Meaning
Tens are success on all sides in Richmond's tables, and the Ten of Spades is the success of labour: “Successful labor”, “Strength to bear trouble and to labor for some great good”. Of all his Spades it is the most openly hopeful.
We read the card as achievement through effort. The tradition sees its people as ambitious and capable, enjoying big undertakings and taking on a great deal; it finds their success rounded out by making as much room for rest and relationships as for achievement.
In the spreads
The Ten of Spades sits fourth in the Mercury row, under the Jupiter column, after the Queen of Clubs, its Moon card. Its path runs along the row through the Five of Clubs, the Three of Diamonds and the Ace of Spades, and into the Venus row. It gives to the Four of Hearts and receives from the Queen of Hearts.
Many people meet this card as a ruling card rather than a birth card. It sits in the Saturn place of the Eight of Diamonds' life path, so for the sample person on our Cardology page, an Eight of Diamonds with the Sun in Capricorn, the Ten of Spades is the ruling card. Its own two birthdays, 4 January and 2 February, fall under Capricorn and Aquarius.
Life path and karma cards
Read from the Life Spread: the card before the Ten 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) | Queen of Clubs |
| Mercury | Five of Clubs |
| Venus | Three of Diamonds |
| Mars | Ace of Spades |
| Jupiter | Seven of Hearts |
| Saturn | Seven of Diamonds |
| Uranus | Five of Spades |
| Neptune | Jack of Hearts |
| Pluto | Nine of Clubs |
| Result | Nine of Spades |
| Cosmic Lesson | Two of Hearts |
| Karma card it gives to | Four of Hearts |
| Karma card that gives to it | Queen of Hearts |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 4 January | Capricorn (Saturn) | Seven of Diamonds |
| 2 February | Aquarius (Uranus) | Five of Spades |
For every sign, as the tradition's modern rulers give them: Aries (Mars): Ace of Spades; Taurus (Venus): Three of Diamonds; Gemini (Mercury): Five of Clubs; Cancer (the Moon): Queen of Clubs; Leo (the Sun): Ten of Spades; Virgo (Mercury): Five of Clubs; Libra (Venus): Three of Diamonds; Scorpio (Mars and Pluto): Ace of Spades and Nine of Clubs; Sagittarius (Jupiter): Seven of Hearts; Capricorn (Saturn): Seven of Diamonds; Aquarius (Uranus): Five of Spades; Pisces (Neptune): Jack 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)
- Tens: success on all sides (p. 45) sourced
- Richmond's table for the card (p. 172)
- “Successful labor” and “Strength to bear trouble and to labor for some great good” sourced
- Our keyword line (2026)
- Achievement through effort. 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 49 and spirit value 45, read through its suit, labour, and its number, success: one meaning under each of the seven planets, most of them events (p. 172).
- 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 achievement through effort, rounded out by room for rest and for people.
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
- Four of Hearts its first karma card, the card it gives to
- Queen of Hearts its second karma card, the card that gives to it
- Queen of Clubs its Moon card, the card before it in the Life Spread
- Five of Clubs 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
