AUTHOR'S NOTE: Recalling the raucous furor that attended the colloquial renaming of Covid-19 as "the Chinese flu" (in which many people chose to demean the source of the presumed gaffe and dismiss the mounting evidence), and the more recent rallying cry over "cultural appropriation," I might have felt some trepidation about the political correctness of … Continue reading The “Chinese Menu” Tarot Timing Spread
RWS Material
Devil, Devil, Who’s Got the Devil?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sometimes you just know something fishy is going on but you can't put your finger on it where to look for it. Here is a spread that mimics the Clue motif (we recently attended the stage performance in Boston); it uses the Golden Dawn's method of deciding on a "significator" card, then dealing … Continue reading Devil, Devil, Who’s Got the Devil?
Thoughts, Feelings and Desires as Inputs to a Tarot Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been grappling with the subject of "confirmation bias" in divination ever since I encountered the term a couple of years ago. As I understand it, the cynical assumption is that seekers invest (some might say "infect") the reading with their subjective hopes and fears, then don "rose-colored glasses" and see in the … Continue reading Thoughts, Feelings and Desires as Inputs to a Tarot Reading
The Candidates on Policy: A Tarot and I Ching Analysis
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As the 2024 Presidential election cycle enters its critical phase, Republican nominee Donald Trump has been trying to steer the campaign towards policy debate and away from ad-hominem invective. One of the liberal media commentators has admitted that if the vote were held today based solely on policy, Trump would most likely win. … Continue reading The Candidates on Policy: A Tarot and I Ching Analysis
2024 Presidential Election: A Political Showdown Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Now that Kamala Harris has been confirmed as the Democratic nominee for US President, I figured it's time to do my usual "Enemy at the Gates" political showdown reading to see what the tarot has to say about a probable winner. (See the link to the spread at the end of this essay.) … Continue reading 2024 Presidential Election: A Political Showdown Reading
The “Bend in the Road” Turning-Point Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In a recent post I mentioned that the three-card line seldom offers enough detail to support a comprehensive narrative, while a five-card line is reasonably thorough. I'm not one to use "auxiliary" cards like clarifiers or base cards to flesh out the picture unless I build them into the structure of the spread. … Continue reading The “Bend in the Road” Turning-Point Spread
A Suit-of-Pentacles “Elemental Storyboard” Test Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is my final "elemental storyboard" test reading that uses the suit of Pentacles to represent the "base element" of Earth. An objective I've been working toward is at the point of requiring concrete action, so I'm going to look at how I might proceed and what my prospects for success are. Radiant … Continue reading A Suit-of-Pentacles “Elemental Storyboard” Test Reading
Updated “Tarot Euphemisms” for the RWS Minor Arcana
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Several years ago I began collecting one-line "euphemisms" (imaginative circumlocutions) based on the cultural, social, historical and literary metaphors and analogies that I've come to use consistently with the Waite-Smith (and occasionally Thoth) minor cards when reading in public. Most of these are fanciful notions that popped into my head in the form … Continue reading Updated “Tarot Euphemisms” for the RWS Minor Arcana
A Suit-of-Swords “Elemental Storyboard” Test Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is an "elemental storyboard" test reading that uses the suit of Swords to represent the "base element" of Air. It involves a hypothetical client who intends to leverage his intellectual property by compiling a group of previously-published essays into a formal book. (It's not me, I've already "been there, done that" . … Continue reading A Suit-of-Swords “Elemental Storyboard” Test Reading
The Sevens: “Fearing a Misstep”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This morning I came across a fragment of text by Benebell Wen from a longer translation of one line from the I Ching hexagram Lu, " Heaven over Lake" (Hexagram 10) that dovetails neatly with my previous observations about the Sevens of the tarot Minor Arcana. The gist of it is that the … Continue reading The Sevens: “Fearing a Misstep”
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 