Tag Archives: spiritual path reading

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards, Reading Example

Answering Airy-Fairy Questions… Meaningfully (Example Reading)

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As someone who advocates a grounded approach to divination, you’d expect me to scoff at questions that deal with more philosophical or spiritual themes. But this is not so. Airy-fairy is in the eye of the beholder, or rather, of the reader. Just like many airy-fairy readers can drown concrete topics in a deluge of commonplace spiritual-but-not-religious buzzwords, so can a grounded reader approach complex, ‘soulful’ topics from a grounded standpoint, while always following what the oracle says.

Someone asked me what was the goal of her current incarnation. Right off the bat we are confronted with a dilemma: firstly, the question presupposes that there is such a thing as reincarnation, which I don’t believe (at least, not in a sense that is compatible with what most people think of as reincarnation);1 secondly, it presupposes that this happens with a goal.

The first problem (reincarnation) we may circumvent by simply asking what’s the goal of the querent’s life. The second question (the goal) is trickier, but as I show in the example, it is not unanswerable.

What is my life’s goal? Playing card divination

Since we have absolutely nothing to go off on, we can start by noting that the querent’s significator shows up (the Queen of Clubs), though not in a very good spot. She comes after the Five of Spades which is the card of sacrifice, imprisonment and the inability to move. So we can already sort of guess that the querent is feeling trapped in some form or another.

The spread ends with the Six of Diamonds, which represents worry, insecurity and the like. Often it shows financial problems, but not necessarily: it can be a card of general nervousness and uncertainty. The spread is now starting to reek of psychological hang-ups.

Usually, the Two of Clubs after a person card indicates the person taking steps. Toward what? Toward the Ten of Spades. This is the card of secrets, of the night and of unknown situations.

At this point I asked the querent if she’s someone who never leaps into unclear, unknown situations. She said that that was one of the things keeping her from enjoying life, since she always prefers to avoid risk or put off taking it until she feels prepared, which is never.

Bingo. This is the answer: she must learn to step into the dark, take risks and be ok with not having everything figured out. She must learn to swim by swimming rather than by reading up on how to swim. If she doesn’t do it, she will spend her whole life by the poolside waiting for every condition to be perfect.

So, have the cards talked about the purpose of the querent’s whole life? You may disagree with me, but I don’t think so. I do not think that this is the purpose of her whole life (I think there is much, much more to anyone’s life), nor do I think that this is the reason she was born or has reincarnated (if you believe in reincarnation at all). And I told the querent as much, in the spirit of transparency.

What I do mean is that, at least at this juncture in her life, this is a recurring pattern that weighs her down and that needs addressing because it influences her general quality of life. That’s already enough to be worth being mentioned by the cards.

Ultimately, almost every airy-fairy woo woo question is the voluntary or involuntary corruption and modernization of some kind of longing that is deeply seated in the human soul. Questions about the purpose of one’s life may be often answered with the usual mix of mind body spirit platitudes, but the human desire for purpose is not to be lightly dismissed, whether the purpose is really there or not. And divination can address this desire in some form or another.

I believe that divination should be able to run the whole gamut of the human experience, from the most concrete questions to the most abstract, because this is the extension of the human soul. The problem arises only when we try to reduce one order of problems (Will I the chicken cross the street?) to another order of problems (What kind of psychospiritual drama do you think caused the chicken to want to cross the street?)

MQS

  1. I will probably discuss it more at length in another section, but my belief is that there is only one, universal soul that is constantly incarnating and reincarnating through everything. ↩︎
Card Combinations, Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Everyday Oracle, Fortune-telling, Sibilla della Zingara, Vera Sibilla

Spirituality and the Sibilla (Example Reading)

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As promised in a previous post, I’m discussing a (rather old) reading on spiritual issues. It is common to believe that the Tarot is better suited to talk about spiritual issues and oracles such as the Sibilla or Lenormand are more useful for practical, everyday events. This is not true. The Tarot can be just as practical, and the Sibilla (and, I assume, other oracles) can be just as clear about spiritual issues. The thing that makes people think otherwise is that they are used to that kind of tarot reading where the psychic spends the whole time pulling pseudodeep psychobabble out of their butt by looking at the pictures on the cards. That’s not a tarot reading, that’s a therapy session (for the reader, not for the querent).

Spirituality is part of real life, and as such all oracles can talk about it, but always in real-life terms. Here the querent was a man and had asked me generically about his spiritual life.

A spiritual reading with the Vera Sibilla cards

The first thing I was able to detect was the presence of the Priest in the second row. The Priest is usually not a real priest, and rather indicates a figure of authority. We also have, it seems, the significator card for the querent, represented by the Boyfriend, or Jack of Hearts, in the first line. The Priest is accompanied by the Dog/Faithfulness. This is a very good card, even outside of a love reading. It shows that, whoever the Priest is, he (or she) is good, trustworthy and has the querent’s best interest at heart. Furthermore, they are true believers.

The Thought card perplexed me a little, so I skipped over it (though you can see that the Thought card is just under the querent, so it turned out that it was the querent’s thinking process setting into motion). However, I did ask the querent if he was in contact with some kind of spiritual authority and he confirmed it, though he said it wasn’t a traditional priest or minister. This doesn’t matter: all kind of spiritual authorities can be signified by the Priest card.

The querent’s line, the first, has the card of God in it. This is the Peacock (when reversed, it represents the Devil and demons, as well as pride and haughtiness). The Peacock indicates totality, wholeness, miracles, etc. when upright. But it is followed by the Hope card reversed. Hope is the card of faith, but it is reversed, thus showing unbelief.

Yet it is not a clear atheism. Look at the Six of Spades, the Sighs card, right between the querent and the combination of lack of faith in God: the querent is sighing about his lack of faith. He is uncertain and tormented. I remember judging that he was probably a wobbly agnostic, and upon asking he confirmed that he had doubts (I didn’t ask him “are you a wobbly agnostic?” of course. We need to be kind to the querent).

It turned out, the querent had long banished spirituality from his life, had gone for an engineering degree, had been active in the skeptic community online, etc. However, some personal experiences had made him doubt his position.

Look at the last three cards of the pyramid. The Prison reversed shows unburdening, unshackling, freedom, etc. (when not followed by negative cards). Then we have the Conversation card. When reversed, it shows change. Finally, the Child, which shows a new beginning. I don’t know about you, but liberation + change + new beginning sounds like a spiritual conversion.

Furthermore, look at the angles of the pyramid plus the center: the Peacock (God), the querent, the new beginning (Child) and the Faithfulness card. This is a very positive indication.

Still, just to make sure, I asked the querent to draw two cards, and these were the Gratification and Fortune, confirming the good outcome.

As far as I know, the querent has since chosen his spiritual path.

MQS

Card Reading, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Playing Cards, Spirituality and Psychology

Is He An Atheist? (Card Reading Example)

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Traditional cartomancy, like all traditional divination systems, is full of tips on how to handle spiritual topics. The difference with contemporary psychobabble is that in traditional cartomancy we deal with a spirituality that is rooted in the earth and in everyday life rather than in Mind/Body/Spirit section poppycock. As I often remark, in such systems spirituality is seen as the logical next step for someone who is acquainted with real life, not as a consolation prize for someone who is trying to avoid it.

The querent asked if her boyfriend believes in “a superior being”, by which I assume she meant God (“being” is probably a more reassuring term compared to “bearded guy holding a lightning bolt”). She places great importance on the topic, but he seems to avoid talking about it. This is a playing card reading. In the next days I will also post a Vera Sibilla reading done on a similar question by a different person some time ago.

A♥ – 8♣ – 9♣ – K♥ – 7♣

Seeing this, I asked the querent to draw three more cards to open the reading on the Ace of Hearts, which yielded the 2♠, the 2♣ and the 6♣.

The first thing I noticed was the complete absence of Spades (except in opening the spread, but that’s a very weak Spade). This generally bodes well for spirituality. However, there is also a majority of Clubs, which indicate struggles and difficulties. There is no need to interpret the spread card by card. The spread indicates a slow or difficult relation with the divine. Belief is not denied, but it is rendered heavy, problematic.

The first card is the Ace of Hearts, which can indicate “inner” issues, but because the first card in a spread can also represent the cause of a situation described by the following cards, I ventured to interpret it as issues relating to the home causing the querent’s boyfriend to falter in his faith. The three additional cards with which I opened the spread on the Ace of Hearts reinforced my idea that there must have been a difficult atmosphere at home surrounding the topic.

What about the King of Hearts? Is it the dad? Well, no. Traditionally, in spiritual readings the King of Hearts is God himself (just like in the Sibilla): he is the lord (King) of your inner life (Hearts). Surrounded by all those Clubs, the God-side of the boyfriend’s life suffers, is stifled. Yet it is there, since the King of Hearts comes up and is not surrounded by Spades.

I asked the querent to give another three cards to open the spread on the King of Hearts. These were the 10♠, the 4♣ and the 10♥. At night (Ten of Spades) he speaks (Four of Clubs) spiritually/finding consolation (Ten of Hearts). He prays to God at night.

MQS