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
Tarot
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
Air Travel by the Numbers
In addition to casting astrological event charts, one thing I like to do when flying is to numerologically massage the flight numbers to see which Major Arcanum card will set the tone for travel safety on each leg of a trip. For our recent journey, the outbound flight numbers were 2606 and 2615. Both of … Continue reading Air Travel by the Numbers
Daily Draws: My Back Pages
In the 1964 "political apostasy" song My Back Pages, Bob Dylan's refrain perfectly nailed my evolving attitude toward drawing one or more cards on a daily basis for anything other than learning purposes. "Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." Back in "the day" (mid-1970s), only a couple of … Continue reading Daily Draws: My Back Pages
My Tarot and Lenormand Decks
Since I'm offering personal on-line readings here, I thought it would be prudent to list all of the tarot and Lenormand decks I have available. The first six are those I use regularly in face-to-face public readings, the rest are more for private use and study but I will read with any you choose. That … Continue reading My Tarot and Lenormand Decks
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