Jake Richards

Conjure Cards: Fortune-Telling Card Deck and Guidebook - The Backwoods Library Jake Richards

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.