Video Course Series I

This 18-video orientation course for the First Edition Spirit Keeper’s Tarot and its companion guidebook The Book of Maps came out in 2018.

Although the content is keyed to the black and white First Edition cards, almost all of what’s covered here can also be applied to either the Vitruvian or Revelation. So even if you only have one of the subsequent editions, these videos may still be worth watching.

Video Course I

The Video Course I series consists of 18 installments with a total run time of 4 hours and 9 minutes.

There are 3 guided tarot readings (Videos 8, 11, and 17) and 1 guided remote energy healing meditation (Video 14). Be sure to check the description boxes under each of the videos for reference links, reading recommendations, and free supplemental downloads.

  1. Introduction: Start Here
  2. Deck Creator’s Intentions
  3. Consecrating Your Deck
  4. Initiation and Tarot
  5. Dialogue with an Angel
  6. Interpreting Signs and Omens
  7. Spirit Interactions and Tarot
  8. Guided Reading: Your Spiritual Journey
  9. Kundalini Awakening and Tarot
  10. The Akashic Records and Tarot
  11. Guided Akashic Tarot Reading
  12. Reading the Deck Intuitively
  13. Ritual Magic and Tarot
  14. Guided Remote Energy Healing
  15. The Angel and The Demon
  16. Beginner Tarot and the SKT Deck
  17. Beginner’s Guided One-Card Reading
  18. Pathworking, Astral Journeying, Final Remarks

The primary objective for the Video Course I series is to provide a little more information on my intentions as a deck creator, give you a chance to hear me talk about some of the topics mentioned in The Book of Maps, and offer my tidbits here and there before sending you off to work with the deck on your own.

There are also a couple guided tarot readings based on reading methods instructed in The Book of Maps. I hope the guided readings help to bring the Book to life for you and convey to you a sense of mentorship. You are doing the Work independently on your own, but you are not alone.

SKT Tarot Readings Diary

Tarot Readings Diary (SKT)

FOR THE TAROT CARD MEANINGS WITH BENEBELL

Tarot Study Journal (TdM, RWS, Thoth, SKT)

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Navigation Note

The hyperlinked headings in large font will take you to the YouTube video. However, you can also play the video directly from this page.

All videos are closed captioned (CC) for our Deaf and H/H friends, those who speak English as a second language and so might benefit from subtitles, or for those who are in an environment where they aren’t able to play the audio but want to be able to view the video anyway.

At the bottom of the video screen, click the “CC” icon to turn on the closed captioning.

Introduction (Start Here)

Video Length: 5:09 minutes

Since the 2019 sepia-toned edition of the deck didn’t exist yet at the time of recording the 2018 course series, there will be no specific references to the sepia edition. Nonetheless, much of the substantive content remains the same, so those with the sepia-toned edition can still gain some insights from the 2018 course series. Just remember that this series was created before your deck was created. =)

This introduction assumes you purchased the premium package and so makes reference to the Book of Maps, I offer my recommendations for where to start reading in The Book of Maps: “Author’s Introduction,” “Design Statement,” “Ordering of the Keys,” “What is a Beneficent Spirit?” and then skip to the back for “Cultural Integration and the Prisca Theologia” and “Card and Box Design.”

Deck Creator’s Intentions

Video Length: 12:20 minutes

I always want to know about a creator’s intentions behind a tarot or oracle deck, so here’s a chat about mine for Spirit Keeper’s Tarot. This tarot deck was about giving life. In this video, I explain what that means to me and why, personally, because of life events (or lack thereof…) I’m going through, giving life to this tarot deck was so important to me.

External Links:

Consecrating Your Deck

Video Length: 9:58 minutes

A reiteration of what goes in to consecrating each copy of Spirit Keeper’s Tarot, right down to the significance of where in my house I consecrate. Buying a consecrated tarot deck is like buying pre-washed veggies. For some of you, it’s good enough. For others, you’re the type to re-wash your pre-washed veggies anyway.

External Links:

Self-Initiation and Tarot

Video Length: 8:49 minutes

In this video I address what I mean by initiation and also the distinction between mystical initiation and material initiation. What are the objectives of self-initiation with a tarot deck? Some say there is no such thing as self-initiation. What are my thoughts on that?

Gaining access to that subterranean level of the cards via initiation is covered in The Book of Maps, pp. 47-63. The specific modality espoused is self-initiation through ritual coloring.

Dialogue with an Angel

Video Length: 12:44 minutes

First, what exactly do I mean when I throw around the word “angel”? This video touches upon the topic of the Holy Guardian Angel, the syncretized theology through which I crafted Spirit Keeper’s Tarot, and how the deck is intended for conversations with the angelic realm. I’ll talk about the philosophical concept of angels. I also address the question of whether you can use any tarot deck at all to commune with angels and whether all tarot decks are created equal in power and capacity. We close with some practical considerations to conversing with angels as these conversations are revealed in the symbology and system of the cards.

Recommended reading from The Book of Maps to go along with this video: “What is a Beneficent Spirit?” p. 35; “Your Holy Guardian Angel,” p. 50; “Dialogue with an Angel,” p. 72; “Petitioning the Angels,” p. 110; and “The Four Empyrean Courts,” p. 316.

Interpreting Signs and Omens

Video Length: 13:05 minutes

By and large tarot readers, especially those who read with illustrated pips, can get into this space where they rely mainly on interpreting signs and omens pictorially, through the illustrations and imagery on the cards, trying to draw an analogy between the story of the card and the story of someone’s life. This video discussion addresses the added value of considering correspondences and layering different esoteric systems over the tarot to divine further patternicity and meaning.

Spirit Keeper’s Tarot, specifically, is a tarot deck intended to reveal signs and omens of Divinity. When you pull a card, scan its imagery for what particular symbol draws your attention the most. Then consult The Book of Maps to see if that symbol is the sign or omen of a particular Divinity. Perhaps your magnetic draw toward that symbol is a sign. Thus, when reading with the deck, be on the added lookout for symbolism that reveals the presence of deity or spirit. I also address briefly how I use the deck to divine for instructions in my Craft.

Book referenced: Tarot Correspondences: Ancient Secrets for Everyday Readers by T. Susan Chang (Llewellyn Books, 2018). Author’s website: https://www.tsusanchang.com/.

Spirit Interactions and Tarot

Video Length: 8:00 minutes

Is spirit interaction or spirit petitions with a tarot deck safe? I discuss that inquiry and others in this video, sharing my religious and superstitious beliefs on the subject. What are some signs that a spirit you’re interacting with isn’t a beneficent? Spirit Keeper’s Tarot was intended to function primarily as a tool for interacting with spirits and Divinity. To that end, what were some of my considerations? What is the role of ceremony and ritual in a successful spirit petition?

This video complements the following sections in The Book of Maps: “Who is the Spirit Keeper?”, p. 103; “Spirit Petitions,” p. 106; “Petitioning the Angels,” p. 110; and “Invocation and Evocation of Spirits,” p. 378.

Guided Tarot Reading: Your Spiritual Journey

Video Length: 10:05 minutes

This is a guided tarot reading of the operation covered in The Book of Maps, under the sub-heading “Reviewing Your Spiritual Journey” that begins on page 132. The guided reading starts by utilizing all three versions of Key 0 from your Spirit Keeper’s Tarot deck. Its objective: To offer broad strokes insight on where you are right now in your spiritual journey and to help you track your progress. Recommended reading: Book of Maps, pp. 132-137.

Pull out the three Key 0s in your copy of Spirit Keeper’s Tarot and have them ready before the video plays. Then follow along in the video as each step of the reading is narrated. In addition to divining with the three Key 0s, you’ll be doing a three-card reading.

Kundalini Awakening and Tarot

Video Length: 15:45 minutes

This video discussion supplements the section in The Book of Maps, “Kundalini Awakening,” p. 75. How would I explain what kundalini awakening is? How can the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot be used in personal spiritual practice to facilitate awakening? This video espouses a holistic, balanced approach that accounts for practices that will gradually temper the mind, body, and spirit (with an emphasis on the keyword “gradually”).

The latter half of the video instructs on a reading approach with your Spirit Keeper’s Tarot to, in metaphysical theory, take the temperature of your inner energy bodies based on an Eastern chakra or acupunctural point correspondence system. Take notes on the methodology, decide how exactly you want to customize the methodology for yourself, and then give it a try.

If unsure which of the three Key 0 significator cards in Spirit Keeper’s Tarot to use, refer to Video #08 in the series, “Guided Tarot Reading: Your Spiritual Journey.” The Key 0 that appears in the present position of that guided reading can be used as your significator card in this kundalini reading methodology.

The Akashic Records and Tarot

Video Length: 11:07 minutes

This video discussion supplements the section in The Book of Maps, “Accessing the Akashic Records” that begins on p. 77 and the subsequent section, “An Akashic Records Reading.” Before trying out the Akashic Records Reading procedure instructed in the Book, first try out the Guided Akashic Tarot Reading (the next video in this series).

Here, before delving in to the guided reading of the Records, we discuss how I would explain the Records, some of my thoughts on the material practices around accessing the Akashic Records, and how to use the tarot in a way that intentionally seeks to read the Records.

Guided Akashic Tarot Reading

Video Length: 22:36 minutes

This is a guided tarot reading calibrated to access the Akashic Records and walk you through one beginner-level method of reading the Records with your Spirit Keeper’s Tarot deck. The reading experience will demonstrate how to connect with guides who will then lead you to access of the Records, how to work with the Akasha for personal healing while the Records are open for you, and come away with insights about your present life path.

Before you begin, have ready your SKT tarot deck, pen, and paper. Set aside 30 minutes for this practicum—23 minutes for the guided reading and the remaining time to journal and reflect on the results. During that 23 minutes, you will be allotted 3 minutes of silence to sit with the reading results and channel messages. Transcribe those messages down quickly through automatic writing. Do not try to “interpret” the reading results until after you close the Records, once the video is done. After the Records are closed, you may even want to refer to The Book of Maps and look up the card entries.

Be sure to read the section in the Book on the Akashic Records, starting on page 77 and watch the previous video, “The Akashic Records and Tarot” before working with this guided Records reading.

General Reading: If you want a general tarot reading for yourself, letting come up whatever Spirit determines to be most relevant to you at this time, then proceed as guided.

Specific Question Reading: If you want a specific question answered, then during the first instruction for shuffling the cards, as you shuffle and hear my voice narrating, hold your question in your mind, clearly worded, whisper it if that helps, and present that question to the cards as you shuffle.

For further guidance on how to interpret a Records reading with the tarot, review the “Case Study for the Guided Akashic Tarot Reading with the SKT.”

Reading the Deck Intuitively

Video Length: 8:21 minutes

Is the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot a deck that is suited for reading the cards intuitively? In the companion guidebook, I address this topic in “Improvisational Reading (Intuitive Reading),” p. 88-90 on how to read story in the cards and see narrative arcs in the images. In this supplemental video, I get in to how the SKT can at times speak back to you in tongues and what I mean by that (tarot glossolalia, where even within the system and language of tarot, what’s coming through feels incoherent). Through dedicated work with SKT, the interpretation of tongues becomes a divine gift you will be endowed with by your HGA or the angelic realm you’re interacting with.

I then address my speculations for why certain types of tarot readers may be turned off by “busy” esoteric symbol intensive deck art. I try to alleviate some of the potential fears and insecurities around trying to read such a deck.

Ritual Magic and Tarot

Video Length: 25:52 minutes

Download: Correspondence Table in Video [PDF]

Get out pen and paper before you start the video. Treat this like a university course lecture. You’ll want to take notes. First, a discussion of ceremonial magic and natural magic, and how the terms “high magic” and “low magic” fit in to that dichotomy. Examples of how the tarot might be used in high magic and in low magic are given.

How is ritual magic a form of meditation and inner alchemy? How do you use the tarot in ritual magic. The theoretics of ritual magic are covered, discussing the four elements as they correspond with the astral body, soul, mind, and physical body, and how the four come together in ritual.

If references in the video to the three septenaries in tarot aren’t familiar to you, read the following sections in The Book of Maps: pp. 26-27; pp. 138-139 (First Septenary); pp. 157-161 (Second Septenary); pp. 180-181 (Third Septenary); pp. 198 (bottom of the page)-203.

Other sections of the Book referenced in the video:

  • “Elemental Correspondences from Paul Foster Case,” p. 426;
  • “Ordering of the Keys,” p. 33-34;
  • “The Four Empyrean Courts,” p. 316-319;
  • “The Four Archangel Magic Squares,” p. 361-366; and
  • “Herbs and Stones for Angelic Connections,” p. 114-115.

Additional recommended reading from the Book:

  • “Spirit Petitions,” p. 106-108;
  • “Invocation References,” p. 108-110;
  • “Petitioning the Angels,” p. 110-112;
  • “Mysticism and Creative Visualization,” p. 371-374;
  • “Tarot and the Seven Mystic Arts,” p. 375-377;
  • “Invocation and Evocation of Spirits,” p. 378-387; and
  • Correspondence Reference Tables, p. 426-438.

Guided Remote Energy Healing

Video Length: 24:42 minutes

This is a guided meditation and remote energy healing session to help facilitate a state of calm. The 25-minute session balances your mind, body, and spirit so that it becomes conducive for repairing itself and regenerating your vitality. Dovetailing on what was covered in Video #13, I would consider this ritualized form of meditation as a type of high magic. The objective is an invocation of spiritual forces to help cultivate a state of change in your own consciousness from lower to higher and in doing so, stimulate a physical improvement of your health and wellness.

The meditation opens with invocations, then through qi gong techniques, sends you remote energy healing. We will also incorporate crystal healing to clear your aura. Both charged candle flame and the smoke of sacred frankincense and myrrh will be used to channel greater collective and universal forces of healing for rejuvenation. Spirit invocations of The Empress, The Force, and The Healer fortify your environment with the optimized properties of these tarot keys. Fu sigil magic and the layering of psychoacoustics, namely the sound of singing bowls augment the experience. The meditation closes with a walk-through of basic acupressure exercises.

Timestamp Notes:

  • Timestamp 00:00 – 10:11: Listen and be receptive to the invocation prayers while feeling sensitive to the rituals of remote energy imprints, in particular the energy clearing of your aura and healing of your physical body, astral body, mind, and mending of minor soul fragments. Here, when my invocations refer to you as a “child,” the reference is to you as a spiritual child of heaven and earth.
  • Timestamp 10:12 – 13:18: Working with three spirited keys from SKT (Keys 3, 8, and 17), the ritual intention here is to direct potent emanations of energy corresponding to these three tarot keys to enrich your surrounding environment, enveloping the space-time you occupy, which can then in turn support manifestations relating to these three keys.
  • Timestamp 13:19 – 20:09: Here I guide you through meditative acupressure exercises, incorporating ritual and energetic sigil crafting intended for you to follow along and do as I demonstrate. At timestamps 14:04 – 14:40 and 15:45 – 16:26, keep holding your hands up at me while I inscribe energetic sigils and direct them into you to augment your personal power.
  • Timestamp 20:10 – 22:12: We close with a qi gong exercise for concluding meditation sessions. This is also a modality of self-healing through the laying on of hands.
  • Timestamp 22:13 – 23:51: This portion is a guided prayer for psychic strengthening. It also helps to facilitate self-healing.
  • Timestamp 23:52 – 24:09: Listen and receive the affirmations.
  • Timestamp 24:10 – 24:42: Clasp your hands in prayer, and in silence, bask in the calmness and psychic energy strengthening you feel while listening to the sound of the singing bowls.

Free Downloads:

The Angel and The Demon

Video Length: 15:42 minutes

This is an extension of the conversations from Video 5, “Dialogue with an Angel,” Video 7, “Spirit Interactions and Tarot,” and even Video 9, “Kundalini Awakening and Tarot.” Here I share briefly some of my overarching thoughts on discerning between The Angel and The Demon, the process of discernment between knowing whether you’re speaking with a beneficent Holy Spirit or something else entirely.

I also discuss the insights I came away with from my studies of the Three Septenaries and their implications, specifically the revelations of the Two Paths, why it’s always that juxtaposed and relational binary, and how the binary is equivalent to the trinity, and what that unspoken third path is.

Beginner Tarot and the SKT Deck

Video Length: 9:01 minutes

Download: Spirit Keeper’s Tarot card correspondences to the Marseille, Rider-Waite-Smith, and Thoth Tarot

[DOCX]

[PDF]

Although I had maintained an idealistic hope that Spirit Keeper’s Tarot could still be operational in the hands of a total tarot beginner, I think I always knew that it probably would not be the case, and so skipped a lot of Tarot 101 stuff and ran on the assumption that you, the most probable reader, already have proficiency of card meanings in either the RWS or Thoth system or heck, both.

To my surprise, based on the messages I’ve gotten, there are actually a significant number of total tarot beginners who have bought Spirit Keeper’s Tarot and ordered a physical copy of The Book of Maps. Not to my surprise, they’re now sitting in their rooms with both in hand and feeling thoroughly confused. So I hope this video installment can be a starting point.

Start by downloading the above card to card reference table so you can see the Tarot de Marseille, Rider-Waite-Smith, and Thoth card equivalents to the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot (SKT). Editable DOCX file provided for those who want to re-design the tables so they fit into the layout of your tarot journal.

External Links:

Beginner’s Guided One-Card Reading

Video Length: 9:45 minutes

This is a short and simple guided one card tarot reading for the beginner. It can also be used by the seasoned reader as a back-to-basics refresher, especially for acclimating with the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot deck.

Have on hand your Spirit Keeper’s Tarot deck, the Book of Maps, the supplemental handout downloaded from Video 16 (beginners will want to work with the one in alphabetical order by SKT card titles), your favorite beginner’s tarot book with card meanings, pen, and paper. You can use this guided reading to do a specific question reading or keep it open for a general reading.

General Reading: If you don’t have a specific question that needs to be answered at this time, keep your mind open and receptive and during the guided reading, simply ask for the revelation you most need.

Specific Question Reading: If you want a specific question answered, repeat that question in your mind simultaneously while you hear my recitations during the shuffling. After you fan out the cards, present the question again to the cards, then draw your single card.

Pathworking, Astral Journeying, Final Remarks

Video Length: 11:57 minutes

This installment will conclude the orientation video series on the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot and how to navigate its operation manual, The Book of Maps. However, I start off with a bit of a rant on double standards when it comes to being a deck creator who is also a person of color. Then I touch in briefly on the distinctions I make between pathworking and astral journeying (or astral travel). Both were integral to the crafting of SKT.

I then talk a bit about the video series itself before addressing the forthcoming second edition and second printing of the deck.

SKT Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/321800515072877/