AUTHOR'S NOTE: I avoided discussing this technique in my previous post on reconstituting the trump cards, but I've been mulling over ways to make it work. Once again, I will use the Tower as my main example and also provide a couple of others. (If you're unfamiliar with isomorphs, I linked my "primer" on the … Continue reading Trump Cards and Isomorphs
Tarot Theory
Harvesting Truth, Large and Small
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sometimes, when confronting a particularly cryptic tarot reading, I feel like a luckless hunter-gatherer foraging for my supper. There is plenty of sustenance, both large and small, hiding in the bushes but much of it (and occasionally all of it) is impossible to capture. This is the conundrum posed by the presence of … Continue reading Harvesting Truth, Large and Small
Ruling Cards: An I Ching “Hand-off”*
*In US football, a "hand-off after the snap" means that the quarterback hands the ball immediately to one of the running backs behind the line of scrimmage, hopefully advancing it downfield on the play through the element of surprise. (I won't get into the even-trickier "double-reverse" here.) Humor me while I stretch the analogy a … Continue reading Ruling Cards: An I Ching “Hand-off”*
The Pentacles Court: Strategy Over Tactics
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was just reading a Quora essay that described George Washington as a lousy military tactician but a brilliant strategist. It seems he lost all six of the major battles in which he participated, but his goal wasn't to win, just to preserve his army so it could remain a thorn in the … Continue reading The Pentacles Court: Strategy Over Tactics
The “Moving Card” Idea-Development Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've just come up with a notion that intrigues me quite a bit, and I credit metaphysical author and blogger Benebell Wen for taking me there via the discussion of "moving lines" in her book, I Ching, The Oracle: A Practical Guide to the Book of Changes. Its ideal application may be in … Continue reading The “Moving Card” Idea-Development Spread
Two Approaches to Tarot Triangulation: The Quintessence and the Midpoint
AUTHOR'S NOTE: There is a technique used in navigation and surveying called "triangulation," the technical definition for which, in its simplest form, is "the process of determining the location of a point by forming triangles to the point from known points." While navigation encompasses distance as well as direction and position and surveying only defines … Continue reading Two Approaches to Tarot Triangulation: The Quintessence and the Midpoint
Interstitial Tarot Reading: “Piercing the Veil”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In a non-tarot-related Medium post I came across the word "interstitial" (a term that describes the transitional space connecting two related objects or ideas, much like a short hallway linking adjacent rooms). It brought to mind my previous comments about having to rely too heavily on intuitive guesswork in order to bridge the … Continue reading Interstitial Tarot Reading: “Piercing the Veil”
Boundaries, Fences and Neighbors: Drawing a Line in the Sand
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In his poem Mending Wall, Robert Frost gives the impression that he is rudely baiting the neighbor who keeps telling him earnestly "Good fences make good neighbors" as they work on repairing their shared stone wall. ("Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Hmm. Why do I feel that Frost would have … Continue reading Boundaries, Fences and Neighbors: Drawing a Line in the Sand
“Dividing the Chaos” – Reconstituting the Trump Cards
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is another oddball experiment (I have a few of them queued up) in which pairs of trump cards are collated numerologically (similar to the "quintessence" calculation but with pre-selected components) to intentionally yield the numerical value of a third trump. The goal is to create a three-part dynamic with two "modifying" cards … Continue reading “Dividing the Chaos” – Reconstituting the Trump Cards
Qabalistic Constellations: A Reading Template
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As does religious mysticism with its unproven "origin" theories and moralizing allegorical themes, esoteric metaphysics exhibits a long history of "making stuff up." In the world of tarot, the British "Occult Revival" of the late 19th Century produced the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, one of the chief proponents of such inventive … Continue reading Qabalistic Constellations: A Reading Template
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 