What We Believe

It goes without saying that belief in the validity of divination is key to being able to do it with conviction. But what, exactly, is the object of our faith? Does our certainty have to be unalloyed and unsalted with skepticism or is there room for healthy doubt? I often contemplate what it means to …

The Importance of “Focus”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: While ordering my thoughts for this essay, I toyed with the idea of talking about "landscape" and "distance" (near, middle and far) as displayed in the scenic cards of the tarot, since both imply "action in the world" (Alejandro Jodorowsky's supple phrase) that can be explored during the interpretation. But then I realized …

An “On-Point” Alternative Choice Reading

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although the issue has already been settled in principle if not yet in fact, a client has reached a "tipping-point" in a major life decision and is seeking additional insight from an impartial Universe regarding the wisdom of a pending action that was chosen and is soon to be taken. I used my …

A Matter of Presentation

Questions are often posed in online tarot discussion groups regarding the various ways that readings can be presented to clients. I thought I would take some time to enumerate them along with what I perceive to be their strengths and weaknesses. Face-to-Face Reading: This is the ancestor of all delivery methods and in my estimation …

The Further Adventures of “Gaze and Regard”

I've written in the past on the topic of "facing, gaze or regard" between two adjacent tarot cards that include human or human-like beings in their iconography, and what their juxtaposition in a spread means for the narrative when they are either facing toward or away from one another. (Simply put, one suggests "seeing eye-to-eye" …

“Not A Very Nice Man?”

Whenever I present the observation that by all accounts occultist Aleister Crowley was "not a very nice man," I pause and wonder whether I should look in the mirror. Going back over five years of almost daily posts in this blog, I realize that the "curmudgeon content" in my writing is fairly high, which can …

Prediction, Projection and Confirmation Bias

What is divination anyway? The popular scientific view is that it is pure conjecture with no quantifiable basis; the religious opinion is that it is forbidden by scripture; for the average person it is primarily a subject of idle curiosity. Detractors have coined (or co-opted) the phrase "confirmation bias" (which seems to draw on the …

A Fish Out of Water

"The fish in the water, the bird in the sky . . ." AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I encountered the above truncated haiku (which is apparently a fragment and maybe only a loose translation of a "traditional Japanese poem"), it brought me back to contemplation of the value of Elemental Dignity in tarot reading. This time …

The Pages: “Hesitation Blues”

"How long do I have to wait?Can I get it nowOr must I hesitate?"("Hesitation Blues," early 1900s, attributed to various songwriters) I just came across a description of the tarot Pages as "hesitation between doing and not doing" according to the nature of their suit (Alejandro Jodorowsky in The Way of Tarot). The implication is …

An NFL Football Forecast: New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills, January 8, 2023

UPDATE: Looks like the odds-makers were right: Bills 35 - Patriots 23. The game was deadlocked at halftime, but the Bills broke it open in the third quarter while the Patriots went flat; the win was by almost two touchdowns rather than the one TD the cards predicted (at least they got the winning team …