UPDATE: As expected, this pushed a lot of buttons in the online tarot world. Almost everyone missed the point that it is a radical rethinking (in this one narrow instance) of tarot divination in which I'm not interested so much in what will happen and its consequences as in actively using the cards as a … Continue reading Death: The “Bad Neighbor”
Tarot Theory
Reversal As “Reconciliation”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm only one-third of the way through The Grand Etteilla and I have enough useful ideas for at least another half-dozen brief essays. Here is one that originated from the interpretation of the reversed 3 of Clubs (Wands) as "Reconciliation." (By the way, I learned a new word for reversal: "posterity," which in … Continue reading Reversal As “Reconciliation”
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 Hazards of “Clumping”
I've written previously on the subject of shuffling tarot decks, both the purpose and the practice. But the topic still comes up regularly on the tarot pages and feeds, which has caused me to once again sharpen my perspective. The "how" doesn't concern me as much as the "why." The commonly-held belief that we shuffle … Continue reading The Hazards of “Clumping”
Knights and Streetcars: “Coming and Going”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: My wife dismisses blues music as "whining man" music (as in "My baby done left me and I'm feelin' lowdown and mean." But there is a bawdy old "whining woman" blues song from the early 20th Century that complains: "Men are like streetcars/They keep coming and going." (A similar modern version would be … Continue reading Knights and Streetcars: “Coming and Going”
The “Environmental” Yes-or-No Answer
I'm mildly amused by people who say "Tarot isn't meant for yes-or-no questions." I suspect that back in the 18th and 19th Centuries (before we went "all psychological and spiritual" with it) tarot wasn't used for much else but binary questions. The cards will basically do anything we require of them as long as we … Continue reading The “Environmental” Yes-or-No Answer
The Lovers: Decisions, Commitments and A “Fork in the Road”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Another random insight from The Grand Etteilla. In Jean-Baptiste Alliette's Book of Thoth tarot (aka the "Grand Etteilla") there is a card titled "Marriage" that is markedly similar to modern versions of the Lovers based on the Waite-Smith design. It shows a man and a woman attended by an officiating priest, obviously engaged … Continue reading The Lovers: Decisions, Commitments and A “Fork in the Road”
Reversed Cards and “Night-Crawler Hunting”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This essay presents the second epiphany I've gained from my reading of the 19th Century French tarot book, The Grand Etteilla. Whenever I encounter reversed cards in a reading and determine that they should be handled in a psychological rather than a pragmatic way, I often treat them as showing where subjective "inner … Continue reading Reversed Cards and “Night-Crawler Hunting”
That Mean Ol’ Moon
I've begun reading the English-language translation of The Grand Etteilla, a 19th Century French tarot compilation by Julia Orsini et al, with the goal of beginning to wrap my head around Alliette's "Continental" system of interpretation. I noticed three things immediately: 1) the method of pulling and arranging the cards for a reading (often using … Continue reading That Mean Ol’ Moon
A “Chaotic Complex” Random-Variable Life-Reading Spread
A couple of days ago a client asked me if I have any "chaos-based" spreads. I replied that I don't but then remembered that at an earlier time I had casually researched chaos theory, so I went back for another look. Although I have a few designs that nibble around the edges, I have none … Continue reading A “Chaotic Complex” Random-Variable Life-Reading Spread
