Meaning
Richmond reads his Sixes as monotony, a life moving in straight lines, and in Hearts the straight line is a calm one: “Even temper and dispassionate qualities. Smooth running life”, love and friendship going on as they were. The modern line turned the Sixes into cards of fate and return; that is a later reading, not his.
We read the Six of Hearts as even feelings and the give and take that keeps them even. The tradition sees its people as fair, patient and steady with others, and as prone to letting things drift rather than face a hard conversation; their balance is read as including the courage to say what they need.
In the spreads
Its place in the Life Spread is the third card of the Mars row from the right, under the Mars column: a double Mars card, in the column the crown card the Ten of Clubs stands over. The King of Diamonds stands before it as its Moon card, and its path leads off through the Four of Clubs and the Two of Diamonds to the Jack of Spades.
It gives to the Four of Clubs and receives from the Three of Diamonds. Its three birthdays, 29 October, 27 November and 25 December, fall under Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn, with ruling cards the Jack of Spades and Ten of Diamonds, the Eight of Clubs and the Six of Diamonds.
Life path and karma cards
Read from the Life Spread: the card before the Six of Hearts, 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) | King of Diamonds |
| Mercury | Four of Clubs |
| Venus | Two of Diamonds |
| Mars | Jack of Spades |
| Jupiter | Eight of Clubs |
| Saturn | Six of Diamonds |
| Uranus | Four of Spades |
| Neptune | Ten of Hearts |
| Pluto | Ten of Diamonds |
| Result | Eight of Spades |
| Cosmic Lesson | Ace of Hearts |
| Karma card it gives to | Four of Clubs |
| Karma card that gives to it | Three 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 29 October | Scorpio (Mars and Pluto) | Jack of Spades and Ten of Diamonds |
| 27 November | Sagittarius (Jupiter) | Eight of Clubs |
| 25 December | Capricorn (Saturn) | Six of Diamonds |
For every sign, as the tradition's modern rulers give them: Aries (Mars): Jack of Spades; Taurus (Venus): Two of Diamonds; Gemini (Mercury): Four of Clubs; Cancer (the Moon): King of Diamonds; Leo (the Sun): Six of Hearts; Virgo (Mercury): Four of Clubs; Libra (Venus): Two of Diamonds; Scorpio (Mars and Pluto): Jack of Spades and Ten of Diamonds; Sagittarius (Jupiter): Eight of Clubs; Capricorn (Saturn): Six of Diamonds; Aquarius (Uranus): Four of Spades; Pisces (Neptune): Ten 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 spring and of the first quarter of life, when “love is the master passion” sourced
- The suit's season and planets in Richmond (pp. 27 to 28, 41)
- Spring; Venus, ruling “from a point of friendship and love”, and Mercury, “from a point of passion”. Facts about his book, not about anyone born under the card sourced
- Number in Richmond (pp. 42 to 45)
- Sixes: monotony, a life moving in straight lines sourced
- Richmond's table for the card (p. 86)
- Steadiness: “Even temper and dispassionate qualities. Smooth running life”, with love and friendship running on unchanged sourced
- Our keyword line (2026)
- Even feelings and the give and take that keeps them. our construction
- Our theme for the suit
- Love, Feeling, Friendship, Family 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 6 and spirit value 60, read through its suit, love and friendship, and its number, monotony and settlement: one meaning under each of the seven planets, most of them events (p. 86).
- 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 calm kept between people by fairness on both sides, and by saying what one needs.
Claims about it
-
The Sevens are spiritual tests, the Sixes fate and return, the Nines universal giving.
disputedWhat the record shows: Richmond reads the Sevens as obstacles, the Sixes as monotony and settlement and the Nines as disappointment (1893, pp. 42 to 45). The modern readings are the tradition's later development.
-
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.
