An interesting question came up on Saturday while I was giving a presentation on the Golden Dawn's Opening of the Key spread. It's been said that, due to its extreme complexity (and, I might add, its redundancy), the members of the Order almost never did all five operations of the OotK, contenting themselves with the … Continue reading Personalizing the Astrological Spread
Tarot Spreads
The “Great Make-over” Personal Tune-up Spread
Many tarot enthusiasts shy away from divination of the "fortune-telling" sort and instead use the cards for augmenting their personal sense of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. Most of the spreads I've seen for this are usually light on detail, typically no more than five cards. Here I'm offering a more complex spread for … Continue reading The “Great Make-over” Personal Tune-up Spread
Company in the Cross-hairs: A SWOT Road-map
The subject of "SWOT" analysis (Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats) comes up fairly often on the tarot forums, usually in the context of personal circumstances rather than the corporate affairs for which it was originally intended. I can see the appeal, but I think it's a bit mechanistic for that purpose and have created many SWOT alternative spreads that … Continue reading Company in the Cross-hairs: A SWOT Road-map
The “Devil Made Me Do It” Moral Dilemma Spread
Every once in a while we all face a moral dilemma. They don't have to be life-changing issues (unless they snowball, of course), they can be little things. Do I tell that white lie to save someone's feelings or do I tell the plain truth and let the chips fall where they may? The basic … Continue reading The “Devil Made Me Do It” Moral Dilemma Spread
The Three-Card Carousel
"Round and round she goes, and where she stops nobody knows." I'm pinching those words from the old Ted Mack Amateur Hour TV show to illustrate one method of reading a three-card spread in tarot divination. There are differing opinions on this: some always read in a line from left-to-right, with the Past on the … Continue reading The Three-Card Carousel
A Simple Question-and-Answer Spread
Those of us who create a lot of spreads sometimes get so caught up in the game that we neglect the simple stuff. This spread is a substitute for the three-card and five-card line that puts a different spin on the reading: not so much "past/present/future" as countervailing influences that will push the answer one … Continue reading A Simple Question-and-Answer Spread
“Being There” – A Personal Growth Spread
* This spread was inspired by an article (“The B's”) on the Lorian Associations's blog site (see sidebar link) by David Spangler, one of the original architects of the New Age. It describes modes of being appropriate to successfully navigating the coming year and beyond. Think of it as a model for personal growth. The … Continue reading “Being There” – A Personal Growth Spread
The “Wheel of Opportunity” Relationship Spread
I have always been fascinated by the idea that a relationship between two people (or two of "anything") is really a three way proposition; it involves the two parties to the situation and the relationship itself, which can become "bigger than both of them" and require dedicated care and feeding by both participants to avoid … Continue reading The “Wheel of Opportunity” Relationship Spread
An Astro-Tarot Meditation, Part Two
Continuing from my last post: The 51 cards I extracted from the full deck according to the astrological features of my natal horoscope form what I call a "prepared" deck, or in this case, partial deck. Normally, when I pre-conditon a deck in some way, it's usually by separating out the trump, court and pip … Continue reading An Astro-Tarot Meditation, Part Two
The Long and Short of It
As a creator of numerous tarot spreads, I find that I must walk a fine line between pursuing too much information and seeking insufficient detail in the structure of a layout. Trying to parse a reading into narrative bits that are too fine-grained risks putting too much insignificant "ground clutter" on the reader's radar screen, … Continue reading The Long and Short of It
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 