Meaning
Richmond's Fives are change and the journey, and the Five of Spades is change in work and place: “A sudden journey. A change of employment”, “Removal of home or habitation”. In his practice these were events a spread might show; we keep them as his words and read no journey into anyone's year.
We read the card as change, travel and a restless spirit. The tradition sees its people as adaptable and curious, quick to learn from new surroundings and often enjoying movement for its own sake; it suggests that finding something worth staying for, and staying, can be their most rewarding adventure.
In the spreads
The Five of Spades sits in the Venus row, Mars column, between the Seven of Diamonds, a semi-fixed card and its Moon card, and the Jack of Hearts, which never moves and is its Mercury card. Its path runs through the Nine of Clubs and the Nine of Spades to the Two of Hearts and the King of Hearts.
It gives to the Ten of Hearts and receives from the Four of Diamonds. Its five birthdays, from 9 January to 1 May, have no cusp.
Life path and karma cards
Read from the Life Spread: the card before the Five of Spades, then the ten after it, the order running on from the crown line back to the top right. The names of the places are Camp's, used descriptively.
| Place on the path | Card |
|---|---|
| Moon (the card before it) | Seven of Diamonds |
| Mercury | Jack of Hearts |
| Venus | Nine of Clubs |
| Mars | Nine of Spades |
| Jupiter | Two of Hearts |
| Saturn | King of Hearts |
| Uranus | King of Diamonds |
| Neptune | Six of Hearts |
| Pluto | Four of Clubs |
| Result | Two of Diamonds |
| Cosmic Lesson | Jack of Spades |
| Karma card it gives to | Ten of Hearts |
| Karma card that gives to it | Four of Diamonds |
Birthdays and ruling cards
The ruling card is the card of the life path in the place of the Sun sign's ruling planet; Leo takes the birth card itself and Scorpio two cards.
| Birthday | Sun sign and its ruler | Ruling card |
|---|---|---|
| 9 January | Capricorn (Saturn) | King of Hearts |
| 7 February | Aquarius (Uranus) | King of Diamonds |
| 5 March | Pisces (Neptune) | Six of Hearts |
| 3 April | Aries (Mars) | Nine of Spades |
| 1 May | Taurus (Venus) | Nine of Clubs |
For every sign, as the tradition's modern rulers give them: Aries (Mars): Nine of Spades; Taurus (Venus): Nine of Clubs; Gemini (Mercury): Jack of Hearts; Cancer (the Moon): Seven of Diamonds; Leo (the Sun): Five of Spades; Virgo (Mercury): Jack of Hearts; Libra (Venus): Nine of Clubs; Scorpio (Mars and Pluto): Nine of Spades and Four of Clubs; Sagittarius (Jupiter): Two of Hearts; Capricorn (Saturn): King of Hearts; Aquarius (Uranus): King of Diamonds; Pisces (Neptune): Six of Hearts.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Suit in Richmond (1893, p. 28)
- The emblem of winter and the fourth quarter: the spade, “an instrument of labor”, and the acorn that “becomes a new tree in time”; quoted with its item on mortality left out sourced
- The suit's season and planets in Richmond (pp. 27 to 28, 41)
- Winter; Uranus, ruling “from a point of labor”, and Saturn, whose reading we leave out. Facts about his book, not about anyone born under the card sourced
- Number in Richmond (pp. 42 to 45)
- Fives: change, a cross in the path, a journey sourced
- Richmond's table for the card (p. 162)
- “A sudden journey. A change of employment”, and “Removal of home or habitation” sourced
- Our keyword line (2026)
- Change, travel and a restless spirit. our construction
- Our theme for the suit
- Work, Will, Routine, Inner Strength our construction
- A suit element or a single planet
- None in Richmond or any founding text; the sets other sites give disagree, and ours was dropped in October 2026 disputed
How the schools read it
- Olney H. Richmond (1893)
- An emblem of solar value 44 and spirit value 84, read through its suit, labour, and its number, change: one meaning under each of the seven planets, most of them events (p. 162).
- Randall and Campbell, Lein, Camp (1947 onward)
- Read the birth card as character rather than events. Camp's line adds the life path, the karma cards and the yearly spreads used on this page, and gives the card a nickname, which we do not use.
- EsoTerrier
- Read here as change, travel and a restless spirit, for whom staying can be the greatest adventure.
Claims about it
-
The cards show past lives and mark old souls, and the Spades are the suit of old souls.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: Nothing of this is in Richmond. In Camp's system “karma” names a relation between two spreads; reincarnation is a belief, not part of the arithmetic.
-
Each suit has an element and a ruling planet.
disputedWhat the record shows: No founding text gives the suits elements, and the sources that do disagree with each other. Richmond gives each suit a season and two planets (pp. 27 to 28, 41), which we report as his. We dropped the attributes in October 2026.
-
Each card has a traditional nickname.
disputedWhat the record shows: The nicknames are Camp's coinages, or Randall and Campbell's, not Richmond's; taken as a set they mark a text as derived from his. We use none of them.
Elsewhere on EsoTerrier
- Ten of Hearts its first karma card, the card it gives to
- Four of Diamonds its second karma card, the card that gives to it
- Seven of Diamonds its Moon card, the card before it in the Life Spread
- Jack of Hearts its Mercury card, the card after it in the Life Spread
- Natal Chart where the Sun sign that picks the ruling card is worked out
