The “Whole Suit” Tarot-Timing Technique

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have little faith in any of the tarot timing methods I've tried, including several I created for my own use. Unless an occurrence is limited to a known time-frame (e.g. an action with a firm deadline for closure), its destiny can be too fluid and present too many variables to pin down …

Mental Over-steering: Mercury and the Tarot Eights

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In the Book of Thoth Aleister Crowley expounds at length on the fact that the Sevens and Eights are unbalanced, "low down on the Tree and off the middle pillar." In the case of the Eights they represent an over-emphasis on intellectual rationalizing divorced from the more mystical, intuitive and fluid outlook of …

The “Elemental Grab-Bag” Four-Mode Answer Spread

Here is another spread that uses a "prepared" deck with four elemental sub-packs, Fire, Water, Air and Earth. It applies "quintessence" cards to suggest external factors in the matter, but only if more than one column is being read as the answer to the question. A single-column interpretation is construed to mean that the matter …

The Birth Card: A Matrixed Approach

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The subject of birth cards sometimes comes up in online discussions. Many people use a numerological approach, adding together the numerals for the day, month and year, reducing "Theosophically," and coming up with a Major Arcanum as a symbolic avatar that can be used as a "significator" in tarot readings. Here I'm looking …

“Movement Cards” of the Waite-Smith Tarot

AUTHOR'S NOTE: While contemplating the Waite-Smith (aka "RWS") 6 of Swords as a card of transition from one mental state to a more promising one, I decided to identify the other RWS images that signify movement as a consciously-applied force and not merely a consequence or byproduct of other factors. Some of the best examples …

The “Elemental Agenda” Clarifier

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As an "old-school" tarot reader with metaphysical roots in the early days of the New Age, I take a dim view of drawing additional cards to clarify an original pull merely to avoid struggling with what we at first don't understand, instead of trying to puzzle our way through it. But after arguing …

“Say It Ain’t So” – The Sting of Swords*

*"Say it ain't so, Joe!" has been memorialized in legend as a small boy's reaction upon hearing that star outfielder "Shoeless Joe" Jackson allegedly admitted involvement in major league baseball's "Black Sox" bribery scandal of 1920 (according to court records, he didn't and was eventually exonerated). Although this quote is most likely apocryphal, the youngster …

“The Boomerang Effect” – Reversal as Denial

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was reading Isabel Kliegman's description of the reversed 9 of Cups as indicating "denial of the need for self-care" (my words paraphrasing hers) in an alcohol-addiction scenario where the client was obviously lying to herself. Smelling another opportunity to enhance my growing appreciation for reversed-card significance, I decided to look through my …

The “High/Low/Middle” Situational Outcome Spread

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I did with Alejandro Jodorowsky's Way of Tarot, I will continue posting selected insights that I pick up from my re-reading of Isabel Kliegman's Tarot and the Tree of Life. Yesterday I rediscovered her Jungian take on the 8 of Cups with its image of a man who, having failed to find …

Left or Right? Polarity in Divination

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Moving on from my recent essay about the observer's proper orientation to the left and right pillars of the Qabalistic Tree of Life, I set out to explore the significance of the left and right sides in divination. In Western mystical circles, the passive left side is often referred to as the receptive, …