AUTHOR’S NOTE:I was recently asked by a magazine publisher whether I had already performed a missing-person reading for Nancy Guthrie. That prompted me to catch up to the case with my “Train to Nowhere” exploratory spread, which is a 13×6-card array that employs all 78 cards. I chose the Queen of Wands as the Significator to represent Nancy and selected the Thoth deck for the reading.

The Significator turned up in the sixth position, which in my “train” analogy is titled the “Lounge Car” with a position description of “A victim of pleasure; bound to another; in the city.” Guthrie is 84-years-old and in poor health, so any “pleasure” signified by this position is likely to be of the sadistic or perverted kind. (I will have to do a different spread to see if that is indicated.) But the ideas of “bound to another” and “in the city” make more sense.

The cards accompanying the Queen of Wands are revealing. The 8 of Wands (“Swiftness”) is often interpreted as “electronic communication,” which could be referring to texted ransom demands that are going to become more strident (and also the “bitcoin-transaction” angle), while the Fool certainly suggests an unstable and unpredictable captor. Tarot author Yoav Ben-Dov once observed that “Everything is a sign,” so we should not discount the mystical premise that the Fool is androgynous, which could mean that Guthrie is not in the clutches of an all-male group of criminals.

There is an opinion among law-enforcement observers that the masked person shown in surveillance video may have been intent only on burglary but was unexpectedly confronted by Guthrie and thus presented with a target-of-opportunity involving kidnapping and ransom. This could be an indication of the Fool being caught off-balance and landing in a potentially lucrative situation as shown by the two adjacent Disks.

The 9 of Disks (“Gain”) and 10 of Disks (“Wealth”) center on the idea that “It’s all about the money” but both cards are reversed, hinting that it may be more devious and complicated than simple greed. Why the perpetrators specifically targeted her (if that is in fact the case) may have more of a “back story” as suggested above. I’m not sure how urban her neighborhood is, but the reading implies that she is now being concealed in a metropolitan location rather than a rural one. Although I don’t normally read the cards beneath the Significator, here the hidden sixth card was the Universe reversed, showing that her “world was turned upside-down.”

The foregoing provides a concise narrative background that is reasonably current, but I will perform a reading that looks at her present condition and location to the extent that the tarot can determine those, as well as a horary astrology analysis.

Where (and How) Is Nancy? – A Missing-Person “Status” Reading

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Here is the companion spread to my missing-person reading for Nancy Guthrie. Its goal is to reveal the subject’s present condition and location within limits, along with the likelihood of being found – alive or dead – within a specified period of time and in an identified state of well-being.

The technique is to shuffle the court cards separately and deal them into the left-hand column until the first card of the applicable rank (in this case a Queen) comes up in the pull. This card will reflect the circumstances of the disappearance, and certain other conclusions can be drawn from it.

The minor cards are then shuffled and one card is dealt into each position of the row to the right of the court card. The middle card is intended to show whether the subject is still alive at the time of the reading, and the third card defines both the amount of time that is likely to pass before discovery and the general condition of the victim and the immediate surroundings when and where the individual is found.

The Queen of Disks was the third court card pulled, and its position assumes that Guthrie was mentally incapacitated by the abduction and may no longer be coherent or competent. The suit of Disks is of the Earth element, showing that she may be in a subterranean location like a basement. The Queen of Disks is associated with Capricorn, so she may be sequestered somewhere to the North of her home. There were no cards beneath the Queen, so no hidden information is forthcoming.

Although it’s a stretch, the two male Wands cards above could be indicative of the volatile nature of her abductors. In addition, Wands are associated with the South and warmer regions of the globe, a possible “place of origin” flag.

The 8 of Swords (“Interference”) is one of the emphatic “No” cards, so it could be speculated that she is no longer alive, but on the off-chance that she is, she may not be long for this world due to the harsh conditions she is encountering in captivity or the consequences of the stalled ransom scenario.

The 10 of Swords (“Ruin”) implies that discovery could take 10 days to 10 weeks, and she is not going to be in good shape when found.