How to Read Tarot Cards: Eden Gray’s Hungarian Method

Skill Level: Intermediate & Up

This is the third video presentation of Sightsee the Tarot, a new series I’ve started on my YouTube channel.

If you haven’t watched the previous videos on a psychological approach to the tarot, the Nine-Card Open Face Spread and Self-Help Tarot Journaling (Tarot Counseling), watch those and then return to this session, or at the very least, watch the first three minutes of the Self-Help Tarot Journaling video for the theoretical model distinctions between predictive tarot reading and tarot counseling. I’ll be making reference to those distinctions as we explore predictive tarot reading.

Please note that intermediate proficiency with reading tarot in spreads is presumed. I proceed with explaining Gray’s approach with the understanding that you already know how to read the cards. Also, in terms of a tarot spread, this particular method can be rather vague, and relies heavily on the skill of reading cards in pairs. So elemental dignities also comes in to play.

Nonetheless, armed with a book of card meanings, I think this may still be a good video workshop for the total tarot beginner to work through. So do not be dismayed, tarot beginner! Still give this tutorial a shot!

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My First Tea Leaf Reading Experience

Tarot and Tea Leaf Readings by Tabitha Dial
Tarot and Tea Leaf Readings by Tabitha Dial

Prior to getting a tea leaf reading from Tabitha Dial over at Tarot and Tea Leaf Readings, I didn’t know much about the practice. Okay, I still don’t know much about the practice, but my perspective has definitely shifted. Tea leaf reading, or tasseography, is a cross-cultural divinatory practice that I’d seen done before, heard about through my childhood, but never delved into. So I had no idea what to expect from Tabitha.

I asked her about the trajectory of my book writing and publishing endeavors, but also kept open to any related messages that might come through. For my reading, she sent over a five-page single-spaced write-up accompanied by four large, full-color photographs. Tabitha used loose leaf black tea and as the leaves were steeping in the water, a strawberry symbol formed at the bottom of the cup. You can see it quite clearly here:

2015.08.09 Tabitha Dial Tea Leaf Reading 1 (Strawberry)

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Tarot Fortune Telling Fraud in Chinatown

Image source: Oakland Chinatown, www.oakland-chinatown.info
Image source: Oakland Chinatown, http://www.oakland-chinatown.info

I recount this as calmly as possible. That is said more for my frame of mind than yours.

I had stumbled upon a fortune teller in Chinatown sitting at a makeshift tabletop. The chairs were miniature and when sitting, your knees would be up next to your ears. What had intrigued me to stop and listen in was her method of fortune telling: the tarot. You don’t see tarot divination that often among the Chinese, so of course I had to observe. A young woman about 20-ish years of age and her friend sat across from the fortuneteller. From what I overheard, the question was about love.

The fortune teller used what appeared to be a Marseille-based deck. I couldn’t figure out a discrete way to take photographs, so let’s assume my memory is good and go with the below reenactment, using the CBD Tarot de Marseille.

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