Cards


There are fifty-two cards in a deck, one for each week of the year. The thirteen cards in each suit can represent the lunar months in a year. The two RED suits can indicate the warm seasons and powers of LIGHT; the two BLACK suits then representing the cold seasons and the powers of darkness. All four designs on the cards can be symbols of life: the spade, a leaf; the heart, the center of life; the diamond, the feminine principle; the club, a masculine principle. Cards can also represent luck, either good or bad: "the hand that fate dealt me."

The suits also have more specific correspondences (DeVries, 82):

suit general symbol life-symbol caste
spade discrimination between error and judgment leaf, autumn

king, warrior

heart receptacle source of life, spring priesthood
diamond material force, ring of eternity vulva, feminine, summer commerce, intelligentzia
club power and command 3-fold aspect of life, winter agriculture, government

Unlucky cards - 4 of clubs, jack and ace of spades, 9 of diamonds (deadly), two black jacks (poverty and unhappiness), two red jacks (hidden enemy).


Up one level 
Back to document index