AUTHOR'S NOTE: This time around I'm bringing three different forms of divination together for a single inquiry: tarot, Lenormand and numerology (as expressed by standard dice). To establish some visual continuity, I'm using the Waite-Smith Centennial Edition with artwork by Pamela Colman Smith and Pixie's Astounding Lenormand by Edmund Zebrowski with artwork inspired by Pamela … Continue reading Just Walk Away: A Mixed-Media Situational Awareness Spread and Example Reading
Mixed-Media Spreads
The Will and the Way: A Self-Advancement Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is a spread that is designed to reveal the "way forward" in any situation involving a "willed" ambition or purpose. It offers both an "Open Way" that is obvious to everyone involved in the affair and a "Hidden Way" that has more clandestine dimensions and implications. Working with the Thoth deck as … Continue reading The Will and the Way: A Self-Advancement Spread
The “Need to Know” Barometer of Consequence Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In the practice of horary astrology, one of the ironclad tenets is that the querent must have a legitimate need to know the information being sought. Idle-curiosity questions are frowned upon and generally ignored as inconsequential. Those who seek a tarot reading are usually much less fussy about it and often cast their … Continue reading The “Need to Know” Barometer of Consequence Spread
Planetary Energies and the Tarot: Seven Daily Meditations
AUTHORS NOTE: The seven days of the week all have a planet associated with them, and there are seven "planetary" trump cards in the tarot. Both the planetary energy-of-the-day and the related trump card create an environmental theme or situational backdrop against which the events of the 24-hour period play out. Thirty-six of the Minor … Continue reading Planetary Energies and the Tarot: Seven Daily Meditations
“Parts is Parts” – Finding Unity in Multiplicity
AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I was employed as a Purchasing Manager for a utility power-plant, the Maintenance team used to say that there was no wizardry involved in keeping the facility's operating equipment running smoothly as long as they had the right parts and the right skills. This attitude led to the adage "Parts is parts" … Continue reading “Parts is Parts” – Finding Unity in Multiplicity
Syncretic Methods: Tarot + I Ching Hexagram Casting
AUTHOR'S NOTE: <Summons his best Dick Nixon monotone> "Let me make one thing perfectly clear" (as if you couldn't tell): I'm no fan of metaphysically "squishy" modes of divination, an attitude that encompasses most purely intuitive forms of interpretation. I like having a firm philosophical basis from which to proceed by applying inspiration, imagination and … Continue reading Syncretic Methods: Tarot + I Ching Hexagram Casting
Connecting the Dots: An I Ching/ Oracle Card/Tarot Card Triplet
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A few of years ago I came across a table of correspondences created by a couple of Russians that links the 64 I Ching hexagrams to the 78 tarot cards in a way that nobody else has done. Their website has been taken down, so I was fortunate to have saved a copy … Continue reading Connecting the Dots: An I Ching/ Oracle Card/Tarot Card Triplet
Trumps and Trigrams: A Syncretic Exercise
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In my recent essay (linked below) on syncretism between Western astrology and the I Ching, I correlated the twelve Ptolemaic signs of the zodiac with the eight I Ching trigrams and, via synthesis between consecutive signs, with twelve of the 64 hexagrams. In doing so I resorted to a good deal of inspiration, … Continue reading Trumps and Trigrams: A Syncretic Exercise
Dice, Cards and the Quintessence Calculation: A Three-Phase Tarot Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Dice and cards (particularly the numbered "pip" cards of a standard poker deck) share a long history as gaming devices. Their joint role in divination is less storied (except perhaps in the fortune-telling manual, Triompho di Fortuna, published in 1526 by Sigismondo Fanti of Venice), but I have been using them together for … Continue reading Dice, Cards and the Quintessence Calculation: A Three-Phase Tarot Spread
A Kid’s Tarot-Reading Game
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm always looking for novel ways to read the cards for young people that will get them involved in the process and hold their interest. Here is a board-game motif that invites them to roll a die and move a token on the board to select cards for the reading. It requires a … Continue reading A Kid’s Tarot-Reading Game
