Category: divination

The Tarot World 2010 – 2019: Decade in Review

On By benebellIn cartomancy, conferences, deck review, divination, opinion, professional tarot, tarot, tarot community23 Comments
The Fountain Tarot

Reflecting on this last decade, from 2010 to 2019, is on everybody’s minds. And I’ve been thinking about how the tarot world has evolved through these years.

Balancing the paragraphs of text will be photos of decks published in the 2010s that I’ve reviewed in the past. Please know that the placement of images will not relate in any way with the text around it– after having written this piece, I went back and inserted the images at random. (Oh, and click on any of the photos to read my review of the pictured deck.)

Tarot Mucha

While I get into a little social commentary here, I do want to emphasize that I’m speaking from my perspective only, so I can only report what I experienced through the decades (yep, I want to start with the last decade, 2000 to 2009). How old I was, where I was in my life, what my primary interests were at any given time– all of that factors in to my experiences and interactions with the tarot world.

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Witchcraft vs. Ceremonial Magic?

On By benebellIn divination, grimoire, Magical in the Mundane, opinion, personal spirituality, tarot community, traditional witchcraft7 Comments

First posted in a newsletter e-mail 2019 Dec. 5 to talk about my Western Witchcraft I: The Fundamentals and Doctrinal Basis independent study course

What is the difference between witchcraft and ceremonial magic?

I’ve been struggling to understand for myself what the distinction is between witchcraft and ceremonial magic. Because the immediate go-to points of differentiation you often hear people reach for feel kinda superficial.

There are more significant differences between two different traditions under the heading “witchcraft” (or two different traditions under “ceremonial magic”) than there are the alleged differences between the main generic headings “witchcraft” or “ceremonial magic.”

It was all “maleficia“…

Pretty much up until witchcraft or maleficia was no longer outlawed, what we today might associate with ceremonial magic would have been tucked under the heading “witchcraft.”

The law (back when the law cared about public accusations of maleficium…) lumped it all together and while I was doing historic research for my novel, bishops and otherwise powerful men had gotten accused of witchcraft and for being witches (though in those cases, they were probably false accusations; those men were just challenging political power).

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Tarot Fortune-Telling, Divination, and Life Coaching (Part I)

On By benebellIn cartomancy, divination, opinion, tarot, tarot community21 Comments

Whether fortune-telling with the tarot is okay or not okay is this weird hill that people are hell-bent on dying on. At the end of the day, whether a tarot reading is fortune-telling, divination, psychology-based, or some form of life coaching is just a difference in style, I think. We’re all doing the same thing. We just prefer different terminology because we’re trying to craft a particular image of ourselves.

Recently in online tarot social media, the topic of fortune-telling and whether this is something we want to encourage or discourage came up in discussion. It reminded me of a recent personal event.

Back in July I was visiting my parents in upstate New York. Mom, Dad, me, and the Hubby walked into a Chinese restaurant where my parents are friends with the owner. The owner came over to chat and asked us how we’ve been, and in particular, what I’ve been up to. They’re all speaking Mandarin Chinese.

Mom said to the owner, “My daughter is a fortune-teller.” (For those who speak Mandarin, she said, Ta hui bang ni suan ming. And yeah, I get it, my pin yin is probably all wrong there.)

I’m sure my face scrunched up into a grimace. “Ma, no, that is not what I do,” I replied in English.

“All right. Fine. Then you tell Auntie what it is that you do,” said Mom.

Continue reading “Tarot Fortune-Telling, Divination, and Life Coaching (Part I)” →

Planetary Lithomancy by Micki Klein

On By benebellIn astrology, divination, gemstones and crystals, holistic horoscopes, Magical in the Mundane, personal spirituality6 Comments
Click on any of the photographs for an enlarged close-up view.

I can’t fully convey to you how excited I am about Micki Klein’s Planetary Lithomancy divination set. A while back she had launched a crowd-funding campaign over on Kicktraq to self-publish the divination set, but sadly it did not gain the traction it absolutely deserved. I wish she had reached out to me at that time to help her signal boost, because I would have promoted the heck out of this! I’m so in love with what Klein has created. This YouTube video, “Planetary Lithomancy” by Micki Klein, explains the divination system pretty well.

I confess that I got to tinkering with the divination system before even opening its companion guidebook, but don’t worry– I’ll be reviewing it with the guidebook and getting to Klein’s approach. First, my own. =)

As soon as I saw the board with the astrological houses and keywords, as an astrology enthusiast I felt I immediately knew how to operate this thing. I was so excited by the concept I didn’t even continue rummaging in the kit that Klein had sent me. Instead, I ran upstairs and started picking out gemstones all on my own, from my personal stash, for the seven sacred planets and two of the main Hermetic Lots.

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Chinese Oracle Bone Divination Cards 2.0

On By benebellIn cartomancy, divination, free download, oracle deck, personal spirituality, promotional, Tao of Craft (book)17 Comments

Four years ago I released for free digital download the first version of the Chinese Oracle Bone divination cards. Since then there have been 18,769 unique downloads, many have written in telling me the deck is eerily, spookily accurate, so I’m making the inference that there’s a use for this deck and it’s worth my while to edit them and offer an improved version 2.0. I’ve also revised and formatted the companion guidebook for paperback printing.

TL;DR

Here’s a checklist of all the free digital downloads in this post:

With the above, you’ll be able to craft and produce your own 33-card deck, any way you like. Customize to your heart’s delight, until it’s exactly what suits you.

But…

I’ve also prepared direct-click purchase options on third party external websites for those with no intentions of customizing and redesigning their own deck:

Design Option #1: Taoist Seal
$16.17 for the deck
$4.88 for the guidebook

Design Option #2: Three-Tailed Fox Spirit
$16.17 for the deck
$4.88 for the guidebook
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Avoiding the Thoth Tarot Because Crowley

On By benebellIn cartomancy, divination, Holistic Tarot (book), opinion, personal spirituality, tarot, tarot card meanings, tarot community, tarot exercises, tarot symbolism40 Comments

A recurring sentiment you’ll hear, even among tarot readers, is that Crowley’s Thoth deck should be avoided, because Crowley. After e-mailing me paragraphs of rehashed Internet research on the salacious nuggets of the man’s biography to lay the foundation of their point, the inevitable question will come: “Should I avoid working with the Thoth because it’s got bad juju?”

I’m always amused when this question is presented for me to answer, as if I have any reasonable idea whether you in particular should work with or avoid working with the Thoth. It’s a matter of personal preference, and so it’s a question I can’t answer without knowing you through and through.

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An “Ancient” Mode of Tarot Reading by MacGregor Mathers

On By benebellIn divination, free download, Sightsee the Tarot, tarot card meanings, tarot exercises7 Comments

Skill Level: General (All)

Together, let’s walk through a tarot reading method instructed by S. L. MacGregor Mathers in The Tarot, Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play (1888). He describes this reading technique as “a very ancient mode of reading the tarot” that “will be found reliable.”

Shall we try it out for ourselves?

TdM Card Meanings Reference

The Tarot (1888)

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Investor’s Oracle Deck (A Free Download)

On By benebellIn divination, free download, Magical in the Mundane, oracle deck21 Comments

Introduction

The Investor’s Oracle is a simple and straightforward 25-card divination deck for equity markets, printable at your standard playing card size, or 2.48 in. x 3.46 in. (63 mm × 88mm).

The idea for creating this deck came about at a dinner table when the Hubby and several of our friends, who are also either financial analysts or avid investors in the stock market, were talking about the volatility of the market (I say that like I have any idea what that even means…) and how at this point, a monkey with a dartboard can do better at making investment decisions than the veteran analysts.

Innocently, I raised the question, well, head to head who do you think would do better? The witch with zero experience in the stock market who relies on her Craft or the veteran analyst.

That night I got to work on crafting my own divination deck to compete, me versus Hubby. He’d use his sound experience as a veteran analyst while I would literally pick a card from my divination deck and make investment decisions based on my pick. 9 times out of 10 I didn’t even know what the ticker symbols Hubby was giving me stood for.

Hubby continued to test me and was rather amused at how “accurate” some of my decision-making was. And then eventually, because it was getting eerily consistent (and we were literally reaping in the financial gains on my “crapshoots”), it wasn’t fun and games anymore and he hijacked the divination deck for himself.

Free Download

There’s nothing innovative or special about the deck structure itself. There are only 25 cards and if you can read English, then you can work with these cards competently. No learning curve involved.

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Creative Divination: Reading Tea Leaves by Tabitha Dial – Book Review

On By benebellIn book review, divinationLeave a comment

Tea leaf reading (or palmistry, can’t really determine which of the two) is probably the first form of divination I was exposed to as a child. For many personal-shadow reasons, I’ve always rejected it and shirked from any interest in learning more about it, but recently I set the goal to learn and Tabitha Dial’s Creative Divination: Read Tea Leaves & Develop Your Personal Code has been an incredible introduction to the art.

Dial herself comes from a creative writing background and is a poet, which is evident in how well-written and organized this text is. Among independently published books in this field, this is one of the more polished and professionally designed.

She begins by distinguishing her approach to tea leaf reading from a more folksy fortune telling approach. This book sets forth an approach she calls Creative Divination, which is “related to fortune telling, but arguably more of an exercise in reflection and self-improvement.” Creatives, such as artists and writers, share many traits with psychics and diviners, and Creative Divination taps in to that common denominator process.

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Tarot Summer School 2018

On By benebellIn cartomancy, conferences, divination, Magical in the Mundane, professional tarot, promotional, tarot, tarot community, tarot symbolism6 Comments
Click to reserve your Season Pass! $199. Installments available.

This is my third year participating as a master class instructor at Tarot Summer School and the line-up is spectacular. You’re not going to want to miss this intense semester, so get the Season Pass!

You get lifetime access to any course you purchase. If there are 7 courses you’re interested in and you buy each separately, that’s almost the cost of the Season Pass. For $199, you’ll get all 13, and get access to the courses for life. So it’s not like you have to do all 13 courses this summer. Buy it this summer and save it for later. Revisit the courses as frequently as you like. It’s a pretty incredible deal when you think about it. Click on the banner above to book your Season Pass, or check out the courses separately below.

I’ve hyperlinked the titles to their respective course description page at the Tarot Readers Academy. There are also hyperlinks for each instructor’s own website or professional landing page. That way if there are any names you’re not familiar with, you can learn more about their work.

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