Digging Into the Jack of Spades: Why This Card Always Messes Up Love Readings
I’ve been studying and practicing tarot for nearly twenty years now, and trust me, most cards settle into a predictable rhythm. You pull the Tower, things crash. You pull the Sun, you’re golden. But there’s always that one tricky bastard that makes you scratch your head and doubt everything you thought you knew. For loyalty and relationship checks, that card is the Jack of Spades.
For years, I saw people arguing about this card. Is he the young, intelligent, and honest Air sign energy that Jacks often represent? Or is he the harsh, sneaky, and potentially malicious energy of the Spades suit? If someone asks, “Are they loyal?” and this card pops up, you need to know if you’re dealing with a trustworthy kid who just needs guidance, or a spy looking to burn the house down.
I decided to stop reading theory books and start logging real, actionable data. I wanted undeniable proof. I had to create a controlled environment—or as controlled as life gets—to see how this card played out over months, not just minutes. This wasn’t just some quick three-card spread; this was a deep dive, focusing solely on loyalty outcomes linked to this specific court card. I needed a situation where the loyalty was genuinely questionable and where the results would eventually be laid bare for me to verify.
I Tracked a Disaster Waiting to Happen
The perfect test subject walked right into my living room last summer. My friend, let’s call her Maya, was absolutely head-over-heels for a guy named Alex. Everyone, including me, had that creeping bad feeling about him. He was charming, evasive, and constantly broke small commitments. Maya, though, was convinced he was just “misunderstood.” I knew this was my chance to track the Jack of Spades in the wild.
I started pulling cards for her weekly, always asking variations of the core question: “What is the true foundation of Alex’s commitment to Maya?” I used a specialized 9-card loyalty spread I designed myself, which focused heavily on “Hidden Influences” and “Future Obstacles.”
What I saw immediately confirmed my suspicion: the Jack of Spades dominated the readings.
- It appeared in the “Underlying Motivation” position for three weeks straight.
- When I pulled a simple clarifying “Truth” spread, it showed up as the central card, the “Revealed Core.”
- It even showed up in the “What You Don’t Know” position, which is usually reserved for hidden Moon energy or the Seven of Swords.
I specifically logged how I interpreted the card each time. I leaned hard into the Spades element—the idea of a young manipulator, someone who cuts ties easily, or someone who is spying on you while pretending to be your ally. I warned Maya repeatedly: “This card isn’t about immaturity, it’s about active deception. He is not being upfront with his intentions. He’s loyal to himself and nothing else.”
The Proof Was Literally Found Under the Bed
Maya, as you might expect, pushed back. She said I was too negative. She chose to believe he was just slow to commit, giving him the benefit of the doubt based on the “young scholar” interpretation of the Jack. For six weeks, I kept logging the readings, marking my prediction clearly: “Betrayal is imminent; commitment is nonexistent.”
Then came the breakthrough moment, the kind of absolute, irrefutable confirmation that lets you finally trust your gut on a reading. Maya went out of town for a conference, and I offered to crash at her place to look after her cat and water the plants. I was vacuuming under the spare bed in the guest room—not snooping, just cleaning dust bunnies—when my hand hit something hard tucked deep inside the box spring.
I pulled it out. It was a burner phone. Alex’s phone.
Now, I’m usually someone who respects privacy, but after months of seeing that Jack of Spades scream “DECEIT” at me, I ignored my moral compass and opened that phone up. What I found was everything the Jack of Spades had been warning us about, amplified a hundred times.
- He was running parallel dating apps, scheduling dates for when Maya was out of town.
- He had secret conversations with his mother, openly mocking Maya’s career and planning how to get her to pay for a vacation he wanted to take.
- Worst of all, he was actively looking up apartments three states away, planning a move and a quiet breakup via text, all while telling Maya he was ready to look at rings.
The Jack of Spades was not just a symbol of immaturity or slowness. It was a literal spy, a manipulator, an untrustworthy messenger who delivered pain wrapped up in a pretty package.
The Final Verdict on Loyalty
I shared the evidence with Maya. It hurt, but the card was right, and she had the verifiable truth. She immediately dumped him and spent the next few months dealing with the fallout, but she was free.
This whole practice run cemented my rule for reading the Jack of Spades in love: when testing loyalty, you must default to the darkest meaning of the Spades suit. It’s not a question of ‘when will he commit?’ It’s a warning sign screaming, ‘He is actively looking for a way out or using you for resources.’
If you pull that Jack of Spades in a significant position during a loyalty check, you need to understand that their loyalty is to the game they are playing, not to you. My practice confirmed it: the card is a red flag big enough to trip over. Don’t look for the young scholar; look for the young thief.
