Getting things wrong hurts, but is part of the human condition. In fact, I would argue that if a reader says they are infallible, that’s a good time to put as much distance between you and them as possible. An infallible reader is either so delusional that they block out all negative feedback from their reality or so dishonest that they’ll constantly be looking for the right bridge to sell you. Either way, they are best kept at a distance.
Still, there’s no denying that getting a reading wrong is disheartening because, as much as we should keep the ego out of the equation, the ego always seeps into it. I think it’s fair to share our failures as well as our triumphs. Here is a reading I got wrong relatively recently.
The querent was asking about her recent pregnancy.
Q♣️ – 7♣️ – J♥️ – 3♠️ – 2♥️
Accepting the question was my first mistake, as such issues are way too delicate. There is no situation where “you will miscarry” is an acceptable thing to say, and if we can’t be honest there is no point in giving a reading. Even if I had interpreted the cards correctly I would never have told the querent.
Thing is, though, that I wanted to give her good news, albeit subconsciously, and so I ended up interpreting a clearly negative spread positively. The querent falls first in the spread, and there is a card of obstacles between her and the child (the Jack of Hearts). The Three of Spades in questions of pregnancy often leads to loss, but I interpreted the Two of Hearts as the solution of the problems, while in fact it was merely saying that the loss would happen soon (it was knocking at the door). In hindsight, I probably should have added some cards.
I told the querent the pregnancy would go fine, though with minor problems which would be solved, but that she should always listen to the doctor. In reality, the cards point to a situation that not even doctors would be able to salvage (the doctors don’t show up in the spread).
Two things can be learned: first, never accept questions you are not really comfortable answering; second, always keep your desire to give a skewed answer in check. It is human nature to want other people to be happy (or sad, if we don’t like them) but this gets in the way of our objectivity.
Readings about lost objects are hard. I am very much less than infallible in finding them. The reason is quite simple: most questions have a limited number of likely answers and an even more limited number of unlikely ones, so it is usually easier to make sense of the cards. “Yes he’ll marry you”, “No, he hates you”, “There doesn’t seem to be much tenderness left in the relationship, but with some effort you can keep it going a while.” There is, of course, some skill for finding nuances involved, and a good reader will add some details, but in general, the possible answers are relatively limited.
But a lost object can be anywhere, and we can either be very right or very wrong, with little space for “yes, but…” and “no, although…” Especially if we’ve never seen the place where the object was lost, it becomes hard to read the symbolism of the cards without reading our own fantasy into them. As far as I am concerned, much depends on how clear the cards decide to be with me. Since I have nothing to prove, I have no problem throwing my hands up and saying “Dunno” if that is my honest answer.
As we are moving all our stuff from the old house into the new one, plenty of things have gone momentarily missing, in the sense that I don’t know which of the dozens of boxes we’ve brought along they are in, and frankly I’m not too eager to start searching.
Except that I started itching to do some I Ching readings, and I couldn’t find my I Ching coins anymore. I did remember putting them somewhere where “I know I will find them”. The problem is that I have done the same with so many of my things in the last couple of months that the trick doesn’t work anymore. So I asked the cards for a pointer:
K♣ – 2♥ – 5♣
In general, what makes this reading relatively easy, compared to other lost item readings, is that it does not describe the place where the coins are, but rather their relationship to me. The King of Clubs is my significator. It is followed by a card, the Two of Hearts, which indicates ‘close to home’, but also ‘close’ in general. I know I cannot have left the coins in the neighborhood, which is naturally signified by the Two of Hearts, so I take it to mean ‘close’.
That Five of Clubs is interesting. In general it represents effort, but it is connected also with the body in general, understood as moving, acting ‘machine’, and also the hands. Close at hand, maybe? Or close to my body?
Either reading would have been correct. I found the coins in an internal pocket of my jacket where I usually don’t keep anything and don’t bother looking.
As most people reading this blog probably know at this point, we’ve recently bought our first home. A couple of weeke ago we scheduled the key handover with the previous owner, and I asked if everything would run smoothly. The result was a very interesting chart with a clear example or translation of light.
We are represented by Venus, ruler of Libra on the Ascendant. The previous owner is Mars, ruler of Aries on the Seventh. The Moon represents action. Notice the South Node of the Moon on the Ascendant, indicating troubles.
The second thing I noticed is that both Venus and Mars have recently changed signs, and especially that Mars has moved from Pisces, the sign of Venus’ exaltation, to its own sign, and Venus has moved from Mars’ sign to her own sign. Furthermore, the Moon has also just changed signs while being in the Fourth house which represents the property.
The Moon is the most interesting factor here: she is separating from a sextile with reception of Mars (back when she was in the last minutes of Capricorn) and applies to a square with reception of Venus from Aquarius. By this translation of light the Moon shows very well the passage from one owner to the other.
A square aspect is technically a negative indication, showing either friction or obstacles. The reception, though, allows the obstacle to be overcome. In his chapter on reception, the Medieval astrologer Guido Bonatti seems to hint at the idea that a square with reception is basically like a sextile without reception, but this doesn’t seem to be the case here: a square is a square, and it shows trouble, even though reception shows the overcoming of the difficulty.
And this is what happened: the owner cancelled on us two times for other appointments that took up a lot of his time, so the handover happened (reception) but with delay (square).
NOTE: the two aspects made by the Moon were both with reception: she was received by Mars in his exaltation and then received Venus in her (the Moon’s) own exaltation, thus smoothly transfering the ‘virtue’ she had received.
Querents are not always paragons of virtue. There are usually two sides to most stories. I generally distrust people whose past is littered with psychos, crazy ex and narcissists. While someone CAN be that unlucky, the general trend seems to me to be more that people who have trouble in every relationship tend to be the cause of the trouble. “My love life is always a mess!” Of course it is, Rhonda, you are always in it!
As I said, there are usually two sides to each story, but as diviners we rarely hear the other one, so what we are stuck with is the querent’s own version, their word that the universe is constantly conspiring against them and a divination system usually saying exactly the opposite. And we are stuck in the middle of the perfect storm, carefully trying to thread the fine line between politeness and truth.
We were at a friend’s house and she had invited over another friend. The latter asked me the question: “I’m always unlucky in love. I’ve started dating this new guy, can I trust him?” Our friend made an odd face I could not decipher as we did the spread. These were the cards:
Is he reliable?
As I already discussed, sometimes the cards describe the development of a situation as if it were a book. At other times, they recreate a scene that can almost be observed with the characters calling attention to what they symbolize. This is one of those situations.
Right off the bat we notice that both querents are present. They are within the age range of the Queen of Clubs and Jack of Clubs. However, the mere fact that they are represented by these cards in a love question shows that this is not the romance of the century and will probably end, sooner or later. The cards, though, tell us something else.
Look at the Queen of Clubs! She is reversed and occupying the center of the spread. Usually, when the Young Maiden (Giovane Fanciulla) is reversed, she is afflicted by something, as opposed to other significators which, when reversed, tend to show problematic behavior.
This is unless the Maiden is reversed and near cards that show problematic behavior. This is exactly the case here. She is together with the Four of Diamonds, the Falsehood card (which, notice, is on her side of the spread, not on the guy’s side) and the Ten of Clubs, the Levity or Carefreeness card.
On the other hand, we have the Ten of Hearts, i.e., the Perseverance card, on the side of the boyfriend. Although the Perseverance card is not one of major feelings, it still shows him to be dependable. She, however, is depicted by the cards as being not only somewhat whiny, but also a little flighty (someone might say a little floozy, especially since she comes up reversed with the Ten of Hearts at the end of the spread)
In this situation, I tried to sugarcoat it to the querent by telling her that he is rather dependable, though this romance was probably not the one that would lead to marriage, and that he also had doubts about her, and that she should make sure not to send mixed signals.
Upon leaving, our friend pulled me aside and she told me that the girl has literally been the “butterfly” of the group, landing from man to man, being unreliable and not learning anything from experience. This is very well described by the reversed Queen of Clubs, who, in a negative context, can show a woman with a princess complex who thinks everyone else is at fault.
This is the first time I use my new interest, Horary Astrology, in conjunction with playing cards. Let’s see what they have to say. The question was asked by a friend of mine who just broke up with her girlfriend. He wants to know if there is a future. This reading was made a couple of days ago.
Relationship reading, is there a future? Answered with horary astrology
The querent is Mars, lord of the Ascendant, while the quesited, i.e., the girlfriend, is Venus lord of the Seventh. The Moon indicates the flow of the action.
In a night chart, Mars is dignified by triplicity in Pisces, and is angular, while Venus is exalted, also in Pisces, and also angular. The first thing that strikes me is that Venus is moving away from Mars. Furthermore, the Moon is separating from a difficult square with Jupiter in the Seventh. I asked my friend if he had broken up with her or she had broken up with him, since from the chart it seems it was her initiative. He didn’t like to admit it, but said she had left him.
Note that Mars is in triplicity, so a decent Mars, but also conjunct Saturn. Saturn is peregrine. Also note that Venus, the girlfriend, is exalted, and exaltation is sometimes an indication of haughtiness. Clearly she thought she could do better than Saturn-like Mars as she moved away from him. My friend then told me she told him she didn’t like the fact she is to attached to her.
Well, CAN she do better? Venus is about to change sign, from Pisces to Aries, whereupon she will not only lose all her dignity, but she will also enter her detriment. Let us look at the Moon now. The Moon separates from the square with Jupiter and moves toward a sextile with Mercury Retrograde. Sextiles are positive aspects. If we put together the indications, we have: 1) Venus moving away but regretting her decision 2) A future positive contact 3) the contact is about things that go back (retrograde)
This seemed to me a sign of reconciliation. Just to be on the safe side, I had the querent pull three cards from the playing card deck. These were:
5♠ – Q♣ – 3♥
The cards are quite clear. The Five of Spades is a card of imprisonment, but it also indicates regret (which is what you are supposed to feel in prison). Then we have her significator, followed by the Three of Hearts. I would have preferred to see a Six of Hearts to show reconciliation, but the Three of Hearts will do. In this case, the added shade of meaning seems to be that the cards don’t even consider the breakup effective, because the Three of Hearts show things that flow positively without interruption.
In one of my recent posts I discussed how playing cards can detect curses (of course, it’s not just playing cards that can do it). Today I wanted to add to this subject by discussing the esoteric use of Playing Cards to check if a spell (in this case, a talisman) is a good idea or has been successfully created and is working.
I should perhaps first explain that there is a modicum of belief in magic involved in all this. The modern worldview tends to react to the idea of magic in two ways: the skeptical way (“it’s not really true”) and the new age way (“it’s not really true, but I would really love for it to be true, so I’ll play make belief and tailor everything to my preconceptions”)
Either way, magic is reduced to the acceptable role of cathartic theater or psychological tool (unfortunately, even great minds within the occult scene, like William Gray, have partly fallen for this approach, or at least considered it viable). From here it has even found its way even into the corporate sphere (a friend of mine working for Google told me she was forced to attend a “magical” day with a psychic who talked to them about tarot and Wicca). You know something is crap when pandering megacorporations appropriate it.
At least since Aleister Crowley (but there are predecessors) magic has been understood as the way of the will. Granted, Crowley’s understanding of the word “Will” is not the same as how we understand it in our everyday life, which would rather be “whim“. His view resembles more closely Nietzsche’s view of the will, so it does have some nobility.
But this doesn’t detract from the fact that most people whose view of magic has been colored by Crowley’s (and that’s almost everyone today, whether they know it or not) don’t REALLY believe in magic. Instead, they tend to see it as, again, little more than a placebo. It’s true if you believe in it. It’s true if you want it to be true.
Still, it’s my experience that belief in magic is not really required for magic to work. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any trace of the concept of the magician’s will in the traditional Western approach to magic (or in the Eastern approach, for that matter).
Because just believing in it was usually not considered a prerequisite for success, the use of divination to check the efficacy of magical workings has been advocated a long time. Besides, if belief is not enough, other, more objective factors must be checked. *
The Arab mages of old, for instance, invited people to do a horary reading to see if the use of planetary magic was warranted. Agrippa probably used geomancy for the same purpose. We don’t know about Abano, but it is not a stretch to think he would have consulted a geomantic shield to check how his spellwork was doing.
In general, all forms of divination take the reality of magic for granted within the worldview that informs their language. After all, why would divination work, but not magic? ** This is true for playing cards as well. Here is an example.
Last year while the Sun was in Leo I was working on a Sun talisman. I’m not going to disclose the aim of the talisman. It was nothing untoward, but I’d rather keep it to myself. After the creation of the talisman I set out to consecrate it. The number of days varies.
On the first day, after the first consecration, I got the following spread:
A♠ – 6♣ – 5♠
Definitely a bad start. And I wouldn’t have expected anything less. The majority is Spades, which is bad for anything but black magic.
6♣ – 8♣ – 10♣
Second day of consecration. A mash of clubs is not positive. It shows difficulties and toil without success. Still, Spades have abandoned the spread, which is a positive.
6♣ – A♦ – 3♠
This is the third day. Close but no banana. It is still a negative spread. It has the Six of Clubs in common with the previous spread, and it closes with an unpromising Three of Spades, which bring Spades and large obstacles back into the equation. Note that this is the third day in a row I get the Six of Clubs. But the Ace of Diamonds has appeared, which indicates success, talismans and even the Sun.
A♦ – 9♦ – 10♦
Fourth day. This is the sign I was waiting for. The Ace of Diamonds is back. This time it is well-placed. The Nine of Diamonds and Ten of Diamonds together just mean “it works”, whether we are talking about an object, a business plan or a spell.
MQS
* This is not to say that the old magi wanted you to do your homeworks half-heartedly. Marsilio Ficino talks about the importance putting your heart in your spellwork.
** this would lead us off into an interesting discussion of all those that practice divination without believing it to actually work (“it’s just a brainstorming method” being the most common rationalization)
Most systems of divination can also be used to explore esoteric topics. For instance, I have answered the question “have I been hexed?” way more than I would like. The answer is no 95% of the times. Only two times in my life have I sent someone straight to see a priest because something supernatural was objectively at play. Most of the times, people use dark magic as a scapegoat to rationalize natural periods of bad luck.
Of the the two times I did detect a curse I can only find records of one (my notes tend to be rather messy). The girl in question asked me if she’d received the evil eye (malocchio). This was the spread:
10♠ – 5♠ – 5♥ – J♠ – Q♠
I added two cards to the queen, and I got the Q♦ and the 2♥. The reading is quite obvious: a woman cursed her (the Queen of Spades with the Jack) on behalf of a relative (the Queen of Diamonds and Two of Hearts) though probably not a blood relative. The Ten and Five of Spades, when read together with the other spades, indicate the use of negative occult powers, probably at night.
The Five of Hearts in the center of the spread probably showed the sector of the querent’s life that was impacted by the curse: the ‘abundance’ sector. The young woman had lost a ton of weight in a short timeframe, she looked wasted, had started losing her hair and her beauty, had started developing money problems (in that she couldn’t retain any money she made). Her significator is absent, meaning she was completely passive to the hex.
It seems her mother-in-law had gone to see a country witch to try to harm her. This is far more troublesome than the evil eye, which sometimes can even be cast inadvertently without a ritual. The hex was broken by a priest, or rather, thanks to a priest who put her in contact with a monk specializing in this kind of stuff.
I’m bringing up the topic because I was recently asked the same question by a friend of mine who is going through a rough patch (lost her job, broke up with her boyfriend, argued with her sister, etc), which she believed was due to some ‘bad vibes’ or the malocchio. The spread was:
3♠ – 6♣ – Q♣ – 7♠ – 5♦
This time we have the querent in the middle of the spread. This, coupled with the fact that there are no combinations of curse, is encouraging: the querent has not been displaced from the center stage of her life.
The cards are negative, but they don’t reference supernatural phenomena: the Three of Spades could indicate curses or evil eye in combinations, but here there is no such combo, so it just indicates problems, things that don’t go smoothly. The querent is surrounded by the Six of Clubs and the Seven of Spades, the latter showing unfortunate events, the former reiterating the idea of difficulties. The Seven of Spades connects to the Five of Diamonds to indicate a period of misfortune, that is, of natural bad luck, which will pass (there will be change, it won’t stay that way forever).
Not even the best card readers are 100% correct, and I’m far from being the best card reader. This is an example from some time ago. The querent was a woman she asked me, generally, about her finances.
Cartomancy with playing cards – a cross spread about money
Looking at the spread as a whole, it is clear that it’s about money. In the upper position there are money issues highlighted, particularly a sudden (Seven of Spades) expense. The position below, which often needs to be connected to the one above, indicates issues connected with authority, possibly a bank or other financial institution (the King of Spades and King of Diamonds). In the past position we have a situation of slowness and difficulties for a long time, while in the heart position there are difficulties, possibly either obtaining something or getting it back (the Six of Hearts can mean that) or just simply difficulties finding one’s footing.
I ask the querent and she tells me that she’s a small business owner and business has been slow, and she’s been having trouble applying for financial help in the form of loans to renovate her business (note the Six of Hearts) and make it more appealing.
Encouraged by how responsive the spread seems to be, a look at the future positions. This is where I got everything wrong. I tell her that, although there is trouble (Six of Spades) she will get a positive answer (the last fan with the Three of Clubs and the Jack of Hearts). Looking back it is quite obvious the cards were saying something else.
She didn’t get the loan. The fan with the Six of Spades is not positive at all, even though I had decided to interpret it positively: it merely shows she will be quickly (Two of Hearts) refused the loan, possibly because she is not deemed to have her finances in order.
However, she later did end up partnering (Three of Clubs) with another woman (Queen of Diamonds) to start something new (Jack of Hearts).
Sometimes the cards speak like directors of a theater piece, ordering characters around in a way that makes almost intuitive sense and gives a visual representation of the issue. This is not always the case (some readings are super hard to decipher) but when it is it becomes almost impossible to doubt that divination truly works.
Here’s an example. A friend of my husband asked me why her boyfriend was acting strange. These were the cards (the reading started out as a three card reading, but I kept adding cards until I was satisfied):
Vera Sibilla Reading: Why is he acting strange
Look how the characters seem to relate to one another like characters in a play. We have Juliette, the Queen of Hearts. Behind her is the Five of Diamonds, Melancholy. She is dissatisfied. Then we have the Jack of Hearts, Romeo. Between them is a card. This can either represent an action or a state of affairs. Because the Melancholy card describes a state of affair, it seems more likely that the reversed Ace of Hearts also represent their current state of affairs, one of miscommunication, instability and a general sense of incompleteness.
Following is the Queen of Clubs. This can be another character, but sometimes she acts as a “pointer”: wherever she points her finger is where the problem lies. In this case, because she is reversed, she points to her right (otherwise it would be to her left). Then we have the card of secrets (the Soldier, reversed) and that of homosexuality (the Love card, reversed) and a male figure. The answer is obvious.
A couple of months after the reading a gay friend of hers saw her boyfriend on an app, who then came out as bi, validating the spread. This is not the first time I’ve encountered this kind of issue. I may even have posted a spread about it before (I can’t remember).
One of my dreams is of writing a book about divination, not explaining any particular kind of divination, but exploring divination as a topic, its foundations and its place in the world. And this kind of spreads has me convinced that life is a drama, and divination is a tool capable of unveiling the script.
Here’s a recent reading I did. The querent is a man in his early 40s
A work-related tarot reading
The most obvious thing that caught my attention is the Emperor next to the Lovers and Justice. The Lovers is also the center of the whole spread. It can show a meeting but also being in talks for something, and next to Justice it can indicate a partnership.
On the first line we have three bad cards in a row: the Tower, the Hermit and the Hanged Man (the Hermit is not necessarily bad, but it’s sandwiched between difficult cards, so they create a negative cluster together). There seems to have been a long period either of unemployment or of serious difficulties. The Empress could indicate the person’s money but upon asking him he told me that he’s gone through a rough patch in his work life which led his girlfriend to leave him.
Then we have the Popess and the Pope, which usually show an older couple. So I ask him if he’s going into a partnership with such people, and he said these are his aunt and uncle, who are offering him to go into business together. The Sun in the end shows it will be a good move.
