Psychic - the "P" Word

There's a wonderful piece by Mary K. Greer on her tarot blog, about how tarot readers describe themselves. For example, some describe themselves as "psychic", some as "intuitive", and still others describe what they do as "therapeutic." The entire article, plus comments (including one of my own) bears reading in detail. But the following comment by Mary is particularly noteworthy:

Unfortunately, very few of us can be truly psychic “on demand.” It tends to be stronger at certain times than others. Psychic readers have to appear as if they’re “on” all the time, which leads to a lot of abuse of the credulity of the public - such as using suggestive generalities and other tricks in place of real insights - sometimes without even realizing what they are doing.

I do not claim to be psychic. Mostly, my readings deal with where a person is right now, and how that might have a bearing on the future. My aim is to empower people to be able to deal with what the future brings. Or as Mary so eloquently puts it: Tarot helps you meet whatever comes in the best possible way.

There's little doubt that "psychic" sells, and the fact that I steadfastly refuse to use the "P" word in my advertising, web site, and elsewhere probably harms my business. But if that's the price I pay for my "no B.S." approach, then so be it. I've seen how a tarot reading can benefit people, and I simply cannot allow myself not to help anyone who needs a reading. That's one reason I have my "pay what you will" policy. Also, I hope that even though I don’t claim to be able to predict the winning lottery numbers, I’ll still attract the occasional “average Joe (or Jane)” and be able to convince them that there is much to gain from my kind of reading.

A "cuddlier" Marseille deck?

I currently read exclusively with the Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille. It's just so darned honest, bawdy and irreverent. It's the "no BS" deck!

The Noblet is not for everyone, though. If you'd like a "cuddlier" deck, I think the Tarot de Marseille by Spanish publisher Fournier might be just the ticket. The lines of the Fournier follow those of the Nicholas Conver Marseille, so it reads like the originals (unless you find the original coloring to be important in reading), but it has contemporary coloring, giving a different feel. It is the deck that I started reading with when I began my study of Marseilles.

The two cards shown here are The Hermit from the Jean Noblet then from the Fournier.

If you read with the Minor Arcana, you may find the fact that each suit has a different background color to be useful. Some people have pointed out that the intensity of the coloring can be a little inconsistent, but I have not found that to be a problem.

There do seems to be a few editions of this deck available. There's even a mini version, although some have commented that some of the resizing may not have been done proportionally, leading to some distortion (I read that the coins are not perfectly round, for example).

You can see images of the entire deck here.

This deck is available at Tarot Garden or in Europe from Alida.

Ooops - let's try MySpace again!

Looks like I contravened Facebook's terms of service and my account was terminated! I feel so embarrassed. While I was setting up my profile there, I had posted a minimal amount of information, but I did mention right there on the front page that I was a professional tarot reader, and I put the link to my website. So, it probably looked like the account was created purely for commercial reasons. With all the spam flying about on MySpace, I can understand their point of view. I'm in the process of creating a profile there again, but I'll make sure I play by the rules this time. I've used the same profile name, so the link from earlier should still work.

And While I'm at it....Facebook!

I thought that as I had added myself to MySpace, I'd also create a Facebook profile. Again, please feel free to add me as a friend.

My new MySpace Page

I just wanted to let anyone who's reading this know that I have at last created a MySpace page! You can find it here. If you're on MySpace, please feel free to send me a friend request.

About My Tarot Deck Of Choice: The Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille (Part 1)

This is the first installment of what promises to be a series of pieces about my tarot deck of choice: The Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille.

This 78 card tarot deck was faithfully restored by Frenchman Jean-Claude Flornoy in 2007, following an earlier hand stenciled restoration of the Noblet's Major Arcana (the tarot's "trumps").

There is only one original set of these cards still in existence, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale (National Library) in France. Unfortunately, that deck is missing the six to ten of swords. Flornoy re-created these to conform with the graphics of the rest of the deck and after consulting contemporary designs.

It is the earliest example of the Tarot de Marseille in existence, dating from around 1650, so it had been out of print for over 300 years. It is thus free from the many layers of clutter that adorns so many more modern tarot decks.

I have to thank my friend Enrique Enriquez who introduced me to the Jean Noblet Tarot in his e-book Looking at the Marseilles Tarot that I recently reviewed here. I was attracted to its lack of pretension and its sometimes bawdy and irreverent imagery. I instantly bonded with the deck.

You can find out more about these cards at Jean-Claude's site. It is well worth taking a virtual stroll through to learn about the history of the deck, and see images, both from the original deck and the restoration.

If you are interested in purchasing the deck for yourself, it can be found at The Tarot Garden.

So you want to learn to read tarot cards?

Before I start this review, I should say that I have nothing to personally gain from recommending the following book. The author has become a good friend and mentor. What's contained in the book is the key to the way I read tarot cards, so I'm essentially giving away my greatest secret. Still, if you want to learn how to read tarot, I don't think you could do any better than to start with this book.

Review: Looking at the Marseilles Tarot by Enrique Enriquez

I approach this review as someone who tried numerous times over the years to learn to read the Tarot. Every time I failed, because most methods rely on having to learn predefined card meanings, and that approach just did not work for me. Thus, the blurb from the publisher, Minds Eye View, for Looking at the Marseilles Tarot – Notes on Tarot’s Optical Language by Enrique Enriquez, intrigued me:

If you've avoided learning a Tarot system because "there's too much to memorize", you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised when you discover that you can start almost immediately, using the simple approach Enrique lays out for you in this easy-to-read and entertaining e-book.

This 33-page e-book is actually the lecture notes from a class that Enrique taught. I will get my negative comments out of the way first: I did not find this book “easy-to-read”, at least not at first. While I could get a sense that there was some great information within its pages, its somewhat academic language almost scared me off prematurely. I ended up sending an e-mail to Enrique explaining my difficulties and asking for some help, and this started a little flurry of e-mails between the two of us. Enrique, so generous with his valuable time, calmed my anxiety with a little series of exercises that got me off to a fantastic start. Please do not let my problem, or this description of it, put you off buying the book. To me, it was a revelation.

Briefly, Enrique’s approach to reading the Tarot involves forgetting about those canned descriptions and meanings that comprise most books on the subject, and using the images on the cards themselves to create a narrative we can apply to the particular situation in which we are interested.

To do this, Enrique recommends using the Tarot de Marseille, and more specifically, the Jean Noblet Tarot, an early Marseille type tarot. The reason, Enrique explains, is that the Marseille tarots are free of the layers of imagery that have been added by more recent authors to ensure copyright or to push personal theories. While you could use any tarot deck, a Marseille-style tarot works particularly well for Enrique’s approach.

Don't be concerned by the fact that the Minor Arcana in such a deck is free of the type of unambiguous images that appear in a deck such as the Rider-Waite. Enrique explains that this can work in our favor, and with a bit of work we can still find meanings in the seemingly abstract nature of these cards. This can be done at a later stage, however; we can start using the cards from the Major Arcana right away to give readings, and work on the Minor Arcana if and when it feels right. I have to say that I did not find this stressed in the book; correspondence with Enrique made this point clear for me.

Using a “traditional” tarot course, one has to learn a set of “meanings” for each card before even thinking about doing a reading. Either that or you have to keep consulting a book while doing a reading. With an understanding of the common-sense approach described in this book, you could start with readings almost immediately.

I would describe this book as good for complete beginners, for those who are frustrated with trying to learn card-meanings and those who want to try a radically different approach to tarot readings. I think it would be more useful to beginners if Enrique added a supplement to this book to include some general advice about the process of performing readings, although the book does contain some examples of readings.

Obtain Looking at the Marseilles Tarot by Enrique Enriquez from http://www.mindseyeview.com/marseilles-tarot.html