Working Playing Cards to Get What You Want
This is Part 1 of a series. Go to Part 2. Go to Part 3
image: a Black person with short hair and a tan shirt holding a blue mug on a purple gradient background.
Part 1: Getting Started
Playing cards can be used as petitions, intensifier or as a site of focus under (or in) a lamp or candle, but there are so many other ways to work playing cards in rootwork and conjure.
But there are also some things you should know before getting started that can make your work more efficient and powerful:
I’ll discuss:
✹ What to learn to get started with Hoodoo playing card magic
✹ Things you’ll need
✹ Considerations for your desires, needs, and deck
Jump to Section:
image: playing card divination book, leopard print, and button to learn more.
1. Learn historical and modern card meanings.
It’s possible to work a playing card without knowing it’s exact meaning, but such a practitioner would have to be very advanced at other methods of divination.
Make your life easier and learn the traditional and modern meanings of playing cards.
Working cards takes rigor. It’s a next step in a practice of Hoodoo that’s already well studied and tested.
Divination is an essential part of any act of conjure or rootwork. This doesn’t have to be card divination, but card divination is one method. Without seeing whether or not spirit agrees with you before you start doing shit, you set yourself up to not get what you want…or worse!
It’s not that people can’t be read without cards. Quite the contrary, there are times when cards or any tool can be a stumbling block for intuition rather than a guide.
But understanding what each card meansin context with their neighbors, suit, and sequence is important for playing card work.
If you’re doing love drawing work, and you’re using Ten of Hearts, then you’ll have to put in more work when that relationship comes to make sure you don’t crush it with the full weight of your affection.
The Nine of Diamonds has indicated great money luck and extreme loss over the centuries. You have to know the cards well to use them in this way.
2. Use a Fresh Deck
It’s not appropriate to read playing cards used for gambling and games to read or work spiritually.
Why? Well, first off, the imprint of your work stays on the cards, and could affect you or your client. The energy of gambling and games is different from other kinds of work.
(The exception, of course, is if you’re doing aligned work with those cards, but that’s a conversation for another place and time.)
I’m fond of a deck of Jessica Valoris’ How We Be Free: Black Fugitivity Study Kit, but a deck of Bicycle cards works just fine if they’re fixed and consecrated for their purpose. Bicycle cards are also easier to work in my experience because they’re easier to part with—which is part of working cards as well.
Which leads us to the next consideration…
3. Decide How to Work It
For work an ending, you may want to burn your card or otherwise permanently dispose of it.
For drawing work, you may work with the card as a talisman in your wallet or purse, burn it to ashes and add it to a perfume or incense, or incorporate it into your home decor, at your workplace etc.
Having a strong concept of how to work cards into your ritual work is key to its efficacy.
I like to sketch out my work on paper before executing so I have an understanding of how many hours or days it will take.
Figuring out all the things I need and getting the preparation in place is an essential part of working cards.
image: playing card divination book, leopard print, and button to learn more.
Further Thoughts
Hey, I’m Cyrée
I’m a rootworker, diviner, and clinical herbalist. I believe that spirit work is an essential part of all movements for justice. I hope you’ll take a look around, there are plenty of opportunities here to deepen your connection with your gifts (with my guidance.)
New to Hoodoo cartomancy and don’t know where to start? Here are the card meanings I suggest for all fifty-four playing cards as a professional card reader!