Copper Moon E-zine

The Tarot – A Pilgrimage to the Self (Part One)

By Gede Parma

The Tarot, by its very nature, permeates the great expanse of both the human psyche and the human experience; both of which influence the other. It is a refined divinatory system which comprises 78 cards; 56 of which make up the minor arcana (the lesser/'mundane' mysteries) and 22 comprise the major arcana (the greater/'esoteric' mysteries). It is the major arcana which will inform the remainder of this article.

Various systems exist which connect and co-relate the 22 cards of the major arcana with specific occult and esoteric traditions. For instance the Qabalistic Tree of Life bears a striking resemblance to the major arcana in both archetypal force and dynamic understanding. This is so, despite the stark difference in relative origin of the two systems, because esoteric tradition aims to connect and commune with the Life-Force most often identified as ‘God’ or the Divine, which unites all things. The Tarot embodies a psychic journey towards spiritual truth and wholeness for the human being and as such can be harnessed as a psychological tool of reflection and insight. 

Best Tarot Practices by Marcia Masino

Reviewed by Gwinevere Rain

Best Tarot Practices is a new 300 page book on the market out to help interested persons learn the tarot. Author

Marcia Masino offers various suggested learning methods some traditional like taking a card from the deck and writing your first instinctive thoughts. And some less conventional ideas like getting together with friends and creating a tarot scavenger hunt.

Where as many books on the market seem to focus solely on  providing suggested definitions  Masino encourages establishing your own  (thought there are some definitions in the back of the text). There is also information on the actual practice of divining for others, strangers, family and friends. How-to as well as common pitfalls to avoid.

Creating a Tarot Layout: Personalizing Your Own Magickal Meta-Tool

by SteelWitch

The Tarot is a powerful divination tool.  It combines established meanings with a metric buttload of symbols crammed into each card to allow a huge range of interpretation within set guidelines.  Each card has numerous nuances that can appear based on arrangement, position, relationship to other cards, or where your eye happens to land first when you flip it.  And, even if you are a novice at divination, theres' always a handy little book for you to read which will guide you along the way to interpreting a reading.

We're often advised to perform a divination before working a spell or making an important meditative journey just to see if it's a good idea.  Coin flips or yes/no rocks will tell you in no uncertain terms whether or not a spell should be performed, but if you're anything like me you want to know a heck of a lot more about the situation than that, or may even become more determined to cast the spell if a coin tells you “no”.  Tarot is a great tool to learn details about a situation and is one that I've seen suggested numerous times.  It sounds great in theory, but the standard layouts don't really cover everything you'd want to ask about very well.  Sure, you could probably finagle the Celtic Cross into telling you why your money spells are backfiring and what you should do about it, but it's not really designed for that.  Why not use a layout specifically designed for your question?

I decided to come up with a standard method for creating custom layouts after a frustrating experience while meditating.  I needed to learn more about the situation and the players in it as well as what to do about it as I wasn't particularly interested in assaulting my subconscious without guidance. So, I figured out what I needed to know, broke that down to a set of questions, assigned those questions to cards, built a layout, charged the layout, and did a reading. Then I wrote an article about doing all that to further charge my layout.  I'll explain a little more about my situation as we go through the steps below, going light on the actual details of the situation where they do not relate to the spread.  A witch has to have some secrets.