AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although there is little background information online other than a police-department request for community assistance, Dan Jones (apparently of Alexandria, NH) has been missing since December 1, 2025 in increasingly frigid weather. I performed a horary astrology reading followed by two tarot readings to see what I might learn about his current situation. … Continue reading “Where Is Dan?” A Trio of Missing-Person Readings
Tarot Techniques
“Weaving Differences into Harmony”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently came across the concept of "weaving differences into harmony" that is a perfect expression of the tarot reader's art. The relevant post disappeared from my Facebook feed immediately after I viewed it so I'm unable to cite the inspiration for this essay other than to recall that it was related to … Continue reading “Weaving Differences into Harmony”
Embracing the Cards as a Matter of Choice
AUTHOR'S NOTE: If we are savvy in the self-empowering ways of practical magic, our encounter with a given tarot card in a reading won't invariably deliver a foregone conclusion. We can choose how much of its influence to let into our life and how to engage it. The fundamental energy won't change, just our handling … Continue reading Embracing the Cards as a Matter of Choice
Outgrowing “Lego-Block” Tarot: When Rote Memorization Gives Way to Internalized Recall
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The professional tarot community is understandably dismissive of the journeyman reader's reliance on memorized keywords as a shortcut to flesh out the bones of a rudimentary narrative. This is a perfunctory technique that I've called "Lego-Block® divination" in previous essays because it promotes the stacking-up of tailored snippets of language in the hope … Continue reading Outgrowing “Lego-Block” Tarot: When Rote Memorization Gives Way to Internalized Recall
Esoteric Correspondences “In the Trenches”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been inspired by something I just read in T. Susan Chang's Tarot Correspondences: Ancient Secrets for Everyday Readers to revisit a subject I covered a few years ago in my essay "Correspondences: How Much is Too Much?" (linked below). Her section on "putting it all together" provides useful techniques by which the … Continue reading Esoteric Correspondences “In the Trenches”
Dynamic Tension: “Secret Paths” on the Tree of Life
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm currently reading T. Susan Chang's Tarot Correspondences: Ancient Secrets for Everyday Readers, and I'm at the point where she talks about the indirect connections between sephiroth on the Hermetic Tree of Life that aren't joined by established "paths" along with their associated trump cards. In baseball terminology, we could say that she … Continue reading Dynamic Tension: “Secret Paths” on the Tree of Life
Recasting Saturn: The Devil, the World and the Hermit
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is the next installment in my series of follow-up essays examining the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's astrological notation for the Major Arcana of the tarot. The planet Saturn has traditionally shared equal billing with the element of Earth as the corresponding symbol for the World (Thoth Universe) card, which has … Continue reading Recasting Saturn: The Devil, the World and the Hermit
2025 Year-End Recap & 2026 “Cusp of Renewal” Forecast
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the New-Year's forecast spread I created in December of 2024, and it seems like a good one to repeat this year. My current state of ill health won't let me go at it full-tilt, but I wanted to keep my streak of posts going. Thoth Tarot, copyright of US Games Systems … Continue reading 2025 Year-End Recap & 2026 “Cusp of Renewal” Forecast
A Flu Recovery Scenario
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've now been sick with the flu for over two weeks since our family Christmas party in mid-December and decided to do a reading about what my remaining recovery period looks like. I used the beautiful Boadicea's Tarot of Earthly Delights for this not-so-delightful situation, with its suits of "Combustion" (Fire); "Tentacles" (Water); … Continue reading A Flu Recovery Scenario
Reversing Cards at the Point-of-Placement
AUTHOR'S NOTE: My long-standing practice has been to allow the population of upright and reversed cards in my decks to become cumulative over time since I never put them back into "out-of-the-box" order. Prior to use I do a quick randomizing so some of the cards will obviously change from one state to the other, … Continue reading Reversing Cards at the Point-of-Placement
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 