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?
Divination
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
The Proverbial “Spaniard:” An I Ching/Tarot Reading Attempt
John Lennon once wrote a book called A Spaniard in the Works. Its title appears to have been a puckish allusion to the British expression for an unforeseen problem: "a spanner in the works." As it turned out when I attempted to use this spread, my memory was faulty. Not all of the Thoth Minor … Continue reading The Proverbial “Spaniard:” An I Ching/Tarot Reading Attempt
An I Ching/Tarot Problem-Solving Spread
This is my first attempt at fashioning a practical spread from a combination of the I Ching and the tarot. The decks I intend to be used are Anthony Clark's I Ching Pack, which has direct correspondences to the hexagrams; the Thoth deck with its association to the hexagrams through Aleister Crowley's commentary in The … Continue reading An I Ching/Tarot Problem-Solving Spread
A New Chapter: I Ching and Tarot
Over the years, as I've worked my way several times through Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth, I've pondered his references to I Ching hexagrams in his commentary on the cards of the Minor Arcana but I've never done anything practical with that information. I also own the Thoth-based Haindl tarot deck, which has the hexagrams … Continue reading A New Chapter: I Ching and Tarot
An Inevitable Conclusion
As much as I would love to be a highly successful tarot reader in a face-to-face professional environment (it's where I do my best work and offer the most value), I've come to realize that my true calling is undoubtedly as a writer. In all modesty, I haven't come across much modern writing on cartomantic … Continue reading An Inevitable Conclusion
So Mote It Be
My head is crammed with allusions this morning. The title refers to the Masonic, Rosicrucian and Neo-pagan benediction at the end of a ritual or prayer, where "mote" means "may" or "might." I'm thinking that "it might happen" is often the best we as diviners can muster when trying to fathom the likelihood of projected … Continue reading So Mote It Be
Mystics With Statistics
The title has a certain "ring" to it. This is another chapter in my ongoing inner debate over mysticism vs. empiricism. Warren Zevon once wrote a song called Desperados Under the Eaves that included the lines: And if California slides into the ocean Like the mystics and statistics say it will Although those mystics probably … Continue reading Mystics With Statistics
A Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down Example Reading
I put the unsatisfactory reading I did yesterday through my new "dead or alive" model as a test case, using the Joie de Vivre tarot. The situation involved a young girl in Connecticut who went missing in 1973 while riding her bike a short distance from home. She went to retrieve an item that she … Continue reading A Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down Example Reading
Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down: A Missing-Person Subroutine
Yesterday while performing a missing-person reading on a young girl, I came upon an implausible scenario that pointed out a flaw in my spread methodology. I presently have two spreads to examine these situations. One is more locational, asking "Where is X?" while the other attempts to answer "What happened to X?" The second one … Continue reading Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down: A Missing-Person Subroutine
