Fees, Math, the Startup Tarot Professional, and Why You Need Goodwill

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So you want to start a tarot reading business from scratch, huh? Well, before you do, here are some numbers you might want to confront and, after confronting them, understand why goodwill is critical to success in this profession.

Also, why should you have numbers in your head? Because once you have a solid idea of the number of tarot readings you need to do to make a certain amount, your break-even point, etc., then the more defined your goals are. When you have clearly defined goals, you are a lot more likely to succeed.

Now, granted, you’ll have to start by assuming U.S. jurisdiction only. I’ve found that Americans are a lot more conservative and even more resistant to the idea of tarot than, say, their neighboring Canadians, the Brits, Europeans, or Australians. So there’s that. However, Americans (generally here) seem to be willing to shell out more money for a tarot reading than some Asian countries. What you can realistically charge for a tarot reading in China, India, Indonesia, or the Philippines is going to be less than what you can charge in the US, and what you can charge in the US is less than the going rates in the UK. At least those were my informal findings.

Surveying 113 people (across the United States only), the average lay person will risk $10.00 for a 15 minute reading from a tarot professional who the lay person is not familiar with. However—and there is very large and bold “but” here—if you, the tarot professional, have loads of positive testimonials, good reviews, are referred by word of mouth from a friend, or have established your professional credibility, then the dollar amount risked goes up exponentially, and that is a very important point that I will get to later.

What that means for the beginner tarot professional who is hanging out that shingle for the very first time is this: if you are a complete unknown with no established credibility, then according to my findings, you can start at charging $10.00 for a 15 minute reading and make money. If you charge more than that, the chances of securing clients goes down. However, as you build credibility and develop your reputation, then your rates can go up respectively.

If you’re asking me, the following would be my thoughts (and really, I’m not the one to ask for oh so many reasons, ranging from I stink at math, have zero background in accounting or finance to I’ve never actually launched a professional tarot business before; however, for whatever little it’s worth, I am a business lawyer and have counseled numerous startup businesses with their launches).

[Warning: This is a very long post. Unless you are, like, super crazy serious about going pro and have been thinking about the numbers for going pro, I don’t really expect you read the whole thing.]

Continue reading “Fees, Math, the Startup Tarot Professional, and Why You Need Goodwill”

Interview on Christiana’s Psychic Café

I chat with tarot grandmaster Christiana on the Psychic Café about the process of writing Holistic Tarot, using the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, a little bit on the I Ching, and, of course, my signature discursive splattering of chatter.

Christiana’s Psychic Café is aired every Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern time. If you miss it live, you can watch the recording on Christiana’s YouTube channel. She has interviewed some amazing people in tarot and the spiritual community. I’m a loyal follower of the Café. Also be sure to check out Ms. Gaudet’s tarot blog, Tarot Trends.

 

Holistic Tarot Free Study Guides: For Intermediates

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My first book Holistic Tarot was released in paperback this past Tuesday, January 6, and I am grateful for the overwhelming support I have received. First, thank you.

To demonstrate how the book can be used as a textbook for independent study of tarot, I’ve created these study guides that will help you navigate the book at a beginner level, intermediate, and advanced. I talked about the Beginner Level here and we’ll get to the Advanced shortly.

The following Study Guide is for an Intermediate student in tarot learning under the Rider-Waite-Smith system.

You are Intermediate if…

  • you have a working tarot journal of some sort;
  • you can draw any one of the 78 cards and interpret it with semi-confidence;
  • you have a basic, working knowledge of all RWS card meanings;
  • you’re familiar with the Celtic Cross spread and read proficiently with it;
  • okay, you don’t want to brag, but you’re kind of a pro with the three-card reading (or some other simple spread equivalent);
  • you’ve dabbled with different tarot spreads before and have a strong sense of what works and doesn’t work for you; and
  • you’ve done a minimum of 50 tarot readings (closed book, that is!).

If that sounds like you and you want to continue your studies with Holistic Tarot, then download this study guide and the recommended supplements.

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STUDY GUIDE FOR THE INTERMEDIATE TAROT STUDENT

Click on the radio button below to download the PDF.

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Supplemental Downloads

Reading with Signifiers

PDF

First Operation Practice Log

DOCX

PDF

Court Cards Practice Exercises

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Elemental Dignities and Affinities

PDF

Daily Readings

DOCX

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Ruminations on the Major Arcana

DOCX

PDF

The Three Septenaries

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Card Counting (Majority View)

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Worksheet for Devising Your Own Spread

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You can order your copy of the book on Amazon, through the publisher’s website at North Atlantic Books, or through the distributor, Random House.

All Holistic Tarot study guides and supplements are available for free download here on this website at HOLISTIC TAROT STUDY GUIDES. I hope these study guides are helpful in your learning and if you do use the Intermediate’s Guide, please let me know about your experience with it!

Mental Disposition and Reading Tarot Card Reversals

From the Oswald Wirth Tarot.
From the Oswald Wirth Tarot.

Let’s talk about card reversals. No, not how to read card reversals. I mean why some practitioners read with card reversals and some do not. There’s the succinct answer of “to each his or her own; since we’re all different, we all approach tarot differently,” but I mean beyond that, why?

Some practitioners would feel remiss to not consider the energy of card reversals in a reading. For others, an upside down card image drives them mad and thus interferes with their intuitive abilities. You end up with a camp of tarot readers who read with reversals and a camp who does not, leaving beginners who are entering the tarot forum for the first time wondering what the heck they should do. When “just do what feels right to you” sounds too vague of an answer, let’s try to get down to some specifics.

So like reading with reversals vs. reading without reversals, we’ve got two camps of mental dispositions: the left-brained and the right-brained.

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Continue reading “Mental Disposition and Reading Tarot Card Reversals”

Is Tarot Reading Bullshit?

I came across this video clip on the interwebs. It seems to be from one of those rational skeptic shows, one called “The Bulls**t Detective” (Series 1, Episode 4), meant to debunk “pseudoscience and . . . new age nonsense.” By the accent of the show’s host, Alasdair Jeffery, I’m assuming it hails from the UK. Not so sure of the language of the subtitles. If you’re a tarot reader, I strongly recommend that you watch this and, I hope, read my assessment of it below.

Three tarot readers are showcased: Paul Hughes-Barlow, professional tarot reader for over 20 years; Laura Boyle, professional psychic and tarot reader; and Andy Cook, a professional tarot reader with 7 years of tarot reading experience. The three practitioners (per my view) are named in the order of tarot mastery. That assumption of mine comes mainly from my high respect for Hughes-Barlow and his work and, at the end of the video, how Cook kind of loses his cool as the TV show host Jeffery quite deliberately goads him on.

Continue reading “Is Tarot Reading Bullshit?”

Holistic Horoscopes: Your January 2015 Sun Sign and Tarot Forecast

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Every few months I get the itch to dabble in sun sign horoscopes. To do so, we focus on what’s up with the Sun, Mars, Mercury, and Venus, with an eye on the Moon. I use the day-night rulership approach, running transits animations for January, 2015 and analyze those transits. There’s really no science to sun sign horoscopes and anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is just pulling your leg. Still, they’re fun and every once in a while, by some synchronous fluke, can even be useful. So here we go. January, 2015, and even some additional insights into the rest of the year for each sign.

I’m also going to throw in a tarot card draw for good measure, coming to you from the Voyager Tarot by James Wanless. (Click on any of  the card images for a larger view.)

I like to open with the sun sign of the month, and that’s you, Capricorn.

Capricorn | December 22 – January 19

It could be a hectic start to the New Year and you’ll feel like you are at the center of everyone else’s personal predicaments. That’s only because people see you as always reliable and need you to be their rock. Be alert to curve balls that could get thrown your way. You’re going to feel a child-like fragility and vulnerability this month. Drama may ensue this month and it won’t be your fault. You just have to breathe, hold back, do not overreact, and try not to let the uncertainties of the future unnerve you. You’re contemplating a new course of action as part of your resolutions, but fear of the unknown holds you back. You need to regain confidence in yourself, and then blockages to your creativity can be eliminated.

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Card Drawn. Nine of Crystals: Narrowness

Your hard, impenetrable character grounds you, gives you a sense of stability, but it is also isolating and lonely. There seem to be bars over your view, restricting your perceptions. And yet such narrowness is also what keeps you focused.

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Continue reading “Holistic Horoscopes: Your January 2015 Sun Sign and Tarot Forecast”

Review of the Wild Unknown Tarot

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If you’re plugged in to the online tarot community in any way, even minimally, then you’ve been hearing buzz about this deck. It’s self-published and I’ve got to say, recently the self-published decks have been beating the traditional publishers. Hey traditional publishers: what are you people doing? Get with the program.

Even non-tarot people (many from the fashion world) have been getting into the Wild Unknown tarot deck. Imagery from the cards are just freakin’ everywhere. I remember first seeing an Instagram photo of someone’s tattoo and thinking, “That kind of looks like a tarot card” only to realize it was. What is going on?!

But the few glimpses of cards I saw here and there made me think that this deck would be one of those “its own unique system” decks where I’d have to do a lot of learning before I did any reading. And I’m getting to that age (sadly) where I don’t know if I want to learn any more “new tarot traditions.” So at first I thought I was going to pass.

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And then the imagery. The card’s artwork kept drawing me in, beckoning. “You want me.” No I don’t! Go away. “You want me.”

Then a few weeks ago I set a goal for myself (unrelated to this deck, and totally unrelated to tarot) and said if I met that goal, I’d reward myself with the Wild Unknown tarot deck. I met the goal and the first chance I could, bolted for the computer and placed my order.

And wow. WOW. Best decision ever. The Wild Unknown is easily one of my favorite tarot decks now.

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This is one of the highest quality decks I have come across in a long time in terms of the cardstock, the matte finish, and the box packaging. Kim Krans renders the images in hand-drawn black ink illustrations, with just a touch of color here and there so beautifully and intuitively done that they are sure to activate chakras while you read with this deck.

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Wild Unknown, Suit of Wands, Ace to Ten

I’d categorize the Wild Unknown as a Marseille-based tarot deck. After all, Key 8 in the Wild Unknown is Justice and Key 11 is Strength (as opposed to the standard RWS, which is 8/Strength, 11/Justice). However, going through The Wild Unknown Tarot Guidebook that Krans graciously included when I purchased this deck, I see a lot of card interpretation crossover from both the Rider-Waite-Smith and Thoth. In that sense, the Wild Unknown would work very well as a beginner’s deck, though such a beginner would have some work to do if she were to later try to learn the traditional Tarot de Marseille, Rider-Waite-Smith, or Thoth. So in that sense, the tarot practitioners who are calling this deck its own interpretive system have a point.

Continue reading “Review of the Wild Unknown Tarot”

Dame Darcy’s Mermaid Tarot Deck Review

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I should tell you something. I’m not that into mermaids, or sailors, or ships, nautical imagery, or 18th century colonial dress (you’ll see– like in the Two of Wands, Nine of Cups, Page of Cups, Page of Swords, Ten of Cups, etc., pictured below).

And yet I’m VERY INTO Dame Darcy’s Mermaid Tarot deck. My fingers and my head are bursting with excitement as I type this. I don’t know how she did this, how she can get someone like me to be so enamored with this tarot deck.

I first saw the deck’s vibrant images in a vlog deck review by The Four Queens, and while watching, didn’t realize it was called the Mermaid Tarot. I just saw the images and said with quite a bit of conviction and brattiness, “I want that. Now.”

Then I watched Elora Tarot’s vlog on it and, learning more about the deck, realized it’s all about mermaids and sailors and stuff. I kind of thought to myself, “but I’m not that into mermaids and sailors and stuff.”

Whatever, it didn’t matter. There was something drawing me to this deck. I don’t know what kind of spell Dame Darcy put on this deck but hey, it worked on me. It was a bit pricier than most commercial decks out there and with self-published tarot decks you don’t always know what you’re getting into, but you don’t understand– I needed to get this deck.

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So I got it, and now I don’t know whether to be a good Samaritan and use it as a professional reading deck to share the beauty of Dame Darcy’s artwork with everyone who gets readings from me or be selfish and horde this deck all to myself and not let anyone else touch it, ever.

Usually with tarot decks I hear word of it buzzing about for months and then at some point, I buy. With Dame Darcy’s Mermaid Tarot, it went from “I’ve never heard of it” to clicking “Add to Cart” in, like, I think less than an hour.

The above photo shows what I got with my purchase order. Two extra cards came–an extra Ace of Cups and an extra Wheel of Fortune, which is why they’re set off to the side like that. More on that later. No box, but that’s totally okay with me. I love the black velveteen drawstring bag. It’s even got a sailor’s anchor on it, going with the theme. *Love*

As she noted in her review of the deck, Kelly-Ann of The Four Queens got a stunning handwritten, hand-drawn page with a vegetarian recipe while Elora Tarot got one on seed sprouting, so that kind of got me excited about the prospect of a freebie, but alas, I guess the freebies only go to the VIP. I, however, non-VIP that I am, got no handwritten, hand-drawn page. Aww. Shucks.

Continue reading “Dame Darcy’s Mermaid Tarot Deck Review”

I Ching Divinations in the Month of December for a Twitter Follow

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For the month of December, 2014, ending right before New Year’s Eve, I am offering I Ching divinations in exchange for following me on Twitter.

Okay come on. That’s like basically free, people. And if you’re already following me on Twitter, then it is free. Just let me know!

These are not full readings, by the way, and you will be meeting me half-way in terms of work. Let me explain.

I’ve been tackling my own translation and annotations of the I Ching so that I no longer need to work off any of the current English translations. So that’s what I’ll be using for these divinations–my own work product.

To get your I Ching divination from me, here’s what you have to do:

Continue reading “I Ching Divinations in the Month of December for a Twitter Follow”

This Is Goofy: The Radio Is Talking To Me

Italiano: Radio Marea (1950) by Fabiomoie
Italiano: Radio Marea (1950) by Fabiomoie

So I’m driving to work in the morning stuck in a rush hour traffic jam. My car is effectively parked on the freeway and I’m running late for a meeting. I mutter obscenities and am freaking out about whether I’ll make it to my meeting on time. Just then my finger inadvertently pushes the change-radio-station button on my car steering wheel and it’s Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” or a snippet of it.

Chill out, whatcha yellin’ for?

That’s all I hear before I hit the change-station button again and I catch the start of my current #1 favorite song, Enrique Inglesias – “Bailando.”

I’m happy now. Super happy. Because “Bailando” makes me happy. Also it’s not easy to catch the start of a song you like off the radio. You always land on it mid-way through or near the end. This time, I got to hear “Bailando” in the entirety. A gift from the Universe.

What? . . . It is.

That wasn’t the first time stuff streaming out from the radio made sense with what was going on with me in the moment. I gave a shallow example, but it was the most recent. Other times much more serious stuff was going on when randomized snippets of songs from the radio didn’t seem so random and played just when they needed to be played.

The other day an author, psychologist, and acclaimed academic had on the signature line of his e-mail the following quote: “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” ― Albert Einstein.

Yes, I thought. Yes.

Not that I’m saying God has nothing better to do than to talk to me through the lyrics of pop music playing on radio stations. But still.

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Anyway I did have a tarot point in all this. So often the messages we get from tarot are like those inexplicable coincidental (or synchronous) moments with the radio. I’m not claiming that those weirdly-timed snippets of pop songs are a form of divination. (Radiomancy? Hey, it’s got an Urban Dictionary entry; must be a real thing.) But it’s a synchronicity that, given the timing and given what’s going on in our lives at that moment, takes on personal significance that causes us to reevaluate what we’re doing or where we’re headed. It’s a moment of strong connection between ourselves and something bigger and greater, something that often feels divine.

Like many a tarot reader, I get that handful of clients who either want to be willfully ignorant of my ethical approach to tarot or who, in spite of knowing that I don’t do fortune-telling come to me anyway wanting me to tell them their fortunes. They are always the same clients who end up disappointed when I don’t tell them that their futures hold great riches and it will all be a beautiful fairytale ending, happily ever after with their preferred lovers. Worse yet, I feel used and my skills abused.

Yes, tarot does shine the way for us and can help illuminate our life path so we see clearer, but it doesn’t give us an easy solution. There are no easy solutions and if you’re getting a tarot reading with the hope of hearing an easy solution to your problems, then I’m afraid you don’t possess the wisdom to properly use tarot as a tool and really shouldn’t be going to readings at all.

Hearing “Bailando” on the radio didn’t solve the traffic jam. It didn’t change any of the conditions of the road I was driving on. However, it changed my mindset. And made the condition not only bearable, but pleasant. That moment of connection with the divine, that coincidence, that so-called radiomancy wasn’t about making the traffic jam go away or asking or wondering whether I would make it to my meeting on time. It was about me, and how I’d spend every moment of my time on that freeway. I could spend it cussing and wondering about the unknown, or I could roll with it and sing to “Bailando.”

Often the messages we get through tarot are synchronous, coincidental in ways that convince you it wasn’t just a coincidence, but because the message didn’t contain the answers or easy solutions we wanted to hear, we dismiss it and miss that moment of connection with God. And what a shame that would be.