I was first invited to present at the Masters of the Tarot Conference back in 2019. The Conference takes place every July at the Omega Institute in upstate New York, and was founded by Rachel Pollack and Mary K. Greer.

Opening ceremonies and introductions happen on Friday evening, with a starter workshop or master class as your night cap. Then the keynote speaker events begin first thing Saturday morning and go until Sunday noon. Interspersed throughout are discussion panels for Q&As and moderated topical conversations. The event ends with all of us having lunch together.

I’ve had an incomplete draft of a post-event write-up since July 2019 that I never got around to finishing and posting onto this blog. Sigh. And now the 2023 Conference has come and gone, which was the second time I’ve presented at Omega.

So this blog post is going to cover both the 2019 and the recent 2023 events.

At the 2019 Conference, Terry Iacuzzo, author of Small Mediums at Large and renowned psychic tarot reader, taught a master class on using the tarot for psychic readings. She covered an initial two-step process of seeing the image (clairvoyance) and then immediately asking yourself, “safe or danger?” In other words, what is the dominant emotion attached to the image? Then go from there. She talked about feeling where you are in a querent’s body before you start the tarot reading.

We worked through a method of reading the cards that covered shuffling and cutting specifics, and then her go-to reading spread.

Joanna Powell-Colbert‘s master class felt shamanic in a sense. It was deep, moving, and she took us into darker waters. We worked through a dark moon spread together along with personal ritual. We worked with affirmations as a method of spiritual healing. Joanna is a sacred artist, initiatory soul guide, and popular retreat host in nature-based Goddess spirituality. She’s the creatrix of the Herbcrafter’s Tarot and Gaian Tarot.

Mary K. Greer presented on tarot symbol work and intuition training. What had the most memorable imprint on me was what she said about archaeology of the soul and working with correspondences in tarot symbolism to better understand the anatomy of spirit. We worked through powerful and effective reading techniques that help you to connect multiple cards in a reading spread to convey a cohesive message.

In 2019 I had presented a master class on accessing the Akasha (and perhaps how it was later conceptualized as the Akashic Records by Western Theosophists) through the tarot.

If I had to summarize the key theme of the 2019 Conference, it was shedding light on the dark and the liminal mysteries of the tarot.

The 2019 master class materials can now be downloaded here, but it doesn’t come with the actual workshop presentation, so it may lack important explanatory context and detailed guidance. Nevertheless, it’s a free little something for those who weren’t able to join us in person.

This year at the 2023 Conference I was invited to present again. The theme for the 2023 Conference was magic, mysticism, and neuroscience.

I have to say one of my favorite workshop moments this past weekend was Mary’s group card reading exercises, where we were presented with a hypothetical querent, three-card spread, and in small groups, collectively answer the querent’s question by interpreting that three-card spread… except each small group had to tackle a slightly modified “problematic” aspect to the inquiry, bringing in ethical implications, confronting hard questions such as is your intuition always right?

Dr. Siddharth Ramakrishnan, a professor of neuroscience, presented on the neuroscience of intuition and insight. Though we did not know what each keynote speaker was going to present on in advance, somehow everything connected. Just as Mary challenged us to question whether our intuitive reading of the cards is “always” right, Siddharth challenged us to question whether our intuition was “always” right. What about intuitive knowledge based on subconscious bias? More importantly, how do we lead our intuition to become insight?

Ellen Lorenzi-Prince, a mystic and artist, who you might know as the creatrix of the Dark Goddess Tarot, Tarot of the Crone, The Minoan Tarot, and the Greek Goddess Tarot, walked us through explorations of The World card, guided by the depiction of Key 21 in Rachel Pollack’s The Shining Tribe Tarot. We then worked through a guided meditation and a 7-card Shining Person Spread.

After a discussion of the Shining Woman (Key 21: The World) card from Rachel Pollack’s The Shining Tribe Tarot, we were given a pre-printed outline of the card, which we would then color in and adorn with stickers to express ourselves as Shining Persons. Above you see my coloring in of the card. 🙂

I presented on current theories in neuroscience on psychic experiences, and how we can apply those theories to transcend our innate binary bias, a bias that divides our cognitive functions into science vs. mysticism, rationalism vs. intuition/psychism (conversations re: intuition vs. psychism), and more than that, how innate binary bias is dividing us as a global social collective.

We talked about how we can transcend left brain vs. right brain lateralization models, apply a theory of four cognitive modes to elemental correspondences in tarot, neurotransmitters and the third man syndrome, inducing hallucinations with invocations in the form of call and response, guided imagery to meet a spirit guide, and concluded with how we transcend the binary through the I Ching. We also explored the striking similarities between DNA codons and the hexagrams of the Book of Changes.

This year we had 78 attendees. What I really love about the Masters of the Tarot event in comparison to other tarot conferences is the more intimate setting. Unlike the big tarot conferences with 300 to 500 people, a frenetic energy, excitement, and a lot happening all at once, the Masters of the Tarot at Omega is like a tarot summer camp for grown-ups.

This small group you see spends the entire weekend together in that same room. We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. We hang out all weekend and we really get to know each other by name.

Rachel was definitely with us in spirit, and she showed up many times throughout the event. It was truly lovely.

SUPPLEMENTAL HANDOUTS & MATERIALS

Please note that the previous blog post “Theories in Neuroscience on Psychic Experiences and Tarot Techniques” is password-protected and at this time intended exclusively for those who attended the 2023 Masters of the Tarot Conference organized by Mary Greer and Rachel Pollack.

For those who saw the 2019 post for downloading the Akashic Records presentation materials as password-protected when it was first released for those attendees only, note how they are now in 2023 freely accessible to all (although without the in-person lecture that the attendees experienced).

Some of you may have observed that keynote lectures, master classes, and workshops I present at in-person live events are often turned into online courses you can purchase at nominal rates a year or two later, after the in-person event.

This year in 2023 for the 2019 Akashic Records presentation, it’s offered for free download because economically it’s been a rough year for so many, so it didn’t feel right turning it into a paid course. Hopefully the downloadable handouts without any video explanation or lecture is still sufficient to get you going. ❤

I think (and I hope) that this approach is the best of all worlds. For those who provided patronage that keeps events like the Masters of the Tarot Conference alive and thriving year to year, there is exclusivity.

Yet those who were unable to attend in person, be that due to scheduling or financial constraints or both, there is still access, if you are open to being patient. =) It isn’t exactly the same as the in-person event, because you don’t get the context of the live lecture, but at least there is enough to commence self-study and further independent exploration of the topic.