The Message: Your Secrets in the Cards by Deborah Leigh

The Message: Your Secrets in the Cards by Deborah Leigh
O Books, 2008
248 ps, $24.95

According to Leigh, the aim of this book is to present the reader with a set of tools. These tools, along with an ordinary deck of playing cards are supposed to provide the reader with the ability to learn how to practice personal prophecy, a gift Leigh learned from her grandmother.

“In the 25 years that I have spent reading cards for the pubic and teaching others how to read cards for themselves, my primary goal has always been to bring people to the realization that the message of the cards is primarily an intuitive experience in discovery,” says Leigh.

From this starting point she goes through an introductory chapter which describes the process of personal prophecy, how it can be used as an empowering tool and how the reader can use it to shape her destiny. Despite these promises the reader is left feeling that Leigh never quite comes through. Though she puts great emphasis on reaching the depth of symbolism in the cards and linking this to your own personal symbolism, her interpretations of the cards are shallow and uninspiring, which adds to the difficulty of connecting with a deck of playing cards as opposed to the tarot.

Subsequent chapters discuss each suit in some detail and eventually Leigh gets round to describing a couple of spreads one of which is singularly unconvincing in that it has a placement of two trios of cards which are both to be interpreted the same- “what is unexpected” and “what will surprise you.”

While the techniques she uses are sometimes quite interesting and there are brief exercises at the end of each chapter, the book itself is repetitive, (many sections reiterate the same points almost exactly, and inconsistent (some chapters have information missing about certain cards). The later chapters in the book incorporate anecdotes from personal reading s Leigh has done for her clients. Sadly these chapters shift focus and the book now becomes more of an advice column on personal life issue and relationships, rather than about card reading. Overall the book is disappointingly inadequate as a guide to in depth card reading.

Deborah Leigh has been providing readings and relationship/career advice to the public for several years. She writes advice for America Online, Women.com, iVillage.com and Vzones.com as the “Psychic Love Doctor”. She is the author of “Personal Prophesy: Learn How to Create Your Own Destiny!” She also teaches intuitive card reading and gives holistic health advice.

Review by Corinna Underwood