by Marcus Katz
In the mysteries of Nature we learn [card 20 + card 21 + card 22].
Your beauty is [card 23] and I am called to you by [card 24]. You are the Soul of Nature, the [card 24] and your face is bloved of Gods and Men. My inner self will be revealed in [card 25] and enfolded in your rapture.
I will worship you with [card 26] and find strength in [card 27] and compassion in [card 28]. Your rituals are [card 29] and the mystery within me is revealed as [card 30]. You are [card 31] and have been with me from the beginning. The end of my desire is [card 32].
You can try this narrative as a split-spread with the Major cards only for the first 22 cards and the Minors only for the remaining 10 cards. You can add Court cards if you are comfortable with applying their meanings in this type of narrative.
Here is an example of applying various cards from the Otherworld Tarot (Williams & Nowell, pub. Schiffer, 2010) to the narrative, which contain keywords on the cards to assist reading.
“I will worship you with [Tower/New Way of Life] making those changes in my life which seem striking at the moment, clearing away the debris of the past and find strength in [Knight of Swords/Change through Conflict] the inevitable change which will bring me into conflict with others. I will find compassion by [Six of Pentacles/Sharing] sharing this journey with others and writing about it for all to see.”
The One Year to Live Spread
A Self-discovery spread based on living a year as if it were your last.
Begin this exercise with a moment’s consideration and the scenario that you have been given an accurate prognosis of your death, in exactly one year from this moment. You then shuffle the deck and select 12 cards, one relating to each month and the consideration of that month.
You can perform this spread as an exercise or to prepare 12 cards for your “Contemplation Card of the Month” each month for the year following the reading. In this example I have used the months January to December for convenience.
January: What is my initial reaction?
February: How do I prepare for death?
March: How do I live and heal?
April: How do I live each day?
May: How do I review my life?
June: How do I offer service?
July: Who dies?
August: What is beyond my death?
September: How do I leave my body and belongings?
October: What message do I leave behind?
November: What is change?
December: How do I die?
This is a profound reading and is worthy of your time to consider its results and place them in a journal. You may wish to revisit this reading on occasion and add further notes over time.
This reading is unique in that the first time performed, it provides the immediate answers for unlocking in your life. If you perform it again, it is never the same as the first reading, like hearing a joke for the second time or watching the same film again, knowing the surprise finale.
Recommended Reading
Stephen Levine, A Year to Live: How to Live this Year as if it were your Last (Crown Publishing, 1998).
Interview at:
http://www.personaltransformation.com/Levine.html
Branching Spread Method
A basic fractal spread to explore a situation as you wish, based on the cards drawn.
Consider the Querent’s question and shuffle - or have them shuffle. Lay down 4 cards from the deck face up in a vertical line.
Read the four cards as the basic essence of the situation. Then decide (or have the Querent ask) which area of that you wish to explore and to which card that area relates.
Lay two further cards branching out from that card as in the diagram. Read these as further aspects highlighting that area of the reading. You can then further branch out from either of those cards, or return to another area of the trunk with new information, and branch out again.
Illus. Branching Spread Method.
Always return to the central trunk of cards if you get lost performing this type of reading and return to the essential question.
The Dice Man Method
A Tarot Method for entering a realm of madness and returning slightly more whole.
… on the other hand, if you want a friend, go out of your way to agree enthusiastically with his passionately held belief. Soon he will barely be able to restrain himself from embracing you. It is such a treat for him to have reality patting him on the back instead of rattling his shell. The fact that you are faking it never enters his mind. Since his belief is Truth, it is only natural that you should agree with him.
Luke Rhinehart, The Book of the Die (London: HarperCollins, 2000) p.128
Roll a dice twice and add up the two numbers.
Take your Tarot deck and shuffle.
Select out the number of cards indicated by the dice.
Look at each card and assign to it an arbitrary but possible action, behavior or experience appropriate to the card.
For example:
8 of Wands = Take a Flight Somewhere
7 of Swords = Go dancing or fencing
4 of Cups = Join a meditation class or go to a Yoga Lesson
Page of Pentacles = Go to a weights lesson in a gym
Wheel of Fortune = Go visit a Casino or Las Vegas
Now simply shuffle those cards and select one out.
You have one week in which to perform that action.
Repeat as often as you require.
Anima/Animus Spread
A layout exploring the masculine and feminine energies within the Tarot.
A layout is a particular arrangement of the Tarot to demonstrate a particular pattern, sequence or different energies. It is often composed of the 22 Major Arcana arranged in lines of particular length, a circle, or similar. Sometimes the layout is designed based on correspondences such as Astrology or Kabbalah.
In this layout, we explore the Jungian concept of Anima and Animus through a layout of Tarot cards which correspond to aspects of that concept. This leads us to particular way of viewing male and female energies as embodied by our Tarot deck. As with all layouts, the intention is to open our perception to a deeper view of the world whilst also enabling us to have more depth when performing readings.
In simple terms, the anima the feminine quality within the masculine, and the animus is the masculine quality in the feminine. Jung considered “the encounter with the shadow is the ‘apprentice-piece’ in the individual's development. ... that with the anima [animus] is the ‘masterpiece’”.[3]
In Jung’s view, both anima and animus in all individuals have four distinct levels of development, leading the masculine and feminine individual to an increasing sensitivity and spiritual awareness:
Eve – the female seen as the object of desire
Helen – the female seen as self-reliant
Mary – the female seen as virtuous
Sophia – the female seen as an individual
The animus also has four levels:
Physical Power
Man of Action – Romantic or Hunter
The bearer of the word – an Orator
The incarnation of meaning – a spiritual mediator
In both cases, for the individual pursuing individuation, working to integrate their anima or animus – which Jung called the “masterpiece” of one’s life work - leads to an encounter with the archetypal wise old woman or wise old man.
To explore this layout, simply go through the Major 22 Arcana and lay out the cards you believe to represent the 4 stages of Anima and Animus Development. At the top of each, place the card you see as representing the Wise Old Man and Wise Old Woman.
Illus. Anima/Animus Layout.
You can now compare the meanings you have for these cards in the pairs that you have placed them. What does this tell you about how you relate to those aspects of yourself – and when you find that in others?
/> Buffers & Shocks (4th Way Method)
A Fourth Way Tarot method where we observe what separates us from the real world.
In the work of the mystic G. I. Gurdjieff, he proposed that each of us has a Kundabuffer, an organ “to prevent men seeing the reality of their situation”. Whilst this was proposed in a semi-fictional sense (as much of Gurdjieff’s writings) it is an important concept in self-awareness work.
One way of seeing the kundabuffers is that they are the psychological defense mechanisms that connect and absorb the minor shock of our ever-changing sense of self from one identity or personality to another. Usually in our day we ride these shocks on an almost momentary basis as we change our state and role. The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff promotes observation of these shocks to wake us up to the reality of our situation.
In this method, we use Tarot to firstly elicit the nature of these buffers, and then prompt awareness and self-remembering. Lay out 4 cards:
1. This is when I lie to myself or others.
2. This is when I suppress what I feel.
3. This is when I identify with a role.
4. This is when I project onto others.
Read the cards and make interpretation. When you have done so, decide which one Kundabuffer you would like to work with, and select a further recall card in answer to this statement, “When I see this card I will see myself [lying / suppressing / Identifying / projecting] and remember myself.”
Now take an image of that particular recall card – or the card itself – and ensure it is about your person for a week. Everytime you see it, use it as a shock to alert you as to whether you are experiencing full awareness, or caught in your Kundabuffer. Affter the week is over, return to the first card you selected for that Kundabuffer and re-intrepret it.
Recommended Reading
Charles T. Tart, Waking Up (Longmead: Element Books, 1988)
Nine Swords Spread (Way of Grief)
A short spread to work with loss and grief in all its forms.
Lay out the Nine of Swords in the Waite-Smith Tarot. Beneath it lay out nine cards (one for every Sword) showing the nature of the loss and what has befallen the Querent. Then point out that in the card, the figure cannot see an end to any Sword – a point.
Then lay out another column of nine cards to show the inevitable point for each of the Swords of Grief.
Signal to Noise Method (Clarification Spread)
A method of cutting to the chase of a situation.
In this simple Twist method, we perform any standard spread. This tells us the situation as it appears to be presenting itself. However, we then deem that situation as manifesting a more profound communication – a lesson to ourselves from the Universe itself.
We then re-shuffle the deck and lay a card on top of every card already laid down in the spread, with the following context:
If that first reading was the noise, this reading is the signal.
We then read each of the cards in the context of the one below it, with regard to the position in the spread. Thus for example in the 15-card spread called variously the Golden Dawn method, the Thoth Deck method, the Romany Method or the English Method, we have three cards as showing the “influences and events” in the situation.
If these were the Queen of Wands, The Magician and the Wheel of Fortune, we might read that as indicating that the influence on the situation is one of control; that the Querent is going to have to learn to take their vision and ambition (Queen of Wands) and manage their resources (Magician) whilst change takes place (Wheel).
However, this is just the noise – the signal, when we lay out three cards on top of those, is Knight of Pentacles, Page of Pentacles, 9 of Pentacles. It shows that really what is going to happen is that the Querent is being taught to be patient (Knight of Pentacles), work with what they have got (Page of Pentacles) and be content (9 of Pentacles). In effect, a “get real” signal is underneath the noise of the situation.
Stages of Alchemy Spreads
A Reading to transmute the dull Lead of life into the very uncommon Gold of the Soul.
In this reading we take a dull and dead life situation and transform it into the “uncommon gold” of the Alchemists, through a sequence of alchemical processes. This is ideal when the Querent or oneself does not have a particular question but is feeling somewhat stuck, bored or lifeless.
Consider the situation which is currently the “lead” of life. Shuffle.
Select 7 cards and lay them out in a line. These indicate the divination of seven alchemical processes in sequence:
1. Calcination
2. Solution
3. Coagulation
4. Sublimation
5. Mortification
6. Separation
7. Conjunction
You may also choose to lay out a card above each of these to show the nature of the work required in that phase, and indeed a further row of seven cards to show the results of each stage.
The cards indicate the the way in which you can use alchemy to transform that area of your life into a more spiritual connection:
1. Calcination – What work must I do here?
2. Solution – What am I really seeing here?
3. Coagulation – What is the reality of this situation?
4. Sublimation – How can I elevate this work?
5. Mortification – What must be destroyed and transformed?
6. Separation – What can I take from this time?
7. Conjunction – How can I connect it to what follows?
Recommended Reading
Edward F. Edinger, Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy (Chicago: Open Court, 1985)
Yellow Brick Road Spread [Pulled Spread Method]
An example of a pulled spread which is useful for divining a stuck situation.
In Tarosophy we use a whole range of new and particular types of spreads to suit the question being asked. One of these is the pulled spread. This is a spread that is laid out in different directions on a table (sometimes in 3d using Perspex platforms – this works very well with the Transparent Tarot or Transparent Oracle, pub. Schiffer) and you can see an illustration of this in Tarosophist International #2.
This particular example of a pulled spread is themed around The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1900). However, like all the material in Twist, it has a deeper significance, in fact eliciting a solution strategy using all aspects of the unconscious processes.
Take a significator card. If you do not use significators, select the Fool card for your Querent or yourself. It helps if the card has a white dog.
Lay that down and say, “This is you/me as Dorothy”.
Then lay out three cards face-down in a triangle around the Dorothy card. These represent the LION, the SCARECROW, and the TIN MAN.
Ask the Querent/yourself, “Which way to Oz?” Select one of the three routes and companions. Turn over that card and read it as “This is what will happen”. Now lay two new cards face-up next to the other two characters/routes and say “This is what pulls you elsewhere”.
Next ask again, “Which way to Oz?” and select one of the routes again, either continuing down the same yellow brick road, or starting a new one by laying out a new card there. You then lay out one card again for the other two non-chosen routes for “This is what pulls you elsewhere”. You can continue this reading until you feel it reaches a conclusion.
To explore this reading more deeply, consider:
Lion = Will/Courage
Tin Man = Mind/Thought
Scarecrow = Heart/Emotions.
Recommended Reading
Neil Eskelin, What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do (London: Catalyst, 1995)
Infinity Method (Hebrew One-Card Spread)
Hebrew Depth-Charge the Majors and Read Forever with Just One Card.
In this advanced method, we look at the correspondences to one Card and take advantage of a peculiar aspect of Hebrew, in that Hebrew lette
rs are also spelt as words. This reflects a Kabbalistic teaching that each Sephirah on the Tree of Life contains another Tree of Life, reaching on to infinity – a fractal property. We can find this fractal property in our Tarot.
Certain mathematical formulae involving complex numbers composed of both real numbers and imaginary numbers (such as i, which is the symbol denoting the square root of -1) can produce graphs such as the Mandelbrot set which have recursive properties, that is, they repeat their patterns at lower or higher orders of complexity and calculation. Thus, when magnifying, mathematically, an area of the Mandelbrot set, one can find the same strange shape emerging, and within certain areas of that shape, the shape repeats, and so forth.
This discovery reminds us of the Kabbalistic doctrine of Sephiroth existing within Sephiroth. Indeed, Joseph ibn Sayyah went as far as to describe in detail the play of lights within the Sephiroth to the fourth degree, as, for example, the "Tiferet which is in Gedullah which is in Binah which is in Keter".
Again, this finds a similarity with one eastern concept which states that "there is no beginning, no ending, no linear progression, only an unbounded net of jewels each of which reflects and contains the reflection of each of the others".
