AUTHOR'S NOTE: The five-card French Cross spread (traditionally known as the tirage en croix) is one of my favorite smaller layouts because it reveals what needs to be known about a situation without being overly analytical. It provides a slightly different level of detail than my customary five-card line, and through constant use I've tweaked … Continue reading Refreshing the French Cross Spread
tarot-de-marseille
“Grounding the Archetypes” – A Three-Card Daily Draw Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I just encountered the idea that whenever we receive a Major Arcana (aka "trump") card in a reading, we should immediately pull another card to describe its practical (as opposed to its universal or spiritual) significance for the querent's future. I'm no fan of using clarifying cards in my work, but I can … Continue reading “Grounding the Archetypes” – A Three-Card Daily Draw Spread
Leveraging the French Cross: An Alternative to Yes-or-No Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Conventional wisdom is that tarot is ineffective for addressing simple "yes-or-no" questions because it is more suitable for telling stories. I've always taken issue with this opinion, believing that the cards will provide an answer for any inquiry that is phrased properly. So rather than wanting to know "Will I or won't I … Continue reading Leveraging the French Cross: An Alternative to Yes-or-No Reading
Inside the Box: Quaternary vs. Quinary Synthesis*
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been loosely using the term "quintessence" to describe the numerical conflation of any quantity of tarot cards in a spread, but traditionalists have criticized that assumption as being inconsistent with the historical meaning of the word as the symbolic fifth iteration (or "quinary essence") of a four-card "tirage on croix" (French Cross) … Continue reading Inside the Box: Quaternary vs. Quinary Synthesis*
“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
The Lover Departs (or “Squeezing the Grape”)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently came across an unusual interpretation of the Tarot de Marseille "Lover" card that I find quite engaging. It inspired me to present a pair of amusing anecdotes that convey a serious message. (I've already covered this subject from the Chariot's perspective in much the same language; see my previous essay, linked … Continue reading The Lover Departs (or “Squeezing the Grape”)
Papus and the “Formula of Tetragrammaton”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In The Tarot of the Bohemians, Gerard Encausse (aka "Papus") spends the first 20% of the book playing with the numerology of the cards and relating them to the four Hebrew letters of the "ineffable Name of God" (euphemized as "Tetragrammaton"). Papus stacked up the trump cards in "quaternaries" (four-card sets) following the … Continue reading Papus and the “Formula of Tetragrammaton”
“Midnight Dew and Golden Sunflakes”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In 1962, Canadian folksinger Bonnie Dobson wrote and recorded Morning Dew, an anti-war song in which the "dew" was nuclear fallout. In this essay, the analogous but hardly-as-lethal condensation is the "midnight dew" shed by the Moon in the Tarot de Marseille card of that name. In 1969, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd … Continue reading “Midnight Dew and Golden Sunflakes”
Rolling Back the Golden Dawn’s Syllabus
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've known for some time that those who prefer classical decks like the Tarot de Marseille to the esoteric reveries of the post-Occult Revival don't subscribe to the conflation of Hebrew letters and trump cards in general, and particularly not to the model proposed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Rather … Continue reading Rolling Back the Golden Dawn’s Syllabus
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 