Ruling Cards: An I Ching “Hand-off”*

*In US football, a "hand-off after the snap" means that the quarterback hands the ball immediately to one of the running backs behind the line of scrimmage, hopefully advancing it downfield on the play through the element of surprise. (I won't get into the even-trickier "double-reverse" here.) Humor me while I stretch the analogy a …

The “Moving Card” Idea-Development Spread

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've just come up with a notion that intrigues me quite a bit, and I credit metaphysical author and blogger Benebell Wen for taking me there via the discussion of "moving lines" in her book, I Ching, The Oracle: A Practical Guide to the Book of Changes. Its ideal application may be in …

Two Approaches to Tarot Triangulation: The Quintessence and the Midpoint

AUTHOR'S NOTE: There is a technique used in navigation and surveying called "triangulation," the technical definition for which, in its simplest form, is "the process of determining the location of a point by forming triangles to the point from known points." While navigation encompasses distance as well as direction and position and surveying only defines …

Interstitial Tarot Reading: “Piercing the Veil”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In a non-tarot-related Medium post I came across the word "interstitial" (a term that describes the transitional space connecting two related objects or ideas, much like a short hallway linking adjacent rooms). It brought to mind my previous comments about having to rely too heavily on intuitive guesswork in order to bridge the …

“Getting It Wrong”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Tarot novices often ask more seasoned diviners (with almost palpable dread) "What should I do if I get a reading totally wrong for one of my sitters?" The puzzling thing for me is why they assume they must be infallible when that's an impossible feat in a practice as fluidly impressionistic as card-reading. …

Boundaries, Fences and Neighbors: Drawing a Line in the Sand

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In his poem Mending Wall, Robert Frost gives the impression that he is rudely baiting the neighbor who keeps telling him earnestly "Good fences make good neighbors" as they work on repairing their shared stone wall. ("Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Hmm. Why do I feel that Frost would have …

Qabalistic Constellations: A Reading Template

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As does religious mysticism with its unproven "origin" theories and moralizing allegorical themes, esoteric metaphysics exhibits a long history of "making stuff up." In the world of tarot, the British "Occult Revival" of the late 19th Century produced the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, one of the chief proponents of such inventive …

Deck Selection and Spread Dynamics

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not proposing that there are "scientific" answers to these questions but, humans being the insatiably curious and highly critical creatures that we are, I tend to think in those terms. "What is the best deck to use? What is the best spread?" I hear these questions all the time from beginners who …

One Against Nature: A Tarot Self-Critique

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Mystical and spiritual types like to assert that they use tarot solely to tap into their self-awareness and self-improvement potential in the service of personal enlightenment. Fair enough, but going at it completely cold with nothing but the cards to compare ourselves to - no model or set of criteria defining excellence and …

Emotional Bias in Cartomancy: A Case Study

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The adverse impact of intense emotional upset on the task of shuffling the cards is a topic that often surfaces in conversation. I've seen endless hand-wringing in online discussions over whether being distressed when consulting the cards should be viewed as a "show-stopper." Most people who bring it up are afraid that their …