AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been re-reading 54 Devils by Cory Hutcheson, which is a brief treatise on playing-card cartomancy. (The standard deck of playing cards has 52 pip and court cards and two “jokers” for a total of 54). In it he describes a “quick-read” method by which the querent cuts the shuffled deck from right-to-left into two sub-packs (with tarot I would use three), that are then turned face-up and the two cards that this subdivision reveals are read as a “message” for the seeker.

This is similar to the first three cards at the upper-left corner of a Lenormand Grand Tableau that author Andy Boroveshengra treats as a comparable “message for the querent.” It is intended to offer a preview of what is to come in the detailed reading. But there is another way to look at this innovation. I very seldom use the “base” or “shadow” card at the bottom of a shuffled deck for anything important and typically just ignore it, but in this case, after shuffling the cards and cutting them right-to-left into three piles, I would turn each pile face-up and interpret the three cards that surface from underneath as the “other side of the story,” a more covert parallel to the narrative that will emerge after the cut deck is reassembled in the normal face-down manner and the cards for the spread are dealt from the top. By doing so, we are effectively shedding light on aspects of the matter that would otherwise have stayed buried in the heart of the deck. (There is an alternate technique for throwing a spread that chooses these hidden cards instead of dealing from the top, but it stops pulling once the cut is performed to create the selection.)

I like the idea of having a dual story-line, one that plays out in a direct manner from the top of the deck and another internal sequence that “flies under the radar,” offering commentary on the main thrust of the reading. Based on the traditional way of cutting, this would always be a three-card summary regardless of how many cards are ultimately placed in the spread. It suggests supplemental advice that provides a different perspective on the situation, one that will either be supportive of the main theme or more cautionary in nature. Rather than reading these three cards immediately at the time of the cut, which I believe would leave the context too open-ended, I would set them aside in the order in which they appeared, deal and read the required number of cards for the main event, then revisit the first three as a kind of coda or postscript that could very well fill in any blanks in the scenario. By leaving these cards out of the final draw, we would avoid having them appear in both story arcs, one preliminary and the other more consequential. (While such doubling of emphasis might be viewed as positive reinforcement, it could just as easily “steal the spotlight” from the broader interpretation when it is only intended to be an instructive “sidelight.”)