It does seem strange that an innocent pack of playing cards can be traced back hundreds of years.

It does need considerable skill to use the cards to do a reading and it does require that the person having a reading chooses a variety of the cards in order to get a good all round reading too.

There is a ritual that needs to be done before the reading commences.

 Does the client want a general reading or to go into a particular aspect of their life?

If for instance the client wanted a reading on love and romance then a particular spread of the cards would be used.

They can ask several questions from the same spread.

It is important that the client handles the spread and puts their vibrations on them and to also shuffle and cut them thoroughly.

It is also important to have a relaxed atmosphere whilst doing the reading.

You need a warm room rather than a cold room and sometimes burning candles, or a burning joss stick can achieve a lovely atmosphere.

After the reading is completed it is important to thoroughly shuffle the cards and return them to a secluded place of safety, ready for the next reading.

A learner of Cartomancy must first use the literal meaning of the cards to do a reading.

It is an advantage to have a sensitive nature and empathy for people, but not absolutely necessary to be a good reader, however this can develop over time with working with the cards.

However it may take longer to grasp the psychic side, which will kick in and override of the cards eventually.

There are some really strange superstitions. My sister-in-law for instance will not take off her cardigan or any other clothing and put it the right way round if she has accidently put them on inside out, as she believes it will bring her bad luck. But leaving it on inside out could bring her good luck. It does look like the general opinion for this superstition stems from the fact that someone had worn their clothes inside out and had great luck that day, so a superstition is born.

Keeping your fingers crossed is a worldwide known way of hoping for your own good luck and to show solidarity to others. There are two schools of thought where this is derived from.  One is thought to go way back to the middle ages. Before Christianity they would show a cross, which was considered a very powerful symbol, and they believed it would bring spirits to bring them luck and they kept this sign until their wish came true. The other derived from a way to show support to someone.  You would cross your index finger over their index finger. They eventually realized that they could do this themselves, by crossing their own two fingers.

Salt has many superstitions. Spilling salt is bad luck. Buddhists believed salt wards off evil spirits and after a funeral they throw salt over their left shoulder. There was a belief that the devil hung around your left shoulder and the salt would ward him off.

A park of cards as you probably will know consists of 52 cards. These are divided into four different suits, hearts, diamonds clubs and spades. Each suit has 13 cards, an ace, two, three, four, five six, seven, eight, nine, ten, knave, Queen and King. People usually call them ordinary playing cards to differentiate them from the Tarot cards.

However, they do reflect the Universe, in time and symbolically and numerically as I will explain. It is this link with time that reveals the past the present and the future. So, the 52 cards represent the 52 weeks in the year. The four suits represent the four seasons.

The four suits also symbolize the four elements of nature. Which is air, fire, water, and earth. Maybe they are now known as intuition, intelligence, compassion, and depression.

The four suits have a unique characteristic of their own, representing spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Air, fire, water, and earth they are four weeks in a lunar month, the four parts of a day, and the four stages of a lifetime. That is infancy, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. Also represent the four basic characteristics, intuition, intelligence compassion and depression.

The ace of each suit represents the first week of its corresponding season. Kings rule the second week. Queens the third week and so on. With the two’s ruling the last week of the season.

The first week of Cartomancy year is 1 March to 7 March and is ruled by the first card in the pack, that is the ace of diamonds.

The last week in this year is 22 February to 28 February and is rules by the 2 of spades the last and lowest in the pack.

The joker rules the extra leap year day.

More next month after you have digested this!

The author Morgan Robertson, fourteen years before the Titanic went down on route to New York, killing 1,517 people in the Atlantic, wrote a book called ‘Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan’. In the story an unsinkable ship sank after hitting an iceberg.

Such a creepy story, with even the name of the boat practically the same. How can you explain that?

At the beginning of the 20^thcentury telephones were a new invention. However, in 1909 an engineer and inventor called Nikola Tesla predicted that one-day people would be walking round with a telephone in their pocket. He talked with the New York Times and said that it would be possible one day to transmit messages to many countries and probably one day even all over the World. He also said that he thought people would be able to carry and operate their own apparatus. Interestingly he briefly worked with Thomas Edison.

It was not until 1954 that we had a first major organ transplant However, in 1660 which is 300 years before, a man called Robert Boyle predicted that this would happen. He made many predictions of which most have come true which is absolutely incredible.

James Dean was a promising young actor aged 23 years of age; he died in a car crash in 1955. However, Alec Guinness a famous actor explained in a BBC interview in 1977 that he was talking to James Dean, whom he only met once, as he was showing off his new car, and saying that it could reach 150 mph. Guinness said later that something weird came over him and he told James Dean “please do not get in that car, if you do by 10 o’clock next Thursday night, you will be dead”. So, he predicted the actual date that he would die which was September 30th, 1955.