The “Good Days/Bad Days” Mixed-Media Weekly Forecast Spread

When I run out of metaphysical grist for my editorial mill I turn to spread creation. Here is another of my "mixed-media" layouts that uses dice and cards. The idea is to craft a seven-day weekly forecast out of fourteen face-down cards by using the even or odd number of face-up spots in a single …

Lunar Month Look-ahead for May-June, 2020

Here is my monthly lunar forecast for May-June of 2020. This spread is designed around astrologer Dane Rudhyar’s eight-phase “lunation cycle,” during which each sub-phase lasts approximately 3.5 days. I used the Moon Phase Calendar website to easily identify the approximate dates of the phase changes. I always use reversals with this spread. The deck …

Hobbled and Hamstrung: The Scientific Fallacy

It has struck me that all past efforts to legitimize psychic phenomena have attempted to play by the rules of conventional logic in trying to apply established quantitative benchmarks to unknown phenomena. Making the observation fit the intellectual hypothesis is  a time-honored practice by which theoretical discoveries are brought under the umbrella of academic acceptance. …

Metaphysical Entropy

The subject of how long a tarot prediction can be considered reliable is a fascinating one. This becomes especially interesting when an attempt is made to forecast circumstances and events an entire year into the future. In general I will use the Lenormand Grand Tableau for this purpose because its numerous "departments of life" can …

“Psychism with Props?”

While rereading Robert Wang's The Qabalistic Tarot, I came across the following statement that got me thinking about my own assumptions regarding the proper use of tarot for divination: "The Tarot is best used for divination about mundane matters. It is not particularly well-suited for furnishing answers of an important spiritual nature because it is …

Psychometric Card Selection

The extrasensory technique known as psychometry assumes that an object has an energy field that can transfer knowledge, such that holding an item in your hand (or in this case holding your hand over it) will convey information associated with its history that may be relevant to present and future circumstances. In reading about an …

A “Rotational Bias” Mixed-Media Decision-Making Spread

Here is another "mixed-media" spread, in this case using a coin-flip to determine the direction in which to deal and read the cards. It requires pulling "clockwise" cards from the top of the deck and "counter-clockwise" cards from the bottom. Reversals may be used with this spread.

A Case for Positional Spreads

I'm more than a little bemused by people who say that using formal tarot spreads "inhibits their intuition." Seems to me they're too easily diverted from their goal by undue sensitivity to the mechanics of the art; a spread is nothing more than a convenient template that offers a reasonable place to start, like an …

The “Big Three”

As I frequent the more popular Facebook tarot pages, I notice a number of patterns beginning to emerge in posts by those new to divination. Almost every day, someone (or several "someones") asks one of the following questions, even though it may have been posed just the day (or the hour) before. There doesn't seem …

Trumps As Situational “Wallpaper”

This is a follow-up to my observation that, rather than foretelling inevitable events of a life-altering nature, the trump cards most often serve as profound "background themes" or big-picture "stage-setters" for the minor-card actors, much like a theater backdrop. They invoke a climate that is ripe for certain occurrences, but the querent must still command …