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 …

Time’s Up! Further Thoughts on Tarot Timing

A logical follow-up to my post on "timing cards" (https://parsifalswheeldivination.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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Weather or Not: An Extended Forecast

To begin trending my tarot forecasting results, I performed this spread for the first seven days of September for the region of eastern New England where I live. The readings fell within the expected range for this time of year (that is, mostly hot with no unseasonable cooling anticipated and little if any rain). Here …

Weather or Not: An Event-Planning Spread

This spread serves two purposes: its more obvious aim is to forecast the likely weather conditions for a planned outdoor event or travel situation. Its more abstract objective is to serve as a data-collection tool for determining how effective prediction is with the cards. One of the chief weaknesses in cartomantic prognostication is that so …

A “Shadow Play” Example Reading

I know an artist  who is starting an on-line business, and I wanted to examine what her prospects are for success with my new "Shadow Play" spread. I used M.M Meleen's Thoth-based Tabula Mundi Colores Arcus deck, with reversals. All images © 2015 M,M. Meleen At first glance, the "outwardly explicit" cards in the top …