AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Movement" and "change" are recurring themes in tarot reading and some cards express it more eloquently than others. Aleister Crowley believed that any request for divination means that something needs to change for the better, so the message in these cards is one of encouragement for the seeker. (There are other cards to … Continue reading Cards of Momentum and Metamorphosis
Tarot Teaching
The Colors of Compromise
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Along with pictorial iconography and suit-and-number theory, color symbolism plays a major role in our interpretation of the Tarot de Marseille cards, and some TdM authors have gone on at length about the significance of the different pigments used by 17th Century printers. I decided to stick my oar in the water. The … Continue reading The Colors of Compromise
The Less-Traveled Byways of Tarot: Knowledge and Inspiration Meet Insight and Wisdom
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Whenever I contemplate the unstructured psychic or purely intuitive approach to tarot reading as currently practiced in "live" settings, on internet platforms and via telephone-hotline "prediction mills," my skeptical nature goes into overdrive. I summon a fanciful vision of a youngish mystical diviner (who is largely untutored and inexperienced in the historical roots … Continue reading The Less-Traveled Byways of Tarot: Knowledge and Inspiration Meet Insight and Wisdom
Personalizing the Tarot
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently posted on the subject of creating a unique, hand-made tarot deck for independent study and practice, noting that someone (like me) who has accumulated several decades of esoteric experience with traditional decks probably won't benefit much from doing so. But that does not mean one shouldn't try to "personalize" the chosen … Continue reading Personalizing the Tarot
A Bridge to Somewhere
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The title of this essay alludes to an episode from one of the Presidential terms of Bill Clinton during which he proposed building a bridge spanning the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Conservative critics at the time immediately panned the idea as a costly boondoggle, a "bridge to nowhere" (which would almost certainly have … Continue reading A Bridge to Somewhere
The Self-Referential Diviner: Depth and Dependability or Merely Self-Flattery?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Novice tarot readers are typically told by mentors that they will eventually shelve the guide-books and bypass the social-media "talking heads" to follow their own star when it comes to card meanings and situational applications. This is wise but not entirely incontestable counsel. As a longtime diviner (over five decades of tarot reading … Continue reading The Self-Referential Diviner: Depth and Dependability or Merely Self-Flattery?
Leveraging Reversals
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Over the past few weeks I've offered a handful of spreads that include a fixed series of reversed cards in contradistinction to an equal number of upright cards. The idea is to identify an alternate path to the same objective that is less obvious in nature, symbolic of a detour into an unfamiliar … Continue reading Leveraging Reversals
“Block Timing” with the Tarot Cards
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've tried numerous methods of reckoning the likely date (or at least the date-range) for the occurrence of future events using the tarot, both conventional techniques and those of my own design, but I've never been satisfied with the results. In recent years I've used a "block timing" approach to generalize the window … Continue reading “Block Timing” with the Tarot Cards
Trump’s Next Four: A PoMo Perspective
AUTHOR'S NOTE: After listening to part of Donald Trump's inauguration speech (I dislike the man as much as ever but, as a Libertarian sympathizer, I'm not entirely opposed to his message), I decided to dig out my favorite sociopolitical deck, Brian Williams' PostModern (aka "PoMo") tarot to see what the next four years will spell … Continue reading Trump’s Next Four: A PoMo Perspective
“Pie in the Sky:” A Segmented Look at the Correspondences
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn shoehorned twelve of the 22 tarot trumps, all 40 numbered minor cards and the 16 court cards into their "Chaldean" model of the zodiac, making just a few adjustments in the design to accommodate their vision. Only the seven planetary trumps and the three "Primal Element" … Continue reading “Pie in the Sky:” A Segmented Look at the Correspondences
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 