AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've just returned from Italy after a seven-day Mediterranean cruise and a destination wedding outside of Pisa (for the record, I'm convinced that Italy lived through its cultural glory days in the 15th and 16th Centuries and I have no intention of going back even though the Tuscan countryside, the country people and … Continue reading Divination as a “Last Resort”
Professional Tarot
Insight and/or Instinct: Finding the Middle Way
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Those who have been following this blog for the past nine years know that I take a dim view of overly impressionistic tarot reading because it banks on unalloyed intuition and poses the risk of subjective bias that can overshadow more objective interpretation, derailing the literal point-of-view and leaving it without a voice. … Continue reading Insight and/or Instinct: Finding the Middle Way
Common-Sense Tarot Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Tonight I’m coming to you from the Viking Sky Mediterranean cruise ship in Barcelona, on which we’re traveling to Italy for a destination wedding. (I managed to connect on my iPad.) There is an intriguing notion in Benebell Wen's Holistic Tarot that a tarot reading should not be obliged to portray future developments … Continue reading Common-Sense Tarot Reading
The “Medium” is Not Always the “Message”
". . . 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 … Continue reading The “Medium” is Not Always the “Message”
Inviting Intuition into the House: The Vampire on the Threshold
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'll be in transit for the next week and I wanted to get this slab of absurdity out the door this afternoon even though it's breaking my rule of one post per day. File this one under "rhetorical raving" if you like; it's a bit over-the-top. Every time I encounter someone reading the … Continue reading Inviting Intuition into the House: The Vampire on the Threshold
Conquering Inertia: The Prosaic Truth Behind “Empowerment”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's not uncommon that seekers who resort to a professional diviner have reached a dead-end in their personal affairs. Either they have come up against the proverbial "brick wall" and feel like they can go no further without help, or they have not yet found their way to that barrier and are floundering … Continue reading Conquering Inertia: The Prosaic Truth Behind “Empowerment”
A Four-Function General Well-Being Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is a spread based on the First Operation of the Golden Dawn's "Opening of the Key" method, but with no Significator and without the formal counting of cards to populate it. The four sub-packs from right-to-left are the same - Fire, Water, Air and Earth, but I've retitled them to suit my … Continue reading A Four-Function General Well-Being Spread
“Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do)”
"We got to realize that ninety-nine and a half just won't doNo, got to have a hundred, oh yeah"- from the rhythm & blues song by Wilson Pickett AUTHOR'S NOTE: Today - for the third or fourth time in nine years - I've reached 100 consecutive days of posting on this blog, which is nowhere … Continue reading “Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do)”
The Numerical Essence Card as “Force Majeure”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: An assumption that goes all the way back to my first exposure to tarot literature in Eden Gray's 1960 book, The Tarot Revealed, is that the Major Arcana normally identify significant external events that are beyond the querent's control. At one time my own definition was that they describe consequential influences that the … Continue reading The Numerical Essence Card as “Force Majeure”
“Rising on the Planes” – A Three-Tier Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Rising on the planes is an act of ceremonial magic performed on the Middle Pillar of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Here I'm using it as the inspiration for a tarot spread that looks at practical/physical, mental/emotional and spiritual/philosophical approaches to decision-making and problem-solving, with an eye toward optimizing one of them. Begin … Continue reading “Rising on the Planes” – A Three-Tier Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Spread
