Category: tarot

A Review of the Golden Universal Tarot

On By benebellIn deck review, tarot8 Comments

IMG_1384

Imma not even gonna make excuses. I bought the Golden Universal Tarot (illustrated by Roberto De Angeles and published by Lo Scarabeo) because it is shiny. I guess I’m a magpie in that respect. I like shiny.

It isn’t a bad deck. For public readings where complete strangers will be handling my tarot cards, I wouldn’t mind bringing this one. And while that speaks positively of the deck’s versatility, function, and imagery, it also shows it’s not one of my favorites. For collectors, I don’t think this is worth adding to a collection, if one is truly on a budget. Also, for teaching tarot, I would stick with the classic Rider Waite Smith. All that said, for the professional tarot reader who does a lot of public readings and lets their clients handle the decks, this is a great one and definitely worth getting for that purpose.

Golden Universal Tarot

The deck is mostly beautifully gilded (I’ll get to why I say “mostly” in a bit) and per the current trend this past year, the borders are black rather than white. The backs are reversible, so for those who read with reversals, this deck works to that end. The cards are approximately 4.25″ x 2.5″, which means they’re very easy to shuffle, cut, and work with, unlike many of the big, fancy decks that have been released as of late. That is in part why I say this deck is great for public reading usage. Quality of stock, like almost all decks I’ve been coming across in the last few years, is going down from what they used to be in the 80s and 90s but what can you do. Thus, while noticeably flimsier than the RWS decks of yore, it’s not so bad. You’ll work just fine with these. And if it matters to anyone, the box says this deck was made in Italy.

Golden Universal Tarot - snapshots

(Look how shiny the gilded cards are! In the above bottom right photo, you can see my face reflected behind the Magician!)

For those who can’t connect to the classical RWS deck because of its rudimentary artwork, the Golden Universal is a viable alternative. However, I appreciate Waite and Smith’s original version for its symbolism and rely heavily on every detail, the precise coloring of the sky and the clothing worn by the characters, and every little leaf and bird in the backdrop. As a result, working with the Golden Universal means I miss out on some of the details. Some of what seems to be minor changes doesn’t work for me particularly well.

Continue reading “A Review of the Golden Universal Tarot” →

A Tarot Reader Guest Blogs at Best American Poetry

On By benebellIn cartomancy, divination, Holistic Tarot (book), personal, professional tarot, promotional, tarot, tarot community44 Comments

bap

I am the guest blogger this week over at Best American Poetry and am feeling a bit like a fraud since I’m not a poet, at least not since the angry-histrionic adolescent years of poems about boys who won’t give me the time of day, printed in font size 14 in comic sans or some other curly girly font and center-aligned down the page. Hm, actually in college there was a brief period of doing slam poetry on themes of an Asian Diaspora ravaged by post-colonial ambivalence and cultural imperialism but that period is really best left forgotten too. I am, however, an avid consumer of poetry and have bookshelves at home filled with poetry collections and chapbooks, half of poets you’ve all heard of and half of poets you’ve probably never heard of.

I’m trying to think of when I first learned about the Best American Poetry series, and it turns out I can’t seem to remember a time when I was aware of literature and not aware of BAP. I read it in high school, college, and even recall sending a letter to David Lehman directly one time about a decade ago telling him I felt the BAP series didn’t include a fair representation of Asian American poets. The current series has been much better, I think, about diverse representation.

This week BAP is letting a tarot reader (me) run loose on their blog (http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/) and here’s what’s going to happen:

Continue reading “A Tarot Reader Guest Blogs at Best American Poetry” →

A Review of Palmer’s Tarot: Voice of the Inner Light, a Reference Manual

On By benebellIn book review, tarot5 Comments

palmer-tarot

I’ve got a new amazing addition to my personal library: Richard Palmer’s Tarot: Voice of the Inner Light (Custom Book Publishing, 2008). If this book had existed in the 90s, I would have advanced in my tarot practice so much faster. When I started out in tarot, there weren’t limitless online references and glossaries on card meanings, which by the way I still do not find all that useful, as much of it is the blind leading the blind, with no indication of the source of the card meanings provided or no identification of the tradition used.

(Oh and please do not mind the unorganized bookshelf. Hubby and I are preparing to move to a new house, so I figured I’d wait until we settled in to organize a library. Right now I have literary fiction next to books on law next to classical poetry next to Christian theology next to Buddhist philosophy next to my little collection of stuff on the esoteric and the occult. Anyway.)

The first lines of the Introduction tells you exactly what you’ll get: “There are many complex and profound books written on the subject of the Tarot. This isn’t one of them. The aim of this work is to bring the practical knowledge of how to use the Tarot into the life of anyone who is willing to put forth the minimum effort necessary to understand this remarkable gift.” Voice of the Inner Light is give or take a 240 page reference book, about 60,000 words if I had to guestimate. In essentially 10 pages upfront, the book teaches you how to begin using your tarot deck. There is no longwinded research on history, origins, philosophy, or theosophy. I understand that most advanced practitioners are looking for theory, but this book is not targeted at that kind of reader. This book is targeted at that starting practitioner who may have read 1 or 2 more comprehensive books on tarot and is now looking for a go-to reference manual to keep on the desk for readings.

Per my own analysis of Palmer’s book, his card meaning interpretations are based heavily on Hermetic Qabalah. Palmer is also a renowned astrologer, and so Voice of the Inner Light is going to be indispensable to tarot practitioners who integrate Western astrology with tarot.

Each card is covered in 2-3 pages. A card description and key symbolism is provided, then the card’s astrological association, and then the practical application of the card when upright and when reversed. Then a concluding remark is offered on Qabalistic correspondences. Such concise coverage of card meanings is the primary purpose of the book. Other than how to read a single card or perform a simple 3-card reading, Voice of the Inner Light is not for teaching spreads or how to intuitively read multi-card spreads. The book’s purpose is for the foundational understanding of each and every card.

Thus, I consider it an intermediate reference manual. If you have read a few beginner books on tarot, this book is a useful supplemental next step. However, for advanced practitioners who want to begin building a repertoire of spreads and how to use the tarot in complex reading techniques, this won’t be the right book for that. Voice of the Inner Light will be an integral supplement to such goals. As you learn complex reading techniques, you will need a book that provides in-depth interpretation of each card, in which case Voice is one of the best. Also, those with a particular leaning for the GD interpretive method, Voice will be highly appealing as opposed to the more what I call New-Agey-keyed reference manuals.

Cleansing a Tarot Deck

On By benebellIn beginner tarot deck, cartomancy, divination, Holistic Tarot (book), personal spirituality, tarot, tarot exercises5 Comments

Image1

Many traditional Asian societies follow the lunar calendar (I once litigated a case involving an elder Taiwanese woman and all the document evidence she had was dated per the lunar calendar, which completely tripped us lawyers up and a lot of conversion work had to be done, but that is neither here nor there; just mentioning it to affirm that it really is still used today) and the super-traditional even believe that certain energies are more dominant during certain phases of the moon. Not kidding: they’d schedule major surgeries around certain phases of the moon because they believe they’ll bleed less and chances of success will be higher. They consult the Chinese almanac, which is based around the lunar calendar, for everything, from when to launch a business or throw a wedding ceremony to the optimal time for a funeral.

I’ll say that I haven’t lived or observed the universe long enough to confirm whether there is any validity to following moon phases, but if it worked for my ancestors and there is no actual adverse effects from continuing the tradition and it makes me personally feel closer to my heritage, then why the heck not. My mom was adamant about calibrating Hubby’s and my engagement and marriage to moon phases. Did it work? So far so good I’d say.

Anyway, that was a long tangent of an introduction. Sorry. This post is about cleansing a tarot deck.

1 cleansing tarot deck

To demonstrate, I’m using the DruidCraft Tarot deck by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm and Will Worthington (a highly recommended deck, by the way; though there is a great bit of nudity in the illustrations, which I understand why would be featured in a Wiccan-Druid-based deck, but just does not resonate well with me).

Continue reading “Cleansing a Tarot Deck” →

Self-Guided Intermediate Tarot Course: Integrating the Five Components of Circumstance

On By benebellIn cartomancy, free download, Holistic Tarot (book), Learn the Tarot, personal spirituality, tarot, tarot community, tarot exercises1 Comment

screenshot

DOWNLOAD COURSE PRESENTATION

(Note: Must watch in Slide Show format, due to layered animations.)

I’ve created a self-guided intermediate tarot course on a cross-cultural interpretive framework for reading tarot that I have not seen anyone present before. The Five Components of Circumstance is a cosmological theory based on the Chinese maxim that one’s fortune is based on five factors: 1) fate, 2) luck, 3) feng shui, 4) karma, and 5) education. That theory is a cornerstone in Chinese metaphysics and is used to diagnose an individual’s personal formula for success.

By integrating Five Components analysis with tarot reading, the tarot practitioner will have a new set of vocabulary for interpreting a spread, any spread in fact, and can more precisely pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses in a querent and what adjustments need to be made to expedite the querent’s goals.

Continue reading “Self-Guided Intermediate Tarot Course: Integrating the Five Components of Circumstance” →

The Unindemnified Cost of Tarot Reading

On By benebellIn cartomancy, divination, Holistic Tarot (book), opinion, personal, professional tarot, tarot, tarot community2 Comments

tarotspi

I am preaching to the choir when I write this to an audience of tarot practitioners: If your personal energy could be quantified like battery life, then reading tarot for others will drain it like streaming a movie on your smartphone over 4G connection. Reading tarot depletes me in a way I cannot fully convey. Sometimes I get the sense that non-tarot practitioners who request tarot readings from me don’t have any idea.

On its face, a tarot reading seems to be an effortless dealing of a deck of cards, and then blurting phrases based in some part on the card imagery. What could be so hard about that?

Tarot is a tool, a metaphysical one if you will, that connects two individuals’ energetic fields together for the duration of a reading. The nature of the relationship between practitioner and seeker is that of give and take, respectively. A practitioner feels his or her energy draining out and going into the cards to provide the reading that the seeker is receiving. Seekers often talk about readings being rejuvenating, cathartic, an enriching experience. They’re picking up on that channeling effect. In contrast, tarot readers talk about feeling exhausted, needing to recharge.

Very few tarot readers make enough cash from their readings to compensate for their time spent. That, though, we will chalk up to simple economics and just acknowledge that at least from a free market standpoint, that part is fair.

I draft business contracts for a living and almost every one of them contains an indemnification clause. Indemnification is often one of the main points of negotiation and contention between the parties. In the course of a commercial dealing, some poo always makes its way to the fan– costs of damage resulting from the initial transaction that weren’t accounted for in the contract price– and everybody needs to figure out who owes what to who and how much to compensate for the loss. That’s indemnification.

When I make reference to the unindemnified price of tarot readings, I’m talking about that energetic loss that tarot practitioners sustain but no one accounts for, or heck, even acknowledge. Some seekers can be borderline parasitic, though I believe never intentionally so. Most tarot practitioners are by nature empaths and so of course their first inclination will be to yield and give and feel.

As an empath with a law degree, when I first started my legal career, I felt every client’s problem and took home a briefcase of emotional baggage every night. I’d think about their issues in the shower, while brushing my teeth, before I fell asleep, the first thing when I woke up, while I made my coffee… Yet senior partners at the firm seemed to master such control. They compartmentalized. One might be tempted to say they were apathetic, that they were desensitized, or they did not care. That is not true at all. They cared and they cared deeply about their clients. But they have been at this a long time and they know that to truly be in a position to help as many as possible, they needed to take care of themselves first. Selfishness is a form of selflessness. They knew exactly when it was time to step away from a case, recharge themselves, and live their own lives for a change, instead of living for others, which is exactly what lawyers do, though they rarely get seen by that side of them.

Tarot practitioners must take a cue from these partners. Newbies rarely possess the prudence to know when they must step away and focus on themselves. They get caught up in the exhilaration of uplifting others–an admirable trait–but ironically (since we are tarot readers…) fail to foresee the pending crash. That is why burn-out is such a problem among startup tarot practitioners.

There is no indemnification for that spiritual energy drain that is part of the tarot reader’s work. Thus we are the ones who must keep ourselves in check. Always take time to recharge and learn to say “no.”

Are You Psychic? The Sum of Intuition and Ego

On By benebellIn cartomancy, divination, professional tarot, tarot, tarot community1 Comment

candle-up-close

As children my younger sister would say she was psychic and tell me about her psychic experiences. I recall, for better or worse, vehemently discouraging such a line of thought. I would tell her that she is not a psychic and if she continued to say she was, then she was a liar. Dismayed, she eventually stopped announcing that she was a psychic to us sisters and maybe even stopped letting herself acknowledge so-called “psychic” experiences when she had them. In retrospect I regret my harsh and ignorant stance, but at the time (and I was a tween myself) I believed it was for her own good: she couldn’t run around in public telling people she was psychic. How would people take her intellect seriously if she did?

Now I have always been convinced that my sister may have had strong intuitive abilities for what may be beyond the five physical senses, not unlike the way all the women from my maternal line are drawn to the preternatural. My grandmother, my mother, my first cousins descending from my grandmother, and my sisters all display a heightened awareness of the logically inexplicable. But psychic?

I saw it this way: when you are a voracious reader, at some point you will want to give it a try and become a writer yourself. Likewise, if you’re fascinated by metaphysics and occult phenomenon, at some point you will want to be part of it, and maybe even convince yourself that you’re psychic. Not too different from how I try to convince myself that I’m a writer even though I have yet to publish a damn thing.

Sure, I am convinced that intuition is real. Intuition is the perception of a truth, occurring incident, circumstance, or event independent of any logical reasoning, actual knowledge, experience, or cognitive deductive process. It is synchronicity. It is a prickling of what is about to happen before it happens. It is the sensation of energies that you can’t physically see, hear, smell, touch, or taste, a sensation for when those energies are in balance and when they are out of balance, and the enigmatic knowing of how you might be able to balance it if you were to try.

Being intuitive is like being detail-oriented, or organized, or calculating differential equations. Not everybody is detail-oriented, organized, or able to do math, but anybody can be with enough effort. It is just a skill, albeit a remarkably empowering one when we use it. It might also be a trait. Some seem naturally disposed to it and others need to really work to acquire the skill. I guess somehow those who seem naturally disposed to being intuitive have come to be referred to as psychic.

My question is: where on the continuum of intuitive ability must one be for that person to qualify as “psychic”?

Continue reading “Are You Psychic? The Sum of Intuition and Ego” →

Minchiate Cards for Divination: My Review

On By benebellIn astrology, cartomancy, deck review, divination, oracle deck, tarot15 Comments

minchiate

It is said that like tarot, the origins of the minchiate are not verifiable, but was probably a card game played in the late medieval period. The version I have at home is a reproduction of the Etruria deck from 18th century Florence. Like tarot, the imagery on the cards and scope of the depictions seem extraordinarily well suited for spiritual, metaphysical, or divination work and in many ways, the minchiate even more so than tarot.

There are 97 cards in total, consisting of trumps like tarot, 22 with the addition of 4 cards representing the theological virtues, 4 cards representing the elements, and 12 cards representing the zodiac signs. That’s 41 trumps and 56 numbered cards, with the numbered cards similar to tarot: 4 suits, Ace through Ten, and then 4 court cards.

The photograph below shows the unnumbered Madman (corresponding with tarot’s The Fool) and Keys I, II, III, IIII (IV), and V. Key I is the Performer, which corresponds with tarot’s The Magician. Keys II, III, and IIII (IV) in the minchiate are the Grand Duke, the Western Emperor, and the Eastern Emperor, which some say correspond with tarot’s Empress, Emperor, and Hierophant respectively. Key V is Love, corresponding with tarot’s Key VI, The Lovers.

The numbering of the keys in the Minchiate is significantly different from the tarot. For example, in minchiate the Temperance card is Key VI while in tarot it is Key XIV. There is no Hermit card per se, but there is Father Time, which is said to correspond with the Hermit. Most notably, the final card of the Trumps is not The World as in tarot, but rather the Trumpets, corresponding with the tarot Judgement card.

Minchiate_Trumps0to5

After the minchiate Key XV The Tower, there are the four theological virtues: Key XVI, Hope; Key XVII, Prudence; Key XVIII, Faith, and Key XIX, Charity. See below.

Minchiate_4Virtues

Although there is no direct correspondent in minchiate to the tarot High Priestess card, some speculate that the Faith card corresponds with the High Priestess. For me, in the Etruria deck, the illustrations are confusing. The picture on the first card above calls to mind Faith for me, but it’s the Hope card. The second card (left to right) reminds me of vanity for some reason, rather than a virtue, and yet it’s Prudence. The third card shows a woman, likely from the laboring class, looking at or reading something. It only somewhat fits my conception of Faith. The last card, Charity– either you know the meaning or you don’t. Little about the card’s imagery strikes me as denoting charity. But hey, this is all just me.

Michiate_4Elements

Following the four theological virtues are the four classical elements in the following order: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. (Compare that to the order of the elements per the contemporary majority view in tarot practice: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth.) When the Fire card appears in a reading, it suggests the relevance of innovation, passion, ambition, and leadership. The Water card denotes alliances, intuition, and compassion. The Earth card, stability, conservatism, conviction, and resourcefulness. Air, idealism, intellectualism, communication, and also ambition, though the Fire-based ambition usually relates to progress while the Air-based ambition relates to conquest.

Minchiate_12ZodiacSigns

In the minchiate there are also cards for the 12 signs of the zodiac. Pictured above in the numerical order they appear in the trumps:

Top Row (L to R): Libra, Virgo, Scorpio, Aries, Capricorn, Sagittarius

Bottom Row (L to R): Cancer, Pisces, Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, Gemini

After the Trumps, the 56 numbered cards in the minchiate are similar to the tarot. There are four suits and their correspondences are as follows: Wands for work or career; Chalices (Cups) for emotions and relationships; Pentacles for money matters; and Swords for the abstract and philosophical. Among the court cards, Knaves (or Pages) denote education and learning; Knights about courage, action, and choice; Queens about a relationship; and Kings about decision-making and authority. Note further that the minchiate correspondents to the Pages are specifically 2 Knaves for the active suits (Fire and Air) and 2 Maids for the passive suits (Water and Earth).

Continue reading “Minchiate Cards for Divination: My Review” →

What Is Tarot Reading? (The Hocus Pocus Version)

On By benebellIn divination, tarotLeave a comment

I came across a Howcast production on “What Is Tarot Reading?”–

The host of the Howcast, Paula Roberts declares with dogmatic conviction that “No real psychic reads for themselves.” The rationale, claims Roberts, has to do with the issue of objectivity. One cannot objectively read for oneself.

There is nothing objective about tarot readings, however. In fact, she starts off by saying there are different ways to read tarot, one being the mechanical approach where you assign a set meaning to each card and then apply those meanings objectively. What an interesting thing for her to say, considering that would be the only time tarot readings are objective, which she agrees with and yet contradicts when she says a psychic cannot read for herself due to the lack of objectivity. Um… what?

A good tarot reading isn’t a trial where a verdict has to be rendered. Of course if a tarot reading was like a trial, then I’d agree with Roberts and say you cannot render your own verdict. But tarot isn’t about objectivity at all. It is the unabashed embrace of the subjective. When you read for yourself, it is about what the signs and symbols of tarot mean to you and the significance of those meanings to you. Whether you are reading for others or for yourself, the interpretive process is wholly subjective, completely within the confines of the mind, though therein lies its power.

A tarot reading, at least a good one, has a way of triggering the mind into action and that action then becomes externalized, objective. The whole objective part happens much later in time, however, after the tarot practitioner and Seeker have parted ways.

If we want to take this one step further into the beyond, let’s say there is a universal life force that connects us all, that unifies the space-time continuum into one unit. I’ve heard it referred to as the Akashic records by some, especially psychics. Psychics contend that they have a stronger connection to the Akashic records than others and that is how they retrieve psychic knowledge that seem to defy the space-time continuum, i.e., they can see the future, the far past, talk to dead people, know what’s going on someplace far away, blah blah.

Let’s diagram this. We’ll illustrate the Akashic records or universal qi/life force as a unit circle.

psychiccircle

In theory, a psychic can connect to any point on the unit circle (aka the Akashic records aka the universal life force that connects us all and defies the space-time continuum) and see into certain information for a particular person, place, or event. If so, then why can’t a psychic read for him or herself? Is it because the psychic’s own consciousness is so opaque when it comes to the self that the psychic can’t reach past it to access the Akashic records?

I’m not claiming I have any idea. I’m just saying that you can read tarot for yourself and to say that no real psychic, whatever the hell that means, does it is just Roberts’ way of imposing her position onto others. There is no concrete limitation like that applied uniformly across the board. Maybe she cannot use the tarot for divination purposes for herself, but that for sure doesn’t mean others cannot do so effectively.

True, there are many ways to read tarot, as Roberts mentioned, and I refer to this so-called “psychic” approach to tarot reading as the hocus pocus version because that’s what it reminds me of: birthday party magicians who are able to wow the naïve but there is nothing special, gifted, or magical about what they do; it’s a mechanical application that anyone can learn. Likewise, tarot requires your intuition, but it’s something we all have and like our muscles, it’s something that can be developed and enhanced with training.

No “psychic” will read tarot for him or herself. Pah, I say. Psychics can. Most simply choose not to for philosophical reasons.

Like my application of tarot, predictive readings and fortunetelling do more harm than good. It takes wisdom to distinguish between what you should know and what level of your brain you should know it at (conscious, subconscious, unconscious…). Those with wisdom and strong intuitive abilities will opt not to bring to their conscious certain information from their unconscious because through their wisdom, they understand that knowing such information about themselves won’t be beneficial.

However, for some of these psychics, this is only a self-imposed philosophy. They understand that everyone is different and if someone feels he or she could be helped by knowing and the psychic can help tap into that knowledge, then the psychic will. In that case, the psychic has opted– out of voluntary will– not to read for herself, but to remain open to reading for others. It has nothing to do with whether she can or cannot read for herself. It’s about imposing one personal moral philosophy on the self but not imposing the same on others.