A Personal-Encounter Example Reading

I recently had occasion to use my "Inconvenient Truths" personal-encounter spread in a real-life situation. https://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com/2017/08/08/2293/ A woman I know is involved in an increasingly toxic friendship with another woman who is exhibiting signs of serious psychological disorder. The woman has a predatory or even vampiric nature that drains my friend of her energy and … Continue reading A Personal-Encounter Example Reading

The Four Classical Elements

Students of tarot and astrology tend to take for granted the underlying influence of the four classical elements formulated by the Greek philosopher Empedocles - Fire, Water, Air and Earth - on the tarot suits and zodiacal signs. At their simplest, they represent action, initiative, enterprise and ego (Fire); emotions (Water); thoughts and ideas (Air); … Continue reading The Four Classical Elements

The Golden Dawn Factor

The contribution of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn to our modern understanding and use of the tarot cannot be overestimated. Here is a link to a brief article on Biddy Tarot by Richard L. Palmer that lays out the fundamentals. https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-astrology-golden-dawn/ The esoteric concepts and structures devised by the Golden Dawn and its … Continue reading The Golden Dawn Factor

A Simple Yes-or-No Spread

Answering straightforward yes-or-no questions in a clean, simple way has never been easy with the tarot because the cards are highly nuanced, telling complex stories rather than pronouncing clear-cut verdicts. Different approaches have been tried, including single-card pulls that rely on the general positive or negative nature of the card drawn, or - even more … Continue reading A Simple Yes-or-No Spread

The Professional’s Toolbox

I returned to professional public reading around a year ago, after many years away. The first thing that struck me is the number of new decks that are available now, mostly Waite-Smith (aka "RWS") clones. As a long-time student and reader of Aleister Crowley's esoterically profound Thoth deck, I wasn't entirely comfortable using it across … Continue reading The Professional’s Toolbox

Correspondences: How Much is Too Much?

Funny thing about esoteric correspondences. Sometimes you don't need them at all, other times you can get nowhere without at least a cursory nod to them. They're especially useful when a spread serves up a disjointed mish-mash of contradictory meanings that resists all tactics of intuition, inspiration, imagination and ingenuity. The analytical skill required to … Continue reading Correspondences: How Much is Too Much?

The In-between

In a recent essay on David Spangler's (he of the pioneering New Age pedigree) Lorian Association website (see "Strange Attractors" at  http://www.lorianassociation.com), Susan Beal described how she eventually resolved the apparent conflicts between her inner and outer worlds - those of private spiritual practice on one hand and routine daily existence on the other - … Continue reading The In-between