Modern Assumptions and Attitudes About Tarot Usage

AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's been a while since I've posted even a mild rant on the subject of modern tarot practice. As usual, online conversations with other tarot enthusiasts light my fuse. Although some mystical purists might insist that I've gone philistine, over the last ten years I've adopted a more utilitarian philosophy regarding use of …

A “Three-Ring Circus” Business Health Reading

To test this spread, I performed a reading on the corporate health of a relative's employer. I used the Retro Thoth deck with its court-card hierarchy of Princess, Prince, Queen and Knight. The Functional Effectiveness row includes the 10 of Wands reversed; the 3 of Disks; the 2 of Disks reversed; the 3 of Wands …

The “Three-Ring Circus” Business Health Assessment Spread

I spent many years as a middle-manager in a medium-sized corporation, and since my retirement I've occasionally brought that experience to bear on my development of tarot spreads for assessing corporate strengths and weaknesses. The title refers to some of the mind-boggling management methods I've seen in my time. If there aren't three middle managers …

The “Spirit-Mind-Body” Personality Matrix

Here is another complex layout that isn't a reading spread but a personality profile developed using the cards; it takes a bit of effort to set up but should be worth it. I've been looking at full-deck readings posted online recently and wanted to try that in a way that randomly "compartmentalizes" the cards into …

The Suit of Wands As “Arrows”

I'm currently reading Alain Bougearel's book, The Language of the Cards: An Initiation into French Cartomancy (OUROBOROS Editions, August 16, 2020), in which he equates the tarot suit of Batons (modern Wands) to the playing-card suit of Diamonds, and associates the arrowhead-shaped suit emblem with the military arrow as a weapon of ranged combat. He …

“Set the Table, Doug”

As my revisionist thinking on the significance of the Major Arcana in a tarot reading continues to churn up fresh ideas, I entertained the notion that the functional relationship between the minor cards, court cards and trump cards might be likened to the experience of dining out. The minor cards provide the "meat-and-potatoes" of the …

Buzzard Luck

"Just like a buzzard flyin' high in the skyI can't kill nothin', nothin' won't die"from "Buzzard Luck" by the Powder Blues Band AUTHOR'S NOTE: Don't expect this to be an entirely coherent ramble unless I find somewhere to take it after my preliminary comments. I've always prided myself on being able to read the tarot …

“The Wall Was Too High” – A 9 of Swords Comparison

I've been reading Barbara Walker's excellent 1984 book, The Secrets of the Tarot: Origins, History and Symbolism, and have been gaining some valuable insights and inspiration from her brief essays on the Minor Arcana. In it she applies the Thoth title of "Cruelty" to the 9 of Swords while discussing it mainly in terms of …

A “Left Brain/Right Brain” Example Reading: The Fate of Roe vs Wade

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is the companion piece to the spread I posted earlier today. To test my new "Left Brain/Right Brain" Split-Decision Spread, I decided to tackle one of the most highly-charged and divisive issues of our time from both a legal and emotional standpoint: the fate of the Roe vs Wade abortion law in …

The “Left Brain/Right Brain” Split-Decision Spread

AUTHOR"S NOTE: I will follow this up shortly with an example reading showing how it is to be used. To help resolve the endless debate (or perhaps to generate more debate) on whether an allusive, intuitive approach to reading the cards or a literal, logical one is most informative, I decided to create a spread …