Tarot Readings and spontaneous spreads

 

I was doing dual deck tarot readings at the local yule fair last week and what stood out to me was how people would create their own spreads, which didn't necessarily look like anything I'd create, but nonetheless made perfect sense for those people. What I liked about that realization is that it proves that fixed spreads are not a necessary part of Tarot reading. In fact, I'd argue that the spontaneous creation of new spreads made the reading more effective because the layout of the cards demonstrated the mental "space" of the person, and how the different cards were situated in that space.

Space, mental and physical, is part of how a person defines his/her identity. The manipulation of space via placement of objects is part of that identification process and it can tell a lot about what obstacles a person is encountered. A spread that is chaotic with elements all over the place still has an order to it, even if its an order that only the person who created the spread understands. A reading I recently did initially looked very chaotic. It took asking some questions to really get to the central issue, but once those questions were asked the spread made complete sense and fit the issue rather well.

What makes this approach dynamic however is that if you use a tarot reading as an act of enchantment, you can make the person's ability to change the spread, to reorganize it an essential part of the reading. In other words, the person changes the spatial identity s/he inhabits by changing how the cards are spatially organized, as well as how s/he understands the underlying message of the card. The result is a different reading, one that plots how the person will make changes to the existing pattern in order to resolve whatever issues are represented.

Here's a podcast episode where I talk about some of my initial experiments with Tarot.

Using the dual Deck system for enchantments

While I find using Tarot for divination useful, I typically use it for enchantment purposes. My latest experiment with the dual deck system involved doing an enchantment for a specific situation. If you go to the Facebook page for magical experiments, you can see a picture of the latest dual deck working, which is the enchantment I did. Here's a link to a close up of the photo as well. The core issue of the reading is at the bottom of the picture. There are two arms to the reading as well. The left hand arm represents the enchantment to control and mitigate negative influences that would effect the enchantment adversely. The right arm represents the desired outcome as well as specific node points and influence factors that will be drawn on in order to make the desired result manifest into reality. The three nodal points that spread out from the right arm, are the specific spheres of influence to be drawn on, with the connectors representing the best possible avenues to manifest those influences into the actual desired result.

Not all enchantments would need to be conducted this way, but for this instance it has been useful to approach it with an eye toward mitigating undesired influences. The dual deck system is useful because it provides visual symbols that can be manipulated physically, which the person can use to also manipulate possibilities in imaginary time. The cards provide an interface for the possibilities to manifest from, while making sense to the person doing the action, because the conceptualization of the possibilities is mediated through the cards and the maneuvering of them into specific spaces.

Intuition is also a useful component for this process, as a way of accessing imaginary time. Intuition is used in the placement of each nodal point as well as in the placement of the best connector for each nodal point. On the imaginary time level, intuition is used to match the possibilities to the nodal points and connectors, and help the person establish a meaningful connection between the reading and the events the person is influencing via the enchantment of the reading.

It's useful, with enchantment, to recognize that what is being worked with is the placement of a specific possibility into an existing system, in order to turn that possibility into reality and make it an inherent part of the system. Each nodal point represents a specific conceptual space within the system. The connectors (in this case) represent emotional states of being that are key influences for realizing the impact of the conceptual spaces on the desired result. Since we want the positive conceptual spaces to have maximum impact, in order to ensure that the desired result becomes reality, we need to use connectors that will embody the path of least resistance and maximum empowerment of the desired result.

Further experimentation to come...as a note this is a system partially derived from Calyxa Omphalos's work with dual deck tarot readings, and partially derived from ongoing work with using Tarot for enchantment purposes.