Thread: Fortune telling and the devil - need help for interpretation

Although in order to provide a more accurate interpretation it would usually be best to have some additional general background information about you (and a description of other events just before the dream), here are a few ideas about the possible meaning of what turned out to be a very frightening dream.

For example, the image of a fortune teller who wants to predict your future by looking at playing cards suggests that this is an important dream.

That’s because there are many symbolic connections in a deck of cards that people over the centuries have believed in.

These ideas and beliefs etc. often appear in the dreams of modern people.

For instance, it was believed that clubs symbolized the trinity or cross, and these are “masculine” symbols because there is no feminine part of the trinity. In addition, only males, including Jesus, were crucified on the cross in the New Testament stories.

The number 10 (the ten of clubs) is also a “sacred” number, suggesting the attainment of high spiritual knowledge.

Apparently, the ten of clubs was one of the early cards which the fortune teller said was a good one.

This might mean that you have a potential for finding understanding and meaning partly through so-called “masculine” thinking and reflection.

Other “masculine” traits include being assertive, target-orientated, determined, and in showing initiative etc.

In contrast, there are more “feminine” symbols than “masculine” ones in the first part of the dream.

For instance, the fortune teller is a woman, the reading takes place in your late grandmother’s apartment, your mom is in the kitchen and there are a lot of queen cards that appear.

This fact might represent the idea that in the first half of your life, the “feminine” side is the most important part of you to keep hold of while the “masculine” side can develop more fully in the second half of life.

Traditionally, a queen card partly symbolizes the personality, the soul and the mother, so this might be part of the meaning of the queens in your dream.
In addition, the queen of hearts is linked to love, roses, Helen and Venus etc.
The queen of diamonds is fire and Persephone etc.
The queen of clubs is related to Juno/Hera as “queen of the air” or in being “spiritual” and “reflective” etc.

Even these brief ideas about the queens show that there are various complicated “opposites” involved which are symbolic of various inner energies that are in conflict with each other and which have to be “balanced out” and “organized” if we are to be able to move through life well (e.g. the fortune teller lays the cards out in an organized way).

So it looks like the dream is trying to show you certain basics about what you have to gradually learn to effectively manage in your life since you’re only 24 and just starting out.

The overall complexity of the symbolism of a simple deck of cards which the dream has made its centerpiece can help a person to understand the intricacy of the task ahead.

At the risk of being too boring, here are some of the symbols related to a deck of cards:

The 52 cards symbolize the weeks in the year, the 13 cards in each suit are the 13 lunar months, the four suits represent the four “worlds”, elements, directions, winds, seasons and corners of a temple/church etc.

The various psychological meanings of lunar/moon (the feminine) and wind (spirit) etc. etc. can help to show how complex the human personality is and also the complexity of the outer world to which it has to adapt in some reasonable way.

The red suits indicate the warm seasons (e.g. warm emotions) and the “powers of light” (e.g. the power of consciousness and awareness which is needed to move through life effectively enough).

The black suits are the cold seasons (e.g. psychologically, various dark moods etc.) and the “powers of darkness” (e.g. things which lead us away from being conscious and aware enough of reality as it is).

All four designs on the cards are life symbols:

Spade: a leaf, the Cosmic Tree (e.g. a personality which is growing and unfolding like a tree).
Heart: the life centre, the world centre (e.g. the non-ego centre of the personality which can help a person reach her or his life’s potential over time).
Diamond: the feminine principle which lives in both women and men in the form of receptivity, affection, sensitivity, love and the nurturing of relationships etc.
Club: the masculine principle.

The second part of the dream where the reading is continuing while your table is speeding along like the cars on the road could possibly represent the difficulty of keeping in touch with your own individual fortune/potential while trying, as is necessary, to constantly interact with and adapt to the pressures of people and events in the outside world (e.g. as symbolized by the busy traffic).

An aspect of this “busy traffic” will likely be the presence of the “opposites” (e.g. the good card and the “shadow” card).

Maybe the dream is hinting that you should somehow always make a conscious effort to “slow down” in this chaotic race of “traffic” (e.g. you drag your foot along to slow the table to a stop) in order that you can work at being the “real you” in the years ahead (e.g. you then are able to walk quietly along while the fortune teller describes what’s going to happen in your life).

The marriage and children which the fortune teller is predicting probably represent a mixture of outer marriage and children along with an abundant number of “inner children” who would take the form of your growing talents and abilities etc. becoming “mature” in the outside world over time.

The next part of the dream appears to maybe describe some obstacles that could tend to delay or even stop your full self-development as a person if not worked at carefully.

For example, you’re now in a very dark apartment and the fortune teller is now a man.

This might suggest that the “masculine” side of you needs to be carefully watched because, although it can have a very positive side (e.g. like the helpful male fortune teller and the friendly black man), it can also potentially become very destructive (e.g. the devil).

As an example, there are many books in the apartment which, of course, suggest the idea of “words”, thoughts, ideas and opinions etc.

The “interpretations” of the titles etc. as related to yourself and your relatives are negative and get worse by the fact that the devil starts appearing on the covers of the books.

So it’s possible that certain basically positive influences from your family as a whole could somehow deteriorate and become destructively “devilish” if they aren’t maybe contained in some way in the face of strong societal pressures etc.

This can tend to happen if a woman becomes too caught up in the patriarchal, technical, intellectual and scientific zeitgeist of most societies today to the point where she loses touch with her basic feminine nature which in your case was obviously shown as being a very valuable part of you in the first part of the dream.

Exploring this potential problem seemingly could be very hard and unpleasant for some reason (e.g. you feel increasing fear as you walk further into the dark tunnel).

The dream could be saying that you need a new and unfamiliar way of thinking about things as symbolized by the black man who is “foreign” in your usual milieu but whom you should trust as being potentially helpful and protective in some way.

The people who go with you into the dark tunnel probably symbolize some of your valuable character traits and abilities which could be “lost” if you become too unconscious of certain negative inner and outer influences (e.g. going deeper and deeper into the darkening tunnel represents becoming less and less aware, for example, of being “fooled” by “devilish” impulses and thoughts etc. which seem OK, e.g. at first it could be your mother who’s singing).

For instance, a woman can become the victim of a certain type of compulsive intellectual thinking which tends to make her opinionated and even given to making hurtful comments to others.

So what currently might be in your case a generally pleasant and witty banter of thoughts and opinions among others (e.g. the sparkling-lights of the red costume of the man) could “disappear” because it’s been taken over by the “devil” of an overly opinionated attitude etc.

So your feeling side, as symbolized by what you believe is your mother singing, could potentially be transformed instead into a “weird and malevolent” way of treating others and even yourself.

This would indeed be something to be terrified of (e.g. you woke up shaking and wanting to cry out in fear) and the dream is apparently trying to warn you that there’s at least some danger of such a change occurring in your personality over time, probably without you being aware of it very much if at all.

The way the dream ended is probably saying something like “So this is the way things are. What are YOU going to do about it?”

This positive/negative “inner man” in the psychology of women is called the “animus”.

If you’d like to look more fully at the idea of this inner male figure which affects the behaviour of women (just like an equivalent inner female figure affects that of men), a general overview is presented in one of the chapters of “Man and his Symbols” edited by Carl Jung.

A more detailed description makes up “The Ravaged Bridegroom” by analyst Marion Woodman.

A comprehensive but lively and interesting analysis can be found in “The Animus: The Spirit of Inner Truth in Women” by analyst Barbara Hannah. It consists of a collection of short essays contained in two volumes and maybe you could try one to see if you like her engaging style.

Anyway as mentioned, without knowing anything much about you, this way of looking at your upsetting dream might not fit your personal circumstances very well, but I hope these ideas can be helpful in some way.

Please feel free to ask any questions or to make any comments about this particular way of looking at your dream.