modern oracle – Page 9 – Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

Q&A: How do you know if a psychic is ethical?

This is one of the very first posts I wrote for Modern Oracle / Tarotbytes blog way back on March 31, 2009. I’ve made a few edits today for spelling and grammar. Oops!

Q: There are a lot of crooks out there. How can you tell if a psychic is for real or not?

A; This question more complicated than you might think. “Real” could mean a lot of things, but in this case they were talking about ethics. They wanted to know how to tell if a psychic really wants to help people or just make a bunch of money.

Good question. One everybody should ask before they pick up a phone or get online or drive to a “psychic”

We are all in this business for one reason or another. It is fair, legal and right to pay for an artistic service like a psychic/Tarot reading. It is no different than buying a ticket to a concert, or buying a book, admission to a museum, paying a therapist or donating to a minister for performing a wedding ceremony. In all of these cases you are paying for all the same things that a Tarot session or a psychic reading gives: entertainment, inspiration, personal enrichment, personal growth, insight…you get the idea. You are compensating the reader for the time they spend with you plus their years of experience and learning. Fair price for a fair service is, ahem, fair for everyone – the same as any other artist or counselor.

The key word here is fair. Honesty is hard to gauge outright. The hard truth is that there are a lot of people who use spirituality to trick gullible people out of large sums of money. It isn’t just psychics. Some churches arguably do the same thing. (2019 me: hell, we put a corrupt con man in the white house…it definitely isn’t just psychics!)

These are some of the positive traits I believe a good psychic should have:

HONESTY: An ethical psychic will tell you what intuitive work can and can not do. No one person has all the answers for everything. I never take medical or pregnancy questions. You should handle those with a doctor. No one is “100% accurate”. Phrases like “100% accurate” or “guaranteed results” always make me run, not walk, in the opposite direction. If it sounds to good to be true…it probably isn’t true. To guarantee results is to rob you of your freedom and free will. Even if it were possible, it would be wrong to do. An ethical psychic will give you a realistic idea of what to expect from a reading, and respect your choices about the information they give.

CLARITY: Does the psychic make the information understandable to you? Is the reading helpful? Can you USE it to make better decisions or make better sense out of your concerns? Psychic readings aren’t any good to anybody if they make no sense. This is why the next point is so important. If something isn’t clear to you or you don’t understand it, ask them to clarify.

WILLINGNESS TO ANSWER QUESTIONS: Sometimes it is hard to put the nonverbal images and impressions we receive into words. That is where the real skill of a psychic lies. We all have intuition and ‘psychic’ ability. The real “gift” is in being able to communicate the information in an understandable, helpful way. If you are in a reading, and you don’t understand what is being said, ask. If you are working with an e-mail reading…send a follow up question (but not a dozen – be fair to the reader) Someone who really wants to help will be willing rephrase and make an effort to make the reading understandable to you. Don’t take what a psychic says at face value just because it sounds fancy, esoteric or educated. Ask them to use plain language. If they won’t or become angry or offended, you may want to re-think if this is the best psychic for you.

OPENNESS ABOUT PRICES AND BUSINESS POLICIES: The reality is, whether the psychic approaches the readings as counseling, spiritual guidance, entertainment or what have you – it is still a business. Especially if that is their sole livelihood. Prices, policies about returns, scheduling, cancellations all should be as clear and up-front as with any other professional practice. By the same token, it is important for you to know and respect their guidelines and disclaimers as well.

PROFESSIONALISM AND COURTESY: In my opinion, Psychic and Tarot work is all about helping people. I give Tarot the same level of professionalism and ethics that I gave patients when I worked in mainstream medicine, and that I give my Natural Health clients now. More often than not, if someone seeks out a psychic reading it is because they have some very real problem. Often they are emotionally upset and more vulnerable than they usually are. Some psychics exploit that vulnerability, but the majority seek to help and heal it. An ethical psychic will not take advantage of a situation like that. A reading should never make you feel more vulnerable. If you feel intimidated, taken advantage of or belittled in any way, that should be a warning sign to you.

RESPECT FOR YOUR DECISIONS AND BELIEFS: You should be the one to decide when, if ever, you go back for a reading. Getting too many readings in too short of a time can get confusing and ultimately do more harm than good. Intuitive readings shouldn’t ask that you believe certain things or not. Skepticism will not scare away or block “spirits” and lack of ‘believing” won’t keep you from getting a good reading. You should feel as if you are being treated with dignity and respect…not blamed if a reading doesn’t go well.

UNETHICAL OR MIS-MATCHED?:

If you don’t feel comfortable with a psychic it doesn’t automatically mean they are doing anything unethical or illegal. Just like doctors and ministers, we all have our own specialties, our own styles, and our own belief systems.

For example, some people love to go to dramatic, flamboyant psychics – it makes the reading more interesting and fun. Some people need the extra drama to ‘believe’ and let themselves be helped by the reading experience. Other people like a more practical style. My goal is to be the “no drama”, calm, reassuring type of psychic.

Different kinds of problems need different kinds of psychics. Some psychics work very well with medical concerns ( like the Carolyn Myss and Edgar Cayce, for example). The same is true with bereavement, or issues of life after death. Some are mediums and connect with crossed loved ones very easily, while it happens less often for others psychics.

DOES THE PSYCHIC HAVE STRUCTURED GUIDELINES?

This is a tricky one. Just because a psychic doesn’t share YOUR particular beliefs doesn’t mean they are unethical or criminal. (looking at you evangelicals) The key is if they have some sense of ethics. Usually the easiest way to see that is their business practices and disclaimers. If they have it together enough to write those, they have it together enough to treat you fairly.

(2019 me: In my practice, the guidelines go both ways. It keeps us all safe. When we both know what to expect, then giving you a good reading takes top priority. I expect my clients to treat me with the same respect I give them and reserve the right to terminate any session or appointment for inappropriate comments or behavior. If either of us need to cancel or reschedule, it isn’t a big deal, but we should give the other person notice…that sort of thing)

As for negative traits….

Here are some things about psychic readings that make me uncomfortable. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a psychic that shows these things. Most of the ones I’ve met fortunately don’t. It is your choice of course, but I suggest being on the lookout for:

claims of 100% accuracy
promises of a specific outcome: like “fixing your love life” or what have you
anger or agitation at questions
doesn’t let you take notes or make recordings of the reading for later reference
unclear pricing … free times, holding you online in a per-minute reading etc
demanding regular or “faithful” return visits or frequent readings
demanding that you believe certain things or the reading won’t “work”

IN THE END, YOU SHOULD ALWAYS FEEL BETTER AFTER A READING THAN YOU DID BEFORE THE READING STARTED. YOU SHOULD NEVER FEEL FRIGHTENED OR INTIMIDATED BY A READING.

Most of all, the best way to know if a particular psychic is a good match for you or not is to use your own intuition and street-smarts. If you feel like something is wrong, it is.

Ghost of Zombie Cat

First published 17 May 2015

“There is more in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies” – William Shakespeare

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Arthur C. Clarke

“I ain’t afraid of no ghost” – Ghostbusters

In the first Zombie Cat post we talked a little bit about the intersection of Tarot and science. Now lets shift gears yet again and add in the spiritual, fringe, and frankly, “woo-woo” aspect of things. Tarot intersects all of those, too.

When I’m not looking at the world as a giant Taoist Taijitu (yin/yang symbol) I tend to see a lot of things in terms of a Venn diagram. That’s why I chose a triquetra as the main symbol in my old Modern Oracle logo. This “trinity knot” is essentially an excerpt of a three circle Venn diagram which in turn symbolizes much in my work…mind/body/spirit (for holistic health) or mother/maiden/crone (for the stages of life) or sea/sky/land (our connection with Nature) and many more such groups of three. I see Tarot as overlapping with self, science and spirituality, again giving us that lovely triquetra shape.

So, back to Tarot and spirituality. Any good thesis defines its terms. In this case we have to define spirituality. I’ve noticed a tendency for people to use spirituality and religion almost interchangeably. They aren’t. As I see it, they are totally different, damn near opposite things. I define spirituality as internal and individual. Spirituality is how we as individuals engage with the wordless, intangible aspects of the universe and our existence within it. Religion, on the other hand, is external, codified, ritualized, other, outside of our individual self. Religion is how a collective of people over time has engaged with the wordless, intangible aspects of the universe and pronounced them to be. We express our spirituality in out external lives. Spirituality goes from the inside out. Religion structures our external lives as a way to instruct the internal. Religion is outside in. Tarot is intuition – it is inside to inside. It has everything to do with spirituality, nothing to do with religion.

Spirituality is unlimited. It is in this vast inner world where Tarot applies and finds its usefulness. Yes, the cards are external. But they don’t instruct our inner world from the outside in as a religious practice might. They are a mirror to reflect out inner world back to us and lens to help us understand what we see there. They reflect and shine light in the dark corners, allowing that inner world of spirituality to illuminate and expand, grow and thrive.

The cards are nothing more than just pieces of paper. It is centuries of projected wisdom and symbolism written on the cards combined with the intuition and insight of the Tarot reader’s living modern mind that leads the way to enlightenment…not the pieces of paper alone. The cards are the Venn diagram intersection of mind and matter that lets us catch glimpses of the possibilities and probabilities afforded to us by the physical/quantum universe of which we are an intimate and inseparable part.

Tarot cards are our portal into the trinity of humanity, science and spirituality. They are a magnet that draws wisdom, guidance, insight and empowerment out of a melange of known, unknown, explicable, inexplicable, and the heart that seeks to know more.

There is more in heaven and earth than we have yet to dream and discover. There is more inside ourselves as well. There is more than just a dead or living cat in Schrodinger’s box. Woo-woo as they may seem, disappearing cats and zombie cats are part of the bigger multiverse of the human heart, mind, imagination and spirit.

Zombie Cat is in the house! Yes-or-No Tarot is now available to order on the home page. These 3 card Tarot readings answer any ONE yes-or-no question. Fun, lighthearted and tongue in what’s left of his cheek, Zombie Cat’s readings are 100% guaranteed to have words in them and a 50% chance of being dead wrong. Order HERE.

Alice Got It Right, Twilight Tells the Future

First Published 17 January 2010

I’m scheduled to work at a couple of Twilight themed events (2019 me: they were a lot of fun! Grateful!) so I’m reading the books and just watched the movie to see what all the buzz is about.

As an aspiring writer of sorts, I’m impressed with Stephanie Myers skill. I full on expected to hate the books. I thought it was going to be some superficial. bubble-gum popping teen angst romance. In some respects, it is. But I was sincerely impressed with her skill at using the first person. It creates enormous empathy with Bella, you experience everything intensely through her eyes. And the sudden shift to Jacob’s point of view has all the more impact because of it. Well done!!

Of course, being in the Tarot business, Alice is one of my favorite characters. Alice is a vampire with special vampire super psychic future seeing powers. She has it exactly right. Her visions change in response to choice and decision. What she sees now, might become totally wrong if someone changes their mind or actions later. Her visions shift and change as people’s actions and choices shift and change. She sees along the path of greatest probability, not some sort of fated certainty.

That is exactly how it works in my experience. Asking Alice to see something isn’t a lock. Asking a psychic or tarot reader is even less of a certainty. The web of choice, decision, intention and change is even more complex, wavering and unstable than in the fictional world of Twilight.

So hats off to Stephanie Myers for putting that idea into the mainstream. It’s going to make my life easier explaining how Tarot really works to a client who has seen the movie. It is true that fiction can sometimes tell more truth than reality. I can talk until blue in the face about how choice impacts future, how you can create your own future through the choices you make, but people will absorb the idea in an instant from the movie. The visual experience of the movie makes the concept real, and understandable.

Plus, it is just a well crafted, entertaining story start to finish. And it predicts the future – the right way.

100% Accurate Predictions and a Big Cube of Jello

First Published 8 October 2015

Readings help you to own your choices so that fate and the future won’t own you.

ALL predictions are 100% accurate. ZERO predictions are 100% accurate. Both. At the same time. If you are a Doctor Who fan, you might say making predictions is wibbly wobbley timey wimey kind of stuff.

Time is dimension all its own. Just like space is one big thing, time is all one big thing. All of time exists all at once…right now, the part you will experience in the future, the parts you have already experienced in the past, and parts you will never experience at all. A “prediction” is an intuitive impression…a thought…a non-psychical glimpse of that non-physical thing we call time.

If the “psychic” impression connects to a point in time/space that you get to experience, the prediction proves accurate. If it comes from a point in time/space that you don’t experience first hand then the “prediction” seems all wrong – even though it is perfectly accurate for somewhere and some-when completely different from us. The multi-verse is a big place, bigger than time itself. Anything is possible out there somewhere. Just maybe not here, not in our little region of Time/Space

To borrow an image from “Star Trek”…. any given prediction might be 100% wrong for you – but 100% accurate for your goatee wearing evil twin from an alternate universe. There is no way to tell the impressions apart or to direct intuition to specifically YOUR timeline…because any little itsy witsy teeny tiny choice you make can change the course of your timeline drastically enough to point you away from itty bitty speck of tim/space that was predicted. Time/space is too deeply connected to pull out that kind of granular detail. One bit of jello is much like another.

Imagine time as a giant cube of gelatin. Imagine your life is a thread wiggling its way through the middle of the cube, moving and shifting an tiny bit with the choices that you and all who affect you make. Imagine you are a little spark of glitter moving along that thread. Time is always passing for you. Intuition and predictions can come from any part of the whole cube. The prediction comes from X location within the cube, but suddenly the thread wiggles over to Y location. The prediction wasn’t necessarily wrong at the time it was made. Just wrong for the direction you are moving a little bit after the prediction was made. Things changed just enough to put the “prediction” outside of your range of experience.

You control your thread’s wiggle…not the jello. That is what Tarot, “psychics” and spiritual advice is really all about. It isn’t about telling you exactly what is ahead on your ‘thread’ it is about helping you nudge and wiggle the thread in the direction you want it to go.

Order distance Tarot readings HERE

Contact me to schedule in – person or party Tarot in the South Hills area of Pittsburgh PA

National Letter Writing Month

I suck at writing letters.

So OF COURSE I’m celebrating National Letter Writing Month.

If I’m negligent about writing personal letters, it’s because it hard to think of something interesting to say besides SSDD written in big crayon. So let’s give ourselves something to talk about – TAROT!

Handwriting has been niggling at me lately, hand in hand with learning about Sigils. I’ve known and used the power of the written word for myself for, well, decades. Journaling, affirmation writing, setting energy, a written word form of sigil work. It’s all been a very positive experience. I can’t promise it will work as well for everyone, but I’m still going to put some of that positive mojo into my Tarot work as a whole.

“InkMagick Sigil Tarot” is that Tarot-meets-writing combination. Each reading is hand written (as legibly as I can muster, calligrapher I’m not) and includes your uniquely drawn card, the interpretation, a “sigil” or symbol or doodle or something non-verbal given by spirit or intuition, then wraps up with a positive affirmation statement based on the reading.

I can write it in my “Rocketbook” which converts the handwritten page into a PDF document, so I can email it to you.

OR I can send it on honest to goodness old fashioned ink on paper. I charge a little more for those to cover the cost of paper, postage, and the side trip to the post office.

Getting letters is as much fun as sending them. More, actually. So I’m more than happy to e-mail from clients and readers. Here is a contact form to make it easy for you. Say something! Please!

Have a good weekend – R.

Go back

Your message has been sent

Parallax

Originally published 5-27-2010

“Camera 1, Camera 2, Camera 1, Camera 2” ~ Wayne’s World 2

Ever play with that trick of eyesight? Close one eye, and hold up a pencil so it lines up with an object in the distance. Then switch eyes and the pencil seems to jump to one side. Things don’t line up the same way.

In astronomy, this is called parallax. In anatomy, this phenomenon where the brain combines two slightly different views from two slightly different viewpoint gives us depth perception…it allows us to see distance. Two eyes lets us live in three dimensions. It helps us to not walk into objects and learn our environment the literal hard way.

A similar idea is true in Tarot and psychic work. Getting a reading isn’t predicting the future…it is getting a second look, a separate viewpoint to combine with our own that lets us see with greater clarity and understanding. It helps us be a bit more perceptive, and not have to learn every lesson the hard way.

Two third-eyes are better than one, in other words.

Even those of us who do readings professionally will sometimes GET one to improve our understanding and fill in any blind spots.

I like to think that when psychics read for themselves or consult a fellow psychic, it works like binocular vision. Two readings from two people gives two views that can be fused together into a higher quality, more useful vision.

Another example is the VLA, “very large array” of radio telescopes. It is made of 27 or so radio antennae all linked together to work together like one big dish, one configuration is over 20 miles across. Working together, the telescopes have capabilities magnetudes more than any individual telescope. If we combine our logic, know-how, and life experience to work together with oracle tools (tarot, runes, palm lines, what-have-you) and other intuitives, we can increase our understanding and spiritual growth by magnitudes.

If one eye is closed, then depth perception doesn’t work. If one telescope is down, the array doesn’t work as well. We each bring our part to a reading. The sitter (learner, seeker, client) has a part to play too. When we do a Tarot reading, we work together. I translate spirit, but it is up to you to understand and apply the message. We work together like the telescopes in the VLA or two eyes together to see farther. Working together, we see with more clarity. Together we are clairvoyant.

Lessons Learned: Tarot Without A Net

I think Heart of Stars Tarot is excellent deck. The idea of a Tarot deck that intersects with pop culture is just brilliant, and in this case brilliantly executed. I hope to see more of Thom Pham’s artwork or future decks.

As much as I enjoy the deck, working through it card by card reading each at first sight without looking at the accompanying book hit a wall. It is a great Tarot exercise, but after the first handful of cards started to get repetitive. The post series was about the technique and the experience not the card meanings themselves. The method is eezy peezy, and doesn’t need a 78 card explanation. It was a fun experiment but I’m over it. It’s a good deck, and I’ll be using it for “Today’s Tarot” posts but not with this particular spin.

What I learned as a Tarot Reader

I don’t know movies nearly as well as I thought I did.
I enjoy this deck and will use it here in the blog for other posts, just not with this particular spin.
Experiencing a new deck is different as an experienced reader than it was as a beginner. It was hard to look at any one card with fresh eyes. Other meanings, other readings, and past experience came along for the ride….as it should. The whole point of experimenting and learning is to bring that body of knowledge to bear on new readings in order to do our best work for ourselves and our clients.
There are a variety of ways to engage a new deck, and they are all equally good, and all very hands-on.

There are probably as many ways to get to know a deck as there are decks and readers. My best advice is choose from any one or combinations of methods, depending on how the deck instinctively feels in your hands. The experience of exploring a new deck is far more driven by in-the-moment intuition than it is by something regimented and methodical. Or it is for me. If regimented works for you, follow THAT intuition, follow that guidance. Here are some ideas that I’ve used.

Pull a random card daily, then think about the meaning given by the author (or your favorite reference if the deck doesn’t have the infamous “little white book.” Think about the card and the given meaning as a “daily meditation” type exercise. This is a great way to learn Tarot reading in the first place, even before you invest in your first deck. I explain how you can do that in “PeaceTarot” ($2 e-book, here) If you get a repeat, just put it back or just try another draw for another card. OR stay with the repeating card to see if you are picking up on some other facet of the card that you missed the first day.
Try this same thing, only going methodically card by card. When you pull randomly often there are repeats depending on the energy of the day. This introduces every card with no repeats. I found this to be a little tedious, but it works.
Browse the cards in one big sit-down. One card a day takes forever it seems, but you get a deep working knowledge of the deck. If you are an avid deck collector, that might not suit you. I like the daily method because I very seldom get new decks, and only use one or two regularly. But I know a lot of readers who are avid collectors. I can’t blame them. There are some truly beautiful, enchanting, fascinating decks out there. This is where the “without a net” technique really shines. Look through a new deck card by card. Gaze at each card a minute or two and see what spontaneous intuition you get from the card. That’s how I knew the Dugan/Evans Witches Tarot was my favorite to date. I fell for the color palette at first sight, and the impressions came instantly, clearly, easily even with pictures online.
Do a card interview. Ask a deck about itself, or ask about your work with it. One of the best things I’ve read about new decks is from Kate over on Daily-Tarot-Girl.com. It may seem a little crazy the way we readers anthropomorphize our cards and the way they take on personalities. Arguably, it is just psychological projection, but so what? Right tool for the right job I always say, so right deck for the right job goes too. If B.B. King can name his guitar Lucille, I can have a tete-a-tete with a stack of cards. For example, my Black Cats deck resonates with yes/no readings…probably because of the connection with “Zombie Cat”. Animal Wise Tarot is just for me, and NOT for clients. Withes Tarot loves reversals, and I take them more seriously from that deck than others. Tarot Illuminati is very chaotic and can be overwhelming, so that deck asks to be approached ritually, deliberately, with a clear head. My RWS deck is very social and loves a party. I tend to use that deck for parties more than individual readings for that reason, plus that is the diva celebrity performer deck because it is so recognizable to the public at large from movies etc. I have a sneaking suspicion that Heart of Stars wants to be my blog deck. I’m so grateful for his kindness in letting me photograph and use it.
JUST USE IT. Jump in with both feet and do some readings for yourself. When you feel comfortable, then you can roll out the new deck for clients (if you read for others at all). This gives a hands on feel and works within your comfort zone. It is still basically an interview with a deck, but more subtle. The deck shows you what it is all about rather than telling you. Different angle, same result.

What I learned as a blogger and a writer:

Always be prepared to sacrifice an idea to the editing gods. Leave it on the editing room floor. It’s better to make an interesting single post than to force a finish to a series that just isn’t working. Let it go.
Symmetry and completeness are less important than good communication.
Readers first.

For energy and cyber-feng-shui reasons mentioned before, and a zero spam tolerance, I’m not accepting or publishing comments through the blog…BUT I am always happy to hear your thoughts by e-mail. Let me know what you think about getting to know a new deck.

Question of the Day

Go back

Your message has been sent

Tarot Without a Net: The Chariot

I feel a movie mistake coming on, but I can make up for it with a double pop culture reference.

I’m guessing this is Ben Hur, with what I’ve heard is the most epic chariot scene ever filmed. Again, I haven’t seen it, except the chariot clip on award shows and such.

At first glance, it gives all the classic impressions associated with The Chariot: the need to focus, to be in the moment, give your full attention to something.

The gladiator image really catches my attention though. It expands my thinking about the card, actually. I see the gladiator presentation in terms of a warrior. As a martial artist (a little Kung Fu back in the day, now it is very casual, occasional Taijiquan and Qi gong) I’ve always kind of wondered which Tarot card would be the best “warrior” card. I don’t think you can narrow it down to one card, really. The whole concept is complex, and takes several cards to touch on all the philosophical facets of “warrior” especially in the honor/busidho sense of things. This comes very close, however.

Martial artists and warriors often meditate. According to curiosity.com Navy Seals do breathing patterns akin to yogic and meditation practices to enhance calm.

Calm, focused, in the moment, paying full attention to the task at hand…all traits that warriors and chariot drivers share (chariots were, after all, used in battle too)

Now for the artist’s guide…I’m curious to see if it really is Ben Hur.;;;\

LOL nope….Achellies in the movie Troy. Ah well. Haven’t seen that one either. But that is fine by me….I still like the artwork, color, composition of the cards even if I don’t get the exact movie reference

WHICH, by the way, is an excellent insight into how Tarot works overall. Spirit/energy/intuition might not give us the EXACT information of the message, the reading might not predict your true love’s hair color…but the essence of the message always somehow makes it through.

Oops…oh well. Puts me in the mood for that other pop culture reference. I liked the cartoon “Jimmy Neutron” as much or more than my daughter did. In one episode, Jimmy and Hugh go camping leaving Mrs. Neutron alone for the weekend. Her response? Gather up the dog and break out the cookie dough and gladiator movies. That sounds pretty in the moment…as in ENJOYING the moment….to me.

Wishing you a wonderful moment right here, right now.

Not the Mercury retrograde thing AGAIN

mini rant about mercury retrograde

All the blame-y victim-y whine-y energy and posts about friggen’ Mercury damn retrograde on social media ( looking at you Instagram) has officially gotten on my last nerve.

Blaming poor choices or random gliches on “Mercury retrograde” is like saying you stubbed your toe because it is raining in Poughkeepsie. Magick, energy, intuition, creativity, life force, the random crap of living – it is all bigger than one zippy little planet in one out of the way solar system in a really really big universe. You are part of the big stuff. You are rightfullly as much a part of the Cosmos as is Mercury. Now, knock it off about the damn retrograde, OWN your life and go be amazing.

Tarot Without a Net: The Heirophant

I like Marvel.

I was as happy to see Professor X as I was to see who I thought was ObiWan Kenobi on the Emperor card. It is a perfect bridge between what I see and what the artest saw in these two cards.

It’s been a long year coming, but waaay back when the third edition of Heart of Stars third edition deck was released by Thom Pham, he very graciously gave permission for me to share these posts with you. I am so looking forward to exploring this deck with you because it is very much how I work. If you have ever had a reading with me, there is a good chance that spirit and energy gave a pop culture reference at some point…a song, book, movie or tv show.

It is interesting to me that the very thing I missed by mis-understanding Odin from Thor as Obi-Wan from Star Wars is the exact thing that drives my impression of this card.

The Hierophant (or Pope card in some decks) has always been a nemesis for me personally. The Hierophant / Pope is often associated with social rules and conventions. On the RWS deck it is rife with religious imagery. As an adult child of evangelicals recovered fundamentalist, that is a hot button pushing reflex issue for me. Lucky for me AND my clients, that only happens when I engage with stuff like this, outside of a reading. In a reading, the Hierophant is smooth as silk and clear as a bell because it has to do with connecting with THEIR energies and messages. Please don’t take my wrangling matches with this card to be an indication of what is to come in YOUR reading should this card turn up.

It is much better than it used to be, actually. It took a dozen re-writes to do the “Arcana in Balance” post (I’ll updating and reprising that series here later this year.) Since coming out secular, it has been easier to deal with this card. It is even easier still since Johanne Dinali explaned the card in her twitter feed as the keeper of traditions, like a grandfather or a shaman.

Here, I get the word teacher very strongly from this card. It still has undertones of rules and conventions because the Professor teaches discipline and ethics and how to deal with mutation super powers. It has the same threads of mystery and power. All that Professor X has learned has been long and hard-won….and about mysterious powers. So yes, the Hierophant is the keeper of rules, traditions, social conventions….but to teach them. He teaches mysteries through the same, not just all law and order. It is a subtle, even nonexistant distinction to those who embrace religion, perhaps. To those of us who have experienced and deliberately, mindfully left mainstream religion, it is an important one. The hierophant is more kindly kindly monk-teacher-scribe than lay-down-the-law, missals and diatribes Pope. Professor X and the heart of the Hierophant card is more like teaching us to find and use our X-men powers than it is law-and-order, lock-em-up and throw away the key. The Hierophant is a spiritual teacher – not a religious officer, judge, jury and executioner.

I was browsing for a quote to post with the card as I often do on Instagram (@Taocraft.Tarot) This one by Thich Nhat Hahn caught my eye:

“Doubt in my tradition is something that is very helpful. Because of doubt, you can thirst for more and you will get a higher kind of proof”

That resonates with teaching in a very real world way on multiple levels for me. If we go back to my personal religious issues (obviously not something that will relate to everyone, but shout out to all the ex-vangelicals out there) anything worth learning will stand up to doubt and questioning. Christianity, for me, disappeared in a poof of dust at every question, every doubt. Taoism has stood up through everything life has thrown at me. Tarot has never ending wisdom so far for me AND my clients. That isn’t bragging about my skill…it is bragging about what a reliable, testable, doubt-and-question-tolerant tool Tarot has proven itself to be in my experience.

That is just from the one sided perspective of a student. I’ve taught. This card and this quote has something to say to teachers as well: Questions and doubts are a wonderful thing. When I was teaching Kung Fu and Tai Chi I LOVED it when students had questions. They took the whole class to some really cool wonderful places…to hell with what I had planned. When students question us and doubt us and push us….they are doing US, the teachers and enormous favor. They are showing us the dead spots that need pruned away. They are showing us the empty gaps that need feed. If I don’t know an answer, it is only an embarrassment if I fail to try and find and answer or at least try to point the student in the direction of other possible sources for their answer.

When Professor Hierophant rolls in to a reading, it is a good time to ask questions, face our doubts, test the rules, then follow those guides and lessons that prove trustworthy.

Unsurprisingly, given his choice of Professor X, the artist makes teaching a primary focus, instead of a supporting focus behind the paternal / protector emphasis of the Emperor card.

Deck: Heart of Stars Third edition by Thom Pham, used with permission.