Not long ago, after I was published for the second or third time in The Cartomancer and had made a few appearances in the American Tarot Association's monthly and quarterly publications, while at the same time seeing my professional reading career display tiny sparks of life (so what has changed?), my sister-in-law said to me … Continue reading Big Fish, Little Fish, Old Fish, New Fish
Tarot Opinion
“. . . and I Must Scream.”
In thinking about the widely-held but just as widely dismissed opinion that tarot cards have personalities and "speak" to us with anthropomorphic aptness, I recalled that science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison once wrote a story titled "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream." This led me to finally pin down what makes for my ideal … Continue reading “. . . and I Must Scream.”
“Stick-tuitiveness”
Because tarot-card interpretation is such a fluid form of expression in which we sometimes "throw everything against the wall to see what sticks" (hint: it ain't that simple, kids), the common advice is to pick one method of working and stay with it through thick-and-thin. The thought is that consistency of approach will keep our … Continue reading “Stick-tuitiveness”
The “Innies” and the “Outies”
This essay is both a synopsis and a further exploration of some of the ideas I covered more fully in my "TdM Thumbnail" series of posts. Those of us who spend a good deal of time "navel-gazing" (by which I mean, of course, contemplating "the world in a grain of sand" . . . or … Continue reading The “Innies” and the “Outies”
General Topic Reading and the “BS Factor”
On-line tarot reading, which is starting to pull me in after years of resisting its call, has become something of a crusade for me. When I first approached it, my long-standing beliefs about "how tarot works" ran head-on into what seemed to be the questionable practices of on-line readers as a group. There is an … Continue reading General Topic Reading and the “BS Factor”
The “Functional” Tarot de Marseille
I have long held that the elaborate set of esoteric correspondences for the tarot developed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn has no place in divination with the Tarot de Marseille apart from classical suit-and-number theory (elemental and numerological associations that in their present form date back, respectively, to the Greek philosophers Empedocles … Continue reading The “Functional” Tarot de Marseille
Intuition or Guided Suggestion?
A recent Facebook post on the Tarot History page by tarot author and deck creator Robert Place about the earliest known forms of divination got me thinking about the nature of intuition (specifically as championed by those cartomancers who only use free-association from the card images, downplaying or dismissing the value of knowledge-based analysis). In … Continue reading Intuition or Guided Suggestion?
Virtue Is As Virtue Does
. . . or something like that. The uncertainty over which tarot trump card represents which of the four cardinal and three "theological" virtues is a continuing source of on-line debate. As a non-religious person I don't bother much (or at all) with the Christian virtues in a tarot reading, but I am intrigued by … Continue reading Virtue Is As Virtue Does
An Alternate Approach to On-line Reading
As I've said many times before, I'm suspicious of any card-reading method that doesn't involve a querent physically handling the deck. Consequently, I shy away from on-line reading except under very limited circumstances. One of my "work-arounds" is to request that remote clients shuffle and draw from their own deck of cards, then tell me … Continue reading An Alternate Approach to On-line Reading
Odd Couples
I'm still plowing my way through Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Way of Tarot and have reached the section where he proposes a few obvious (and more than a few off-beat) "duets" between the cards of the tarot. Anyone with a shred of card sense can clearly see the logical ties between the Emperor and Empress, the … Continue reading Odd Couples
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 