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A year or so ago I decided to compile all of my tarot-related blog posts up to that time into electronic "pdf" volumes at a reasonable price on the Lulu self-publishing platform. Those who are persistent can still read all of the material for free on the blog listed in the Links Directory (if they're diligent enough to wade through 2,500 posts), but these publications group all of it into convenient categories. I haven't updated them, so my newer stuff can still be found on the blog. If interested, the titles you should look for are Tarot Principles and Practices (basic guidance); Tarot Hermetica (all things esoteric at a beginner's level); Courts, Pips and Trumps: A Short, Simple Guide to the Tarot de Marseille (I had expert editorial input from tarot author Lee Bursten on this one); The Curmudgeon's Tarot (mostly uncharitable opinions on the current "State of the Art"); and The Literal Tarot (a compendium of nearly 300 spreads).

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Lately, online pundits who are pushing a psycho-sociological agenda have been all over the topic of “bias” in human relations: confirmation bias, cognitive bias, affinity bias, attribution bias, conformity bias, gender bias, etc. It has me thinking that maybe tarot needs another label: “prediction bias.” There is already a framework for it in two assumptions: the idea that there are cards that typically say “yes” or “no,” and others that are noncommittal, amended by the notion that there are no “bad” cards and any of them can be repurposed in a more positive way to support the concept of “empowerment.” The odd premise that “it’s all good” and there are no irredeemable negatives is itself a form of “optimism bias” that I find unconvincing. I decided to take my long-standing list of “Yes-leaning,” “No-leaning” and “Maybe” cards (note the accidental bias-avoidance there) and outfit them with new headers that show what their bias would be if they appear as the “outcome” (aka “answer”) card in a reading. Although the card titles are from the Waite-Smith (RWS) deck, this binning is based on Aleister Crowley’s definitions for the Thoth cards. (You can ignore the elemental symbols for each card; they have no bearing on the bias determination.) Those who use the RWS tarot will have other opinions about this arrangement and, because not all questions or topics are amenable to value judgment, trust in any such list for reading purposes should be approached cautiously. The chance of receiving a “Maybe” answer from the full 78-card population is exactly one-third (33%), while the remaining ratio is slanted toward likely satisfaction (41%) compared to an unsatisfactory outcome (26%). If we split the group of “Maybe” cards down the middle and add 13 to the “Likely” column and 13 to the “Unlikely” column, we come up with a 58% chance of receiving a positive nod that, given the fact that people are generally programmed for success by societal expectations, does not seem like an unreasonable distribution for a tarot reading . The disposition will obviously change when we limit the target to a random five-card or ten-card pull from the total of 78 because there are literally millions of possible permutations, but the math for that is beyond my scope here. Another way to assess it would be to look for a preponderance of any of the three categories in the spread as a whole and weigh that against the “bias” of the outcome card, drawing conclusions from their cooperative, neutral or contentious dynamic. For example, a favorable outcome card could be weakened by four unfavorable cards preceding it, to the point that there is nothing left to cheer about by the time we get to the end except crossing the finish line.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Along with pictorial iconography and suit-and-number theory, color symbolism plays a major role in our interpretation of the Tarot de Marseille cards, and some TdM authors have gone on at length about the significance of the different pigments used by 17th Century printers. I decided to stick my oar in the water. The metaphysical implications of the primary colors Red (desire), Blue (emotion) and Yellow (intellect) are well-known to most students and practitioners (although a few postmodern authors get cute by proposing that the real primary hues are cyan, yellow and magenta, from which all other digital variants are derived). Black (dense matter), white (pure spirit) and some degree of "flesh-tone" (human carnality) also contribute to the dominant palette, but here I'm going to explore the secondary colors of Purple, Orange and Green that - with a few exceptions like the Classic Tarot and the Gassmann - are used more sparingly. I'm ignoring all ramifications of tint and shade in this population (no "light blue," no "indigo," etc.), as well as the less-prevalent "tertiary" colors like tan and the occasional highlights of gold that pop up. Psychologists would probably argue the point, but for the purpose of ordinary divination there is only so much useful narrative detail that can be squeezed from color analysis. I've noticed, however, that this rather narrow scope didn't stop writers like Paul Marteau, Yoav Ben-Dov, Alejandro Jodorowsky and others from trying to prove otherwise, In the description of the Waite-Smith "Lovers" card in his book Tarot Master-Class, Paul Fenton-Smith notes that Purple is the color of compassion and Orange is that of enthusiasm; Green is absent from the image and he doesn't mention it, so I will draw my own conclusions. I think of these as the "colors of compromise" since they are generated by mixing primary hues and thus sacrifice some of the original intensity. Purple combines the comfort of Blue with the passion of Red into an amalgam of both that he sees as "compassion" (literally "com[fort] blended with passion" into sympathetic warmth toward those who require solace), while Orange is a cross between the exuberance of Red and the rational tempering of Yellow in the form of "intellect," producing what I interpret as "restrained ardor" (like a banked fire) that flows in more controlled channels. Green - a fusion of Blue and Yellow - is explained by some TdM writers as the color of the natural world and thus an expression of non-sentient organic life as an outgrowth of Blue (rainfall) and Yellow (sunlight) with its roots in the undemonstrative soil that Omar Khayyam characterized as the "all-obliterated Tongue" of "common Earth." Black and White make perfect sense as Matter and Spirit, respectively. These ideas play well with the simplicity of the TdM images, but more artistically-sophisticated decks tend to downplay the chromatic message and focus on creative exploitation of the medium employed by the artist; I view these decks as "painterly" rather than graphically concise in their execution. There is a place for both types, but as a one-time graphic artist I'm partial to the TdM when it comes to color interpretation because as a block-printed artifact it foregoes the predictable intrusion of the painters' refined aesthetic vision (or, put more bluntly, the desire to show off their mastery). Thus, TdM decks are long on eloquence and short on nuance in their color symbolism, which makes all the difference when it comes to ascribing meaning to the cards in that specific sense. To be fair, the Waite-Smith tarot (and particularly the Albano-Waite version) does make use of symbolic primary colors in its backgrounds (e.g. the solid yellow backdrop of the Magician as a paragon of Intellect); its handling of representative clothing such as the red-and-white of the Magician's garb; and the repeated appearance of red roses and white lilies, but this is not consistent throughout the classic edition, which tends to default to iconographic conventions like the budding staves of the Wands rather than color-corrected presentation. Regarding the Thoth cards, while Aleister Crowley was certainly versed in the principles of occult color usage, their coloration is often biased more toward the impressive artistry of Frieda Harris than it is beholden to the exacting metaphysics of Crowley, even though a few like the Chariot with its prominent blue, red, yellow, black and white successfully unite both. He professed to be inspired by the "Medieval editors" in creating the deck, but (as did Waite with Smith) he gave Harris some leeway to inject her own artistic sensibilities, and we can all be thankful that he did so.

Adding some cards on the desk. (Top row is RWS inspired, and then the Thoth and GD decks, etc.) Because of Virgo being the Hermit, I think of reflecting on what we do have in our lives. Or even just the chance to be alive. Like in Joe vs the Volcano, when Tom Hanks is alone in the middle of the ocean. He doesn't know if he'll make it; it's not looking good, but suddenly there's awe and gratitude.

Welcome back @Bodhiseed!

Hello @Barleywine welcome back!

Hey there! Good to have you back 🙂 Several members have actually returned to the forum lately, it’s rather interesting to think about what might have made this shift happen !

It's lovely to see you back around the community again @Barleywine 😃

My parabolic path through the online tarot community has brought me back here again (I last visited in February), and I think this time I'll buy a membership since almost all of my Aeclectic friends are here. Hopefully as a member I'll be able to share my tarot blog content, which has just passed eight years of almost daily posts (~2,500 of them).

I'm in this week with the Nigel Jackson Tarot paired with the Viking Lenormand. Thank you Fire cat! Posted Sunday at 08:52 AM Nigel Jackson Tarot, Ace of Coins; Viking Lenormand, Garden Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. ― Aesop The Ace of Coins suggests substance (concrete things) and sensation (the information from our senses). Aesop warns us to not spend too much time in our minds - fantasizing, ruminating, or contemplating abstract ideas - because we might unintentionally lose what is in the here and now. Garden usually makes us think of the outdoors. Yet there's a big difference in being outside at a birthday party with 15 rowdy kids or doing yard work versus simply sitting in the quiet and paying attention. Nature captures all of our senses, whether a bird's song or a breeze, helping us to slow down and see with a full heart.

Emotional matters of the heart can really mess you up, you want someone but you're not currently talking. Often in emotional matters, the querent wants to hear good news, they are desperate to hear it's going to work out. But they are going with their heart, not their head. We have to just say what we see or feel or sense in the cards. The part about the dangers of opinion, are about commenting on the situation with advice and personally I try to only give advice based on the cards I am seeing. Like the others have said, there may be a chance to give your personal opinion later but in the reading, you have to say what's in the cards. If the cards say there is no chance ahead, I will gently and sensitively break this news to them. That is the answer to the question and the advice. I can't say there is a really happy future ahead because maybe the "bad news" is the best kind of advice. Looking back, they might have really needed to move on from that person and look out for new opportunities. It's painful and moving on is the hardest route to take but not moving on can be the worst decision in the long term and causes more pain and heartbreak. If someone has asked a question about this, I think you have to say what you see / feel / sense. They might want to hear that everything will work out between them but that's not the truth of the reading. Sometimes you get really difficult readings to give and you have to be sensitive and honest I think. They of course can do with the reading advice what they want.

Yeah, sorry gregory, I didn't explain that very well - I meant old paid subscription sections - which are gone from view 🙂

I just do readings for friends and reading circles here, but yes, this is the key for me. I had a recent comment here where I described what I saw in someone's 2 card reading, and another forum member -- actually it was @JoyousGirl above 🙂 -- replied that in a certain situation, that wouldn't be good advice, and I completely agree. That's the part where, after feedback in a circle, for instance, when the sitter usually wants to share more details, I could say, hey, my own view is this, if it turned into a conversation, or I felt it was important to mention briefly. If someone wants a tarot reading, they want to know what the cards say. They don't sign up in a circle here thinking, I wonder what Rose Lalonde will think about this situation? 😂 BUT, with all that said, a reading is influenced by which reader you get. Otherwise all readers would interpret a spread in the same way, and you could just do random online draws. When I just say what I see in the cards, the "I" is definitely important. Most threads here asking for interpretation advice will have varied responses depending on who answers. I can't take myself out of that equation (and wouldn't want to). @StarkRavenMad you mentioned when the cards say something that you personally don't agree with, so I think you're good, since you know what part is the cards and what part is your own feeling on the matter based on your background. How you handle each of those is ultimately up to you.

I only give them what the cards say. I make sure I'm not interjecting anything of my own opinion while I do that, even if the message isn't what the sitter would like to hear. If the sitter wants to talk afterward, then I make sure they understand which is the message from the cards and which is my own input but I don't advise them unless it's been revealed by the cards. If they want more cards then I may draw more, but sometimes that gets into a prolonged reading that includes more than one topic and I have to steer it back to closer to the original query, especially if I'm pressed for time like in a setting where there are more sitters waiting. In the case of someone wanting me to tell them (from the cards) how someone feels or what they think, I tell them "I read cards, I don't read minds" and smile and then draw a card or two more to see if the cards do reveal anything else. Also, a word on intuition---I think it's easy to mistake your own opinion and consider it to be "intuition". I've often had my own very strong opinions try to weasel their way into a reading but I keep them to myself. It's really hard to do sometimes, especially if the reading involves domestic violence.

You read the cards. You tell the truth of what you see. You also explain life. Consider it like being on a bus or a train. We travel with people for some of the way, sometimes they get off, sometimes we get off, sometimes they travel most of the way with us. They have a journey to take and a place they have planned on going to just as we do, we have lessons to learn from each other. We go to other places and may return with gifts, or come back empty handed (for example, people who break up and then get back together. Sometimes the partner has grown and become a better partner, or there's been no change and we part ways forever). The trouble today - I think what you're saying, is that it's almost as if people want to be lied to and it's offensive to tell the truth! The government trains it into you - business success relies on it, people expect it from you. It's of a bit of an ego thing and how we want to be seen ultimately "be nice or they won't like you"- and we want people to be like us not out of the box (a bit narcissistic really). You see that in groups where "culture fit" is an element. Are we someone who says sorry when we've done the wrong thing and admit it out loud without saying "but", or evade the truth of what's been going on and pretend as if it didn't happen? Which is the less evolved way? We have become soft to the truth and when it comes to romance we really are in a dream world. We create an image of someone in our heads and hold onto it, but people change, just like we do. Don't believe the myth "people don't change" because that is a projection and a fixed image we hold of people in our head - it is us that refuses to allow people to be whatever they are in each moment. So after all that, tell what you see, be honest, but gentle, because we are helping people with their spiritual development. Sometimes we're meant to be partnered, sometimes we're meant to be on a path of self-growth. Sometimes we need to realise that we don't love or like someone, we just like the image we've created of them. Think of how many people would say "What on earth did I see in them?!" They had nothing in common, they were just infatuated for a time. Anyway, after that ramble, just say what you see, explain the cards and tell them what the advice is. We are also counsellors.

Here’s a selection of 4 Knaves from pre-1900 decks, reprinted/redrawn by modern publishers: -Vacchetta, reprinted by Lo Scarabeo -Vandenborre, by Carta Mundi -“Ancient Italian”, by Lo Scarabeo -Anonymous Tarot de Paris, by Gergely Bagameri

There's no paywall there. Just anything personal like old readings etc were pulled, along with chat threads.

Welcome back @Rachelcat 😀

Ive been doing practice readings for people, and Ive run into the conundrum of trying to strike a balance between answering the querents question and answering them according to my intuition, specifically in the context of when they ask about how someone theyre no contact with thinks of them/feels about them. Ive run across this a couple times, where someone asked me this, and the cards read, to me, like the person they were asking about had moved on and it was time for them to do the same, and some of the clarifying cards I pulled seemed to suggest the same to me. Maybe my perspective as someone who is going into social work has influenced me and makes me reluctant to even consider encouraging someone to dwell on their past like that, but it makes me wonder how others handle this sort of thing. How closely do you stick to the questions you receive when youre reading the cards to be more advice giving than asked?

Hi! Here I am! This week will be the new (to me) Duck Soup deck I mentioned, Mystic Tarot. It’s a collage based on turn-of-the-20th-century stage magician posters (it looks like along with other similar ephemera). Which had a disturbing amount of devil imagery. I have an art book of such posters, thinking they would make a good deck. Once again, someone has beaten me to it in a better way than I could. It’s a little off-putting that “Mystic Tarot” is on each card, but I can live with that. Otherwise, I like the moon and stars stage curtain frames and backs. There is some renaming of the majors, but the suits and courts are RWS standard. Let’s interview. What is your most important characteristic? 4 of Cups The deck has it all, but some people won’t see that. What is your strength? Universe Everything! It’s much more mainstream tarot that we think. Your weakness? Ace of Pentacles It would be cool if the suit were crystal balls! Maybe it’s not that much different than his other decks. The deck is nothing new. What can you teach me? King of Pentacles It can teach me to like what I like and be proud of that. Wait, what’s that goblin doing at the bottom??? The kings has subdued it, I guess. How can I learn it? 2 of Cups I should have a nice balanced relationship with my likes and dislikes. We’re veering back into circus territory again. But I do think it’s a cute image of “balanced relationship.” What will be the outcome of our work together? Hermit Interesting that it’s a lone tree, not a person. Kind of looks like a failed pentacles card with all the suns and coins? I may feel alone as the only person who likes the deck! Well, we’ll see how it works this week.

Oh no, I am so late to this thread but want to offer my sincere condolences on Firemaiden's passing. I'm so sorry. I can clearly see her Avatar still, from Aeclectic, and remember so many contributions she posted. With love 💖

Ah - I went to Aeclectic to try and find that spread - I bet it was behind the paywall - and spent hours there reading the threads. I didn't find the one you were looking for, but I did have a stroll down memory lane. If I ever find it - I'll post it.

A unique version of Reading Circle for those who would like to work through their collection of decks, participants choose decks from their collections to work with for the week. Some use one deck, others use two or more. Some combine methods: Tarot, non-tarot (e.g. oracle), playing cards, or any other divinatory method is welcome. All we ask is that you use at least one tarot or oracle deck. No collection is too large or too small. The only rules we have are the Tarot, Tea & Me Rules; Be respectful of one other. Please join us! Please post with your choice of deck(s) for the week Chat away about your deck, how you're finding it (or not), etc., it's all up to you Participants may either choose to share their readings here in this discussion thread or opt to have their own journal in the Journals Forum and link it here Yet others may even have an offline journal in paper & pencil/pen form Share as often, as much, or as little as you like. You can drop in and out at any time—reality and life permitting. New to tarot? Long time reader? Come on in! Participants fire cat pickles: Renaissance Tarot (Williams) Rachelcat: Mystic Tarot Bodhiseed: Nigel Jackson Tarot paired with the Viking Lenormand Click here for DoW 426 (9/1- 9/7)