Intermediate Publicity Tips for the Tarot Professional: Your Platform

On August 12, 2015August 12, 2015 By benebellIn professional tarot, tarot4 Comments

Yeah, I don't know. I needed a picture to go with this post. I didn't have one. So here is what I came up with. Don't judge me. — Yeah, I don’t know. I needed a picture to go with this post. I didn’t have one. So here is what I came up with. Don’t judge me.

I posted an article a while back, “9 Easy Ways to Increase Publicity for Your Professional Tarot Services” here on this blog. That was for budding or startup tarot professionals. Let’s talk about taking that up a notch and going over some intermediate publicity tips. These tips are going to be most helpful if you’ve been actively pursuing a tarot reading business service for at least 3 years and have been a tarot practitioner for much, much longer than that. If that description applies to you, then read on.

Let’s talk about your professional platform.

Why You Need a Platform

For starters, if you have any aspirations for publishing a book on tarot someday, you’re going to want an established professional platform before querying agents or editors. Even if you have no book aspirations, if you’re in the tarot business to succeed (and I have to presume you are), then having an established platform will enable you to set higher fees. And people will actually pay those fees because they trust your expert experience.

If you’ve ever wondered why another fellow tarot reader seems to be a ton more successful than you and begin to wonder if maybe that reader is better than you as a reader, then stop right there. No, fool! That reader isn’t better than you in any way except maybe better at marketing and self promotion. Marketing and self promotion, at its most effective, is related to your platform.

So. Okay. Now you’re interested in hearing me out on this point. How do you establish your professional platform?

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Guardians of Wisdom Universal Power Cards: A Review

On August 10, 2015October 14, 2015 By benebellIn cartomancy, deck review, divination, tarot19 Comments

The Guardians of Wisdom Universal Power Cards is a 78-card tarot-inspired oracle and insights deck, or universal power cards, that was self-published back in 2000 by Todd Hershey and illustrated by Emy Ledbetter. I contend that this deck came out way ahead of its time, and had it been released today, 15 years later, rather than back in 2000, it would have become an instant bestseller and generated a great deal of buzz.

The vibes of this deck are the same vibes as today’s most popular oracle decks and resonate with why we reach for oracle decks, only the Guardians of Wisdom cards do it better. Like, way better.

It’s not light and sugarcoated. Many of the messages can be bitter pills to swallow about yourself. As either tarot or oracle decks go, this one is way up there in terms of how well it achieves equal competency between both upright and reversed readings with the deck. In fact, you’ll want to read with reversals when you use the Guardians of Wisdom power cards and you’re not going to want to overlook that very important component. In fact, it’s half the deck. Literally.

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The Infinity Tarot: Deck Review

On July 28, 2015October 14, 2015 By benebellIn deck review, tarot4 Comments

One of my favorite tarot bloggers, Ethony, did a great review on this deck. Like Ethony, I thought I might find this deck kitschy, but I didn’t. Even after the initial awe for the pretty shape wore off, I still liked this deck and found it a substantive one to work with.

The Infinity Tarot is named for its lemniscate cutout shape and I confess that the unique shape of the deck is what drew me to it at first. The card backs are reversible and I found the deck quite easy to work with both upright and in reverse.

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China Tarot: A Deck Review and the Traditional Chinese Art of Der Jen

On July 20, 2015July 20, 2015 By benebellIn deck review, tarot9 Comments

China Tarot - Box Deck and Card Fan

Of course I had to review the China Tarot published by Lo Scarabeo. Of course. It is an art deck that features the paintings of the classically trained Taiwanese painter Der Jen (德珍; Dé Zhēn), which was her artist pseudonym. Her real name was Ching-Yi Chiang (江慶儀; Jiāng Qìng Yí). [Note: It is the late Der Jen; she passed on in 2012, just 3 days before her 38th birthday.]

About Der Jen. Screen shot source: Official Website of Der Jen

She paints in the traditional and romantic Chinese fine arts style called 中國風 (Zhōng Guó Fēng), which translated directly would be “China Wind,” though I don’t know what the best English translation for the style would be. It was always her objective to bring the Zhōng Guó Fēng art style to the international stage, and she most certainly achieved that through the China Tarot deck publication.

Der Jen sought to “write poetry” through her paintings. She intended her work to be poetic and that she accomplished. Just look at the art in this deck. You can read more about her or browse a gallery of her works here, though the website is in Chinese.

Photo of the Artist, Der Jen. Image source: The Official Website of Der Jen, the Der Jen Art Museum.

When describing herself, she has used Western astrology, saying that although she’s an Aries, she really sees herself as more of a “Capricorn-Pisces mixed soul” (my best attempt at the translation…), an equal yet tenuous balance between rational and emotional.

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A Glimpse at the Pre-Release Orbifold Tarot

On July 11, 2015July 11, 2015 By benebellIn cartomancy, deck review, divination, tarot, tarot symbolism10 Comments

The Orbifold Tarot comes from the inventive mind of Michael Bridge-Dickson and I have been granted the privilege of reviewing a pre-release version. The Orbifold Tarot is grounded on the cosmological principles of sacred geometry, a cross-cultural concept that the physical world and its metaphysical dimension can be expressed through mathematics, specifically, geometric design.

The god principle and intelligent design are not mutually exclusive from geometric design, and if we accept that “as above, so below,” then the mathematics of our universe is synchronistic with the mathematics of our personal lives. All that we as tarot practitioners have accepted as occult theory is thus rooted in mathematics, in sacred geometric forms. That is the premise from which we begin our journey with the Orbifold Tarot.

There are 80 cards in total, with the traditional tarot structure of 78 plus 2 cards, The Void and Manifestation. Initially I associated The Void with Key 0, The Fool and Manifestation with Key 1, The Magician, so I was confused by the distinction made between these two additional cards with Keys 0 and 1 of the Majors. However, Bridge-Dickson explained it cogently to me.

Bridge-Dickson himself debated whether to make the distinction. To him, Key 0, The Fool is the blank slate individual, a soul ready for the new adventure ahead, the journey through the three septenaries of the Major Arcana. The Void, in contrast, is the non-individual, the utter lack of manifestation whereas in The Fool, we still have the ego present. Key 0 represents beginnings, as traditionally associated with the card, whereas The Void is before the beginning.

Manifestation, too, is the non-individual, beyond being, though as manifestation, of course it encompasses being. Together, The Void and Manifestation represent the paradox of simultaneous being and non-being beyond the individual. Bridge-Dickson felt the principle had to be separated out from Keys 0 and 1, as The Fool and The Magician include personal Will, which renders both cards affirmatively being.

The Orbifold Tarot is color coded to represent the elemental correspondences that Bridge-Dickson sees as the deconstruction of each card’s essence. White is Spirit. Yellow-gold is Air. Red is Fire. Blue is Water. Green is Earth. Keep that in mind as we examine the card samples. Here in The Fool card, we see Air encompassed by Spirit in the form of the unit circle. The beginnings of the formation of self are thus Air, the mind or thought, beginning to occupy a specific space of Spirit.

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Review of the Night Sun Tarot

On July 7, 2015October 14, 2015 By benebellIn cartomancy, deck review, divination, tarot10 Comments

Fabio Listrani’s Night Sun Tarot is one of those decks I couldn’t wait to get my little hands on. I would consider this an esoteric tarot deck. On the Majors, you have the astrological, elemental, and Hebrew letter correspondences in the card corners. In the Minors, you have the elementals and decanates. I usually have to hand-write these onto my working decks, but here on the Night Sun, the work is done for you, and done beautifully.

There is a strong Modern Age comic book art style to the Night Sun Tarot, with digitally rendered illustrations. Fabio Listrani, the brainchild behind this exquisite deck, is an Italian artist and graphic designer whose work tends toward the science fiction/fantasy genres of art. He seamlessly blends Eastern and Western esoteric symbolism and cultural references, and updates esoteric tarot for the 21st century with this very original, insightful, and groundbreaking new deck.

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Tarot Mucha Deck Review

On July 1, 2015October 14, 2015 By benebellIn deck review, tarot22 Comments

I kept dragging my feet on whether to join the Tarot Mucha bandwagon, but here it is, and sometimes you just have to give in to the tarot reader majority when they’re all gushing over a certain deck, because they tend to be right. There are so many reasons to get this deck that I don’t even know how to process my thoughts and begin this review.

I’m loving it so much and will probably find myself using it in professional reading settings. It’s also a fantastic starter deck for a beginner reader who wants to commence study with the RWS tradition but may be having a hard time connecting artistically to the original Rider-Waite-Smith deck.

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The Plight of the Free Reading Requests

On June 26, 2015June 25, 2015 By benebellIn professional tarot, tarot17 Comments

Bitstrips - Free Reading Please

So today I am going to talk about something no tarot reader has ever, ever talked about before. A novel topic, one not yet addressed by anyone. (Okay, truth: I am like the 39,458,323,492,345th tarot reader to talk about this issue. But I want to talk about it anyway.)

As a budding tarot practitioner, you will have done countless free tarot readings for folks, friend and stranger, before a light bulb goes off in your head and you realize you’re good at reading tarot and could go pro with it. So you do. Now you’re a professional tarot reader, or at least that’s what you’re telling yourself and everybody else. You have a price list up and you’ve sent out a press release or announcement notice to everyone you know that you’ve launched your own tarot business.

[Wait, hold up. “Press release? Announcement notice? What is this woman talking about?” I went on a bit about press releases in a previous post here. And here is a template announcement notice you can use to create your own to send to your contact list: SAMPLE ANNOUNCEMENT NOTICE FOR TAROT BUSINESS LAUNCH (PDF file).]

Okay, back to the topic at hand. As you can see in the sample announcement notice, assuming yours was something like it, you’ve clearly given out your pricing list and everyone knows you’re now a business. This isn’t just a hobby and your friends know that because you’ve told them. Complete strangers oughta know it, too, considering it’s clearly posted on your website.

Yet you would be a unicorn if you didn’t get any audacious requests for free tarot readings. It’s a plight every tarot reader deals with.

The Friend Who Wants You to Just Pull a Few Cards, Please, This is Important

Bitstrips - Friendly Request for Free Reading

Now that you’ve disseminated the announcement notice for your tarot business launch, the pro is lots of people are aware of your service and you are now on their radar. The con is at least a bunch of them are going to try to haggle a free reading out of you.

You’ll want to know what your own professional policy will be for handling such situations. Most professional tarot readers would probably advise you to say no and not step foot onto the slippery slope of giving out free readings. I would say it depends on how much free time you have, what makes you happy, and whether you have bills to pay.

If you say yes, then you’re enabling that person to come back to you again in the future for more free reading requests. And then what? What if you say yes for the first free reading and no for the second request? That friend will–whether she admits it or not–feel betrayed by you (because it’s basic psychology) and resent you for saying no because, after all, you said yes before. Now the appreciation for that first free reading is shot and your friend can’t believe you’re now saying no to her.

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My Review of the Starchild Tarot

On June 23, 2015June 29, 2015 By benebellIn deck review, tarot12 Comments

The Starchild Tarot is a self-published deck by the Canadian-based Danielle Noel, with the first printing released in 2014. The artwork for the deck is photography and digital collage with some illustration in a light, muted color palette. It’s surreal, symbolist, and yet blends those artistlc styles with portrait photography.

The deck is pastel in hues, dominating mostly in light blue, pinks, and purples. The style of the art and how Noel has pieced this deck together conveys the sense that each card is a gateway to an other-worldly dimension. Use of this deck for meditation or pathworking would be ideal.

The cards are a beautiful matte finish (love!!), thick, sturdy, larger in size that typical tarot decks, i.e., 3.375″ x 5.0″, and have white borders that I think work very well for the deck. I really love the font that Noel used for the card titles!

The deck is inspired by the New Age concept of star people, or star seeds. Brad Steiger, a paranormal author, introduced the idea of star people, humans who have extraterrestrial genes in them (maybe? I might be butchering this idea, in which case my apologies) and are an alien race born into human bodies to serve humanity through a higher spiritual purpose. Under Steiger’s concept, star seeds are more psychic or intuitive than ordinary humans. That’s as much as I’ve read on the topic and I don’t even know if it’s accurate. But it’s an interesting spiritual theory and I began my thoughts on the Starchild Tarot within the star people/star seed context.

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Tarot of The Holy Light: A Continental Esoteric Tarot (A Book Review)

On June 13, 2015June 14, 2015 By benebellIn book review, cartomancy, divination, tarot, tarot symbolism10 Comments

Tarot of the Holy Light, ISBN: 978-0-9673043-2-8

Tarot of the Holy Light: A Continental Esoteric Tarot (Noreah/Brownfield Press, June 2015) is a book that started ten years ago, and so when I talk about the long-awaited arrival of this book, I’m not kidding. It is the first volume of companion text to the Tarot of the Holy Light tarot deck by Christine Payne-Towler and Michael Dowers, which I’ve reviewed on this site before.

Volume two, forthcoming, will be Foundations of the Esoteric Tradition. The two volumes together function as left and right hemispheres of the same mind. This book review will only be of volume one, Tarot of the Holy Light (“THL Companion Book”)

The THL Companion Book is self-published by Christine Payne-Towler and Michael Dowers under their publishing entity, Noreah/Brownfield Press. The book is soft-cover and perfect bound, and at 492-pages, is full of meat. I love the unique dimension, too, at 5″ x 7″, which makes it an incredibly compact text to throw into your handbag.

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Category: tarot