A recent Facebook post on the Tarot History page by tarot author and deck creator Robert Place about the earliest known forms of divination got me thinking about the nature of intuition (specifically as championed by those cartomancers who only use free-association from the card images, downplaying or dismissing the value of knowledge-based analysis). In … Continue reading Intuition or Guided Suggestion?
Tarot
The “Fountain of Truth” Alternate Trending Option
Even those of us who have spent decades reading the cards are sometimes compelled to come up with creative stopgap measures to "skin the proverbial cat" when our usual approach falters. Here I'm tackling what I perceive to be an inherent weakness in the traditional Celtic Cross spread: the interpretation of the "crowning" card as … Continue reading The “Fountain of Truth” Alternate Trending Option
Dissecting the Celtic Cross
I've used the venerable Celtic Cross spread during most of my long involvement with the tarot, having first encountered it in Eden Gray's book The Tarot Revealed in 1972. At the time I didn't realize that Gray had taken a few liberties with A.E. Waite's original, and I found her version to be remarkably effective. … Continue reading Dissecting the Celtic Cross
An Astro-Tarot Meditation Aid
Aleister Crowley said that the ideal way to become intimately acquainted with the Major Arcana of the tarot as "living beings" is meditation (although divination is the most practical way for the uninitiated). In his book The Druidry Handbook, John Michael Greer observed that the noisy Western mental machinery is not amenable to the Eastern … Continue reading An Astro-Tarot Meditation Aid
A “Build-It-As-You-Go” Example Reading: Hurricane Dorian
UPDATE: Hurricane Dorian did in fact spare southeastern North Carolina any significant damage, and made landfall on the Outer Banks in line with my alternate prediction. There was some serious damage on Okacroke Island. Interestingly, as the hurricane approached Wilmington, NC, I was asked to do another reading about the likelihood of a tornado in … Continue reading A “Build-It-As-You-Go” Example Reading: Hurricane Dorian
The Repurposed Significator: A Comprehensive Overview
In previous posts I've mentioned the idea of reinstating the Significator card in my Celtic Cross readings (something I did away with as unnecessary a while ago) for the sole purpose of identifying through its facing whether the querent is consciously focused (or unconsciously fixated) on the past, the present or the future of the … Continue reading The Repurposed Significator: A Comprehensive Overview
Temperance, the Star and the Water of Spirit
The thing that is most obvious when examining the two cards of the title is that the figure on each is manipulating a fluid that has been symbolically linked to the ethereal elixir of Spirit. Temperance is sloshing it back-and-forth between two chalices (and much has been made of the fact that, in the Waite-Smith … Continue reading Temperance, the Star and the Water of Spirit
Time’s Up! Further Thoughts on Tarot Timing
A logical follow-up to my post on "timing cards" (https://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com/2019/07/10/rare-medium-or-well-done-a-timing-card-experiment/) is to find a consistent way to bring them to bear in any spread. The most obvious solution would be to simply apply my table to the "outcome" card, but not all of my spreads have outcome cards as such. A better approach may be … Continue reading Time’s Up! Further Thoughts on Tarot Timing
Virtue Is As Virtue Does
. . . or something like that. The uncertainty over which tarot trump card represents which of the four cardinal and three "theological" virtues is a continuing source of on-line debate. As a non-religious person I don't bother much (or at all) with the Christian virtues in a tarot reading, but I am intrigued by … Continue reading Virtue Is As Virtue Does
Finally . . . A Valid I Ching/Tarot Reading
I think I have most of the kinks worked out of this spread, and the decks I selected seem like a winning combination. For this reading I used the boldly-colored Albano-Waite RWS deck and the similarly vibrant Tabula Mundi Colores Arcus as companions to Anthony Clark's I Ching Pack. The Albano-Waite executes the table of … Continue reading Finally . . . A Valid I Ching/Tarot Reading
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 