AUTHOR'S NOTE: "The map is not the territory" is a celebrated statement by semanticist Alfred Korzybski that points out the cognitive disconnect between viewing a printed map and physically walking the land it represents. I've used it often to convey the idea that a tarot prediction is only an approximation of one possible future, and … Continue reading The Map and the Territory: Precision in Tarot Reading
tarot-psychology
“Passing Through Zero:” Transcending the Victim Archetype (A Tarot Spread)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As an astrologer I've long been familiar with the "victim mentality" as revealed in the natal horoscope. (I once called it the "doormat syndrome" exemplified by the Virgo-Pisces axis: people who become accustomed to being walked on.) Now I see that it has been elevated to the status of an "archetype" and decided … Continue reading “Passing Through Zero:” Transcending the Victim Archetype (A Tarot Spread)
Dabblers in the Future
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was reading an essay about Medieval historians and came across the 12th-Century Italian theologian and monastic abbot Joachim of Flora (or Fiore) who was described not as a historian but rather as a "dabbler in the future," mainly for his theory about a coming new age based on clear (at least to … Continue reading Dabblers in the Future
The Fount of All Wisdom?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: It could be argued that any human activity - no matter how slight - that isn't fully automatic on one hand or totally arbitrary on the other has an implicit blueprint or model that expresses its ideal performance, even if this exemplar is only a personal benchmark that we keep in our own … Continue reading The Fount of All Wisdom?
Actions with Spirit: A Different Take on the “Cross” Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For my header I've truncated the book title Actions with Spirits (Christopher Whitby, Garland Publishing, 1988), itself a condensation of the much longer moniker for a scholarly 1659 analysis of the "actions with spirits" (purportedly conversations with angels) undertaken by Dr. John Dee with scryers Edward Kelley and Barnabas Saul between 1581 and … Continue reading Actions with Spirit: A Different Take on the “Cross” Spread
Secular or Mystical: Alternate Paths in Divination
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I roam the internet seeking inspiration for my writing, I've become aware that the practice of divination has split into two camps, mainly along conceptual lines: one operates in the boundless realm of spontaneous conjecture while the other is more delimited in a focused and scrupulous way. There is a stark contrast … Continue reading Secular or Mystical: Alternate Paths in Divination
Reversed Court Cards: Perverse or Preoccupied?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently came across an opinion in the tarot literature that a reversed court card in a spread will typically highlight the negative character traits of an individual when that card stands for another person who is involved in the situation and not a psychological or universal/spiritual concept. Given my nuanced approach to … Continue reading Reversed Court Cards: Perverse or Preoccupied?
Schrodinger and the “Fabric of Reality”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I haven't touched on this subject recently, but my involvement in the Reddit sub r/seculartarot brought it back around. I once described divination in fanciful terms as "running my mental fingers through the warp-and-woof of the fabric of reality, trying to tease out threads of truth." More recently I encountered the ideas of … Continue reading Schrodinger and the “Fabric of Reality”
