Is it in the cards for you?

I’ve recently begun to re-examine my relationship with one of my divination tools, the Tarot. When we began our shamanic apprenticeship earlier this year, one of our tasks was to learn a card deck or some form of divination. I had looked into runes, I Ching, astrology and numerology among other things. Ultimately, I decided to stick with a card deck, the Universal Waite Tarot, in particular. There were many “flavors” of the Tarot to work with, some based on various cultures, mythologies, shamanic traditions, and nature. I decided that I would stick with the most well-known and widely accepted. I wanted to work with a deck that most people could relate to or least had heard of. My decision came a time in my apprenticeship where I felt like I had to somehow prove to everyone in my sphere of influence (as well as myself) that shamanism and my divination skills were “real.” I felt that if I gave accurate readings from cards that people were familiar with, it would be a win for Team Spirit/Magic/Shaman vs. Team Rational Muggle. I quickly learned that Spirit spoke loudly through the cards, although not always clearly.

Tarot’s rich history and scope across many cultures lent to many interpretations of each card. While the major arcana cards – i.e. Death, The Fool, The Lovers, The Devil – remain unchanged, the lesser arcana containing the suits of cups, pentacles, swords and wands which our modern playing cards are based on often had different artistic and divinatory interpretations. Though it gained popularity in medieval Europe, earliest records of Tarot divination date back to Alexandrian Egypt and Hermes specifically. As we learned from The Emerald Tablet, the Tarot grew out of alchemy. The suits, as well as major arcana, reflect the stages of transfiguration. The major arcana represent archetypal elements and the minor arcana represent their expression in reality. By shuffling the cards, divine elements were dispersed into the physical world, according to William Hauk’s The Emerald Tablet.

It is through alchemy that our cards get their “magic.” I could definitely feel Spirit working through my cards. The cards quickly became an ally for me because whenever I would call on Spirit for guidance, an answer was always delivered in the shuffle of the deck and the flip of a card. Every time I would pull a card for someone, it often reflected their personality or situation they were inquiring about. Though often what felt like an accurate interpretation, it was not always a positive reading. Though proof that the Universe has a sense of humor and is always brutally honest, I was getting frustrated in being Mr. Gloom and Doom. If the person I was reading for was someone who put all of their faith in divination and did not believe they can change their future outcomes, I often found myself discounting my abilities to read the cards, even though we both knew deep down that the cards were right.

Not only were my frustrations in giving negative divinations, but I had a hard time crafting “the Big Picture” I would put together from either the three or four cards that I would pull. I found myself going back to the book that gave divinatory interpretations of each card quite often. The Universal Waite Tarot that I used had several meanings for most cards, and sometimes they were contradictory. Also, when reading the Tarot, if the card is reversed when you pull it, it takes on a different interpretation, sometimes the opposite meaning and sometimes to just a lesser degree. It was quite confusing! I would lose the immediacy of giving my “gut feeling” interpretation of the cards.

Arthur Edward Waite was a respected Hermetic researcher. In 1910 he revised the Tarot and removed outside influences to reinstate their esoteric meanings which established the tarot as the “unbound book” of Hermes. “Waite believed that the original intent of the images was to guide the initiate through alchemical transformation as well as provide a roadmap for the perfected Astral Body,” says Hauk in The Emerald Tablet.

I decided to check out other decks. If the images on the cards are catalysts to the alchemical process, I wanted to look for other decks with richer, more layered images. I also want to find a deck where I have more liberty to give my own interpretations, rather than deciphering which of the multiple divinations in the Waite Tarot best applied to the person I was doing a reading for. I’ve ordered an Egyptian Toth Tarot deck, the Voyager Tarot, and a Shapeshifter Tarot deck. Hopefully they will arrive this week.