A unique divination deck based on the authentic backwoods traditions, folklore, and superstitions of Appalachia.

For centuries, people living in Appalachia have used homemade playing cards for fortune-telling and dream interpretation. This tradition has arisen over many generations of backwoods conjurers, grannie witches, and yarb doctors.

The Conjure Cards fortune-telling deck was created by Jake Richards (author of Backwoods Witchcraft) and fashioned after the folklore, superstitions, and dream symbols that he grew up with in western North Carolina. Jake offers these common Appalachian methods of divination paired with the honored pastime of sharing and interpreting dreams.

Examples:

• The Nine of Diamonds shows a headless rooster; to dream of a headless animal is a sign of a haint or plat-eye, which is a spirit who didn’t have proper burial.
• The Ace of Spades, usually named the death card, is an old-fashioned baby cradle because to dream of a birth predicts a death.
• The “little joker” is a witch or enemy and is represented by the folkloric black cat, while the “big joker” is the devil and is symbolized by one of the devil’s forms in Appalachia: the black dog. The black dog represents evil spirits, so if it is paired with the black cat and the Ten of Spades (a grave stone), it could mean a family haint is haunting you or an enemy has conjured the dead against you.
• The Ace of Diamonds shows two wedding ring, ands predicts news, luck, and proposal. If shown with the Five of Hearts (a chapel with a stained-glass window) and the Ten of Diamonds (sunflowers), it would predict a happy marriage or undertaking.

This Conjure Cards deck is fashioned to honor both traditions of dream interpretation and fortunetelling as they arose and grew in Appalachia and other “frontier” American regions. Many folks in Appalachia and elsewhere have grown up hearing and learning these dream meanings and likewise learning various forms of divination, by reading tea leaves, coffee grounds, playing cards, or throwing bones. I learned how to read playing cards from my mother when I was thirteen and have been reading the cards for over a decade.

In Appalachia, to dream of a death is a sign of a birth, so the Ace of Spades, the dreaded death card of American folklore, is dressed with an old baby cradle, which is also empty because “to rock an empty cradle brings death,” as the old saying goes. The card and image are matched together to help in memorizing their meanings by using symbols that may already be familiar to the majority of folks and can ease the task of reading them. Even after reading the cards for a full decade, I still sometimes need to refer back to my notes my mother wrote down for me. (These notes served as the basis of the booklet accompanying the deck.) But often enough, in using these cards myself, the image on the cards recall the meaning on their own.

My hope is that this time-honored form of divination will be more broadly accepted and—whether you’re just starting out or have been cutting the deck for years—that your ability to read and interpret the cards will be strengthened by it. The cards will aid you in general situations as well as in the magical realm, as some cards will recommend workings and spells to be done for a particular situation if that is what you’re after.

-Jake Richards