The “Flying Leap” Illness and Injury Risk Assessment Spread

Back in the '50s when people were marginally more genteel, there was an expression of disdainful dismissal that went "Go take a flying leap" (typically off a tall building), the objective being that the miscreant would not return. Where in the '70s we might have said "Go s**t in your hat" and today we get …

“Easy Come, Easy Go”

I'm not exactly "at war" with the narrative thrust of the Minor Arcana in the Waite-Smith (aka RWS) deck, but it often doesn't sit well with me because of my lengthy involvement with the Thoth deck and the Golden Dawn's system of esoteric symbolism. It's not just that the stories they tell are prosaic, they …

Tarot of the Old Path Deck Interview

In doing my "courts and trumps" series of posts, I used one of my long-neglected decks, the Tarot of the Old Path. (I didn't realize it at the time, but there is a good reason those court cards all look so haughty!) I had always felt that the courts in this deck are kind of …

The Pages and the Priestess: Acolytes of the Mysteries

I've always felt that the lowly Pages have more to them than conventional wisdom assumes. They are often described as youthful students or apprentices of either sex who have yet to attain mastery of their element, and are therefore of marginal potency in the hierarchy of the tarot court. Their function has sometimes been limited …

The Knights and the Empress: Fealty and Favor

Some writers make much of the fact that the court cards are unnumbered and therefore can't be used in any way associated with numerology. Personally, I consider them to be part of the suit sequence and to have an implied numeration, 11 through 14. I've been having some fun linking them through numerical correspondence to …

The Queens and the Emperor: The Power Behind the Throne?

Continuing my thoughts on the veiled connection between the court cards and the "higher court" represented by the "noble" trumps, I'm now looking at the Queens and the Emperor. The Queens are the thirteenth card in each suit, which number reduces numerologically to Four, the number of the Emperor. This suggests that they can act …

Useful Patterns: Trump Card Overseers

I'm always looking for useful patterns among the cards of the tarot to augment my spread interpretation. Lately I've been playing around with numerical convergence between the cards of the Major and Minor Arcana. But I like to go beyond the obvious into more oblique territory. For example, when the values of all of the …

The Kings and the Hierophant: An Unholy Alliance?

In historical times there was little separation between Church and State, with secular rulers relying on the sway that the clergy held over the pious to keep them tractable. When you're praying you can't be fomenting unrest (unless you're Martin Luther). The clergy, in turn, relied on the King's protection and largess. Tarot shows us …

“The Oyster and the Sword” Eye-Opener Spread

There is a line from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor where the braggart Pistol obliquely threatens Falstaff when the latter refuses to lend him money: "Why then the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open" I figured this quote is a good inspiration for a spread aimed at exploring unknown territory that …

The “Friend in Need” Value-Added Spread

In working with a sitter who was very concerned about the plight of her best friend and was wondering what she could do to help. I realized that I don't have a spread to address this specific situation. So I created one. What I came up with includes an initial action/reaction scenario, a "willing and …