Given that we are in trying economic time and not every can afford, or is interested in, owning or learning Tarot cards, here is another method for reading ordinary playing cards.
Cull the deck down to 32 cards, discard all cards from the 2’s to 6’s. Shuffle the 32 cards and count the cards out until you reach the 7th card. Place the 7th card on the table and put the first 6 aside. Repeat this until you have 4 cards in your hand. Count these 4 cards, set them aside, pick up your discard pile and resume the count at 5, placing the 7th card in the same row you have drawn out. Continue pulling out the 7th card and discarding the others. You will have no cards left in your hand. Pick up the discard pile and continuing counting until the 7th card, pull it out and place it with the other cards you have pulled out. Continue until you have 3 cards left in your hand. Set these aside, pick up your discard pile and start counting at 4, pulling out the 7th card again and placing it in the row. You should have 12 cards to do the reading from. Leave remaining cards aside.
To read this spread you don’t read the card individually. Count over to the 7th, then count to the 14th card (which means you count and go back to the beginning of the row to continue the count). These two cards are to be read together. From where you left off with the 14th card, count over to the 7th card and the 14th card again, this makes another double. Continue counting this way until you have 6 sets of doubles. Interpret the doubles according to standard definitions but don’t forget to go with your intuition.
To further enhance the reading, read the 1st and 12th card together, 2nd and 11th, 3rd and 10th and so on. Don't forget to have fun!
