AUTHOR'S NOTE: I may not be the ideal person to comment on this subject since there were no local teachers or mentors back in 1972 when I began my tarot journey and since then I haven't needed any, so my awareness of what is available in the way of tarot education (outside of self-study via … Continue reading Nature vs. Nurture in Tarot Education
Tarot Teaching
The “Keynote Series” Developmental Insight Spread
Here is a concept that uses three brief "mini-readings" (Past/Present/Future) to derive a fourth "keynote" spread showing a condensed developmental path for the situation. It applies Elemental Dignities to the "Present" line, which is read from the outside-in according to standard ED practice. (The center, or "principal," card is the focus; the others feed into … Continue reading The “Keynote Series” Developmental Insight Spread
A Matter of “Expectation”
In The Grand Etteilla, a mid-19th-Century French compilation of informed opinion on Jean-Baptiste Alliette's late-18th-Century cartomantic deck of the same name, one snippet of text on the 6 of Clubs (Wands) assigns zero to "the world" (with a lower-case "w") and gives it the reversed keyword of "Expectation" (not "none" as one might reasonably assume … Continue reading A Matter of “Expectation”
The Gestalt Overview and the Hierarchy of Significance
A question came up recently on the r/tarot subreddit regarding the most effective way to build an overarching "big-picture" synopsis from the individual cards in a tarot spread. I prefer to think of the goal as avoiding the "Lego-block" mentality of simply stacking up keywords that often fail to jell into a convincing summary. Once … Continue reading The Gestalt Overview and the Hierarchy of Significance
“So Many Words . . .”
Those four syllables were spoken (well, written) by tarot author and entrepreneur Marcus Katz during a recent online conversation about the symbolism that has been attached to the tarot cards since the advent of esoteric contemplation with Etteilla in the 18th Century. It came across as a slightly rueful acknowledgement of the monumental effort involved … Continue reading “So Many Words . . .”
The Teaching Way
Back in the mid-70s my brother and I had an esoteric teaching gig in Connecticut. He was an accomplished astrologer and I was an up-and-coming tarot reader with the Thoth deck. We had several lively study groups going on simultaneously and were busy with them a large part of every week. Unfortunately, it didn't last … Continue reading The Teaching Way
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 