Wishing you a very happy and prosperous Christmas. I am looking forward to seeing all my clients and new clients very soon.
Paul
Happy Christmas to you all
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The Tarot and the Magus on Kindle!
It has been on the cards for a while (ahem), but now The Tarot and the Magus is available on Kindle on the UK Amazon for £9.65 and the USA Amazon.
Youtube comment on The Tarot and the Magus
The MadameNadia has just posted a video on the Book of Thoth and my book, The Tarot and the Magus.
Significance of death for the Death tarot card?
The Death card is one of the most feared cards… by tarot readers, and they try to dissemble when it appears in a reading, and say, “it doesn’t always mean death, it means change”.
The problem is that the way Tarot is generally taught is all about the meanings of the cards, there is an obsession that is entirely unhealthy, so that when Tarot readers have problems remembering the divinatory meanings, they worry, thinking that something is wrong with them. Unfortunately, remembering the primary meaning of the Death card is rarely a problem.
We all have issues with death – where we go when we die; do we get punished or rewarded? Maybe we saw someone close to us die in a painful way. Divorcing ourselves from these perceptions and experiences is not easy.
As if that was bad enough, the Tarot community has seriously shot itself in the foot with its fondness for one particular kind of spread, the Celtic Cross spread. Why is that a problem? When the Death card appears in a Celtic Cross reading, the Tarot reader will try to smoosh over it in an attempt to reduce its significance. Oh the illogicality of it all. Why? By definition the Celtic Cross spread (and other positional spreads) seek to increase the significance of the cards by only using the first ten cards off the top of the deck – all the other cards are ignored. If the Death card is in the top ten it is very significant, while if it is in the the ignored, covered up, and hidden other 68 cards, then it has no significance.
The same applies to any card, such as the Tower, 9 and 10 of Swords, 10 of Wands, etc that is awkward for the tarot reader.
There is also a problem with the so-called positive cards – let’s say that the Empress and the Lovers appear in the Celtic Cross spread – what a wonderful combination! A fruitful relationship… with the distinct possibility that there will be a baby soon! But what if the client was a mother desperately worried about her under-age daughter’s relationship with an older man?
No wonder so many tarot readers lack confidence – they leave themselves in the permanent quandry of desperately trying to find significance in the divinatory meanings and then having to backtrack when the difficult cards turn up.
Do I have this problem? Nope! I use the Opening of the Key spread, which utilizes all 78 cards – the Death card will always appear somewhere, and I have the luxury of looking at the context of that card in relationship to the cards around it. In the Celtic Cross spread, it is easy for the client to see that tricky card in all its glory, while in the Opening of the Key spread, unless it is on the top of any of the four piles, it is tucked away, and the client may not even notice it. As a Tarot reader, I have the choice, I have the luxury, I have the option of drawing attention to the Death card, on my terms.
Try doing that with the Celtic Cross spread.
John Dee’s Birthday
Today, 13th July is the birthday of John Dee, my favourite magus, polymath, patriotic Englishman, even though he was Welsh.
John Dee came to prominence when he calculated the optimum time for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the First. It was a time when England was bankrupt, surrounded by enemies, and fearful of religious fanatics. Sound familiar?
By the end of her reign, England was the richest, most powerful country, which went on to create the British Commonwealth, a term coined by John Dee.
John Dee worked for the British Secret Service, headed by Walsingham. His code number was 007. Quite what Dee thought about the shenanigans around phone hacking we will probably never know. Oh for someone of his authority and stature – England needs him.
Beyond the Celtic Cross on itunes
Beyond the Celtic Cross is now available on iPhone, iPad or iPod touch for £9.99.
The Tarot and the Magus will also be available very soon in this format…
Tarot talk at Brighton University
As a favour for a friend of a friend I gave a tarot talk yesterday at Brighton University as part of Simon Ward’s MA on Critical Art.
I was expecting a bunch of bored students in the audience who knew nothing about Tarot, but actually everyone were Occulture veterans, so it was more like a reunion. Some were at my debut talk in the Hanbury Arms in 2002, so they got to hear the same talk again, but hopefully a lot more polished, and without the stage fright I experienced the first time round. Continue reading
Opening of the Key Tarot spread tutorial series
Douglas Gibb has started a new tutorial series on the OOTK. I have no idea what he has in store, but knowing him, it will be good.
Card counting is not always enough
Card counting is the fundamental technique for analysing a string of tarot cards in the Opening of the Key spread, but there are times when it is not necessary or advisable to use in a tarot reading.
Sometimes when I spread out the string of cards for a client, before I can count, my eyes are drawn to several groups of cards – they do not have to be reversed, although this sometimes helps. It is as though the client sees one or more choices for their life, but they are unable or unwilling to do anything about. Sometimes a group of cards represent people or situations who are not connected to the other groups. This can of course be a good thing – you might to compartmentalise your life.
Compartmentalisation can be a good or a bad thing, but it does seem to block the flow of energy. It is as though there are blockages in each area that is represented by the group.
You could card count within that group of cards to see where the energy is going, or not going – maybe there is an uncounted card which is the origin of the problem.
My experience is that I spend some time talking to the client about what they may not want to do with their life. Perhaps there is a better alternative that they are unwilling to see or acknowledge. At some point this energy seems to clear, and I can either card the entire string, or usually better, I will reshuffle the cards to see the new opportunities, and then the card counting works again.
New card counting section
I have created a new section on supertarot that brings together the different styles and methods of tarot card counting. All these pages existed, but they were in different places. There is a lot more work to do, but at least a card counting resource now exists., and we can use this as the basis for developing things further. If I was starting over, I would probably rewrite everything, but with feedback we can improve things. Let me know what you think.