AUTHOR’S NOTE: I recently posted on the subject of creating a unique, hand-made tarot deck for independent study and practice, noting that someone (like me) who has accumulated several decades of esoteric experience with traditional decks probably won’t benefit much from doing so. But that does not mean one shouldn’t try to “personalize” the chosen mass-market or indie pack for its intended use, whether that is psychological self-discovery or prognostication.

Although it takes some thought regarding exactly how to accomplish this, I’ve always appreciated Aleister Crowley’s advice that we must “live with” our cards and “they with us.” Several prosaic methods have been proposed to enhance this domestic cohabitation, such as sleeping with them under our pillow or carrying them around with us (perhaps one card at a time) over an extended period, but these are fanciful psychic diversions and – although it’s tempting to suppose otherwise – none of them will imprint the symbolism of each card on the memory, or more importantly, on the faculty of subconscious recall, in a consistent fashion that promotes fluent understanding. Only dedicated practical use over a long span of time will do that.

Crowley preferred divination as the common, everyday approach to “getting inside” the system of thought embedded in the tarot. I agree that it works quite well but, unless one is a practicing diviner with a steady clientele, the opportunity to do so won’t arise all that frequently in the course of daily life, requiring focused attention to make it happen. However, it seems to me that performing anything more comprehensive for oneself on a regular basis beyond a single-card pull or simple “daily draw” can invite the criticism that we are attempting to cede control of our affairs to the act of fortune-telling. There is even a caveat against reading for oneself due to the risk of encouraging subjective bias of the “self-fulfilling prophecy” ilk (although I think that attitude is short-sighted since there are few solitary paths to advancement for the novice to tread unaided, and self-reading is one).

There is a structured approach to managing this challenge, a learning device that brings each card under intense meditative scrutiny according to its order of appearance in the 78-card sequence, one day at a time over a couple of months. But this is a rote learning experience involving familiarization and memorization rather than an open-ended divinatory exploration of the kind that stimulates the imagination and sparks the intuition. If we are to make the cards yield their condensed wisdom bit-by-bit in ways that “stick” in the subconscious mind, we must use them in a manner that makes sense to us in real-world rather than purely academic terms. The impetus may be visual and intellectual, but the ramifications are anticipated to be both emotionally and spiritually inspiring (as well as instantly retrievable during a reading).

In my own case, I don’t encounter any greater exposure to this scenario than any other isolated tarot reader who isn’t actively engaged in professional activities, but I do have an abiding intellectual and philosophical fascination with the pragmatic, psychological, cultural and spiritual human pursuits (and conceits) that “make the world go ’round,” and the tarot cards offer an effective and convenient vehicle for probing their undercurrents in unconventional ways (like Dennis Quaid in the film Innerspace but with a “psychic submarine”). Whether the cards invariably speak the truth or not becomes a matter of experimentation. To paraphrase Crowley, my blended analytical and intuitive approach mimics the “methods of empiricism” and the “aims of mysticism.”

I begin by composing a question or conceiving a topic that speaks to one of these focus areas at a theoretical level, then I create a tarot spread with position meanings that will capture the impressions delivered by the cards of a subsequent reading, ideally presenting a coherent tableau of insights and ideas relevant to the subject. Finally, I throw example spreads that will contextualize the cards in a way that illuminates the matter and provides on-point answers. Once satisfied with the results, I will file all of this away until I have occasion to trot it out in a real-life situation.

Apart from the thousands of readings and the countless hours of study I’ve amassed since 1973, I’ve now repeated this formal process well over three hundred times during the last eight years, invoking a vast number of randomly-drawn cards and thereby acquiring a firm grasp of their symbolic depth and breadth of meaning as well as their astounding flexibility in answering any question that is phrased in a way that awakens their narrative prowess. (Yup, even the much-maligned “yes-or-no” query.)

I supplement these readings with protracted contemplation of what I think I’ve learned and – if I can come up with any pertinent texts – omnivorous reading of published material that serves to expand my knowledge. If it seems worthwhile, I will then mentally cement everything in place by writing an essay for this blog so I have immediate access to it down the road. (I don’t keep written journals because I never go back to them, but electronic capture is much more user-friendly.) If they choose to take the initiative, my readers can also benefit from my efforts by mining the “Tarot Spreads” and “Tarot Readings” threads in the Categories drop-down menu at the right side of my home-page. Just be aware that it’s likely to become a “deep delve” into the realm of tarot theory and practice.