Tarot Tips: How to Help Querents with Low Self-Esteem
Published: Thu, 10/01/15
Many of my querents seem to come for a Tarot reading when they're depressed... You're receiving this email
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Newsletter of The Tarot School
http://TarotSchool.com ISSN: 1529-0565 Vol. 7 #9 / October 1, 2015
In this Issue: - Welcome
- Tarot Tip: Tarot Reading Tabulation Technique
- Tarot School Aphorism
- What's Gnu?
- PsychWise: How to Help Querents with Low Self-Esteem - Best Practices: Terms of Service, Privacy and Refund Policies
- Upcoming Events Welcome to a new issue of Tarot Tips!
And a special welcome to our new subscribers.
As we close in on Harvest Time, it seems signs of welcoming in the end of the year are all around. But we don’t want to think about that too soon! For some of you this may be the busiest month of the year. More festivals, fairs and parties seem to occur in October than any other month of the year, probably because it is a time when there are back-to-back reasons to celebrate. In that case, you might want to check out the excellent article, 22 Suggestions for Offering Readings at Parties, Expos and Psychic Fairs on our website at: http://www.tarotschool.com/Readings.html This time of year is about finding the good in others and ourselves. In this issue we have a lot to share with you related to quantity, quality and goodness. The tip for this issue is all about adding and tabulating, Dr. G – Elinor Greenberg, our in-house psychotherapist, shares a method of finding the best qualities in those with low self-esteem who show up at your table, and the Best Practices column shares much information on the topic of policies for the professionally-inclined reader. So much information in this packed issue! Happy Samhain/Halloween! And one more thing...
We recently had the pleasure of being guests on Andrew McGregor's excellent show, The Hermit's Lantern. He caught up with us to talk about tarot and our combined 100+ years of experience. In a bit of turnabout Wald spent a lot of time interviewing him, which was also quite fun. We talk about magic, life, death, and the limits we live by which we don't even know are there. There's a link to the replay (along with other appearances we've made in the past) on the Interviews page on our website: http://tarotschool.com/Interviews.html Enjoy! Yours truly on the tarot journey,
Ruth Ann, Wald, Gina & Elinor
Tarot Tips is here to help you with the practical side of your Tarot journey. In order to take the greatest
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Spread the experience of tarot - share this newsletter with other Tarot Enthusiasts! Tarot Tip
TAROT READING TABULATION TECHNIQUE
Techniques are as plentiful as tarot practitioners but there are general preparatory steps to beginning a reading: • Express a focus intention or pose a question. If necessary, take some time for clarification. • The next order of business is to thoroughly shuffle the cards. • While the shuffling action is underway, have the querent focus on their question or issue. Shuffling can be done for any length of time and come to a stop whenever it feels right to do so. Or you can get the querent involved and have them tell you when to stop. • The next step is to cut the deck into several stacks of cards. You may leave the stacks and draw cards off the top of each one, or reassemble them into a complete pack. Cutting the deck should be definite and clean so as not to lose focus on the matter at hand, and to prevent cards from spilling out and falling to the floor. If you “mis-cut,” repeat the process. Now it starts to get interesting! The general standard beginning becomes individual style and technique. The tone of the reading will be set by the reader’s unique divination method. From here, the cards are dealt into a spread of the reader’s choice or design. You can choose to employ a significator, Birth Card sets or the querent’s zodiac sign, and add supporting faculties such as intuition or psychic ability. Here is a technique you may find very useful... Once all the cards are in their positions, observe the cards and tabulate the majority of suits, numbered cards, and Court Cards. When your tabulation is done, refer to the following lists for possible interpretations: Majority of Swords – Challenges, complexity, strife and melancholy Majority of Wands – Busyness, action, resistance or disagreements Majority of Cups – Goodness, excitement, happiness and cooperation Majority of Pentacles – Physical items, possessions, finances and family Majority of Majors – Uncontrollable circumstances or energy Majority of Court Cards – Social concerns or gatherings of people Majority of... Aces – Strong forces or potential Twos – Separation, polarity, change, and balance Threes – Unity, mediation, bridge or joining Fours – Reciprocation, reconciliation or connection Fives – Change, breakdown, disruption, progression Sixes – Composition, enjoyment, androgyny, perfection Sevens – Embodiment, initiation, unpredictability, instability Eights – Organization, transformation, information, wisdom, and prudence Nines – Finality, limitation, strength, increase Tens – Perfection, fulfillment, completion, and encompassing The following is from The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Tradition (excerpt from The Golden Dawn as revealed by Israel Regardie, 6th Edition, Llewellyn Publications, 2002): Four Aces – Great power and force Three Aces – Riches and success Four Kings – Great swiftness and rapidity Three Kings – Unexpected meetings Fours Queens – Authority and influence Three Queens – Powerful and influential friends Four Knights – Meeting with the great Three Knights – Rank and honor Four Pages – New ideas and plans Three Pages – Society of the young Four 10s – Anxiety and responsibility Three 10s – Buying, selling, commercial transactions Four 9s – Added responsibility Three 9s – Much correspondence Four 8s– Much news Three 8s – Much journeying Four 7s – Disappointments Three 7s – Treaties and compacts Four 6s – Pleasure Three 6s – Gain and success Four 5s – Order, regularity Three 5s – Quarrels, fights Four 4s – Rest in peace Three 4s – Industry Four 3s – Resolution and determination Three 3s – Deceit Four 2s – Conference and conversations Three 2s – Reorganization and recommencement of a thing Tarot School Aphorism
THE ADVANCED ELEMENTAL ARRAY INTENSIVE TELECOURSE
If you know the story of how Wald and I met, you will have heard
about how the first time we exchanged tarot readings, we surprised each other with an almost identical original technique. It was at that moment that we knew we were meant to be together! Over the years, we've developed that technique to become what techies might call our "killer app." The Elemental Array is part of the great magical psychology of tarot. Using just the four Aces of a tarot deck, you can learn the whole range of any person's likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, habits and predilections, and their general patterns of thought, feeling and behavior. It shows you exactly why individual people act, feel, think and believe as they do. The fully developed, fully extended Advanced Elemental Array skipping Thanksgiving. You can get credit toward a Tarot School Advanced Intensive Degree, but if you're not interested in that, the course stands beautifully on it's own. If you're familiar with the basic technique from recordings or our Readers Studio presentation, this course takes that material much, much further. And if this will be your introduction to The Elemental Array, you're in for a treat -- and a wild ride! PsychWise – Tarot & Psychology Q & A
with Elinor Greenberg, PhD, CGP, CPTR FIND YOUR GOOD QUALITIES: A TAROT COUNSELING SPREAD How to Use Your Tarot Deck to Help Querents with Low Self-Esteem
QUESTION: Many of my querents seem to come for a Tarot reading when they are depressed. Some of them have lost faith in themselves and feel like everything that they do is wrong. Is there anything that I could do with a Tarot reading that might be helpful? ANSWER: Many querents come for a Tarot reading during a low point
in their life. They want reassurance that the future holds greater success and happiness than their present. Often these same querents are feeling badly about themselves because of some perceived failure: a rejection by a mate, a bad decision that led to money problems, or even just confusion about what they should do next in life. Their self-esteem and confidence are suffering as a result. As a psychotherapist, I have found that it is often useful to redirect my clients’ attention to their past successes and positive qualities in order to help them see themselves in a more realistically positive light. I thought it would be useful for Tarot readers to have a simple way of doing something similar in order to help their querents. With that in mind, I invented the following Tarot Counseling spread that I call “Find your Good Qualities.” This method takes advantage of the psychological principle that our conscious mind and our emotions are affected by whatever we choose to focus on. When we focus on something happy, we are likely to feel happy; and when we focus on something scary, we become frightened. Anything that we choose to focus on or even vividly imagine will emotionally affect us. By directing querents’ attention away from their perceived failures to their good qualities and their successes, we can help them shift to a happier and more optimistic mood and outlook. This principle can be expressed in esoteric Tarot terms as follows: Key 1 The Magician is associated with the attributes of concentration and focus. The esoteric functions of Life and Death are traditionally attributed to this card. From this point of view, The Magician card represents the idea that whatever the conscious mind focuses on, it brings to life, and whatever goes unseen is as if dead to us. Key 2 The High Priestess represents the virgin subconscious mind that takes in the impression of whatever the conscious mind focuses on. Key 3 The Empress represents the creative power of our subconscious mind that spins out the logical elaborations of the initial conscious idea planted by The Magician. My “Find Your Good Qualities” spread utilizes the above principles to redirect querents’ conscious mind (The Magician) in a more positive and useful direction so that their subconscious mind’s (The High Priestess) elaborations (The Empress’s creations) lead to a more optimistic outlook. I use the Rider/Waite/Smith deck for this method because of Smith’s evocative illustrations of the four suits’ Aces – tens. Her pictures make it easy for my querents to look through the face-up deck and choose cards that “speak” to them. INSTRUCTIONS STEP 1: PICK 2 CARDS FROM A FACE-UP DECK Have your querent look through the deck with the cards face-up and pick two cards that show or represent some things that he or she is proud of. These could be qualities or talents that the querent has, or something that the querent has accomplished in the past. STEP 2: EXPLAIN WHAT THEY MEAN Ask your querent to explain what positive qualities or events each of these cards represent. If your querent needs help explaining how these cards relate to him or her, below are some questions to ask that I have found helpful: 1. What do you see in this card? 2. How does what you see relate to your life? STEP 3: QUALITY QUERENT WOULD LIKE TO HAVE Now ask the querent to look through the face-up deck again and choose a card that shows a quality or success that he or she would like to have. You can use the previous questions from Step 2 to help your querent explain what this card represents to him or her. STEP 4: A STEP TOWARDS ACHIEVING THIS Ask your querent to shuffle the remaining deck-face down and draw a card that will represent a step he or she might take to get the quality or success that he or she would like to have. Below are some questions that I have found helpful: 1. What do you see in this card? 2. How could what you see help you get the quality you want? STEP 5: THE LAYOUT OF THE SPREAD Essentially, these 4 cards can be laid out in any way that makes sense to you. Below is the way I usually place them down. Card 3 (Want) Card 4 (Do) Cards 1 & 2 (Have) For more information: Notice what Tarot Suits the cards fall into (Wands, Cups, Swords, or Pentacles), whether they are Court Cards (Kings, Queens, Knights, or Pages) or if they are one of the 22 Major Arcana cards. These can give you insights into the querent’s strengths and what areas might need more development. AN EXAMPLE My querent Emelia came for a reading because she had just been let go from her job and wanted to know what the future held. She said that she was depressed and felt so ashamed of being fired that she did not feel able to interview for a new position elsewhere because she lacked confidence in herself. I suggested to Emelia that we try a new technique that I had developed that I thought would be useful in giving her more self-confidence. I said that if she wanted a traditional reading after, we could do that as well. Emelia agreed. Card 1 (Have): Ace of Cups Emelia said that this represented her ability to give love. She felt very confident that she was a loving and affectionate person with her family and her friends and that other people could see this in her. This made her feel proud. Card 2 (Have): Queen of Pentacles Emelia said that she identified with this Queen and saw her as calm, confident and practical. Emelia likes working with plants and seeing the garden surrounding the Queen of Pentacles reminded her that she had a “green thumb” and was a good gardener, cook and homemaker. She felt very proud of these attributes and enjoyed telling me about how she knew how to propagate many plants from cuttings. As she talked about this area of her life, her mood visibly cheered up and she sounded calmer and happier. Card 3 (Want): 3 of Pentacles Emelia said that she chose this card because she wanted to be the person standing on the bench that the other two people were listening to with respect. This felt like a problem for her. She wished that she felt the same confidence at work that she did at home. Card 4 (Do): 8 of Pentacles When Emelia saw the picture of the man working steadily at the bench hammering out pentacle after pentacle, she said that she understood what that card was saying to her. It clarified what she needed to do if she wanted to succeed at her next job. One of the criticisms that her boss at her last job had made about her work before she was fired was that she did not get enough done. Emelia admitted that she liked to socialize with her colleagues more than she actually liked doing her job. She had found it very hard to stay seated at her computer and stay focused on churning out what to her were somewhat boring and meaningless spreadsheets of numbers. As a result of this “reading,” Emelia said that she realized that she needed to find a job that was closer to her actual interests and strengths. She wanted a job in which she worked more closely with a group of people that did not require her to spend long periods of time alone at a computer. She also preferred to have a job in which she produced an actual product, instead of analyzing numbers. Further Analysis: Pentacles and Cups All of Emelia’s cards were feminine. The two suits that played a role in her reading (Cups and Pentacles) are traditionally considered to be the feminine and receptive suits of Tarot. In the Rider/Waite/Smith deck the Aces of these suits show the suit symbol resting on an open receptive hand, while the Aces of the more traditionally masculine suits of Wands and Swords show a hand actively grasping a weapon. Emelia also identified with a Queen, another personification of feminity. All of Emelia’s strengths had to do with what are traditionally considered to be feminine qualities: being loving, nurturing, and feeding living things. Her solution card, the 8 of Pentacles, was also a Pentacle, one of the feminine suits. This suggests that Emelia does not have to focus on developing a new part of her (Wands or Swords), but simply has to find a different way to express her Pentacles side that included the emotional satisfaction of Cups, her identification with the Queen of Pentacles (Competency in the practical realm), and her wish to be a respected part of a group, as in the 3 of Pentacles. In her prior job, she needed the persistence of the 8 of Pentacles, but because her work tasks lacked creativity and isolated her from others, it was a poor match for her good qualities. In addition, the side of her personality that identified with a Queen and wanted to be above the others on the bench in the 3 of Pentacles reflect her desire to be looked up to as a figure to respect, and not simply be an anonymous cog in the machine at work. For her to feel satisfied, Emelia needs to work in a group that values her good qualities and allows her to get the respect for her work that is so important to her. All of the above suggests that money and power play very little role in Emelia’s sense of job satisfaction. What she basically wants is to be a valued member of a group in which she gets to produce something tangible. A Caution: Some querents may be so depressed that they need professional psychiatric help, not just a new way to read the cards. I suggest that professional Tarot readers start to build a list of community resources that includes low cost psychotherapy, outpatient clinics, and suicide hotlines that they can share with those querents. Dr. Elinor Greenberg, PhD, CGP, CPTR is an internationally renowned Gestalt therapy trainer who specializes in teaching the diagnosis and treatment of Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid adaptations. She has been studying tarot since 1995 and is psychology consultant to The Tarot School, where she earned a Third Degree in Tarot. She is a member of B.O.T.A. (Builders of the Adytum) and has been certified as a professional tarot reader by the American Tarot Association. Best Practices for Professional Readers
TERMS OF SERVICE, PRIVACY AND REFUND POLICIES
By Gina Thies
Do your clients and business prospects know what to expect
from doing business with you? In these times of e-commerce, it is no longer enough just to explain your reading process and techniques to the divinatory arts consumer. For those practitioners who collect information from consumers for business purposes, it is necessary to investigate privacy policy laws under the FTC guidelines. This is particularly so if information collected from those under 13 are collected by an online business. Consumer privacy issues are a critical concern with respect to online and electronic activity today. In addition to Federal laws, there are state and international laws to consider. The FTC has been pretty consistent with how they protect consumer privacy rights. The age of e-commerce is quite the source of regularly introduced bills and new laws for consumer rights. When it comes to collecting and using your clients’ information, it is of the upmost importance to protect it and tell them exactly how you plan to use and protect their information with a privacy policy. We recommend that you to check with a legal advisor as to whether law in your geographical region requires this or not. When using a Terms of Service, Privacy or Refund policy, both for offline and online clients, it should be readily accessible and posted where clients have a chance to review their rights and yours. These policies typically include and disclose information and statements that pertain to access and use of a website, collection of information and the criteria for use of the site, and stipulations for refunds of purchases. Other great policies to have in place include cancellation, no-show and, of course, caveats and codes of ethics. If you choose to have these, enlist the help of a licensed professional to ensure you have all bases covered for your area of practice. An ounce of prevention, as they say, really helps in the long run. Resource: Create a free custom privacy policy for your website, blog or mobile app. https://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/ Tarot Salon
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