by Marcus Katz
Tarot readers often talk about the card as “transformation” but what is that really? It comes from two Latin phrases, trans- and form respectively, meaning “across” and “shape.”
So, it means to change something from one shape to another, to change its appearance or structure without changing what it is.
A simple example is when water transforms from a liquid to a gas when we boil it—it is still the same molecules, just in a different state.
So, the card is saying that wherever it appears in the spread is where we need to change the shape of things; not add something or take it away, but work with what we have (even if it is not a lot).
The Death card is saying you can only change things around, there is nothing new to come or anything of which you should get rid.
When we consider Death in the time-related parts of a reading, in the past position of a spread, Death tells us that we must change the shape of our memories. We cannot add anything into the past nor take anything away. In a practical sense, we should perhaps make some memories bigger than others by recalling them as more important and positive.
However, it is that we think about the past, we must change the shape of it. As another example, stretching a bad memory further back or bringing a good memory from childhood closer towards us. We can massively change that landscape, even if we cannot add or remove anything from what has already happened.
In the future position, Death tells us that we might want to stop trying to find something new and simply start to re-arrange what we have already. In a practical sense, it is making changes in the workplace without looking (yet) for a new job, or similarly in a relationship. Whatever we want in the future, the card is telling us that before we go there, we should transform what we already have now. And perhaps strangely, it’s often that new opportunities present themselves in the future when we simply reorganise the present.
In the present position, Death tells us that we are already being changed, but because it is not dramatic like the Tower or subtle like the High Priestess, we probably will not see it yet. It tells us in the present that we are changing the shape of our relationship to everything, and this is always inevitable and always happening, so if anything, we should let it happen.
In a practical sense, Death in the present is a card that tells us to notice what is the same but different and in doing so, realise how far we have come … and how far we might yet go.
We will now take a moment, having dealt with Death, to align ourselves to the elements of the tarot before moving on through a selection of Tarosophy methods for relationship readings.
A Brief Interlude Method to
Align your Life to the Elements
This is a simple balancing exercise for times when you feel out of alignment with your own time-stream.
Take your tarot deck and lay out the four aces face-up to four quarters of your table.
Take the sixteen court cards in your hands face down. Put to one side the twenty-two majors and forty minors.
Consider your life as it is now and say this, very deliberately, whilst also shuffling the court cards:
The Ace of Wands is my Will in this World, the fire I bring from above, chosen for me and me alone.
The Ace of Cups is my Love in this World, the water of grace I draw from the depths, given to me and me alone.
The Ace of Swords is my Vision of this world, a mirror, a blade, an edge for my use alone.
The Ace of Pentacles is my Body of this world, the earth of my soul I manifest, as me and me alone.
Place the shuffled sixteen court cards in a small pile and place them in the centre of the four aces, face down.
Take a moment, then turn the pile of sixteen court cards face up to discover the bottom card, saying:
And this is who I need to be right now to balance these elements.
Consult the various interpretations of the court cards given throughout this present book to discover what sort of qualities you need activation through action in your life right now, to bring yourself back to the centre of the circle.
A Tarosophy Relationship Pattern Method
This method is ideal for a quick reading for new or stagnant relationships, or when the reader/querent is wondering why certain patterns of relationship are repeated.
In this method, we use the deck itself to configure the spread required, as it is considered its own language. So, if we want to look at the basis of a relationship, we use the first three cards of the suit of cups—ace, 2, and 3—as the basis of our spread. The deck can be used in this way as an infinitely configurable spread generator for any situation the time traveller may experience.
Take your Ace of Cups, 2 of Cups, and 3 of Cups out of your deck. Place them in a triangle, with the Ace of Cups at the top, the 2 of Cups to your left and the 3 of Cups to your right.You can also simply write or imagine the three cup cards used as the layout and then use the entire deck including those cards, but I prefer to extract those energies as the template and then read from the remaining deck.
Shuffle the remaining deck, considering your relationships or those of your querent/client.
Lay out a card, placing it above the Ace of Cups, straight, saying, “This is where your passion is rooted.”
Lay out a card, placing it diagonally 45 degrees, tilted to the right, next to the 2 of Cups on the left, saying “This is how your passion passes into relationship with individuals.”
Lay out a third card, placing it diagonally 45 degrees, tilted to the left, next to the 3 of Cups on the right, saying, “This is how your relationship to individuals passes into groups of friends, and communities, the workplace, etc.”
You can also read the three cards in relationship to each other, showing how the relationship to individuals compares to groups, etc.
Intermediate Variation
A very powerful and profound addition can be to place the 10 of Cups in the middle of the triangle at the beginning, and then lay out the three cards as above, and place a fourth card on top of the 10 of Cups in the centre of the triangle, saying finally, “And this is how your relationship to everyone and everything was formed by your family upbringing.”
Advanced Variation
You can also place another round of cards at right angles to the diagonals, building a star layout. The next round of cards at right angles are “This is how you block these relationships [within yourself, with individuals, with groups],” then the next round, which are placed again at diagonals, are “This is how you can incorporate and make use of these challenges to improve your relationships [within yourself, with individuals, with groups].”
His and Hers Method
For general relationship readings, a quick method is to shuffle your deck, split it roughly into two piles (one for each person), shuffle each pile whilst thinking of each partner and then take the top card from both decks.
Place these two cards to the left and right with a gap between them.
This tells you what is going on for each person in the relationship on the surface.
A court card indicates the personality traits the person is expressing in the relationship, a minor card shows the situation the person tends to provoke or encounter in the relationship, and a major card reveals the archetypal pattern that is playing out through that person in the relationship.
Put the two remaining piles together again, shuffle, and select the top and bottom cards, placing them between the two separate cards in a column.
The top card tells you what can be aimed for in the relationship between the two, and the bottom card what resources can be drawn upon to achieve that aim. Nice, quick, and simple.
Intermediate Version
You can also split the deck into the majors, minors, and court cards, split those three piles into two each and then pull one card from each for each partner, showing the t
hree facets of the relationship from either side (i.e. a court, minor, and major for each partner).
Then put the remaining cards from the three piles together and draw a resource and aim card after shuffling for the relationship.
We will now look at two reading methods that are specifically time-based; in this case, for performance at the new moon and once a year at the summer solstice.
New Moon Method
This method is suitable for when you seek to open an opportunity and do something different in your life. The new moon is a good time to do so and this method is specifically attuned to this time of the lunar month.
You will just need three cards and a few minutes on the night of the eve of the new moon, and a few minutes on the day of the new moon.
You will also need to do something in your life, as Tarosophy is “tarot to engage life, not escape it.”
The Method
Sit at your usual place of tarot reading, altar, or a regular table. Ideally, this should be just before you go to bed. Visualise a black circle (or draw one or use something that is a black circle) and imagine it contains all possibilities.
See it on your table and imagine that tomorrow an “eye” will open during the day and let something new through into your life.
Shuffle your tarot deck and lay out one card to the left of the circle and one card to the right, both face-up.
The left card shows something you need to face in your life or come to better terms with that has been hidden.
The right card shows something that you need to look out for tomorrow as a way of doing something about the left card. It shows how you must nail down the situation or hook it into your life.
Look at the two cards together until they have something simple to tell you that makes sense.
When you have that, for example, “You are holding back too much (Chariot) and should look for a moment when you are doing too much (10 of Wands),” draw the next card out of the deck but place it face down in the centre of the circle.
Leave the reading as it is and go to sleep.
The following morning, on the new moon day, turn up that middle card and it will tell you what to say today when that situation arises that helps you face what has been hidden.
In this way, we create a new opportunity in our lives to make a significant change, on a new moon day (or night) which supports such transformative work.
It might be in our example that we turn up the Hermit card and that tells us that we must say “I need time to myself.”
So, we would look out that day for a moment when we feel as if we are carrying too much (10 of Wands) and then say out loud, “Hey! I need a time out from this, leave me alone for a bit” and that will lock into our need to face the Chariot challenge in our lives.
Most of all, it creates a new opportunity that will open all sorts of things that will follow it.
You may also discover that this simple change in your life acts out over twenty-eight days before coming to a new state, with the full moon.
Advanced tarot time travellers will see that this simple method is constructed of the Hebrew letter corresponding to the Moon, QOPH, spelt in full as Qoph + Vau + Peh. These three letters in turn provide the transformation’s operating steps.
Travel Through Dark Times
Take your deck and consider the darkest times of your day, your week, your month, your year, and your life. Shuffle whilst contemplating how utterly hopeless each of those moments seemed at the time. Consider if you are performing this spread on the winter solstice day itself, how it is indeed the shortest and darkest day of the year.
When you are ready, turn your deck face up and carefully go through the cards in order until you find the Sun card. Remove it as well as the two cards either side of it. Place them in front of you.
Now shuffle the rest of the deck and ponder if those two cards either side of the Sun are the hidden light you can now gain. Where might be the darkness in which they are to be discovered?
Turn the deck face up again and this time search for the World card. The sun and the earth are powerfully straining at this time of year, so we look for the darkness in the World card (it also corresponds to Saturn, for those of an astrological nature). Take the World card and the two cards either side of it, and place them below the Sun and its pair of cards.
Read the card to the left of the Sun and the left of the earth together as “This light is discovered in this darkness.” Do the same for the cards to the right, above, and below.
36. Summer Solstice Spread.
Llewellyn’s Classic Tarot by Moore and Smith, 2014.
For example, if I had the Queen of Wands and the Tower above and below on the left, that could be read as: “The light of my inner compassion comes from the darkness of shock and sudden change.” On the right-hand side, if I had the 6 of Swords above and the 2 of Wands below, I would read: “The light of my self-sufficiency and forward-thinking comes from the darkness of everything that I did not accomplish … yet.”
You can make powerful affirmations for yourself using this method, ready for the year until the next solstice.
We will now conclude our chapter on modern methods with two simple but elegant ways to use the tarot for yourself and in time travel.
Your Tarot Superpower
What does the tarot tell us about our superpowers? Try this one-moment method and you may be surprised to discover a secret to your skills.
Consider something you do very well or something other people say you are skilled at.
It can be anything from knitting to looking after people, from party-planning to keeping things tidy. It can be any skill, no matter how big or small. You should do it well enough that it is common knowledge to others.
Consider it and ask, “What is the essential secret to this skill?”
Take a deck, shuffle, and pull a card.
Let us say we ask about our skill, high productivity, i.e., doing many tasks at once and accomplishing a lot of things simultaneously. What is the essential secret to this skill?
We get a major arcana card, the Empress; a card of creativity and enjoyment, of nature and pregnancy. So, the essential secret to doing a lot, is to do what you enjoy, what is creative, and what nourishes yourself and others. In effect, do what is most natural—the Empress.
Once you know the secret of your own superpower, you can repeat this exercise for anyone else who has a desirable quality and discover the secret of their success for yourself.
Tarot Time Travelling
Every so often, spend a moment and strongly imagine that you can send a message back in time one year to yourself that includes anything you need to know to avoid any serious mistakes. Visualise this with concentration in whatever way feels right to you. We imagine it as casting a stream of blue light through a swirling time-tunnel. When you have done this, draw three cards from your tarot deck to immediately receive the message from your future self a year ahead of you. The more regularly you practice this powerful method, the more you will know where you are going in life and get there.
Conclusion
As we reach the end of this selection of contemporary and cutting-edge methods for tarot, we would like to remind all readers that they should never build doors out of the keys. Do not make tarot difficult for yourself. If you are stuck, ask the tarot, if you are confused, ask the tarot—learn to listen, and it will teach you everything you need to know.
Here is what they might say about the concerns that some readers think could hold them back, starting with the Magician to the World, and what the Fool answers at the end.
I don’t have the skill.
I don’t have intuition.
I don’t have experience.
I have no power.
I don’t know the rules.
I don’t love tarot enough.
&nb
sp; I don’t go far enough.
I am frightened.
I am alone.
It goes around and around in my head.
I am unbalanced.
I can’t read reversals.
I’m scared of the Death card.
The spirits do not talk to me.
People think it’s the work of the devil.
I keep learning, but then it all falls apart.
I’m hopeless.
I am not deep enough.
I am not bright enough.
Everyone will judge me.
I’m not as good as/like everyone else.
“You know what?” says the Fool, “I don’t care. Just read your tarot. They are the keys to your freedom, not the locked doors.”
[contents]
173 Italo Calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destinies (London: Harcourt Brace, 1997), 113.
174 See Marcus Katz, Tarosophy (Keswick, UK: Forge Press, 2016).
175 See Marcus Katz, NLP Magick (Keswick, UK: Forge Press, 2017).
13
Time Travel Guide
The true Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs. Given the inward meaning of its emblems, they do become a kind of alphabet which is capable of indefinite combinations and makes true sense in all.
—A.E. Waite, Pictorial Key to the Tarot
In this final chapter, we will briefly summarise several of the key concepts we have discovered in our travels across time and provide a closing selection of methods for the tarot time traveller. Our journey has been bumpy, and we have rapidly made our way across time, so we should take a moment to take stock and recover before going on our way.
Cartomantic Correspondence
As we have seen, there have been different systems for reading cards, whether playing cards, tarot, Lenormand, or any variety of pictures on cardboard. In Appendix 2: Tarot Time Convertor we have provided a list of correspondences between the Lenormand card inserts and tarot cards so we can see what happens when we compare and contrast systems. This is called correspondence.