Just FYI: you may notice, at the top of the blog, a new link called Decks/Books. It’s not complete yet, but I plan to list all of my tarot-related decks and books there, with links to Amazon where possible.

I may also try to maintain a list of decks and books I plan to buy, as well, so you faithful readers can warn me if I am about to buy something that sucks.

Enjoy!

I had a 15%-off coupon, so I went on a little shopping spree at Half Price Books last night! I picked up The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites & Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order, and I was hoping to find The Tree of Life: An Illustrated Study in Magic, by the same author, since I had noticed it there before. But, I didn’t see it last night. I also would have gladly picked up a copy of 777 And Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley, but I didn’t see it either! Oh well.. I did grab a copy of Tarot Talismans: Invoke the Angels of the Tarot. All of this is primarily to further my study of tarot as a metaphysical/magical device, rather than a simple divination tool.

So, not the best luck in books, but not bad. I also got three oracle decks:

• Gypsy Fortunes: Use the Magic of Romany Cards to Foretell the Future. These are clearly a close cousin to my Lenormand deck. Fun! Also, the book gives simple tarot correspondences, and I was just telling someone yesterday that I want to do a serious Tarot-to-Lenormand mapping. More on that in another post!
• Cartouche Cards. I’m very excited to learn more about these egyptian-themed cards! And when I do, I’ll either love them or hate them… don’t know which, yet. The artwork is primitive, which usually does not appeal to me.
• The Well Worn Path deck. Sadly, I got the cards but not the book in this set. But, from what I can tell, they are a pagan/wiccan-themed 40 card oracle… once again with clear connections to tarot and gypsy cards, but with some twists. I may not take any time to try to learn about these, but rather use these cards more intuitively.

I’ve been mostly trying to steer clear of buying more tarot decks, as I find I keep coming back to just one or two decks that resonate with me. So, other than to appreciate the art, more decks don’t really mean much to me. On the other hand, I find learning about various gypsy/oracle systems to be kinda fun… and I think it may make me a better tarot reader in the process.

Anyway, I had a great time, and expanded my deck collection in the process.

BTW I know I said I’d have my notes from my recent Living Tarot talk up here by now… sorry… I’ve just been terribly busy lately. Notes are still coming…

Wow, has it really been almost a full month since my last, so-called daily reading? Sorry, I’ve been quite busy.

Anyway, I have some smallish scans of a Lenormand deck now, so I can share some of the readings I do with this fantastic and historically interesting oracle. I use the French Cartomancy Kit cards, and these scans are fairly similar to those images.

I don’t try to be extra “gypsy”-ish when using these cards… I use them pretty much the way I use tarot cards. Maybe there are some purists out there that think that my approach is horrible and wrong. If it makes you feel any better, there are probably plenty of tarotists that think my tarot techniques are horrible and wrong, too!

The Reading

Today’s reading was done before I went out trying to run an errand on behalf of a friend. I tossed down four cards. The horizontal axis is “situation” vs. “outcome”, and the vertical axis is “do this” vs. “don’t do this”.

In case it’s hard to read, they were:

• Situation: 21 Mountain
• Do this: 6 Clouds
• Don’t Do this: 10 Scythe
• Outcome: 29 Woman

Ruh-roh… looks like trouble. The mountain indicates a large obstacle in my way. Furthermore, the advice, clouds, is to try to deal with the confusion and uncertainty the best I can. This is emphasized further by the advice not to be decisive (scythe) or do anything irreversible. Luckily, I took the outcome, the Woman, to mean that my friend would be okay with whatever happened, even if there were delays or I just couldn’t help her. As if to further reassure me, I glanced at the bottom card of the deck and saw 30 Lily, which I associate with calm and zen-like grace (among other things).

So, fine. I will do my best, and try to roll with the punches on this one…

I’ve talked before about a method to generate Planet + Sign + House astrological readings. That method requires that you separate the deck into three sets of cards before dealing, though. So, unless I have a pre-sorted deck, I’m just not patient enough to prepare for that reading. I’ve been investigating other methods to use.

I have never really liked the typical 12-houses spread, where there’s one or more cards dealt per house. Or per zodiac sign, or whatever. In a real astrological chart, there’s often lots of energies at work in one area of the zodiac, and none in other places. So, a card per house seems artificial. Some of you may recall from my recent talk that I want my spreads to match up with real life, at least symbolically….

So, here’s one way to generate a divinatory astrological chart:

1. Shuffle the cards while thinking of the issue at hand. Intend to get useful information via this spread.
2. Deal around a circle so that you get twelve piles of cards. So, you’ll deal around the circle six and a half times, putting the cards face down.
3. Now, go through the piles, one by one. You want to get rid of everything except the planetary majors, the Emperor, and the Ace of Wands. If a pile would be empty, leave one card face down as a placeholder for that position.
4. Interpret the Emperor’s position as Aries. Then, as you go anti-clockwise around the spread, consider the positions to be Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, and so on around the zodiac.
5. Interpret the Ace of Wand’s position to be the Ascendant (1st house). Then, as you go around the spread anti-clockwise, you’d consider those positions to be the 2nd house, 3rd house, etc.
6. Interpret the planetary majors as the planets, which now have both a sign and a house to live in.

If pictures help, here is the initial dealing (using my Lo Scarabeo Deck):

… and here is the completed spread:

The Emperor and the Ace of Wands were in the upper left, marking Aries and the 1st House, respectively. They had no planets in those positions, so I also left a face-down placeholder there. Then, we had Mercury and the Sun in the 3rd house, which in this case is also Taurus. We had Jupiter and the Moon in the 4th house, which is Gemini. We had Mars in the 5th house, which is Cancer here. We had venus and Pluto in the 6th house, Leo. We had Saturn in the 7th house, Virgo. We had Neptune in the 9th House, Scorpio. We had Uranus in the 11th house, Capricorn.

Now, you can interpret the situation using whatever astrological tools you have at your disposal.

Variants

One variant is to use your actual natal chart to guide the sign/house alignment. So, still use the Emperor card to locate Aries in your spread. But forget about the Ace of Wands. Once the zodiac signs are determined, use your actual natal ascendant as the position of your first house. Then you can read whatever planets you spread as transits of your birth chart, if you like.

A second variant is to interpret planets in houses, without regard for the zodiac signs. In this case, forget about the Emperor card, and just locate the 1st house via the Ace of Wands.

[Edit 2008/06/19]: A third variant, suggested by Dawn in the comments, is to use your natal chart as a map. You would place cards around the zodiac where your planets are, and read them in terms of how those planets are affecting you. This is nice because you’d just spread 10 cards in the right places, and read whatever cards you get. Simpler than dealing them all and searching for the planetary majors.

FAQs

• Why use a marker for Aries? Why not just fix it at the top or something?
  
  Because there are 12 positions and 78 cards, some positions will have more cards in them after you’ve dealt them all out. You want the signs/houses with extra cards to be selected at random.
• Are the astrological charts resulting from this spread 100% realistic?
  
  Not quite. For instance, in a real chart, Mercury can’t stray too far from the Sun, but here it could land in opposition to the Sun. But, it’s pretty realistic, anyway.
• Why did you pick the Ace of Wands for the ascendant marker?
  
  It just felt like an appropriate choice, as it starts off the houses, and in the natural zodiac the 1st house is on a fire sign.
• This spread sounds like an excellent way to learn the meanings of the signs, planets, and houses. Do you agree?
  
  Yep! I do.

I was the presenter at today’s Meetup! It was stressful to give a presentation, as I am always really nervous. But, I do think it went over well, and I didn’t say too many things that I regret. When I’m nervous and on an empty stomach, I’m prone to wanton hyperbole…

I do want to point out that I wasn’t knocking knitting as an activity, when I said something like “if you are going to selectively ignore and deprecate your readings, you might as well take up knitting.” I just meant that knitting would be a more productive use of your time. I actually plan to learn how to knit, at some point. So, I hope no one took that the wrong way.

Anyway, I had notes I was referring to, in the form of slides…. and sometime soon I will post them here on the site, for anyone that wants them.

I’m trying out the video route, to see if I like doing it… not sure if I will.

Anyway, the point of this video is that it can be useful to look at your tarot reading as a magickal act. Especially because, then, you can take responsibility for addressing negative or scary readings. You don’t need to downplay your efficacy as a reader, or the efficacy of tarot cards in general.

Think about it: would you rather say “it’s just cards, and it’s only a warning about a future you can change anyway, and readings are wrong all the time”… or would you rather say “I will now address this negative outcome via the same mechanism that’s causing it”? I know which one I’d rather pick…

Sorry I haven’t written much in the last few days… I’ve been busy with other business activities. But, I did pick up this fun deck of 45 Cat Wisdom Cards, today!

If you do a reading with them, make sure you factor in enough time to pause and say “awwwww” a lot.

I expected the book to explain the meanings behind the colored dots on the cards, but there is no explanation… I guess the colors were chosen at random or something. Lame! But the pictures are cute, and for fluffy questions you can get adorable answers. What more could you ask for?

I thought this was fun to listen to, especially since I had just gone to see a medium of sorts last week. It comes from Steve Pavlina and his wife Erin. I think a lot of the articles over at StevePavlina.com are pretty good, on all kinds of personal development topics. I actually tried the polyphasic sleep schedule for a while, inspired by what I saw there!

Here’s the post about the ‘Being Psychic’ episode. It covers everything from spirit guides, to distinguishing psychic impressions from daydreams, to pricing a psychic/medium reading.

I had noticed that on the pre-order page, the date was pushed back to September… it was August, before. Now, I’ve seen an email from an inside source, indicating that the deck was cancelled at the last minute.

I hope it’s not true, but it seems to be pretty reliable info. *sigh*

[Edit @ 3pm: well, now the pre-order page linked above goes to a "product not found" page... I'd say this deck has been slain.]

[Edit 2008-06-05: now I have secondary confirmation from another source. Looking more solid, now, that the deck will not see the light of day.]