The Tarot
A longtime reader has noticed my interest in the Tarot, and so we now take a detour from the Art of Solomon to share some thoughts on the Tarot and readings. This subject has been done to death in so many places, but maybe I can say a few things that aren’t ordinarily said.
I took an interest in Tarot about 30 years ago and have been an active and very frequent reader since then, so I have a lot to say that needs to be crammed into this post without putting the readers to sleep. I will detail some things that I find interesting, but it’s not going to be possible to give a worthy picture of what it means to me.
I’d first like to say that Tarot is not necessarily magical divination, but a system of organizing questions and answers. Sometimes, and more frequently with experience, the cards pull forth some truly magical answers that reveal hidden truths; but the act of using Tarot does not require any sort of psychic power or spiritual intervention. Dreaming is also a perfectly ordinary thing, and yet at times the latent psychic powers use dreams to convey the unknowable, and it is the same for the cards. They might stimulate psychic powers, but reading cards is more about creatively forming connections between parts of a whole that make intuitive sense than receiving spirit signals.
Lately the use of Large Language Models or LLM has become popular as the source of most Ai outputs. The content of websites and dialogues in existing digital formats provide a picture of the total verbal activity of humanity, a little bit of everything represented every way anyone ever imagined and put online. The Tarot is like that too, a collection of all the parts of human society as the trumps and then the world in which those exist as the suits, along with sixteen personality profiles. Answers from chatbots refer to the contents of that large pile of organized data from which the LLM is harvested, and in the Tarot the data is made of pictures and organized according to the structure of the deck.
Using Tarot is about more than just getting answers. In the context of public readings, it allows people to have a neutral party highlight issues that cannot be easily discussed with friends and family, and which do not require repeated therapy sessions or any suggested prescriptions or prayers. The reader can freely discuss finances, romance, or personal goals, and some people appreciate an opportunity to sort those things out with a person who has no stake in it. I have found that for some women, sitting down for a reading allows them to have communication with a man in a safe context, not something easily found. Using the cards alone also brings out issues that can be otherwise ignored or bottled.
The Tarot is not suited to any kind of Yes/No questions (Will, Has, Is, Can, Does) or anything that begins with the word “should.” Good questions begin with What and How, and sometimes Who. The cards do not verify anything, and it is not wise to let them make decisions. They show the ordinary artifacts and processes of life, arranged to express relationships between those things, to be interpreted by someone familiar with their symbols. They inform the language based mind, the voice of the reader, with image based information that sits deeper in the brain and can make connections the trained reasoning faculties ignore until forced to articulate them.
At events, my Tarot booth is sort of like a lounge area set up next to my other tent or table with the actual merchandise like shirts, woodcrafts, or jewelry. I have two large pyramids on either side of my table, one with a price (3 cards for $10, 10 cards for $20) and one with a QR code for payment amid hieroglyphs of the Golden Dawn pillars. The client sits, says nothing, and cuts the deck any way they like. I give the reading. At the outdoor festivals, my wizard robe hood covers my face enough to keep me from seeing much more than the client’s hands. I have rarely met anyone who actually practices “cold reading,” but many otherwise competent readers will allow the look of the client to distract them, and really the only remedy is to ignore the person and look carefully at the cards. After the reading, the person will usually make comments on how it spoke to them. I have been doing readings in public at fairs and events since the late 1990s and I tend to spend more on the whole thing than it produces, if you account for lunch and gas. It’s an excuse to spend some time around people.
My technique is extremely simple, the OATH method of card reading: Observe, Articulate, Translate, Help. Set aside all the books, and have no concern for your Third Eye, and just look at the symbols on the card. Talk about them out loud. The main obstacle for solo readers is that they will leave the reading in a cloud of vague suspicions, general meanings skimmed while looking at the layout; but putting the reading into words is a major part of the process. It needs to be voiced, to craft a story, to make sense of the cards as a reading rather than as stand-alone meanings. Whatever the cards say needs to be worked into a statement about the client and their situation, their options and hazards. It should be more than just facts, offering something useful to their life and decisions.
A good reader will almost certainly have performed innumerable free readings, the conversational equivalent of one chimpanzee grooming another. Tarot can make a small amount of money with very little start-up capital and remains a decent way for people with children or other obstacles to generate a few dollars. Constantly advertising Tarot readings annoys people and does not work. If a person is competent enough to warrant advertising, they will almost certainly be doing better from referrals than from spamming their friends.
I have used many decks in all this time. My favorites are the Universal Waite deck (love the navy blue shimmer backs), the Thoth pocket-sized deck whose borders I cropped, and the gold-foil Waite deck I use at events. The Thoth deck is great for a beginner, but the card titles can unfavorably affect the meaning and I have enjoyed using the set without them. There is only one book to recommend: Qabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang. If that’s not enough, check his bibliography.
I took an interest in Tarot about 30 years ago and have been an active and very frequent reader since then, so I have a lot to say that needs to be crammed into this post without putting the readers to sleep. I will detail some things that I find interesting, but it’s not going to be possible to give a worthy picture of what it means to me.
I’d first like to say that Tarot is not necessarily magical divination, but a system of organizing questions and answers. Sometimes, and more frequently with experience, the cards pull forth some truly magical answers that reveal hidden truths; but the act of using Tarot does not require any sort of psychic power or spiritual intervention. Dreaming is also a perfectly ordinary thing, and yet at times the latent psychic powers use dreams to convey the unknowable, and it is the same for the cards. They might stimulate psychic powers, but reading cards is more about creatively forming connections between parts of a whole that make intuitive sense than receiving spirit signals.
Lately the use of Large Language Models or LLM has become popular as the source of most Ai outputs. The content of websites and dialogues in existing digital formats provide a picture of the total verbal activity of humanity, a little bit of everything represented every way anyone ever imagined and put online. The Tarot is like that too, a collection of all the parts of human society as the trumps and then the world in which those exist as the suits, along with sixteen personality profiles. Answers from chatbots refer to the contents of that large pile of organized data from which the LLM is harvested, and in the Tarot the data is made of pictures and organized according to the structure of the deck.
Using Tarot is about more than just getting answers. In the context of public readings, it allows people to have a neutral party highlight issues that cannot be easily discussed with friends and family, and which do not require repeated therapy sessions or any suggested prescriptions or prayers. The reader can freely discuss finances, romance, or personal goals, and some people appreciate an opportunity to sort those things out with a person who has no stake in it. I have found that for some women, sitting down for a reading allows them to have communication with a man in a safe context, not something easily found. Using the cards alone also brings out issues that can be otherwise ignored or bottled.
The Tarot is not suited to any kind of Yes/No questions (Will, Has, Is, Can, Does) or anything that begins with the word “should.” Good questions begin with What and How, and sometimes Who. The cards do not verify anything, and it is not wise to let them make decisions. They show the ordinary artifacts and processes of life, arranged to express relationships between those things, to be interpreted by someone familiar with their symbols. They inform the language based mind, the voice of the reader, with image based information that sits deeper in the brain and can make connections the trained reasoning faculties ignore until forced to articulate them.
At events, my Tarot booth is sort of like a lounge area set up next to my other tent or table with the actual merchandise like shirts, woodcrafts, or jewelry. I have two large pyramids on either side of my table, one with a price (3 cards for $10, 10 cards for $20) and one with a QR code for payment amid hieroglyphs of the Golden Dawn pillars. The client sits, says nothing, and cuts the deck any way they like. I give the reading. At the outdoor festivals, my wizard robe hood covers my face enough to keep me from seeing much more than the client’s hands. I have rarely met anyone who actually practices “cold reading,” but many otherwise competent readers will allow the look of the client to distract them, and really the only remedy is to ignore the person and look carefully at the cards. After the reading, the person will usually make comments on how it spoke to them. I have been doing readings in public at fairs and events since the late 1990s and I tend to spend more on the whole thing than it produces, if you account for lunch and gas. It’s an excuse to spend some time around people.
My technique is extremely simple, the OATH method of card reading: Observe, Articulate, Translate, Help. Set aside all the books, and have no concern for your Third Eye, and just look at the symbols on the card. Talk about them out loud. The main obstacle for solo readers is that they will leave the reading in a cloud of vague suspicions, general meanings skimmed while looking at the layout; but putting the reading into words is a major part of the process. It needs to be voiced, to craft a story, to make sense of the cards as a reading rather than as stand-alone meanings. Whatever the cards say needs to be worked into a statement about the client and their situation, their options and hazards. It should be more than just facts, offering something useful to their life and decisions.
A good reader will almost certainly have performed innumerable free readings, the conversational equivalent of one chimpanzee grooming another. Tarot can make a small amount of money with very little start-up capital and remains a decent way for people with children or other obstacles to generate a few dollars. Constantly advertising Tarot readings annoys people and does not work. If a person is competent enough to warrant advertising, they will almost certainly be doing better from referrals than from spamming their friends.
I have used many decks in all this time. My favorites are the Universal Waite deck (love the navy blue shimmer backs), the Thoth pocket-sized deck whose borders I cropped, and the gold-foil Waite deck I use at events. The Thoth deck is great for a beginner, but the card titles can unfavorably affect the meaning and I have enjoyed using the set without them. There is only one book to recommend: Qabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang. If that’s not enough, check his bibliography.