The Virtue of Simplicity

As time goes on I find myself drawn more and more to working with only the 56 Minor Arcana cards in divination. Granted, the 22 Major Arcana are where most of the philosophical "meat" lies in the tarot, but very few of my readings rise to that level of metaphysical complexity and intensity. Most of …

“Will the Real Page of Wands Please Stand Up?”

The methods by which human personality, age and gender have been assigned to the court cards of the tarot have never resembled an exact science. The old ways of using physical traits as the  basis for qualitative "thumbnails" are almost entirely unsatisfactory: Wands people are assumed to be fair-haired, light-skinned and blue-eyed, those at the …

Incremental Court Cards

As I continue my study and practice of playing-card divination, I'm gaining some insights into the nature and application of the court cards that can be readily integrated into my knowledge of the tarot courts. The main idea is one of the progressive or incremental unfolding of the hierarchical and numerical energy in human terms. …

Students, Cynics and the Tarot Court

One of my favorite aphorisms is "I'm a student of human nature, so of course I'm a cynic." I believe that every individual has a private script (and usually a personal agenda) of some kind running at any given moment (they're basically starring in their own movie, although I don't think that's exactly what Aleister …

The “Agree to Disagree” Decision-Making Spread

Here is a spread designed to examine situations where an individual must interact with another person or entity to undertake an initiative of some kind when one or both of them may not be fully on-board with the arrangement. I could see using it in any scenario involving controversial legislative action in the present US …

The “Let Me Face It” Action/Initiative Decision-Making Spread

This spread is named in honor of a French-Canadian acquaintance who always said "Let me face it" instead of the rhetorical "Let's face it" when making a point. It uses the facing of the court cards to indicate which of four rows of face-down cards to select for the reading. The court cards are separated …

“Stirring the Pot” – A Developmental Insight and Action Spread

Here is another split-deck decision-making spread. It formalizes the involvement of other people who may have a stake in the matter, whether to aid, obstruct or take advantage of the seeker. This is accomplished by separating the court cards from the deck and dealing them into specific positions reflecting the above possibilities. Human beings are …

A Horse of a Different Color

To my knowledge, other than the small dog in Le Mat, the lion in La Force, the two canines in La Lune and the two horses in Le Chariot, there have been few attempts to rope the Tarot de Marseille animals into the narrative of a reading and give them a starring role. I was …

A Tarot de Marseille Process Analysis

As I gain experience with it, I find that divination with the Tarot de Marseille (TdM) is best suited for providing a literal perspective (as with the Lenormand cards) rather than for the more symbolic, impressionistic approach used with most modern tarot decks. This is due primarily to their spare presentation that doesn't encourage much …

The Jabberwocky and the Thoth Tarot

There is something slightly dismal about the opening and closing stanzas of the famous Lewis Carroll nonsense poem that reminds me of some of the more unsettling cards of the Thoth deck (must be those flimsy, miserable, shabby-looking birds described by Humpty Dumpty).  I took on the interesting challenge of finding correlations between the cards and the rest …