Reversals? Why Not?

I'm constantly encountering people who say "That deck has non-reversible backs. You can't do reversals with it." and "That's a Golden-Dawn-based deck, they didn't use reversals so you can't either." My unspoken response is "So? Rules were made to be broken." Another favorite excuse for not learning to use reversals effectively is "I don't need …

The Point of No Return

I did a reading for a woman yesterday who was wondering about the advisability of trying to reconnect with a former friend. The friendship failed under unhappy circumstances almost six months ago and they hadn't seen each other until a chance meeting at a local supermarket, a cordial but very brief encounter that opened no …

WYSIWYG or “WYSINWYG?”

Back in the '80s, computer geeks were always talking about programming code that let a developer (and eventually a user) see the end product of their work on the monitor screen while they were in the middle of creating it. These editors were known by the acronym  "WYSIWYG" ("What you see is what you get"), …

The “Great Make-over” Personal Tune-up Spread

Many tarot enthusiasts shy away from divination of the "fortune-telling" sort and instead use the cards for augmenting their personal sense of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. Most of the spreads I've seen for this are usually light on detail, typically no more than five cards. Here I'm offering a more complex spread for …

Company in the Cross-hairs: A SWOT Road-map

The subject of "SWOT" analysis (Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats) comes up fairly often on the tarot forums, usually in the context of personal  circumstances rather than the corporate affairs for which it was originally intended. I can see the appeal, but I think it's a bit mechanistic for that purpose and have created many SWOT alternative spreads that …

Win, Lose or Punt?

To punt (Informal): To cease doing something; give up. ("Let's punt on this and try something else.") Predicting the scores for opposing teams in sporting events is a fascinating minor sidelight to our more ponderous cartomantic excursions, and - at least in my experience - one that seldom yields accurate results. I've come to believe …

The “Powers” of the Court Cards

In The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic, Israel Reagrdie published a version of the "tarot papers" of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, collectively titled Liber T, that has additional content - some inserted by Regardie, apparently from the Whare Ra Temple documents, some written by his publisher Christopher Hyatt, and some generated …

Court Card Thumbnails – The King/Knight of Swords

The Minor Arcana: The King/Knight of Swords Titles: Fire of Air; The Lord of the Winds and the Breezes; the King of the Spirits of Air Astrological Correspondence: 21° of Taurus to 20° of Gemini Commentary: Golden Dawn “Liber T” (S.L. Mathers): “Active, clever, subtle, fierce, delicate, courageous, skillful, but inclined to domineer.  Also to …

The River Was Dry

Country singer Hank Williams once wrote a country blues song called "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" that contained the verse: "And then I jumped in the river, but the doggone river was dry." Funny thing about trying to read for oneself on a daily basis, especially after doing it for years on end. Eventually it can …

The Art of the Draw

There is a old phrase used in card-playing circles that has made its way into general usage as an expression of the fickleness of life: "the luck of the draw." It's a philosophical bookend to the related sentiment "Play the hand you're dealt." There is a fated quality to both that doesn't sit well with …