AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m not entirely sure what motivates them beyond an opportunity for mindless chatting (which is never in short supply online), but I often see people asking in the global occult community “Do you believe in <tarot, astrology, magic, astral travel, mediumship, etc>?” Giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they experienced an unpleasant episode with one of them and are looking for encouragement; maybe they are skeptics trolling for an argument; maybe they are genuinely curious about something they have never explored and want to hear about it from seasoned practitioners.

Following my most recent encounter with an individual who inquired about the degree to which readers believe in or, more precisely, trust the tarot, I posed the same question to myself as an exercise in self-reflection. I’ve been experimenting with various forms of divination for over 50 years, and I don’t so much “trust” them as watch them like a hawk to see how closely they can come to the truth of the matter I’m examining. I started with natal astrology, which lends itself to this type of scrutiny, and then branched out from there into tarot, Lenormand, I Ching, geomancy and predictive astrology.

I conduct this self-analysis even when (or especially when) reading tarot cards for someone else, but I don’t let on that I’m doing it since it’s all part of my rigorous analytical/mystical mindset. I establish the investigative parameters (usually in some kind of unique spread) and then I judge how effectively the cards work within that particular framework. Because the goals are typically anecdotal and rarely empirical, I can’t profess to be looking for “hard facts,” just evidence of a climate that is conducive to their appearance. Whether or not they present themselves in a convincing manner is for the person receiving the prediction to decide.

But were I brought to the question with a gun to my head and no wiggle room to dance around it, I would have to admit that, yes, I do believe there is something uncanny to it that can’t be explained in purely logical terms. (Although I also acknowledge that parapsychologist Dean Radin, in his research into psionics from a scientist’s perspective, is redefining what it means to be “logical” when speaking of these subjects.) As I’ve learned from Dr. Radin and as I’m now rediscovering in The Kybalion, psychic experience is not the enchanting excursion into the ethereal mists we once thought it was; up to a point its effects can be objectively measured in a controlled laboratory setting.

Now that I’m focused mainly on external events and not on the inner landscape of the mind, I have my work cut out for me as a diviner. It was easier to be pliable when I was working solely within the psychological and spiritual envelope because both are a bit “squishy” when it comes to proving anything beyond the shadow of a doubt. One is a “soft science” and the other is a “pseudo-science,” the domain of transcendental visionaries whom The Kybalion alludes to as the “half-wise” whose efforts to grasp the truth at the heart of the numinous reality they are trying to penetrate are mired in the “futility of speculation” and, in my personal opinion, the fallibility of intuition.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe there is a spirit world, just not that its denizens are interested enough in us to provide escort service so we are on our own in navigating it. Any phenomenon that can be characterized in terms of elusive “feelings” or fleeting “subliminal impressions” doesn’t jibe well with attempts to pin quantifiable results on it that at present are nothing more than data points. Recent experiments that have sought to validate psionic abilities are awash in intriguing statistics, none of which can be turned into the kind of substantive input that inspires coherent storytelling, an essential element of divinatory counseling.

But mostly I pursue these subjects for the intellectual, philosophical and metaphysical stimulation, and as something to pass the time in retirement (particularly the blog-writing part, which must be obvious from the number of posts I’ve racked up in the last nine years). I’m always seeking meaningful engagement with like-minded spirits (the corporeal kind) but “pickins” have been slim in the online arena now that Aeclectic Tarot has folded, and my attempts to find and join meetup groups have gone nowhere because they are either too far away (“Join us this week in San Francisco!” “But . . . but . . . I’m in New Hampshire!”) or the organizers are only seeking to garner the membership dues and special-occasion fees. All of them in my local area have come and gone with distressing rapidity.

While it would be nice to get a small professional tarot practice going again, all I really want to do is discuss this stuff with sympathetic peers. I don’t need a structured learning environment because I can teach just as well myself. The days of the armchair philosopher seated comfortably in a gentleman’s club with pipe or cigar in hand and a glass of sherry at his elbow are long gone, but it is where I would probably have fit best. I could join the Masons but, from what I can tell as an outsider, I don’t think most of the lodges are esoterically exclusive or mystically “clubby”in the historical (i.e. “Rosicrucian”) sense at this point in time, just fraternal and social despite all their elaborate degrees, signs, grips, tokens and words. I’m not one for hierarchical authority anyway.