business psychic – True Tarot Tales

Psychic Scratching in the Cartomancy Sandbox

Recently I added to my reading mix, a deck of ordinary playing cards. These have been in use for cartomancy; divination and fortune telling, for at least 400 years longer than the Tarot, and neither one of them began as fortune telling tools. They were both invented for gaming purposes. In the case of playing cards, it’s thought they first came to Europe from the Middle East, arriving there in turn from the Far East.

Fully illustrated Tarot cards contain pictorial ingredients offering unlimited possibilities of translation via associative thinking, but playing cards, while less interesting pictorially, and somewhat prosaic, will do the job.

I thought I’d try them out in a recent face to face reading for a new client, reserving them for getting at a few yes or no answers if required.

Asking for the Tarot’s insight into my client’s recent significant past I drew The Fool and The Ace of Pentacles from The Gilded Tarot, images by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.

gilded-fool The Ace of Pentacles, The Gilded Tarot, Ciro Marchetti

The Fool is about opportunity, enthusiasm, a gamble, a birth. The Ace of Pentacles suggests a windfall, a new job or business, a new home, a garden or a new, precious object.

These following The Emperor prompted me to ask the client, had there been a recent major change or opportunity to do with a new job or new kind of work, and also maybe a new home?

And was it possible this new home might be in the countryside or else have a big garden or some land?

He said he had bought a house with land, and was planning to build on that land, and he wanted to know, what were the prospects for successful completion?

Yee-haa! Time to put my ordinary playing cards to the test and I drew these.

playing-cards-spread-showing-building

My first observation was that I had drawn two red cards and one black. Learning to do psychic readings is all about self-programming, and like learning anything, involves rote and repetition. I’ve decided a red card mean yes, whether it’s a diamond or a heart, and a black card means no, whether it’s a spade or a club card. And then I go for best of three, and the numbers might swing my thinking.

You could decide that a black card means yes, if you wanted, and a red card means no, and it might work splendidly reliably if you are consistent, though it might prove counter-intuitive as the most challenging cards in a playing deck – most, not all, are contained within the suits of spades and clubs.

Once decided on your own system, you need to stick to it. There’s no right or wrong with these things. There’s what works subject to proof. This is where there can arise a problem with going to classes ‘to be taught’ how to read. You are your own best teacher. Learning to ‘see’ in this way is solitary. Even lonely. It is not gregarious at source. Study adds skill and there is a vast library here to study, but in the end, while rendered articulate by skill, the oracular spirit, to be true to itself, remains a cat who walks alone.

The short answer to the client’s question therefore was yes, but I was struck by the appearance of two diamonds cards, equating to the Tarot’s suit of Pentacles; the suit of earth.

I was additionally struck by the fact that the middle card was twice the number value of the first card. a 4 and an 8. It made me think of foundations, and plumb-lines; four walls, and then four walls, doubled.

It didn’t seem random, it felt as if it might be significant and I said to the client, ‘are there going to be TWO buildings, by any chance? And one is twice the size of the other? But this black card, the 3 of Clubs, suggests there’s a bit of stress already?’

Notice, I was asking him. That’s because I did not know if this was correct. I only knew that’s what I was being shown, and wanted to check.

‘There ARE going to be two buildings’ he said, nodding surprised, ‘log cabins and one is going to be exactly twice the size of the other one. And yes, it’s fair to say there’s a fair bit of stress…’

And so the discussion moved forward.

Well done, my little £1.99 fortune-telling friends. Although I don’t tell fortunes, you’ve clearly got my number, and I think you and I need to get better acquainted.

Until next time 🙂

Tarot says ‘Baaaaa..d or good investment?’

Updated 12 May 2020:

I handle a lot of business questions in my professional readings. My clients are looking for an extra steer, that is all, but the stakes can be high, and of course, it is the client who will bear the responsibility of their own decision making.

A psychic reading cannot be considered a substitute for a professional financial, legal or medical question.

All the same, if I am asked, I will give it a go and share my findings, and the client may or may not welcome the answer. That is one of the risks in consulting with oracles

I may be asked anything at all. For example: If I go ahead and build these two houses, how well will I do out of it when it comes to selling them, and how fast will I sell them? etc etc

I don’t know the answer to their question. How could I?

Or perhaps I do, but I do not know that I know it.

Prescience is not omniscience or psychic readers would go mad. We don’t go round knowing everything. We have to stop and look.

Did I know this hideous coronavirus thing was coming? Did I heck. The only thing was, I had a peculiar experience back in January, I saw an apparition. It was unpleasant and I wondered if something nasty was coming.

I remember saying so to myself. What’s coming? I was uneasy. But that’s not the same as knowing. I didn’t know, though some astrologers did apparently, notably an astrologer called Andre Barbault who wrote in 2011 that he detected a risk of a pandemic in 2020/2021, based on a planetary cluster or stellarium noted before in association with previous historic events.

There is a lot of astrology in Tarot but it is not astrology.

Back to my cards. I cannot prepare in advance for doing a reading. I can only prepare to respond and be ready to make a leap in the dark, inviting a question then looking into my cards to help me decide what I think about the answer.

Reading cards works a bit differently to doing astrological readings. No drawing up of astrological charts. Unless the client wishes to brief me, I do not have any advance information whatsoever. I could be asked absolutely anything and need to deliver a more or less instant answer, shooting straight from the hip so to speak while providing at least some kind of readily verifiable information in that feedback, or how can the client benchmark what I am saying?

What can really help me out here is synchronicity, but what is synchronicity?

Definition as supplied by Merriem-Webster: the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung

A recent instance was during a reading

Of course I am not reading face to face at present, during the current lock-down, and in any case I mostly read by Skype these days. I suppose I ought to look into Zoom as well but Skype has worked perfectly well so far.

I was doing a Skype reading. The client had a business question and I drew the Seven of Pentacles from

The Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti

Classically this card refers to reaping a reward for hard work or patience and suggests that there will be a good return on a long term investment, but no quick returns.

I view this card more positively than some readers. One of the traditional meanings for translation is futility. Waiting for a kettle to boil but it’s fused and you don’t even know it yet.

Certainly, if I draw the Seven of Pentacles out reversed, I’m likely to decide I’m looking at a future poor performance or loss on your current or proposed investment.

If the Tower card were to turn up alongside it, forgeddit! The Tower means a crash. But if we got the Ten of Pentacles, well, that’s looking like a safe bet, just slow to mature or materialize.

If you were a prospective buyer, I might well be sensing you need not to buy in this or that product range. This does not represent a good acquisition. It may either not sell well, if you need to re-sell it, or it might take forever to shift.

The client in this instance was asking about the shifting of retail stock. Money was the presenting issue, and as often happens, a particular detail suddenly leaped out at me.

‘Do you have sheep living behind your house?’ I asked.

‘Yes’, he said, looking somewhat mystified ‘a field at the back.’

This is a typical instance of what Jung meant by synchronicity. But does it mean I enquire about sheep every time this card appears in a reading?

No. It absolutely doesn’t. I had never asked that before, in drawing this card. It just so happened that on this occasion, the sheep jumped out at me and so I asked.

Would this same card appear in a reading done for a sheep farmer?

Well, it ought to.

Returning to the more usual meaning of this card. If I was thinking of buying stocks or shares and this came up, would I go for it?

Probably, so long as it came out upright, but not necessarily, depending on the surrounding cards.

That’s how it goes.

Until next time 🙂

Tarot Guesses The Birthday Pressie

Or tries to and almost does, but not quite.

A friend came to stay recently and brought a present for my birthday. We thought it might be fun for me to try and guess what was inside the packaging using my pendulum and cards. It was roughly cylindrical, not too heavy, rolled in bubble wrap and brown paper.

I held my pendulum over it.

‘Are the contents of this package edible?’ The pendulum span anticlockwise. No.(sob)

‘Are the contents of this package paper?’ No. ‘Ceramic?’ No.’ Wood?’ Yes.

I drew the Three of Pentacles, a card signifying progress in business and pride in one’s work, and from The Gilded Tarot by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.

‘Is it a craft item? I asked my friend.

‘Yes.’ she said, smiling from ear to ear, as ducks suddenly quacked outside on the pond and Il Matrimonio ran to the balcony to see there if there was a fox. There sometimes is. Then I drew the Six of Swords, a card of personal progress, solemn journeys and quests for learning.

Was it something to do with a river or riverbank, I wondered. Was it a little wooden boat? Or a frog? I like frogs.

‘No’. My friend said, smiling, ‘But you are warm. Now open it!

And inside it was – this! A wooden Indian Runner Duck. What a little character.

🙂

Well, I never. No wonder she’d been laughing to herself every time we’d fed the ducks, knowing what she had in store to give me.

Now, that is what I call a friend. And psychically, here was that darn Jungian synchronicity thing at work again.

Good try, Tarot my friend. Not a bull’s eye this time, but a respectable attempt, and this often is how Tarot works in a reading, too, regardless of the classical card meanings, sparking ideas directly off the imagery.

This is how, while Tarot presents a great academic study, anyone can read it, who likes to use associative thinking.

Until next time 🙂

Tarot Synchronicity: The Psychic Hit and the Lucky Guess

Carl Jung speculated that the Tarot works according to the principle of ‘synchronicity’- that psychic insights are triggered by apparently random and yet meaningful co-incidence, which he thought might be explained by Quantum Mechanics.

Tarot Sees Flooding, More Moon Madness

Last time here on True Tarot Tales, the Moon card caused me to enquire about whether there had been a recent instance close by, of an upset tummy, possibly food poisoning, and it turned out, just as the Moon card classically depicts two dogs barking at the moon, two of the client’s dogs had been unwell after retrieving a ball from a dirty ditch.

Infection and disease may be flagged up by an appearance by the Moon card.

And so can flooding. I first saw this manifesting in my own cards during a Skype reading of 2010 for a client whose father lives in Pakistan, and her father had had to move house after flooding.

Image from The Gilded Tarot by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.

November 13, reading for someone in respect of a property in Hawick and the prospects for sale, I felt it might sell in August/September 2016, but, having drawn the Moon card, I asked the client, was there a river close to the property, and if there was, did it flood? Because I sensed flooding as a barrier to sale.

I was told the property is a top floor apartment, and is close to The Teviot but it had not flooded during the time the client had lived there (not many years) Nor had the client been aware or deterred by the proximity of the river when buying.

But, and very unfortunately for all affected, and by no means for the first time in its history Hawick flooded badly in early December.

Read here: BBC News Article: Hawick Floods

I still sense my client may move home in 2016, I draw the Six of Swords which indicates progress and very often a domestic relocation, and certainly within the next two years, but the pathway may be more complex than anticipated when the property went on the market, and may, suggests the strategic Seven of Swords, involve the unwanted complication of a letting arrangement.

And, let us hope this is unduly doomful, no reader is infallible; I see signs we may well not be done with this Moon business yet. I draw the Moon card again, when asking about UK weather into February. Greater accuracy would demand a regional or even more break down, but there seems to be more ‘warm air’ coming where we don’t want it; the King of Wands Reversed.

A skeptical friend, who lives in Cumbria joked recently, that of all the religions he doesn’t believe in, the one he could perhaps go for is the Norse gods, and he may perhaps, even ask Freyr for help. Maybe it’s not such a crazy idea, and this morning, there is snow lying here on the Lancashire coast. But whatever you do, ask politely.

Until next time 🙂

My Service Website HERE

Tarot Says, Tummy Bug!

An outing for the Tarot’s Moon card, with Katie-Ellen, UK Tarot reader, writer and business consultant.

Happy New Year, and the tummy bug in question was nothing to do with me, I am happy to say, or the seasonal festivities. I was doing a Skype reading, investigating questions to do with ongoing and future creative projects- the client is an artist and sculptor, when I drew the Moon card.

The image below is from The Gilded Tarot, by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti. Also available from Amazon but the publisher Llewellyn is getting this shout-out.

Classical meanings for this card are; the Moon itself, Fertility, monthly cycles, tides, floods (alas), conception, confusion, deception, secrets, vivid dreams, visions, leaps of imagination, fantasy, art, animals, hunting, secrets, fraud, theft, surveillance, risk, travel with danger attached, disease.

Reversed/Upside down: the meanings take on a different complexion, and may suggest any of these things- but they are fading away and now belong to the recent past.

The key challenge for a reader is to decide which meanings are relevant, and quickly, not to bore witless and alienate the client. One must say the first thing that comes to mind. I call it ‘gob-shiting’and I really shouldn’t; it’s hardly elegant and perhaps this should be a New Year’s resolution. The thing is, the reader needs to just speak.

I said the first thing that popped into my mind and asked whether a loved one had been ill, just recently, and perhaps they had gone down with a tummy bug? Or, could it even have been a bout of food poisoning, but whatever it was, they seemed to be better now?

I held up the card to the camera. ‘Look at this,’ I said, ‘see the two dogs?’

The client has several dogs, and said, ‘I don’t believe this! Two of my dogs have been ill. We went out a walk and they went into a ditch after a ball and they were quite poorly for a few days afterwards, both of them. A filthy ball in a nasty, dirty ditch. But they are over it now.’

The reader of Tarot or any other divination system must learn not to self- censor. If they do, because their first thought seems just too stupid, they will likely get it wrong, and then want to kick themselves. Learning to trust yourself enough to do that is the hardest thing, or at least, I found it so and I still sometimes have to tell that inner critic, aka saboteur of the oracular mind, to shut up.

People may well say, and many do, sod all the soothsayers. Wits or just good old common sense is what is called for, in working out a response to a problem. This is fair enough and often true…at least, it may be from where they are sitting. Nine times out of 10, in making their own predictions, they may prove quite correct. But what the oracular reader sniffs out, like a wild animal, using whatever oracle as a spade for digging in the primal mind, is what is hidden and could not wisely or even reasonably be expected.

The Tarot is nothing but printed card stock, physically. But the imagery and its many and deep rooted associations facilitate telepathy, triggering both receiver and transmitter. The client is equally active in this process, at a level they are not consciously aware of, any more than the reader is consciously aware of why they said A and not B.

For more information about my readings and how to get a reading, visit my website HERE

Until next time 🙂