AUTHOR'S NOTE: This innovation is a real "stretch" (and perhaps even a dead-end) but I'm always seeking unique approaches to spread use. This one is just more "out there" than most, although the goal of overcoming an insurmountable roadblock is legitimate. Tarot readers who prefer to use positional spreads (for the record, I'm one of … Continue reading The “Elastic” Tarot Reading: Stretching the Narrative
Golden Dawn
The De-energizer: Reversal as Diminished Potency
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For the approximately fifty percent of my followers who read reversed cards, this is for you. The rest can take it however they choose. Over the years I've come up with over 200 discrete interpretations for the phenomenon of tarot-card reversal sorted into 15 broad categories, independent of the nature of the cards … Continue reading The De-energizer: Reversal as Diminished Potency
The Tarot Fives as “Difficult People”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I first want to mention that in some systems of numerological thought Five is the number of humanity (five senses, five extremities, five fingers, five toes, etc). For this reason I'm relating it to "people" for the purpose of this essay. The difficult disposition of the title can appear in these individuals as … Continue reading The Tarot Fives as “Difficult People”
Elemental Dignities: A Belated Awakening
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although I had been using the Golden Dawn's "Elemental Dignities" (EDs) casually since 1972 and thought I had a firm grasp of the fundamentals, something about their application still bothered me. My doubts were exacerbated almost ten years ago when I spent quite a bit of time and effort dissecting the Order's tarot … Continue reading Elemental Dignities: A Belated Awakening
Tapping the Power: A Self-Realization Matrix
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is a third adaptation of Benebell Wen's Lo Shu Square, this time applied loosely to her feng shui tarot model. I've created my own theme and position meanings for this purpose and did not adopt her spread design. (See her book Holistic Tarot for background details.) Another inspiration was the Lenormand 9-card … Continue reading Tapping the Power: A Self-Realization Matrix
Rehabilitating Bad Cards (aka “Putting Lipstick on a Pig”)
"As the saying goes “You can put lipstick on a sow but it’s still a sow,” or similarly and more bluntly, “You can’t polish a turd.”- from my 2019 essay When "Bad Is Bad" AUTHOR'S NOTE: Over the last few weeks I've encountered two posts in the online tarot community where novice diviners were agonizing … Continue reading Rehabilitating Bad Cards (aka “Putting Lipstick on a Pig”)
A “Topical Impingement” Life-Reading Matrix
AUTHOR'S NOTE: From her book Holistic Tarot I picked up another idea from Benebell Wen's discussion of Chinese divination (this time the application of the Lo Shu Square to feng shui): a matrix that has a general life-topic card at the center (for example, "Health"), with influences feeding into it from all sides. I expanded … Continue reading A “Topical Impingement” Life-Reading Matrix
Tarot-Card Rank as a Measure of “Reach”
Author's Note: In her book Tarot and the Tree of Life, Isabel Kliegman spent some time describing the implications of accidental ennoblement as symbolized by common suit, element, number, polarity or rank displayed by several cards in a reading. This commonality (known as "dignity") gave the affected cards an edge in effectiveness over their unaffiliated … Continue reading Tarot-Card Rank as a Measure of “Reach”
Tarot Cards as a “Hall of Mirrors”
"One explanation for (human sentience) is that consciousness emerges as a result of the complexity and self-reflective recursion that is built into the circuits of the brain, like a hall of mirrors."- Dean Radin in Supernormal AUTHOR'S NOTE: A commonly-help opinion among tarot practitioners is that the random cards pulled for a reading "mirror" the … Continue reading Tarot Cards as a “Hall of Mirrors”
The Card Whisperer
AUTHOR'S NOTE: One of the strangest questions posed from time-to-time in the online tarot community (even stranger than "Do you think the cards have personalities?") is "Do you talk to your decks?" As if we can be expected to cozy up to a pack of cards on the sofa over tea and have a meaningful … Continue reading The Card Whisperer
