101 Reasons You Need a Tarot Reading
The answer you seek is seeking you.
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“Now, it is the Arcana which stimulate us and at the same time guide us in the art of learning. In this sense, the Major Arcana of the Tarot are a complete, entire, invaluable school of meditation, study, and spiritual effort,” — the ‘Unknown Friend,’ writing in Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism.
Resonant World #103
After performing a run of three-card micro-readings for Resonant World subscribers (an offer still open to members of the Resonance Council), I remembered how utterly cool the Tarot is as a tool for connecting with deeper (or higher?) dimensions of ourselves.
I therefore felt inspired to remind everyone that you can book a full 90-minute deep dive Tarot reading by emailing me. (Details on practicalities here).
I plan to experiment with introducing an optional one-week and three-month short follow-up, to explore how the significance of the reading may evolve in the aftermath, and help integrate the insights and action points it generated.
Meanwhile, Genevieve, Matilda and I are making our annual pilgrimage to Medicine Festival from tomorrow. We can’t wait! (Resonant World#2: Notes from Medicine Festival). Then I’ll be back to work on preparing a special series of four podcasts on foundational concepts in consciousness work recorded earlier this year with my great friends Roberta Boyce and Dallas Gudgell, for launch in September. More details soon.
And if you’re wondering whether a Tarot reading is for you, here are some possibilities to consider1:
The Fool is inviting you on a new adventure.
Strength wants to show you how to own your power.
The Empress wants to share her sensual abundance through you.
You’re too stuck in your left brain to see what’s staring you in the face.
The Emperor can help you get a grip.
Ninety minutes of attuned multi-dimensional communication is balm for the soul.
You’r,e a coach, facilitator, therapist or healer and want to start acquiring some basic practices for using Tarot to enrich your work.
You can sense your Higher Self is looking for a new way to make contact.
You recognise how powerful the field effect generated by two people focused on the same shared healing intention can be.
You already speak the language of dreams, and you want to learn a new dialect.
You need clarity.
As a student of quantum social change, you’re intrigued by the kind of non-local effects a Tarot reading generates. Every. Single. Time.
Even if you haven’t yet read all 670 pages of Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, by the ‘Unknown Friend’, you’re aware that Father Bede Griffiths called the book “the last word in wisdom.”
You’re prepared to hear answers you weren’t expecting.
You’re awakening to the role of inter-generational and collective trauma in your life, and want to gain insights into how to transmute it.
The Sun is ready to rejuvenate you with its energy.
You’ve scoured your favourite New Age shop but never reached the Tarot shelf.
You’re ready to be delighted by a process that defies rational explanation.
You can’t decide between two options.
The Princess of Cups is inviting you to release your co-dependency.
You need the Seven of Cups to help transmute an addiction.
You get goosebumps when a deep truth lands in you.
You recognise reality is a lot stranger than it seems.
You want a new perspective on an old conundrum.
The Prince of Disks wants to help you smash through obstacles.
You’re ready to look at what’s really holding you back.
You’ve been talking endlessly about a painful situation and need something new to cut through the story like a blade.
You love the story of Carl Jung and the golden scarab.
The Queen of Disks wants to show you how to take care of yourself.
The Devil is waiting to give you permission.
The Tower can reframe an apparent calamity.
You love how the cards seem to speak to one another.
You’re afraid of what the cards might tell you.
You like to feel infused with a sense of the possible.
There’s no feeling quite like watching the first card turn.
You think Tarot is a load of twaddle and couldn’t possibly help you.
You suspect that you won’t be able to figure out where you’re going without knowing where you’ve been.
You’re exploring transpersonal energies and want a helping hand.
You’re trying to get in touch with your purpose.
You want a new creative well to draw from.
You want to let go.
Your sex life needs a lift and you dare to believe the Prince of Cups can show you the way.
You need the Swords and Wands to show you how you’re sabotaging yourself.
You want insight into why your relationship isn’t working.
You want to know how to find a partner.
The Wheel of Fortune is ready to catapult you to the next level.
You love the fact that an Egyptologist named Frieda Harris designed the deck we’ll be using, in a process that took years longer than it was supposed to.
You like the idea of following in a tradition that dates back to at least the fourteenth century, and perhaps long before.
You’ve earned a gift to yourself.
You understand the power of archetypes to initiate change.
You’re exploring correspondences between Tarot and Kabbalah.
You want the Moon to light a path through your unconscious.
The Hermit is inviting you to discover your inner light.
The Lovers are pointing to a new beginning.
You’re intrigued by the fact that in 1781, a French freemason named Antoine Court de Gebelin revealed that the symbolism in the Tarot was derived from the Egyptian mysteries. Or so he claimed.
You need the Disks to help you ground.
You need the Cups to help you relate.
You need the Swords to clear your mind.
You need the Wands to get you into action.
You see the Ace of Cups as a symbol of the Holy Grail.
You’re on the threshold of a new phase in your journey of awareness.
You’re ready to observe the physical sensations each card evokes in you.
You love Tibetan symbolism.
You’re following a trail of synchronicities that suggest a reading would be beneficial.
You had a reading years ago that freaked you out and have wondered how to integrate that experience ever since.
You’ve meditated on a trump of the Major Arcana and it opened a doorway into a liminal realm.
You’ve spent years exploring Eastern mysticism, and want to experience a taste of the Western occult tradition.
You loved Patrick Harpur’s The Philosopher’s Secret Fire.
The Magician is ready to help you own your mastery.
The High Priestess wants to open your intuitive channel.
You want the cards to challenge you.
You’re intrigued by the lavish imagery of the Thoth deck.
You understand the concept of Kairos.
You need medicine for the broken heart shown in the Three of Swords.
You’re exploring correspondences between Tarot and astrology.
You want to know if' it’s time to give up or keep going.
You wrongly assume the Death card means physical death.
You love the Tarot scene in Octopussy.
You can’t believe serious-minded people would take Tarot seriously.
Reading this, you can sense the energy of the cards beckoning.
You’re ready to let the Hanged Man change your perspective.
You could listen to
talk about Tarot all day.The Eight of Disks is ready to show you that patience bears fruit.
You’ve lost touch with your inner artist and want to reconnect.
You’ve been developing your subtle competencies and a Tarot reading feels like a natural next step.
You love that ‘aha’ feeling when a new insight emerges.
You believe the Tarot contains the lost wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus.
You don’t believe that the Tarot contains any lost wisdom particularly, but like the idea of a bespoke experience dedicated to advancing your personal process.
You read the Tarot and want to see how someone else does it.
The cards are less important to you than the attuned communication they support.
You want the Four of Disks to teach you about boundaries.
The Chariot is ready to tell you Go, Go, Go!
The Three of Wands wants to fill you with well-being.
You’ve dabbled in various oracle decks for years, but have never approached the Tarot proper.
You could imagine saving an image of the most potent card in the reading as a screensaver on your phone, especially if it’s a hot Queen or King, Prince or Princess, or combination of the two (The World, Art).
Tarot feels illicit, dangerous, and sexy to you.
You’ve had a few quickfire readings, but never done a deep dive.
You like to approach the cards with reverence, and co-create “oracular space.”
With the world the way it is, we need all the help we can get.
Because it’s not too late to stick it to the soft-handed burghers who banned Tarot in the Swiss city of Berne in 1367.
Because you know it’s time.
Note from the Editor: It’s a huge boost when people become paid subscribers, and support of any amount affirms that my mission to serve the global community of trauma healing practitioners has value. Thank you!
I loved the micro-reading I got from Matthew! Short and sweet, with the meaning of the cards rippling through days after. Plus, it helped me see the Devil card in a whole new light 💚
I thoroughly recommend Matthew’s Tarot reading, indeed I have written about in my substack as it changed my life for the better, even though it also predicted the pain and suffering with cancer I would have to go through first. Don’t think a spiritual life is all roses roses!