“. . . the media, not the content that they carry, should be the focus of study.”
– from a Wikipedia analysis of Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media The Extensions of Man

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been having an energetic but mostly unproductive online conversation about whether the cards in a tarot spread should be approached as a panoramic vista that discloses a destination on the far horizon (the “message”), or as separate links in a chain (the “media”), each one adding a unique, independent bit of information to a growing necklace of meaning (call it the “parsed or distributed message”). My sense is that there is room for both in proper measure, but I prefer to take them in a step-wise fashion, first broad and then narrow.

My final thought on the subject is that I read the cards professionally in the real world, not in a symbol laboratory, working with ordinary people who are usually seeking an answer that can help them identify and overcome obstacles, clearing the path ahead and dispelling inertia as a consequence. So I tend to focus on the bottom line and avoid loading them up with too many of the incidental, in-process details that fuel my thoughts but that I filter out before I open my mouth. After all, I’m a creative storyteller, not merely a keyword-broker.

The cards are there if I need to point to one of them for added emphasis but, as a rule, on the first cut I pass over them lightly on a card-by-card basis while giving a general overview of what I see. Specific issues always rise to the surface as the narrative progresses and querents begin asking questions, so I switch to “high-resolution” mode and zero in on particulars as needed.

As negative reinforcement, I’ve taken to heart W.C. Fields’ quip that “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” By way of illumination, I try to shine a bright light on the whole picture and minimize the BS of piecemeal rhetorical filler, not least because I often read “on the clock” in 15-to-20-minute sittings and I want to get the key points across before I open it up to a summary dialogue shortly before the final buzzer.

Learning to divine with the cards should be an evolution that begins with internalizing their essence so the knowledge obtained can be promptly melded on-the-fly into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. I don’t even keep mental notes any more unless I pick up a new insight during a reading to add to my inventory later.

As an adjunct to “live” reading sessions, the best training I can imagine has been writing for this blog, which has been far more effective than any tarot journal I’ve ever tried (and failed) to maintain. Having a place to organize my ideas in a searchable format is the primary reason I pay for the domain and the WordPress account, and if my always-free offerings happen to be instructive so much the better but I won’t hold my followers to my own exacting standards.

It’s a truism that there are as many ways to read the cards as there are readers, so while I’m perfectly willing to engage in conversation about the content of my work, I have neither the patience nor the inclination to bandy words about my style. Those who would challenge my technique have a target-rich environment in almost 2,900 previous posts, so have at it with the caveat that my circa 2017-18 writing is borderline atrocious, so start from this end until you’ve had enough.

For anyone who wants the thumbnail bio, I’m a retired former engineering manager with an abiding interest in “how things work” (including tarot and astrology), and a parallel track in esoteric (Hermetic/Qabalistic) study and practice going back to 1972. In addition, – although it won’t even buy me a latte at Starbucks – I’m a lapsed Mensan (useless high-IQ society), erstwhile graphic-art student (until I learned there is more money in commercial writing), and unsuccessful fantasy-fiction writer with a love of language that I bring to bear on my tarot reading and blog writing.

Apart from the constant metaphysical and philosophical reading I do, none of that makes me a better tarot reader, it just lets me deliver my observations with appropriate flair. Nobody who isn’t repairing a lawnmower wants to read a technical “how-to” manual, and as a one-time writer of administrative procedures and legal correspondence I have to restrict that talent to the generation of my case-specific spread guidance.