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All posts by MQS
Was That On Purpose? (Example Reading)
This one’s a quickie. A friend of mine who tends to take things way more seriously than she should asked if the boyfriend had really misplaced the small gift they had bought for her mother or if he had hidden it out of spite (he doesn’t like her mother). Knowing the dude I was quite sure she was overreacting. Still we asked the Sibilla:
The Thought card is indicative of someone’s inner reality (their thoughts, plans, character, proclivities, etc). Since we asked about the boyfriend’s intention, the thought is his. The Belvedere card is usually associated with the arrival of something. However, it is also the card of sight. Next to the Ten of Clubs, which is a card of carefreeness, this seems to point to an oversight.
It turned out the gift had been left in the car, where it had lodged itself between the the two front seats. As silly as the reason for the reading is, it’s nice to have the cards confirm our suspicion.
MQS
The Slop Must Flow On (and the Esoteric Anti-Initiation)
I don’t know about you, but at the ripe old age of 35 I’m an old fart who remembers the wild west days of the Internet, when people tried cool stuff just because they could. In the last few years I’ve noticed a shift, which probably started in the early 2010s when governments and corporations decided the internet wasn’t something to be vilified as they had done up until that point, but a space to be sanitized, homogenized and monetized.
I am not one to decry money as evil: money is simply an equivalent for one’s work that may be exchanged for the equivalent of another person’s work. In this sense, money has deep metaphysical properties and implications.
What I did notice, however, is that now, wherever I go, someone is trying to sell me something, even if it’s just a free, safe, “binge-worthy” series of videos designed to hook me in so that they may make money out of my attention.
And the more safe formulas get proofed and tested for grabbing people’s attention as quickly as possible, often with AI to provide the missing accelerationist flavor, the more the content that is peddled can be identified as slop. The existential ennui of someone who browses the internet in the year of our Lord 2025 with a smidgen of self-awareness is not to be undererstimated.
I’m bringing this up because I recently received an (automated) email on the account I use for my youtube channel where I was invited to take a course for blowing up my channel, which included such thoughtful advice as “make bad content” (their words, not mine). And honestly, that might very well work, if it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t give a rat’s tutu about drawing big numbers and am perfectly happy with my little corner.
Essentially, slop has been acknowledged as the fastest and most effective way to plug oneself into a premade template of ‘Internet success story’. This, in itself, is not a revolutionary discovery: crap has always existed and has always had success, and the reason why we often don’t know about the crap that existed in the past is that crap tends to be forgotten in the long run, unless it’s so bad it becomes an acquired taste.
What is new is the psychotic speed at which this is happening as attention spans get shorter, the number of people competing for them gets higher and the tools for achieving the result get more powerful.
From a metaphysical and esoteric standpoint, slop is simply the elevation of the lower aspects of the human consciousness to the status of aim to be pursued, with a result that might very well be seen as a form of anti-initiation.
The word initiation tends to conjure images of hooded figures bestowing grace on a supplicant. While the ritual aspect of it is not insignificant, the idea of initiation is far broader and it applies to many fields, not just esoteric, as a path that forces the person’s spirit to acquire, develop or balance certain qualities that allow it to adapt to the ideals of that path.
An anti-initiation, in this sense, is a process whereby the human spirit ossifies, rots and collapses in on itself, having lost any semblance of a guiding light and being only stirred into motion by the gravitational pull of its own ass.
I am not a prude and I am not a no-fun Fräulein Rottenmeier. I enjoy some of the products of our current age, and I accept the rest with some irony (what else is left?) I am merely observing an interesting trend. It is often repeated that initiation (any initiation) is for the few, but it seems to me that is becoming something for the fewer.
MQS
Credo Quia Absurdum – The Dangers of Irrationalism in Magick
Many people who think they are communing with the gods are simply reacting to crap that their subconscious slings at them. This may or may not have therapeutic value, but it is not magic, since metaphysical forces cannot be psychologized away just so someone can have the safe thrill of believing outside of consensus reality while also appearing sane.
And this is where a fine line needs to be trodden. If on one hand we have the excess of trying to rationalize everything and reduce it to consensus reality, on the other hand irrationalism is just as destructive, and the idea of believing in crap exactly because it is absurd (credo quia absurdum) can lead us down really dark paths, and not the curling-up-with-a-vampire-novel type of dark.
Sometimes I get outraged messages by people who whine that there is no recipe for magic, so I should let them believe what they want. People are absolutely free to believe what they want, but I am also free to call it how I see it. Those people, it is worth noting, tend to be of the soapboxing-on-social-media variety who constantly try to educate others on what’s right and what’s wrong, yet they often fail to realize that they nurture a worldview within which there is no space for right or wrong, true or false.
This type of worldview, in part, is due to the fact that there is no space for magic in our current worldview, and so as soon as one dabbles in it, they immediately find themselves outside of all current definitions of what is reasonable, and so they end up embracing the role of the crazy ones, often subconsciously. And hey, being crazy can be fun at times, and sometimes it can be a good front to protect ourselves, but it needs to be done with some awareness.
Plus, if we take the time to research the history of occultism, both in the West and elsewhere, we find that there are different paradigms that are fruitful from a magical standpoint without having to give up rationality, which is a part of the human make-up, and as such is worth cultivating.
An occultist, a hermetician, a magus, in so far as they act in their magical capacity, are more spaces than individuals: they are liminal spaces between worlds. In order to become that space, we often need to let go of certain convictions, and many of our limits of all kinds will be pushed. This is where working on oneself can be useful and complement occult training.
But this need to go beyond our initial limits (the old adage “you cannot seek initiation and remain the same”), could lead us to believe that irrationalism is simply the last frontier: that reason is simply just another limit to overcome, just another trap of our ego. This, by the way, is what’s behind the kind of zealots who poke snakes with sticks because God told them he would protect them.
Traditionally, in most schools, aspirants to initiation are taught how to screen the perceptions they have during their experiments to see if they are talking to something outside of themselves or not (and if the thing outside of themselves is benign).
One of the first things to apply is logic: if the thing tells you to jump off a window and they will catch you, it’s either a larva with a sense of humor or, more probably, your cupio dissolvi hard at work. If the thing tells you something that goes against reason or contradicts what cannot be doubted (“you won’t fall if you throw yourself from a bridge”), that’s also a red flag. If the thing tells you stuff you know or if it flatters you, it’s just you.
I’m not one to try to scare others unnecessarily: many times, nothing dangerous happens, in part because existence is not as dark as some make it out to be (nor as light as others make it out to be), and in a much larger part because we are often shielded from danger by our own incompetence.
That being said, getting rid of one of your human faculties (reason) instead of cultivating it sensibly can be something you end up paying for dearly. Irrationalism may appear like a way to get read of the ego, but it is often just the last refuge of the ego that cannot stand to be corrected, since reason is so good at countering its poppycock.
MQS
Tarot Encyclopedia – The Nine of Cups
(Note: this is a collection of the meanings attributed to the cards by some occultists in the past centuries. It does not reflect my own study or opinion of the cards. It is only meant as a quick comparative reference as I develop my own take.)
Paul Foster Case (and Ann Davies)
The time period is the second decanate of Pisces, March 1 to March 10, under the subrulership of the Moon.
Well-Dignified: complete realization of desires; almost perfect pleasure and happiness; wishes fulfilled; physical well-being.
lll-Dignified: vanity, conceit, egotism; foolish generosity or ostentatious expenditure; the
person to whom the card applies is too easily led; one spoilt by
prosperity.
Keyword: Desire fulfilled.
(From the Oracle of Tarot course)
A. E. Waite
A goodly personage has feasted to his heart’s content, and abundant refreshment of wine is on the arched counter behind him, seeming to indicate that the future is also assured. The picture offers the material side only, but there are other aspects. Divinatory Meanings: Concord, contentment, physical bien-être; also victory, success, advantage; satisfaction for the Querent or person for whom the consultation is made. Reversed: Truth, loyalty, liberty; but the readings vary and include mistakes, imperfections, etc.
(From The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)
Aleister Crowley
The Nine of Cups is called Happiness. This is a peculiarly good card, because happiness, as the word implies, is so much a matter of luck: the card is ruled by Jupiter, and Jupiter is Fortune.In all these watery cards, there is a certain element of illusion; they begin by Love, and love is the greatest and most deadly of the illusions. The sign of Pisces is the refinement, the fading away of this instinct, which, begun with dreadful hunger and carried on with passion, has now become “a dream within a dream”.
The card is ruled by Jupiter. Jupiter in Pisces is indeed good fortune, but only in the sense of complete satiety. The fullest satisfaction is merely the matrix of a further putrefaction; there is no such thing as absolute rest. A cottage in the country with the roses all around it? No, there is nothing permanent in this; there is no rest from the Universe. Change guarantees stability. Stability guarantees change.
[…]
The Number Nine, Yesod, in the suit of Water, restores the stability lost by the excursions of Netzach and Hod from the Middle Pillar. It is also the number of the Moon, thus strengthening the idea of Water. In this card is the pageant of the culmination and perfection of the original force of Water.
The Ruler is Jupiter in Pisces. This influence is more than sympathetic; it is a definite benediction, for Jupiter is the planet of Chesed which represents Water in its highest material manifestation, and Pisces brings out the placid qualities of Water. In the symbol are nine cups perfectly arranged in a square; all are filled and overflowing with Water. It is the most complete and most beneficent aspect of the force of Water.
The Geomantic Figure Laetitia is ruled by Jupiter in Pisces. For its meaning consult the “Handbook of Geomancy” (Equinox Vol I, No.2). Laetitia, Joy, gladness, is one of the best and most powerful of the sixteen figures; for the Solar, Lunar, and Mercurial symbols are, at the best, ambiguous and treacherously ambivalent; those of Venus portend rather relief than positive beneficence; Saturn and Mars are seen at their worst; and even the stable-companion of Laetitia, Acquisitio, has its unpleasant aspects, and even its dangers. But the consonance of Laetitia with this card amounts to little less than an identity; the wine is poured by Ganymede himself, unstinted vintage of true nectar of the Gods, brimful and running over, an ordered banquet of delight, True Wisdom self-fulfilled in Perfect Happiness.
(From The Book of Thoth)
Golden Dawn’s Book T
A WHITE Radiant Angelic Hand, issuing from a cloud holding lotus or waterlilies, one flower of which overhangs each cup; from it a white water pours. Cups are arranged in three rows of 3. Jupiter and Pisces above and below.
Complete and perfect realization of pleasure and happiness, almost perfect; selfpraise, vanity, conceit, much talking of self, yet kind and lovable, and may be self-denying therewith. High-minded, not easily satisfied with small and limited ideas. Apt to be maligned through too much self-assumption. A good and generous, but sometimes foolish nature.
Yesod of HB:H (Complete success, pleasure and happiness, wishes fulfilled).
Therein rule the Angels HB:SALYH and HB:a’aRYAL.
Etteilla
Victory
Upright. This card, as far as the medicine of the spirit is concerned, means, in its natural position: Victory, Success, Achievement, Advantage, Gain. – Pump, Triumph, Trophy, Preeminence, Superiority. – Spectacle, Arrangement, Equipment.
Reversed. Sincerity, Truth, Reality, Loyalty, Good faith, Frankness, Naiveté, Candor, Openness of heart, Simplicity. – Freedom, Science, Overconfidence, Familiarity, Boldness, Looseness, Debauchery
MQS
How to Work With Wrong Readings
I had a nice exchange with a visitor, who asked how we can work with the readings we get wrong, so that we can improve our skill.
The first thing to take into account is that this is not always possible. We may say that we are accurate because 80-90% of our assertions end up being true, but that is calculated on those assertions for which we get feedback, and we don’t always get feedback.
Here, too, there is a lesson, I think: all we can do is be as good as we can be at the particular moment in which the reading takes place. If we think an interpretation is viable, there is no point in withholding it out of fear that we might get it wrong (unless the topic is sensitive and we choose to stretch the truth to avoid hurting the querent) because we might not get another chance to say it.
What happens after the reading is that some querents simply forget about it. Too many querents think that a reading needs to come true within a couple of weeks, when in fact it often takes months, so after the initial excitement (or dread) they simply move on, and they may only be reminded of it when it comes to pass, if at all.
Other readings are correct, but the querent thinks that’s just regular business, so they don’t bother to tell us, while other readings are wrong, and the querent either rubs that in our face as publicly as possible or they don’t talk about that anymore, thinking we are beneath them.
Then there’s the readings for which we do have feedback, which can be very positive (“everything was spot on, and you’re also kinda cute”), very negative (“it ended up being the exact opposite of what you said”), or mixed (“this and that came to pass, but this other thing not yet”).
Even the feedback we get needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Positive feedback can sometimes be a mix of wishful thinking and the desire to please, while negative feedback can sometimes be a mix of delusion (you said he wouldn’t call and he didn’t, but I know he loves me, so you’re wrong) and desire to hurt.
So, what do we do with the feedback we are given, if it is negative? The reasonable thing to do, in my opinion, is to check the spread (I usually take pictures and/or notes) and see where we might have screwed up.
Was there a point in the spread where the cards were a bit ambiguous and we forced the reading in the wrong direction? Was there a huge, smacking-your-forehead blunder? You simply cannot see what went wrong? Take notes on the reading. If you don’t think you can formulate a definitive theory on what went south, don’t. Leave things hanging. Add ‘maybe’ and ‘possibly’, and see if there are other readings you did on similar issues that can help you.
Even when going back to an older spread, we should never force it to say what the feedback said, if we just don’t see it: firstly, because, as I said, even feedback that exists must be treated with caution; secondly, because there is a tendency to want to read details into the reading that we would never have been able to guess beforehand, and that’s not divination.
Broadly speaking, the feedback we get, positive, negative or mixed, should be treated as raw data that needs to be studied carefully. That’s where a lot of growth can take place. Be especially thankful for mixed feedback, as usually it is the most honest kind: we rarely get 100% of the things right, either in our description of the past/present or in our predictions. As fallible humans, getting many things right many times should be enough to satisfy us, especially since we are doing something most people consider impossible.
MQS
Which House Is Next To Which?
In astrology, the contiguity of the houses is obvious, since the houses are usually arranged either in a square or in a circle, but always forming a loop. Thus, we have that the Ascendant is always squished between the second house and the twelfth; that it always opposes the seventh, and, if we go by whole sign houses, that it has fixed relationships with all the others (inconjunct, sextile, square or trine).
This is not the case in Geomancy, where the relationship between houses is controversial, at least nowadays. First off, it is not pacific that the houses of the Shield represent astrological houses, unless we operate an equivalence with astrology, as was done at least since Geomancy reached Europe.
Those coming to Geomancy through Michael Greer, as I did, are probably used seeing the geomantic houses as equivalent to astrological houses: once the Shield is turned into a square chart, the houses follow the same astrological pattern as in an astrological chart. Those coming to Geomancy through the Golden Dawn, though using a different way of assigning the mothers to the houses (the one popularized by Agrippa), still end up dealing with a 1:1 replica of an astrological chart.
However, the idea that the Shield chart and the astrological chart are separate ways of doing Geomancy seems to be relatively new. In most old books, only the Shield is shown, and even when the astrological format is followed, this is done more to show some of the similarities with astrology.
Secondly, which house is next to which is not always clear, and sometimes varies by author. In some sources it seems that only houses that are in company are considered to be next to each other: first and second, third and fourth (but not second and third), fifth and sixth (but not fourth and fifth) and so on pair by pair. This seems to follow the order in which the Shield chart is generated.
In the example above, Tristitia in the first is next to Via in the second, and Tristitia in the third is next to Conjunctio in the fourth, but not to Via in the second. This is possibly because the first and second combine to form the ninth and the third and fourth combine to form the tenth, but the second and third never combine. This approach obviously restricts the possibilities of perfecting the chart, since most houses end up losing a possible spot next to them for other figures to move to.
Another approach is the one I found while translating Abano’s work. Here Abano started by saying (or rather, implying) that the twelfth house is not next to the first. Initially, I thought this was because he was following the arrangement for the company of houses I just discussed. Yet he gives other examples where he does not follow it, for instance by implying that the eighth and ninth house are next to each other, which would contradict the company of houses (the eighth is with the seventh, the ninth with the tenth).
Then, in another one of his examples, he implies that a figure in the tenth house is next to a figure in the third. This does not make sense from an astrological standpoint, but from a sheer geomantic standpoint it does: the third house DOES border with the tenth, since it co-generates it with the fourth. This would also explain why he doesn’t consider the twelfth house to be next to the first: not because they are not in company, but because they are not close on the Shield (they are, in fact, on opposite ends of the shield).
This approach of considering the houses close on the Shield as being next to each other is certainly different from anything I’ve seen, especially in contemporary geomancy, and if it weren’t for the fact that enough readings I’ve done confirmed to me that the twelfth house CAN perfect with the first, I would find Abano’s approach extremely appealing. Unfortunately, one of my rules when dealing with divination is that practice trumps theory.
Abano goes even further, implying that the Witnesses (and possibly even the Judge) are to be treated as regular houses. This, in itself, is not unique to him, but what I find unique is that he considers the Witnesses capable of perfecting the reading, for instance if the first figure moves to the tenth and the quesited’s figure moves to the right Witness, where, by Abano’s theory, the two figures touch.
Another consequence of Abano’s approach is that not all houses are created equal: the first house, for instance, only touches with the second and the ninth, while the tenth house must be considered to be next to the ninth, eleventh, third, fourth and to the right Witness.
A possible argument, at this point, could be that this approach makes certain readings too easy (like those involving the tenth house, as I just showed). Still, we should keep in mind 1. that divination reflects reality, so a no is a no, regardless of the system 2. secondly, that Abano doesn’t always consider merely the querent and quesited. Often he considers the whole chart, and sometimes he resolves certain questions by dividing the shield into two sides (the left and the right side) and seeing which side is stronger. This is a method he has from traditional astrology, where questions of contest or war are often decided in such manner.
Ultimately, which approach we choose depends on what works, which means that the only way is to try, record and compare with what actually ends up happening.
MQS
The Home – A Deep Dive Into Cartomancy
Following my deep dive into the symbols of the door knockers and the road in divination by cards, I want to tackle the symbol of the home. This, too, like the road, is a widespread symbol that is almost never absent from any divination system of a practical nature (I am aware of systems for playing card divination based on Rider Waite symbolism, but they have very little practical use).
The popularity of the symbol of the home is simply a consequence of its importance in people’s lives. The home or house card is, in most systems, a ‘topic’ or significator card indicating the querent’s or someone else’s house, and the cards surrounding it show us the atmosphere or happenings of the household. Its practical value, therefore, is immense.
In the earliest recorded system for reading the tarot, which is Pratesi’s guide for the Bolognese tarot, the house card is the Ace of Cups. This meaning is retained in the more modern variants of the method. This is also an almost universal constant in cartomancy, since the Ace of Cups or Hearts is almost always taken as a symbol of the home.
Whether this association originates with the Bolognese tarot I don’t know. It is possible that the symbolism is simply suggested by the shape of the Ace of Cups. In the Visconti tarot, the Ace of Cups is a water spring similar to a baptismal font, but in many old decks it can look similar to a walled structure. If we add to this the fact that the function of the cup is to contain, it may be that this could have suggested the idea of the house to old cartomancers, since a house is a large (the ace is large) containment structure.
Similarly, in almost all card reading systems using Italian regional cards, the Ace of Cups is the home, although I am aware of a couple where the meaning is attributed to the Four of Cups, possibly due to the squarish form suggested by the arrangement of the pips. The Ace of Cups is also the house card in the Sibilla regionale, which is the second-most widespread sibilla deck in Italy.
Why the same idea of home as the Ace was suggested by people using regular playing card suits is unclear, since the Ace of Hearts does not look like anything but a heart. Still, if the system I was taught is anything to go by, the main idea is that hearts deal with one’s emotional life and nourishment, and the home is the origin and source (ace) of our emotional life, the place where our first (ace) needs are met. As a matter of fact, the person who taught me cartomancy with playing cards often insisted that the Ace of Hearts is not just any house (though it can be, in practice) but especially one’s home, where we come from (the ‘spring’ we come from, in the Visconti sense), which is why an extended meaning of the house card is often one’s family.
The same attribution of the Ace of Hearts to the home is found in most systems I am aware of, including German cartomancy and most English and French methods. As far as tarot is concerned, we find that, in some earlier tarot documents, the Tower is simply called ‘casa’ (house), before being called House of God or House of the Devil in some other decks (the title ‘Tower’ is actually a rather late innovation).
Etteilla assigned the house to the Ten of Coins, which Waite retains in his illustration of the Ten of Pentacles, while Paul Case generally matched the house with the Two of Cups, among other things. However, this was more of an accidental consequence of the Golden Dawn attribution of the first cards of the suit of Cups to the zodiac sign of Cancer and, according to the sign/house equivalence theory, to the fourth house, which is the house of the father and therefore of one’s fathers and one’s family/house.
The Sibilla is a partial exception to the rule of the ace as the home, as the House card is given to the Two of Hearts. The meaning of origin (which metaphorically, depending on the reading, can also indicate the origin of a problem) is retained. Still, the Ace of Hearts is also given to the family and to people living together, among other meanings.
The Sibilla, like the Kipper cards, distinguishes between a House card and a Room card. This is probably because both decks seem to have been consolidated from earlier German or Austrian decks which also had similar cards, although the makers of the Sibilla also took playing cards into consideration.
I cannot speak to the Kipper cards (nor to Lenormand, where there is a House card, attributed to the King of Hearts), but in the Sibilla, the Room can represent a small(er) apartment, as well as a place in general, but it doesn’t usually have a connection with the emotional side of life, like the House, although it can represent intimacy, since it is connected with rooms in general, but with the bedroom specifically.
MQS
On Papal Elections and the Power of Rituals
Regardless of what one thinks of the church as an institution, it is hard not to be impressed by the sheer power and majesty of its rituals and customs. As a non-Christian, or rather as a post-Christian, I am still convinced that the Catholic mass, especially in its older forms, is one of the best-constructed rituals in the history of humanity (I was reminded of it during my dad’s funeral last year).
When I talk about power I am not talking about political or social power, which are undeniable. I’m talking about the power to create a ritualized experience of reality that mobilizes real forces.
This, I’ve noticed, is something many people are not willing to concede, partly out of spite toward the institution (which I may understand), partly as a result of the typical view underpinning modern esotericism that anything goes, and so the rituals of the church have no particular quality compared to the ones anyone could make up on the go, except maybe that traditional religious rituals, being older, have become more powerful through engramming.
Let us leave aside for now the memetic esoteric aspect, which however is certainly present, especially with how Leo XIV’s election has literally been turned into one of the biggest memeplexes I’ve seen in recent times.
I think that the fundamental misconception that is at the root of so much esoteric junk is that something becomes true simply by way of repetition. Yet, in spite of the dogma, reality is not merely what we make of it, as anyone who tried to fly off a skyscraper won’t be able to testify.
True: just like the small mind (the human mind) the great mind (the larger universe) is endowed with a certain level of plasticity. Just like the small brain can be impressed with habits, so can the great brain be impressed with certain forms or procedures that wouldn’t naturally arise. That’s because there is a difference between different gradations of reality: my reflection in the mirror is, from a physical standpoint, just as real as me, but in another sense, being completely dependent on the form of the mirror and my own form, it is subordinated and can be changed, to a degree.
But good rituals are not powerful simply because they have been repeated enough times. While repetition does engram rituals with an authentic foundation, if we take the time to study various magical traditions, we notice that they often utilize the ritual blueprint of the dominant religion of their area, but bending it in other directions.
The spiritual “aeon” within which they operate is their source of authentic power, because most major religions and philosophical currents do capture something of the universal life and its might. Authenticity is the keyword.
In addition, there may sometimes be certain powerful experiences that allow different traditions to fuse together into new ones (take for instance some of the magical traditions created by the descendants of African slaves converted to Christianity).
But the root of magic is always an authentic source of power, which is ultimately always the same, but which is channeled and shaped through the form of the religious or philosophical tradition, and regardless of the how corrupt or unlikeable the representatives of that tradition become. Lacking it, the most one can conjure, if anything at all, are some cheap tricks of lower esoteric jugglery.
This is also why it’s important to take the time to soak into the traditions we want to work with. Eclecticism is pure vanity if it is divorced from understanding. If I had a euro for everytime I saw someone on social media simply plucking formulas left and right, one from the magical papyri, one from esoteric Daoism and so on, without understanding their philosophical contours… Well I wouldn’t be able to buy much, because I’m not often on social media, but a nice coat would probably be within my price range.
MQS
The Third Beast (Example Reading)
A querent (a man) asked how his relationship would evolve:
The first thing to notice is that both main figures appear (King and Queen of Wands) and both their thoughts (Page and Knight of Wands). The two significators are in the central column, so let’s read the central column first: King of Wands, Queen of Wands, Ace of Cups (house), Moon (darkness), Queen of Coins (truth). Clearly their relationship is not based on clarity, because the truth is hidden, and there would be a need for honesty.
The Death card next to her might show that she is the one going through some kind of transition, and it’s probably not something that has just happened (Temperance shows time). The house is not positive to the couple, as there is hurt or arguments around it (Knight of Swords).
The King of Swords was hard to interpret. It was, until the querent asked out of the blue “Do you see her cheating on me?”
Look at the column the King of Swords falls in: Death, King of Swords, Her Thoughts and the Betrayal card. In her thoughts there’s someone else. Note also that his thoughts (Knight of Wands) is next to the Moon and the Hanged Man, so he suspects.
The Queen of Coins, which is the truth, here seems to have two meanings here. One is that it shows the need for clarity (and therefore the lack of it), and secondly it acts as a sort of punctuation, as I discussed before, sealing the reading as if to say “yup, that’s exactly what you’re thinking”
Obviously we need to be very careful when announcing this sort of situations, even if the querent suspects. It is much better to caution them to seek clarity with their partner (especially in this case with the Truth card so prominent in the reading)
MQS
