AUTHOR’S NOTE: Whenever I consider silently chanting an intention-and-protection spell prior to beginning a tarot reading, I’m reminded of the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movie Hot Fuzz, in which Timothy Dalton played the leader of a creepy cabal of local activists whose members kept muttering in unison and in a morbid monotone “The greater good, the greater good” to spiritually absolve themselves of their nefarious deeds. For tarot purposes it would typically be some kind of affirmative invocation, mantra or prayer, spoken aloud or framed mentally.

In her book Holistic Tarot, Benebell Wen urges tarot practitioners and seekers to cultivate an attitude of “peace, power and openness” to ensure that legitimate contact is made with a lofty circle of invisible mentors during the reading. I interpret her recommendations as invoking “Peace” to center the emotional sensibilities; “Power” to instill confidence and bolster mental concentration; and “Openness” to invite conversation with willing spirits, all with the aim of meeting them on their own ground.

None of these is foreign to me but I’ve never felt the need to reinforce the state of readiness with solemn pleas for cooperation from the Universe. I might if I were to feel like I’m on the outside looking in, but I don’t so I won’t make the effort. Still, the question of ritual preparation frequently comes up in online tarot discussions, so I feel that I must at least have a position. But somehow I can’t envision myself steepling my fingers, lifting my eyes to the sky and intoning “Peace . . . power . . . openness” with a straight face, not that the desire isn’t there for tapping into “the Greater Good.”

As I see it, all ceremony does is establish and maintain a mindset that is auspicious for whatever operation we’re conducting, an act of self-hypnosis that sensitizes us to subtle impressions. We work the magic on ourselves first to create alignment and then point the energy at an ethereal agency to enlist its aid. However, any hint that our appeal has been heard in the halls of spiritual supplication may be nothing more than psychological projection bouncing back at us, and any articulate response is probably just an echo of our internal dialogue. A heady impression of supernatural intervention is most likely a delusional conceit at the idiomatic level where it first impinges upon our awareness (not that there isn’t a more rarefied form that we can’t readily comprehend, but that’s in a different essay where I examine the psycho-spiritual hazards of the Astral Plane).

There is nothing wrong with self-ennoblement if it empowers us with the benefits that Wen prizes, but let’s call it what it is: summoning inner fortitude to boost our effectiveness and harnessing a measure of receptivity that goes beyond mere susceptibility to psychic suggestion. Anything we can do to offset the unavoidable bias of having to filter what we obtain through an idiosyncratic lens is bound to help with objective credibility.

It’s common among mystics to assume that if you don’t believe you won’t receive, but I’m not convinced it operates that way when mustering subconscious insights via subliminal channels; faith is more of a religious thing and I’m too iconoclastic in my spiritual beliefs to swallow the dogma of angels and demons. (I was thinking last night that if primitive agriculture was the foundation of civilization, then early religious practice was the source of the first organic fertilizer, both as sympathetic magic and total BS.) If it can be tapped at all, the wisdom will be attainable via a natural gift or rigorous training and there won’t be onerous conditions attending its delivery unless we put them there with our irrational convictions and expectations.