Whether you’re a tarot beginner (in which case may I suggest you check out “Introduction to Intuitive Tarot,” “Tarot and Pop Culture,” or “Unlocking the Major Arcana through Yoga”), proficient with tarot but looking to take your practice to the next level (ooh–check out my class on “Learning the Opening of the Key” *tooting my own horn*) or you’re aspiring to become a professional tarot reader (check out “Party Readings for Tarot Professionals” or “Tarot, from Hobby to Profession”), the first ever Tarot Summer School is a magnificent trove of tarot studies. A complete list of all course offerings is here, via this link. I’ll be a student, just like you, sitting in on all the courses. So many of them are getting me super excited!
There will also be campfire Q&A sessions where all enrolled students can come together (over the Internet; I don’t know how it works; it’s magic; you’ll have to ask headmistress Ethony) and I will try very hard to make it to one of those campfire sessions so if you want to chat with me, ask me your tarot questions, or whatever, you’ll want to enroll and gain access to the campfire Q&A.
Check out the below link to read all the course listings, meet the faculty, and watch everybody’s course introduction videos. It’s a really diverse group of tarot personalities.
And to give prospective students a free preview of my course, “Learning the Opening of the Key,” I’ve uploaded and made available the first video installment of the lecture series, the Introduction. Check it out:
If that sneak peek into my full course piqued your interest, then enroll today! It’s only $24 USD per course. Or get the lifetime access season’s pass for $199, which gets you all the courses this semester.
And if I did not manage to pique your interest, then… *shrug* doh. I did my best.
But do check out everybody else’s course offerings even if mine isn’t your cup of tea. I know at least one of those master classes is making you go “ooh!!” Embrace that “ooh!!” and your woo, and we the instructors at Tarot Readers Academy will see you at Tarot School this summer.
Back by popular demand (in case you’re like, what does that mean, I stopped offering this service for a while due to it basically taking over my life), the birth chart monograph is a minimum 90,000 word book about your personal astrology. There is also the secondary purpose of teaching you astrology. Then there is even a third mission of this monograph being a form of divination, or bibliomancy for you to reach for time and time again throughout your life path.
You will receive both the PDF and DOCX files of the monograph, formatted to 6″ x 9″ standard trim size for trade paperback with gutter and page margins all set up and ready for professional printing and binding into a hardcover or paperback book, which you would do on your own time through a third party print-on-demand publisher. I only provide the digital soft copy of your book. I also include a stock book cover design with the book title Book of ____, with the blank line filled in by your name. Above and below are examples of what the cover looks like if your name was James. Earlier you saw the Book of Abigail.
I’ve also set the intention for every monograph I prepare to be used as a form of bibliomancy. Some suggestions for how to use the monograph for divination are provided, though of course you’re not limited to those suggestions.
Inserted throughout the book, in between sections (practical reason: when there’s too much blank space left over at the end of a chapter or when I want a new chapter to begin on the recto, i.e., on an odd page, and doing so means a blank page), I’ll fill that blank page with an oracular message from the I Ching or lovely public domain classical art. I specially select art from old grimoires, medieval alchemical texts, that call to mind mythology relevant to some of what I cover in your monograph, and other art forms I find to be more spiritual or religious in perspective (covering all the major world religions).
Your book comes with a table of contents and a glossary of all astrological terms used throughout your monograph, so when in doubt and I’m using astrology jargon and you don’t know what that term references, you can quickly flip to the back of your book and look up that term in the glossary. However, unfortunately, there is no index. I understand this book would probably be doubly indispensable with an index.
That said, I do provide you with the DOCX file, so if you’re savvy with MS Word, I welcome and encourage you to fix up your own monograph before sending it off to the printers for book production. Above, after printing out the book in paperback form on your own, you get a sense of the thickness for the book.
Now the thickness of your birth chart monograph compared to, say, Holistic Tarot.
Every written reading will include the following:
Astrological Trinity: Sun, Moon, Rising
We will cover your sun sign, moon sign, and rising sign. It will cover elemental triplicities, distinctions between diurnal and nocturnal sect placement, house and sign analysis, decan rulership, significance of degrees for your sun, moon, and rising, significant angular aspects, and significance of moon phase at time of birth.
House and Sign Analysis
Since I read with the whole sign houses system, we’ll cover generalities about the signs in your twelve astrological houses per your ascendant. We will address what each of the zodiac signs mean as they fall in the twelve astrological houses of your birth chart. You have Pisces in the third…what does that mean exactly about your intellect, reasoning ability, way of thinking and communicating? Say that your ninth house is occupied by the sign Libra. What are the implications there? This section will go through the twelve houses and how the signs in those twelve houses of your chart mean about your life path, your fate, fortunes, and personality.
Elemental Analysis
Are you Fire, Water, Air, or Earth dominant and what would be the implications of such elemental dominance? Are you Fire, Water, Air, or Earth weak and what are those implications? How do you support your elemental weaknesses to create greater balance and harmony in your life? Based on elemental analysis, who are your spirit attendants from the animal kingdom (also referred to as animal totems)?
Your Decisive Age
We’ll talk about your Decisive Age. I’ll also provide a progressed chart (and tell you what a progressed chart is) for the year of your Decisive Age. There’s some free resources on what a Decisive Age is here on my site.
Planets in Their Houses and Signs
We’ll address house and sign analysis for the following natal planets:
Mercury (Mind & Voice),
Venus (Magnetic Attraction),
Mars (Ambition & Conquest),
Jupiter (Luck of the Draw),
Saturn (Discipline & Perspective),
Uranus (Your Ingenuity),
Neptune (Creative Intuition),
Pluto (The Curveball),
Chiron (The Hero’s Journey),
Ceres (Access to Resources), and
Eris (Psychological Projections).
The Midheaven: Your Higher Purpose
Your reading will also cover your midheaven sign and, since I read under the whole sign houses system, whether there are any discrepancies between your midheaven and tenth house. We’ll cover the major angular aspects to your midheaven and the implications of those aspects.
Hemisphere and Quadrant Analysis
Are you north or south hemisphere dominant and what does that mean about you? East or west dominant and that implication? Which quadrant of your chart is going to dominate in your life? Also, this feature will give you a life chronology of how to navigate the four quadrants of your life– (a) birth to age 21, (b) age 21 to 42, (c) age 42 to 63, and (d) age 63 and onward.
Chart Shape & Unique Patterns
I have a lot to say about stelliums and grand trines. If there is a stellium or a grand trine in your birth chart and you would like to know more about the implications of your specific stellium or grand trine, then this option will appeal to you. However, if there is no stellium or grand trine in your chart, then this option makes no sense.
I will also cover the overall chart shape and its implications in this option, your leading planet, along with assessment of any peregrine or besieged planets I observe, any other unique angular patterns (such as the Yod, or Hand of God), any elevated planets, Herculean Ternaries, Mark of an Empath, etc.
Key Sensitive Points
In addition to your ascendant and midheaven, let’s talk about your co ascendant, polar ascendant, north lunar node, and south lunar node.
This is not astrology per se, though some facets of this option include astrology. What is your Decisive Age? What is your Life Path number? We’ll cover both in independent sections of your monograph.
Hermetic Lot of Fortune + Lot of Spirit
Your monograph will go in-depth about your Lot of Fortune to reveal how you can best utilize your assets and attributes to manifest financially prosperous opportunities for yourself. Your Lot of Spirit will reveal your spirit guides since birth, the archangel per Judeo-Christian mythos that corresponds with your Lot of Spirit, and your directional guardian per Chinese Taoist mythos.
Your Professional Potential
Please note that this is its own standalone reading service, Your Prosperity Advisor. This chapter will examine your professional potential and also offer insights into how you can utilize personalized feng shui guidance to optimize your prosperity metrics.
Love, Romance, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Let’s focus on the seventh house of your chart, the eighth house, your Venus sign, Juno, and your fifth house. Let’s talk love, romance, romantic compatibility, your Juno return dates, and the pursuit of happiness.
Jupiter Returns + Saturn Returns
One chapter in your monograph provides all of your Jupiter Return dates for a 100 year period from the date of your birth. Jupiter Returns mark the most auspicious periods in your life, at least per established astrological principles.
Another chapter will include the dates for your First Saturn Return, Second Saturn Return, and Third Saturn Return, and all the waxing, waning, and opposition transits in between. This chapter also offers insights and recommendations on how to navigate your Saturn Returns. Saturn Returns mark the crossing of major thresholds in your life path.
Past and Present Life Continuum
This chapter covers past life astrology and how analysis of past life astrology relates to present life astrology for your moon sign, fourth house, eighth house, and twelfth house. Note that this chapter is the same as Part I of the Past Life Reading service, a standalone reading option I offer.
Your Key Asteroid Influences
There are about 45 asteroids I study and it does not make economical, practical, or even divinatory sense for us to cover all 45 asteroids in your chart. Instead, I’m going to look at key asteroid influences, but what “key” means will differ from individual to individual, case by case.
Esoteric & Spiritual Astrology
One chapter will cover your seven rays, per esoteric astrology. Another chapter will address your social responsibility per eleventh house analysis, and yet another will cover the spiritual practices keyed specifically to your sun, moon, ninth house, and Neptune.
Glossary of Astrological Terms
At the back of your monograph will be a copy of the Glossary of Astrological Terms. It’s a free download here on my website, by the way (scroll down). The main reason for tucking this in to the back of your book is for your convenience of reference. That way in the content of your monograph, I can simply say something like “profection,” “quincunx,” or “almuten” and trust that if you want to know what that word means in the context of your reading, you can flip quickly to the back of your book, look it up in the glossary, go “oh, okay,” and then return to the paragraph you were reading.
For $175, you’re getting:
JPG file of your birth chart constructed under the whole signs system
JPG files of all data tables and charts used for the analyses that went into the preparation of your monograph
The digital files for a book manuscript that is about 350+ pages, which comes pre-formatted into 6″x 9″ standard trade galleys for immediate upload and printing through any third party print-on-demand service of your choosing (file types: DOCX and PDF)
Step-by-step illustrated instructions on how to review and upload your book files for paperback or hard cover printing through a print-on-demand service
Your natal chart monograph is approximately the thickness of my second book, The Tao of Craft.
Delivery Time
At this time when you order your monograph, you’re also saying you’re ready to wait the full year for delivery. In other words, for all orders placed right now, delivery will be some time before the end of 2018. By placing your order, you understand that delivery term and thus, there is no set delivery date.
FREE Book Production Services to Those 65 Years and Older…
My momma, who is over 65, said it is not going to be easy for her fellow elderly folk to figure out how to upload my PDF, walk through all those prompts, instructions, and steps, and produce a good paperback or even hard cover copy of the monograph. And she said it was unfair and shameful of me to assume. She raised her daughter better than that. Alrightey then.
So. If you’re 65 years or older and you order a monograph, I will help you create the paperback or hard cover version of the book for free and arrange for it to be shipped to you. All you have to pay is the actual cost of the book that Lulu.com charges and the actual cost of shipping. Cost of the book is around $20 or under. Cost of shipping will depend on where you live. This production service is only free for our elderly friends.
…Otherwise, You’re On Your Own.
For everyone else, please understand that while I have done what I can to ensure that your files will upload and print through popular third party print-on-demand publishers, I can’t guarantee it. That is an issue between you and the third party print-on-demand publisher. If you experience technical issues with your upload and printing order, then you need to contact your printer, not me. I am not responsible for actually getting your book printed in hard copy. I am only responsible for delivering to you a PDF and, at your additional request, a DOCX file of your monograph. You’re not paying for a hard copy printed book. You’re paying for my astrology services.
Ordering Details
To order yours today, just e-mail me the following:
Name
Date of Birth
Time of Birth
Location of Birth
Gender You Identify As
When providing birth details, please provide it as follows:
January 21, 1971
12:21 am
San Francisco, California
Here’s another example of properly submitted birth details:
March 15, 1993
12:40 pm
Paris, France
Here is an example of improper birth details:
03/06/1980
Ten minutes after the morning of that day’s midnight hour
Nova Scotia, Canada
Why is the above improper? First, whether the birthday is March 6 or June 3 will depend on the country’s cultural norm and I don’t have time to figure this out. Second, just tell me whether you were born at 12:10 am or 12:10 pm. I get inundated with reading requests. I can’t process your birth details cogently if you don’t help me out a little. Finally, Nova Scotia is a province in Canada. I need the city name. E.g., Halifax, Canada [Nova Scotia]
Pre-Written Text, But Personally Prepared Just For You
Oh please I pray to all things holy that you don’t seriously believe I’ve written from scratch 90,000+ words or over 300 pages of text just for you for the mere fee of $175.00…….
Yeah, no. By and large the text in your monograph is pre-written from a proprietary master book I’ve prepared myself for these monographs. In other words, let’s say you are a sun sign Taurus. I’ll go into my master book, find the section I’ve pre-written about sun sign Taurus, then copy and paste it into your monograph manuscript. If your sun Taurus is under the decan ruler the moon, I have a pre-written paragraph just on sun Taurus under the decan rulership of the moon, and so I then insert that in to your manuscript. Say your rising sign is placed at 13 degrees. I have a pre-written passage on the interpretation of a rising sign at 13 degrees and will include that into your book. And so on and so on it goes.
However, I’m not generating the book through any software programs. It is all done manually, section by section, by me, with your birth chart printed out as a visual for me to constantly refer back to as I assemble your monograph by hand, one chapter and one section at a time. Thus, because there is that personal touch, when I see discrepancies, unique patterns, something anomalous, I can then add in customized text just for you to help you make sense of the pre-written text.
Email contact:
benebellwen (at) gmail (dot) com
For a full service listing of divinatory reading options I offer, click on the banner.
This has been going on for a while already and I am having so much fun! However, I don’t know if I’m reaching enough folks, so here is a blog post. You can sign up to get on a list of folks who consent to possible free randomized divinatory readings to be delivered to your e-mail inbox, perhaps when you least expect it. This is offered alongside all my reading services that you can book. More info on my “Book a Reading” page. Scroll all the way down to see the info on the Free Randomized Divination Sign-up.
The Art of Life Tarot by Charlene Livingstone is the tarot deck I would create. It’s totally up my alley in every way. Let’s bring together the structure of tarot with classical art and inspirational quotes from literary masters and spiritual leaders. That’s what Charlene Livingstone has done here and U.S. Games then materialized her vision into one of the most beautifully packaged decks I’ve seen.
The box that the deck comes in does a cool transformers trick and becomes a display stand. That rocks. Above you’ll see how it all works, with the box-display-stand showing The Empress card, which features a painting of Saint Catherine by Raphael and a quote by Denis Diderot on passion. “Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”
Now, let’s try a reading…
Above, we have five cards under five stones. Right to left, we first see red tiger eye. Choose the card below the red tiger eye for insight into work/career matters. If you want to know about your personal finances and money matters, choose the card below the citrine quartz. If you want to know about a creative project you’re working on, choose the card below the dumortierite. If you want a message on your current spiritual path, choose the card below the amethyst. For a wild card, for whatever message Spirit will impart onto you, choose the card below the crystal quartz.
I am a gemstone and crystal hoarder. I’m not an expert in rocks and minerals, but I am a zealous enthusiast and for the most part, can identify most common stones. Hubby, a world traveler, makes a point to bring back stones and crystals for me from wherever he goes, and not from stores at retail price points, oh heavens no– he’s not that kind of guy anyway. He’s an adventurer, rock climber, hiker, goes places where there is no running water, plumbing, electricity, or internet. Those are the places he brings home rocks and crystals for me from. I also happen to work for a company that owns a couple of mines and trades internationally in natural resources, so that helps. Finally, I buy a ton of stones on my own. Most places I buy from are ehh, okay, that will do. But this place… omigosh this place…. Crystal River Gems in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
It started with a personal hunt for tumbled malachite. I bought some from this other seller, who will go unnamed, and was disappointed. It was expensive and then the stones that came were, for one, small, all under 1.0 inch, lackluster, and some were even chipped. I was displeased, but still needed to restock my personal malachite collection. Then I stumbled upon Crystal River Gems.
Okay first of all, they were selling the same weight of malachite and same size description at a slightly lower price than the place I had just purchased from. So right away I was a touch skeptical. Here is what came:
Malachite from Crystal River Gems
Every one of those stones is over 1.0 inch long. Over! Some close to 2.0 inches. The pieces have a great meaty roundness to them, not like some sliver morsels of gemstones that you get when you order in bulk. I also ordered the bloodstones you see above. I’m always in short supply of bloodstones, it seems, as I work frequently with them. Feels like everyone and their mother I metaphysically empower stones via sigils for need bloodstone. Anyway.
Okay. ::pulls out lectern:: I’m about to get patronizing and preachy about tarot. Uh oh, you’re thinking. This won’t end well.
Deck Image: Smith-Waite Centennial (U.S. Games)
If you are serious about mastering tarot, then you have to keep a tarot journal.
No “maybe consider” or “well this is how I do it” or “whatever floats your boat.” No.
You need to keep a journal.
You need to log your trials and errors. You need to record your ruminations and then go back to update those ruminations as your understanding of tarot evolves. You need to keep your own write-up of card meanings, which yes, in the beginning as a newbie will just be copy-paste general text from other sources but by the intermediate level, almost all of that copy-paste plagiarized (well, no biggie, this is private, personal journaling stuff) text will be transformed into your personalized, original understanding of each card.
The LXXXI is an 81-card esoteric deck by Josephine McCarthy, Stuart Littlejohn, and Cassandra Beanland. It’s not a tarot deck, though you’ll see cards captioned “Chariot,” “Wheel of Fate,” Hierophant,” “Luna” (Moon), “Sol” (Sun), and “Death.” You’ll see “Fellowship” with imagery that may remind you of the RWS Three of Cups.
On a technicality, some might categorize LXXXI as an oracle deck, but I’ll just stick to what it’s been named: The Magician’s Deck. The LXXXI Quareia: The Magician’s Deck “draws upon the mythic, mystical and magical powers that underpin the magical systems that tarot eventually developed out of.” See here. “It is based upon real inner realms, real inner contacts, beings and forces that the practitioner of magic is very likely to involve themselves with. Because of this approach, the deck works as a contacted deck, i.e. used magically the images can act as gateways to inner realms, inner beings and magical patterns.”
The premise behind the LXXXI reminds me of the inner and outer gods concept in Taoism where, in short, certain “gods” reside within us (and they have names, along with descriptions of what they do) and certain “gods” are romping out and about, around us (both on earth among us and in other various supernatural realms). Granted that was the Cliff-Notes-Taoist-Deities-for-Dummies version but you get what I mean.
According to esoteric Taoist principles, a magician or metaphysical practitioner can invoke or summon these “gods” (I put the term in quotes because if you’re looking to translate/interpret the term, 帝, it can be “gods,” “emperors,” “divine beings,” “Divinities,” take your pick) and work with those energies to influence both the natural and supernatural worlds.
The deck is subdivided into four realms. Red bordered cards indicate contacts (the term that the companion guidebook for the deck describes these metaphysical energies as) from the Divine Realm. There are four contacts of the Divine Realm in this deck, pictured above. Star Father I correlates with Divine Intention. Creator of Time II is the energetic movement flowing from the Star Father toward manifestation. Holder of Light III expresses the eventual return of all souls to Divine Source. Archon and Aion are archangelic and symbolize a divine binary. In readings, the card serves as a warning that the practitioner has come to a threshold that cannot and should not be crossed. The message is to turn back.
In both the above photograph and the one below, note how some of the card titles end with roman numerals. I’ll address that later in this review.
Contacts from the Inner Realm are noted by blue borders, case in point Madimi, described here as the “Inner Librarian.” Madimi was one of the spirits that was purportedly in contact with 16th century occultists John Dee and Edward Kelley.
In the printing of the deck copy I received, the borders look more like a deep purple than a blue, but blue or purple, I’m not terribly concerned.
According to the deck description, the art here is done in oils, acrylics, and watercolors. They appear to have been polished and fine-tuned digitally afterward. The art and imagery is very much imbued with Western esotericism and is definitely going to resonate with any practitioner of such traditions.
So far I’ve been trying to remain fair, objective, and factual, but I’m going to break for a moment here and just gush. Omigod I love this deck! The deck fills a void in the tarot/oracle/cartomancy world that I haven’t seen any other deck on the market during the time I’ve been alive and interested in cartomancy even come close to filling. I am not a Quareia practitioner or even a practitioner of Western magic. I don’t even identify as a magician. And yet there is something for me here in this deck.
The Efflorescent Tarot by Katie Rose Pipkin (Self-Published)
Note: What synchronicity. Theresa Reed of The Tarot Lady asked me to contribute to a really cool piece, “Best Tarot Business Advice from 22 Tarot Pros.” And I had scheduled this post to go live in the same week. Definitely check out Theresa’s blog. It’s one of my favorites.
* * *
So you’ve always been kind of a weirdo. An intuitive weirdo, no less. You read tarot cards. Scrying with a crystal ball is not out of your realm of conceivable possibilities. Also, for the last who-knows-how-long, your friends and family have been asking you to divine for them. You hear the calling to do this as a professional now. That’s right. You want to launch a professional service in divination. Although you’re no computer whiz, you do know your way around the Internet. So you’re thinking, gee, I think I could launch an online business where I do tarot readings for people from home.
“The Fortune Teller” by Georges de La Tour (circa 1630s).
I would say this is the dark or shadow side of professional tarot practice. To not face it, to intentionally withhold it from public scrutiny is to practice tarot with your head buried in the sand or worse yet, to intentionally misrepresent what happens or could happen in professional tarot. Everything here makes me uncomfortable. It makes me squirm. It makes me feel icky. I loathe that any little part of my personal tarot practice– always unintentionally– mirrors anything I’m about to address in this post (or in the downloadable PDF I’m providing).
The Arthur Rackham Oracle Cards is a self-published deck by Doug Thornsjo through his company, Duck Soup Productions. It’s one of several in his Playroom Oracles series. The oracle deck is conceived by Thornsjo using public domain prints of Arthur Rackham’s illustrations.
Arthur Rackham was an English illustrator with an artistic style that is now considered iconic of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Rackham drew with pen and ink (my personal favorite in terms of media for tarot art), watercolor, and–as was common for many Western book illustrators of the time– blended European traditions with Japanese wood block art. You see this same influence in the illustrations of Pamela Colman Smith (who illustrated the RWS deck by A. E. Waite).
Most of Rackham’s art appeared in illustrated fairytale books, from Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1900, republished 1909), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1908), and Peer Gynt (1936), which were three books that Thornsjo took most of the imagery for this oracle deck from.
This oracle deck is easily one of my favorites in its execution. I love the keywords, the italicized captions, the layout design for the cards, the selected Rackham illustrations, and the balanced levels of intelligence and creative artistry.
benebell wen 