Hello Hopsters! 😀
So… we’ve been asked to talk about quantum leaps in our understanding of Tarot
An interesting point to ponder…
My understanding shifts and changes on a constant basis. I consider it to be an evolving process as my mind makes feedback loops from what I read and what I see in the world around me… little nudges and tweaks dotted with the odd a-ha! moment every so often. I’ve got a few ways of thinking about Tarot that I use regularly and I wrote about them fairly recently (click here if you’re nosy 😀 )
But quantum leaps…
Well… I guess they have come when I’ve thrown myself out of my comfort zone and into something that makes me think – Oh! F**K!!! Why are you doing this?! Such as my first proper paid reading job (as in being paid cash rather than cakes or books or scarves or trinkets or flowers or favours…) I got a phone call and the voice on the other end said – Am I right in thinking you read tarot?
Yes…
Then a conversation followed where they asked me to read at a psychic supper and I could hear myself saying yeah… no problem! while my head was screaming – Shut up you moron!!! What are you doing????
So… my first paid gig was back to back readings for 30 people, which I managed to somehow survive and I went home to high five myself, then wonder why I’d spent the whole week before mad dashing to the toilet (Virgo digestive system… sorry TMI! 😀 )
I do have a bit of a habit of throwing myself in at the deep end or maybe putting my head in the tiger’s jaw… I will often say yes before I give myself time to talk myself out of it because I’m quite dangerous when I think and I can talk myself out of anything… But mostly these days, my conversation with myself goes along the lines of – What’s the worst thing than can happen? Will you die?
Will I die?
No… (which on a side note is how I ended up doing stand up and also is why I’ll never end up skydiving… 😀 )
But I guess my first quantum leap in understanding Tarot came from within the pages of this book…
This is the first Tarot book I ever bought… I struggled to find a book… I’d seen a couple but they made no sense as the ones that crossed my path were all geared up for RWS… and I didn’t have a RWS… no… my first deck was that Elemental Tarot (up above) and it has its own system… But I saw this book and opened it and it was filled with pages with a big blank rectangle for you to sit your own card on… It claimed to work for every deck… So I grabbed it…
Now… when this blog hop topic came up, it occurred to me that I’d never heard anybody mention this book or met anybody who had used it, so I decided to Google it ( a luxury unavailable in my embryonic tarot reading life… 😀 ) And I had to laugh out loud as I heard it hailed as…
THE WORST BOOK ON TAROT EVER WRITTEN
and blimey! even people calling for it to be burnt!!!
Honestly!! Burning books??? What sort of sacrilege is that? Especially by those who maybe a few hundred years ago would have been heading for a similar fate… chased by villagers with pitchforks…
And I read comment after comment…
And I gave thanks that I bought it in a time before reviews…
Though actually… now I think about it… I’ve never made a decision to buy or not buy based on a review as I’m bloody lazy and who has time to read all that… there’s an epidemic of them and even reviews of reviews…I digress… I often do…
But, anyway! I waded my way through this thread and I laughed louder and louder…
I could understand where all the comments were coming from and I could even understand why it had put someone off reading tarot for nearly 20 years…
But… I don’t read books in order or as instructed… So… I did start at chapter one… and my head started to fill with all the pomp and ceremony involved and I thought…. really? this is going to take an eternity… and then it said that the book had to be followed in strict order and worked through card by card… so I did what any relatively sane person would do and I skipped straight to the last chapter and skimmed backwards… because I had cards in hand and I wanted to read there and then…
And there, tucked away in the back (which I’m guessing a lot of people missed because they dumped the book by 2nd or 3rd chapter…) there was my quantum leap…
Visualise your card and make it as big as a door and step inside… (or words loosely to that effect)
Bingo! I was in! This was easy peasy… No different to all those hours spent with Alice in Wonderland… Just slip inside and have a chat!
And I’ve done that ever since…
I’ve always been cautious about following books to the very letter… ever since Mr S showed me this many years ago…
See… the thing is with following things to the letter, is that you need to already know what you’re doing…
Mr S will often laugh at these pages and tell me of those who he knew, those who he had heard brag that they’d performed this… to the VERY letter…
So… a question for our wrangler…
Morgan… What do you think? Typo? Or Crowley humour?
To exit… you may go West or head to the Esat…
Boiiinnnggg!!!
I’M GONE!
😀
Hop now!
Arwen Lynch or Joanne Sprott will be there to catch you 😀
Or maybe you’ll land in the safety net of the mister last…
The pure and blessed way 
Great, fun, intriguing, humorous, insightful post, as always!! I need to make a point of walking into my cards a bit more often 🙂
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Thanks Olivia 🙂 yes… you should… it’s fun… the normal rules of physics don’t apply and you can fly around at will 😉
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You certainly have a way of pulling your reader in with you. I enjoy your sense of humor. Sometimes I read book reviews and think how some of those writing them must have a cob stuck up their butt or something. I think that they write the review just to feel important or something. If they can’t be constructive with their criticism, I don’t take them too seriously. Blessed Mabon, thanks for sharing with us!
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Thank you Bridgett 🙂 and a Blessed Mabon to you too 🙂 ‘cob stuck up their butt’ will have me laughing for days! I’ve not heard it put quite like that before and I’m rather enjoying it! 😀
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Following your own path is the only way to go, really. Gets too crowded and jostly otherwise 🙂
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Absolutely! 😀
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Even bad books give us a place to start from – even if it’s the last chapter 😉 Great to see such a well-loved book 🙂
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Yes, I do love that book and certainly over the years it has provided me with much entertainment and more food for thought than many allegedly good books have… There’s some nice spreads in there and occasionally I like it’s strictness as I’m usually so free flow that sometimes that almost bores me… Not sure if bore is the right word… Maybe I mean loses some of the excitement… So it’s nice every now and then to do something so structured that I can get back off the leash and appreciate the freedom again! 😀
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As always, your post had me laughing out loud, as well as saying “oh yes, that’s familiar”. Walking into cards is wonderful!
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That’s nice to hear Alison! Thanks for hopping by 🙂
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THAT is a well-thumbed book that you’ve got there! Always a great sense of fun about your blog posts – I enjoy them a great deal on the blog hop!
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Lol yes, it is well thumbed mostly because it’s also the perfect size to use as a makeshift clipboard to lean on to write stuff and then stuff the stuff inside as it also transforms into a handy folder! Glad to hear you found it fun… I was wondering how this would go down as I seem to have spent a lot of time recently not so much as with foot in mouth but more alternating which foot which was wedged there as people imagine other meanings than what I meant… Lol c’est la vie! 😀
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I always love reading your posts…they are so damn funny!
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Thanks Joanna! 😀
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I remember the first time I stepped into a card. It was Ace of Coins. The clouds starting roiling around and the hand came down and I ran out! I was afraid what would happen next. 🙂 Silly me.
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Lol I can see how that would make you run! 😀 but you say first time, so I guess you still go back… 😉
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Very enjoyable and insightful post! I think you have truly connected with the mystical powers that reside in the esat!
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Lol yup! I digested mystical eats and ates up the esat 😀 washed down with teas from the east…
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Excellent! I learned the “enter the card” technique from Mary K. Greer’s work. It really is a fabulous way to learn. And HA on the reviews. Guess that shows them. 😀
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Lol Arwen! I think the techniques you need to know come find you one way or another when you’re ready to see them… As for Ha on the reviews and showing them LOL I doubt very much that they give a flying fig! 😀
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And I finally get ’round to the end, and it’s the best stuff! As always, blessed Karen. My fav is the idea of stepping into the card. Worth the whole book just to get that perspective. Be in the story of the picture, and see what happens! Love it!
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Lol Thanks Joanne! 😀 yes that book has paid for itself many times over with just that one priceless sentence…
And I’m still laughing at its epitaph of being the worst tarot book ever written… I guess some people just haven’t read enough! 😀 though then again I do seem to have a talent for finding the good in misunderstood misfits… Ooops… I’ve gone off at a tangent now and into the secret of mine and Mr S’s long and happy marriage! 😀
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Hmm, I think I’d probably have hated that book by Chapter 2. But then again, I’m someone who got kicked out of the Hierophant card for being unseemly the first time I tried to step into it 😀
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There’s lots of info in there if you can override the tone… I find it funnier and funnier the older I get 😀 I’m giggling away to myself, wondering what you did to rattle V … Did you try the patience of a Saint? Lol what does he have under his frock? 😀
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I think it was one of those “do not question my authority” moments 😀 And maybe now I could ignore the book’s tone…
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Lol! Nice one! Sounds like he hangs out a bit too close to IV 😀 I bet he enjoyed it really 😀
I think that book is rather enjoyable if you view it as a relic from another time… 😀
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