A conversation on one of the tarot forums about whether the Druid Craft Tarot is "mean" prompted me to run it through my "Tell Me No Lies" personality-profile deck interview. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wsz2m38qfzgh9p1/Expanded%20New%20Deck%20Challenge%20Spread.pdf?raw=1 The top row is the Wands row, indicative of the deck’s vitality and spirit; the second row is the Cups row, showing the deck’s … Continue reading The Druid Craft Tarot Deck Interview
Tarot Techniques
The “Twist of Fate” Course-Correction Spread
Any enterprise or project can reach a point where it becomes vulnerable to external meddling, especially when someone on the outside sees an opportunity to gain some kind of advantage, whether that individual is a corporate raider, a wealthy investor, a wheeling-and-dealing venture capitalist, a conniving co-worker or a pushy mother-in-law. This is the stuff … Continue reading The “Twist of Fate” Course-Correction Spread
Tarot of the Old Path Deck Interview
In doing my "courts and trumps" series of posts, I used one of my long-neglected decks, the Tarot of the Old Path. (I didn't realize it at the time, but there is a good reason those court cards all look so haughty!) I had always felt that the courts in this deck are kind of … Continue reading Tarot of the Old Path Deck Interview
Useful Patterns: Trump Card Overseers
I'm always looking for useful patterns among the cards of the tarot to augment my spread interpretation. Lately I've been playing around with numerical convergence between the cards of the Major and Minor Arcana. But I like to go beyond the obvious into more oblique territory. For example, when the values of all of the … Continue reading Useful Patterns: Trump Card Overseers
Soul Train or Love Boat: A Life-Purpose Spread
Upon first entering wider society, young people (although they aren't as young at that point as they once were) are often at a loss as to what their life's purpose should be. This usually involves deciding which of two or three possible paths seems the most compelling at the time. I will normally use a … Continue reading Soul Train or Love Boat: A Life-Purpose Spread
The Other “I” Words
Since I describe myself as a storyteller in the same breath that I profess to being a diviner, I often find that intuition is thin sauce with which to season my readings. It's not something that can typically be turned on and off at will like a faucet; when it's "on," it's free-flowing and insightful, … Continue reading The Other “I” Words
Those Fractured Court Cards
A tarot artist in one of the Facebook groups I frequent has been working on a project to blend the qualities of two court cards into a single entity; combining the King of Cups and the King of Pentacles is her current task. My first thought was that some intriguing possibilities are offered by this … Continue reading Those Fractured Court Cards
The Blame Game: Court Cards as People
I haven't been polishing my "curmudgeon cred" much since I ended my "Cheap Shots" series, so here is another crack at it. Late-19th-Century tarot authorities, lacking our psychological and sociological sophistication, almost unanimously considered the court cards to show other people in the querent's life, even going to the extreme of trying to describe their … Continue reading The Blame Game: Court Cards as People
Keywords: Guilty As Charged
There is no way around it, keyword memorization is one of the cornerstones of the tarot student's curriculum. It is a convenient and familiar way to acquire at least a modest vocabulary without having to think too hard about it. Keywords are "training wheels" for the wobbly novice. Most tarot writers are able to fill … Continue reading Keywords: Guilty As Charged
A “Tough Love” Example Reading
This reading was performed on a hypothetical romantic relationship by applying my "Relationship Crisis Spread." I used the Thoth deck, with reversals; this spread does not require a Significator card. I also calculated the two optional "quintessence" cards to show how that is intended to work. The relationship in question was between a man and … Continue reading A “Tough Love” Example Reading
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 