Tag Archives: ghosts

There Is No Ghost (Example Reading)

When we give a reading about extraordinary questions like the occult or the paranormal, it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting to confirm the querent’s bias or subjective experience.

This is why I tend to avoid queries about such things as past lives: for one, I don’t believe in reincarnation, or rather, I believe that the soul of the world constantly reincarnates through every individual that is born, but I don’t believe in the existence of seprate or individual souls that reincarnate karmically; for two, I fail to see the importance of knowing about what one might have been in a previous life; for three, suppose I tell someone that they were an illiterate farmer, when another reader convinced them they were a cool witch who was burned at the stake for her mystical powers, how is the querent going to choose who is right apart from their whim of the moment?

Still, certain topics, such as magic or spirits, are within my tradition and I do believe in them, so I accept readings, but I warn querents that the likelihood of something of the sort happening in their life is very low even if they go looking for it, let alone randomly.

This one querent thought there is a ghost haunting the third floor of the building she moved to. This is the spread that came out:

A card reading about a ghost

As can be seen, even without interpreting the spread, there is no trace of haunting in the cards. The final two cards, the Nine of Diamonds and the Ten of Diamonds, are a lucky combination, they can show success, protection or even simply the fact that the “energy” is clean, not charged with magical or paranormal forces. The querent shows up at the beginning of the spread with the Three of Diamonds, which is a doubtful card in this context. It makes me think more about random things that she, the Queen, misinterpreted.

The Jack of Hearts is even more doubtful. It could show the presence of a child (a living child, that is) or an animal (again, a living one) who does something the querent misinterprets. The querent said that there are both children and animals in the building, so that’s a possibility. Frankly, I should have either added cards or done another spread.

Still, this is enough to make me think that there is a non-paranormal explanation for the querent’s experience, so the spread is enough to answer the question in that regard.

The funny thing is that, after the reading, the querent started talking to me like I am not very competent at reading cards. I am obviously open to being wrong, and I understand that it must be frustrating being told that one’s subjective experience is probably the result of a misinterpretation (it must feel like ‘gaslighting’, to employ an overused word). All I could do was trying to be as understanding as I could in delivering the answer.

After all, for every instance of real haunting or real magic (at least, real according to the oracle) there are thousands of cases of people who spend years burning sage to smoke out a presence that isn’t there, yet the ghost who isn’t there often ends up influencing their life more than those that are there.

MQS

The Ghost That Came Back (Example Reading)

Certain topics are exceedingly rare, and they should remain so, because people otherwise tend to see the supernatural at play everywhere. Traditional divination takes these topics very seriously, which is why it rarely discusses them. In most systems, a vocabulary is given to describe most situations in life, including encounters with ghosts. We are, of course, free to disbelieve, but the cards can still talk about it.

A querent asked me if there was a ghost in her (very old) apartment complex. As I said when talking about curses and hexes, the answer is almost invariably no (although, to be fair, ghosts and other entities are far more common than competent witches). Here’s the spread (it started as a three card spread, I kept adding cards until I was satisfied).

A♠️ – Q♠️ – 2♠️ – K♥️ – 2♣️ – 4♣️ – 9♥️ – 5♠️ – 10♥️

I asked the querent an open question (to avoid influencing her), that is, I asked her to describe the ghost she thought she saw. She said she thought it was the spirit of an ugly, angry woman moving in the hallways of the building. This fits very well with the Queen of Spades and Two of Spades. The Ace of Spades, aside from indicating death, is also a card of great evil.

What about the rest of the spread? Usually the Heart court cards indicate either positive spirits (God, etc.) or religious people. I asked the querent if she was planning on contacting a priest, shaman or other such figure. She said she wasn’t really thinking about it, but another tenant was.

I said that it was a good idea. Look at the King’s action: he is taking steps (Two of Clubs) by uttering words (Four of Clubs) which are positive (Nine and Ten of Hearts). But what about the Five of Spades? My sense is that the presence will not be eradicated or banished for good, since the Five of Spades is a card of imprisonment, but it will be contained in some form (the two Hearts hemming in the Spade).

The interesting thing was that, according to the querent, the other tenant (who had been living in the building for much longer than the querent) told her that many years ago they had had a problem with the same presence and had managed to somehow exorcise it.

My view is that even this time the situation will not be remedied completely, but the situation should improve by calling in someone to perform a religious ritual.

MQS