Quazy 8's
Quazy 8’s
From an email I received: a game to play with tarot cards based on crazy 8’s
I suggest playing with a tarot deck, especially the Thoth, though regular ol’ playing card will do for the spunky of heart. The rules go essentially like Crazy Eights (or Uno, if you like): each player is dealt 8 cards, one is dealt face up to the pot, the rest are laid face down. Just like 8’s or Uno, players lay down one card at a time matching suits or numbers. The player to lose all their cards first wins.
But! In addition to matching suits and numbers, one can draw astrological, elemental, numerical, qu/c/k/qabalistic (however the kids are spelling it these days), whatever correspondences between cards. So, if you’ve got The Tower (Mars) showing in the pot and you’ve got The Emperor (Ares) in your hand, you can play the Emperor because Mars rules Ares. If you can spell out the connection, you can play it. Someone can challenge the connection; if you’re wrong, you take your card back and draw a card, and if they’re wrong, they draw a card.
Exceptions to that rule are anything that can be thought of as a wild card. The Thoth’s Sun, for instance, shows all twelve signs of the constellations, effectively matching it with everything in the deck. It’s a copout, so my friends and I forbade it.
Course, this isn’t just a game. It’s a handy dandy Qabalaha/astrology/tarot learnin’ tool. In my experience, nothing will beat astrological relationships into your head like a heated game of Quazy 8’s.