of the character portrayed, or correlation to the situation the characters found themselves in, or a correlation to the events that occur in the place depicted. Those cards were lost in transit somewhere in the last twenty-odd years.

I also once owned a peculiar deck of cards claiming to foretell fortunes in love. I don't remember what title this deck was given, nor do I remember ever having any success with them. I do remember they had three 'mini-decks' that should be shuffled separately with a card from each giving the reading. They were amusing but not a deck I would actually perform readings with.

Around twenty or so years ago I made my own deck of cards. I no longer remember how many cards were in the deck, nor what many of them were. They were all hand-drawn and looked rediculously childish. They were, however, surprisingly accurate despite my only ever showing them to two people. Strangely, over the years I have kept my cartomancy talent largely to myself; there have been friends who knew all about it and requested readings readily and frequently - there have also been partners I have shared my life with for a while who knew nothing of it and never saw so much as a card. This was never a conscious decision, it appears to have been an organic choice that was made by my subconscious or superconscious minds without my conscious involvement in the process.

The AdawnSpirit divination cards

Around the November of last year (2019) I felt a strong compulsion to once again devise and design my own divination deck. With very little in the way of ideas for these cards I trusted to the Universe and spirit energy to guide me. With a lot of searching, and researching, the result is a sixty-four card deck of cards consisting of four Houses of ten pip cards and twenty-four Major Influence cards. This deck is not a new tarot deck, nor is it a new Lenormand; although elements of both are very much in evidence as having been large influences in their design and creation. This time I am being quite forcefully guided to share the cards rather than keeping them to myself. Thus the AdawnSpirit divination cards are introduced to the world. It is my hope that those for whom these cards will work well are naturally drawn to them once they are out in the world.