When I joined the Aeclectic Tarot forum in 2011, I landed in the middle of an ongoing debate about certain practices - both traditional and modern - that didn't seem to have a reasonable or logical basis. Many questions were cyclical, coming around every few months as new members joined, and none of them were … Continue reading Multi-deck Readings
Learning
Bad Stuff
Shortly after I returned to professional practice a couple of years ago, I had a client who sat down at the table and said briskly "Don't tell me any bad stuff!" I assured her that even the less agreeable insights that may arise in a tarot reading can be worked with creatively and constructively to … Continue reading Bad Stuff
Literal Tarot: The Book
I finally got around to compiling 100 of my self-designed tarot spreads and organizing them into a book of around 200 pages, give-or-take depending on how they translate into bound-book format. I'm shopping it around to small esoteric publishers right now. My forum mates on Aeclectic Tarot used to urge me to do it but … Continue reading Literal Tarot: The Book
The Literal Tarot
It sometimes seems to me that trying to learn tarot as a neophyte in the 21st Century is like stepping into quicksand with cement overshoes, especially when talking to those ad-hoc mentors who see intuition as the only reliable arrow in a reader's interpretive quiver. The idea that there is any kind of intellectual bedrock … Continue reading The Literal Tarot
A Miscellany of Cards
I have quite a few divination decks that I never use for any purpose other than admiring them as works of art. In order to become more familiar with them over time, I decided to perform an exercise here. On a periodic basis, I will randomly choose one of my decks and draw a card … Continue reading A Miscellany of Cards
Perfect Is As Perfect Does
One fascinating question that often comes up in conversation with tarot novices is "What is the perfect deck for my first one?" Usually they know that the Rider Waite Smith (RWS) deck in one of its numerous incarnations is recommended by most experienced readers as a good place to start, and the broad, deep field … Continue reading Perfect Is As Perfect Does
Lunar Month Look-ahead for March-April 2018
Every month on the New Moon I perform my Lunar Month Look-ahead spread using only the Minor Arcana as described in an earlier post. Here is the reading for the monthly period beginning with the New Moon on March 17th. I used the Rohrig Tarot, with reversals. The eight subdivisions are based on psychological astrologer … Continue reading Lunar Month Look-ahead for March-April 2018
Economy of Scale in Spread Design
In microeconomics, economy of scale refers to the theory that average costs start falling as output increases. As I apply it to tarot spread design, it asserts that the level of effort required to read a spread decreases as the number of card positions increases. While this seems counter-intuitive, it's due to the fact that, … Continue reading Economy of Scale in Spread Design
The Tarot Salad Bar
For those of us who use esoteric correspondences in reading the tarot, pulling cards for a reading is like ordering a "tarot salad" with special dressing This is especially true if there are several cards of a similar "flavor," whether elemental, astrological or numerical. Many writers have addressed what happens when you have an abundance … Continue reading The Tarot Salad Bar
Cypher This!
The so-called "Cypher Manuscripts" that formed the foundation of the graduated curriculum of esoteric studies established by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn have a fascinating history (or pseudo-history, depending on whom you believe) in their own right, They consist of 60 folios hand-written in English (and in the case of the diagrams, crudely … Continue reading Cypher This!
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 