Eight of Cups – Ace of Swords
Subscribe to Tarot Verbatim (Two Card Combination)
Subscribe to Tarot Easy Pieces (The Forum)
For questions, email us at: support@tarotverbatim.com
YOUR VERY FIRST QUESTIONS ARE ASSIGNING MEANINGS
I could write a book, and that’s what you need here. Your first questions create meanings for individual cards, meanings that are embedded. If all you ask about is love and money, all your meanings apply to those things and don’t function well when you ask general questions.
At this point in my Tarot development, a dozen books’ meanings were not useful. Neither was sitting in on 3 professionals’ readings, because they were not reading the cards, my perspective: They were listening to spirits, they said.
I determined that the way to get Tarot’s meanings was to ask questions I knew the answers to. I got that idea from ‘you can’t solve an unknown with an unknown’ from algebra. That was in 1980. I wrote those meanings on index cards and filed them. I still do that.
Those index cards are Two-card Combinations now.
I would say that since I went through this process, the shortest way for you to learn Tarot is to subscribe to Tarot Easy Pieces, and to ‘Membership,’ which is Two-card Combinations, because everyone reports this system works better than others they are exposed to. Also ask Tarot questions you know the answers to, and start your own private data bank by filing the combinations you find in such a way you can retrieve them. I used index cards, and I still think this is the most useful.
Beginning Tarot corresponds to the newly fertilized egg: Initial events create a cascade of development that brings about things we are unaware of, things we don’t undo, so it’s a vitally important stage. Right when we don’t know a thing.
Your first questions are assigning meanings not only to each card but to combinations of them.
The Hanged Man
Hanged Man reflects at least three myths that appear in different world cultures about the protagonist (main character) getting psychic perception and spiritual abilities from the gods in exchange for sacrificing a body part or function and hanging themselves on a tree for three days. (All-father Odin was one of these.) The head on fire signifies the energy being received.
REVERSALS
Since each card has a large spectrum of meanings, when you are expert enough to know a few hundred for each card, your Tarot responses are detailed and nuanced enough without reversals.
Different readers have different applications of their reversals, and some readers have more than one application. Reversals usually can say the opposite of the card’s normal meaning, or can simply apply less. My observation is, the more expert a reader is, the less likely he or she is to use reversals.
(A factor here is that most of the top talent Tarot readers concentrate on what the question is, how the cards affect one another, and what cards say the same thing.)
If a reader’s Tarot system involves astrology meanings and/or numerology meanings, or some other divination system’s meanings, using reversals on top of that really complicates the process of reading. (I like simple, myself!)
Be aware that when you divide the deck, you are removing the upright meanings of half the deck. To me, that is a loss, a hazard.
All this being said, any Tarot system works for the reader using it. Our subconscious sees to it that we draw the card that answers our query well regardless. On a good day.
What deck should I begin my Tarot work with?
Rider Waite is the original. It accesses mass consciousness by virtue of the fact an esoteric society spent many years developing it and used it only for themselves: did not publish it; it was stolen by Mr. Waite. The major cards reflect esoteric principles; the minor cards reflect daily life scenes and events. Put the two together and let your subconscious relate your way to these pictures, and you have YOUR OWN Tarot system that works FOR YOU.
I began this path in 1980 and developed a Tarot encyclopedia that serves as a data bank to make one’s readings with … and that’s what you see here.
I quit clarifiers.
I quit clarifiers.
.
If something isn’t clear, while the same question is being read, I lay a fresh card–or several cards if several cards are not clear– and read that.
.
The most frequent cause of not being able to read, once you are proficient at reading, is: You didn’t concentrate on that part as well as you should have.
Position names or cards modifying one another?
I observe two general methods of reading: position names and the cards modifying one another.
Letting the cards blend, letting them modify one another, frees you from having to use designated position names. The disadvantage of designated position names (spreads in which each card has to be about one thing its design calls for) is that you end up wondering how Ten of Swords (the corpse stabbed with ten swords still in the body) can be ‘the best that can happen.’ Your concentration must be perfect to prevent this, must be perfect to make this method work, it seems to me.
The advantage of letting the cards modify one another is, you have a more specific, detailed, nuanced message. Two cards can mean all kinds of things until you add a third. The third is likely to change what those two say, making the message more specific. It may expand or it may limit what those two say by themselves. And on it goes. The more cards, the more focus. The more cards, the more specific the result.
I also observe that a large spread (say 13 cards of a modified Celtic Cross layout that I use) divides itself into three parts that indicate how accurate its message is by repeating it those three times. Am I the only one who experiences this?
ABOUT SUPPORT CARDS, AN ALERT
The distinction between cards that (intrinsically) mean a particular thing and cards that merely support that particular thing can be important. I call those ‘support cards’ for that subject.
We find this out in practice, those of us who are avid about our Tarot, without making a big deal of it. Once in a while, though, a distinction makes a difference. Once in a while the fact that it’s (only) a support card changes what you read the whole spread as.
Let me tell you about my most frequent example. In my system, Four of Wands (whose illustration is a wedding) and Ten of Cups (whose illustration is mama and papa and the kids saluting their fine home on the corner lot with the rainbow arching over it) are leading cards for marriage.
Justice with either of these marriage cards makes the phrase ‘legal marriage.’ Very useful!
In real Tarot life (in practice) I find Justice coming up to infer that marriage is in the air, or that one or more of the parties in the couple is committed toward being married to the other. That’s in the absence of either Four of Wands or Ten of Cups. (In that same spread, you are likely to find, say Lovers, or Temperance, or even Knight of Cups or Six of Cups–romance cards to me.)
Support cards are something to keep in mind. They are weaker influences than the cards that are the main ones for that meaning. They tend to contribute nuances and details.
When Any Spread Doesn’t Make Sense
When any spread doesn’t make sense it may indicate poor concentration or distraction on the part of you the reader.
.
Just ask again.
.
Throw out the trash.