Although I understand why we do it, I've never been entirely satisfied with the fact that most methods of dealing the cards draw them from the top of the deck after the shuffle and cut similar to the way playing cards are dealt for games. Some readers circumvent this by pulling the cards from a … Continue reading The “Gambler’s Cross” Spread
Celtic Cross Spreads
Open for Business
I found out yesterday that my WordPress PayPal button does in fact work, and I've begun doing on-line tarot readings. The client in the most recent case shuffled and pulled her own cards, effectively putting her personal stamp on the reading, and e-mailed me the list to reconstruct the layout and read it at my … Continue reading Open for Business
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
Paired-Deck Reading #1: A Family Matter
A few of the Lenormand writers I follow have mentioned the practice of merging tarot or oracle cards with a Lenormand deck, usually by drawing a handful of cards from an alternate pack as a postscript to the Lenormand reading. I've never found this particularly useful, but lately I've been thinking how it might be … Continue reading Paired-Deck Reading #1: A Family Matter
The Lagging Indicator
I figured I had better strike while the iron is hot on this thought. While considering the nature of divination in my previous post, it occurred to me that the "outcome" card in a tarot reading - the outward evidence of a predicted conclusion - may actually be what the science of economics calls a … Continue reading The Lagging Indicator
Parsifal’s Wheel – A Celtic Cross Variation
The famous (or as some would have it, infamous) “Celtic Cross” (CC) tarot spread popularized by Arthur Edward Waite in his Pictorial Key to the Tarot in the early 1900s and updated by Eden Gray and others in the last half of the 20th century is a mainstay of the tarot reader's art. In the … Continue reading Parsifal’s Wheel – A Celtic Cross Variation
Parsifal’s Bow Personal Destiny Spread
When working New Age fairs, I'm usually limited to brief reading sessions, no more than 20 minutes. My favorite spread has always been the venerable Celtic Cross, which I've tweaked to my own satisfaction over the years. But doing justice to one takes me a solid 45 minutes, and even trimming it to half-an-hour is … Continue reading Parsifal’s Bow Personal Destiny Spread
The Case for a Traveling Significator
I stopped using a Significator card to represent the querent in my Celtic Cross spreads a long time ago. It seemed redundant to the "live" Significator sitting across the table from me - and that one talks! It wasn't adding anything of value to the narrative, so I retired the idea. But I started considering … Continue reading The Case for a Traveling Significator
