Divination Became a Side Effect

Happy Tuesday, y'all. It's officially November; the clocks fell back on Sunday, and the early nights are here (which I couldn’t be more excited for). The dates for the month are in yesterday’s November Magick post on Instagram, and tomorrow I’ll share the cards I pulled for the month in a Reel, so I won't repeat any of that here.

This month, I want to try something a little different with these emails. Many people are curious about where they can start incorporating what I do or the practices I share into their daily lives. So this month, each Tuesday I’ll share one thing you can actually use. Today, it’s Tarot. Why? Because I pull cards at the beginning of every month (actually, most every morning), and I think that’s a great place for you to start too.

For a long time, I thought tarot was only used for seeing the future. My understanding was limited and came from a surface-level view I got from movies or from reading about it in works of fiction. But when I finally stopped seeing it as a tool just for divination, it opened up an entirely new way to work with the cards, which I became obsessed with.

I first learned this approach through a podcast hosted by Shannon Knight (The Tarot Diagnosis). She fused tarot with her experience as a licensed psychotherapist. At the time, I was doing EMDR and parts work in my own therapy journey. Rather than trying to predict the future, I started using the cards the way she described: to explore myself and how I show up in the world. It changed my entire relationship with the cards and made divination a secondary output rather than a primary one.

Knight describes her use of the cards as "primarily a cognitive, or thought, exercise." She also makes it clear that her book isn't a form of mental health counseling, which I appreciate. I think that too often people avoid traditional forms of therapy or professional help and completely replace them with the woo. I don’t view tarot (or any other magical practice) as a replacement for therapy; I see it as something I do alongside therapy—an additional tool that I use amongst a much larger arsenal of tools.

However… there are times when I’m more of a witch about it, because I definitely use the cards loosely for fortune-telling. But mostly I’m asking something more like, “Where should I be thinking about myself this week, or today, or in this situation I’m about to enter, and what questions can help better guide me?”

I remember the first deck I ever bought for myself: the ‘This Might Hurt’ deck by Isabella Rotman. I purchased it on a trip to Portland when I found myself wandering by a random esoteric shop. I remember it being so unique and unlike any deck I had seen before, so I had to have it. And to give it credit, the images aren’t that different from what’s portrayed in the RWS deck, but they’re still abstract enough that I struggled to understand the basic meanings. And some decks are so abstract that it makes that connection even harder to grasp. That said, I do appreciate the abstract and alternate art of tarot decks from a "breaking down traditional stereotypes" perspective, but I also believe it’s important to understand the rules before you start breaking them.

So I grabbed a standard Rider-Waite-Smith deck and started using it as my primary tool while I learned. I was shocked at how much easier the card meanings came. It honestly felt a little magical, even though some of Pamela Colman Smith’s illustrations can be just as obtuse (like, what’s with the lobster on The Moon card? I thought about that for a long time). Because of this, I usually tell people to start with the RWS deck, as the illustrations seem to be the closest match to the original meanings of the cards (which is fully my opinion; feel free to ignore this advice and use whichever deck you want).

But I’m not the only one to say this. Mat Auryn calls the RWS “the foundation for a majority of modern decks,” and Bakara Wintner says it’s an excellent deck for beginners because of its narrative imagery and the number of guidebooks built around it. She also says it isn’t essential (apparently she learned on an indie deck). So there you go, do what thou wilt.

That said, I’ll be the first to admit I'm a little obsessed with Tarot decks at this point. I love the different interpretations people come up with for the cards. I’ll occasionally pull a spread from one deck and then pull the same cards from multiple decks to see how other artists interpret them. I’ll always pull the RWS version to sit at the top. It’s a great way to develop a relationship with the cards and their meanings and to invite new ways of seeing them. For instance, this month I’m reading from the Fyodor Pavlov deck, where the Page of Coins (it uses coins instead of pentacles) is barefoot, sowing seeds across a freshly tilled field. The RWS version is also standing in a field, but they’re holding the coin up and studying it. Sitting with both tells more than either one would on its own—both present the eagerness and curiosity of something new.

The other thing that changed the game for me was not worrying about which specific, elaborate spread I should be doing. I just started pulling one or two cards. Three, at the most. I’m not sure beginners should start with elaborate spreads that take up the entire kitchen table. I’m not even sure I would want that for a paid reading; I would be immediately overwhelmed.

If I find myself struggling with a question or answer, I’ll draw an additional card to clarify or better shape the message. I won’t treat that card as having its own meaning, but rather as part of the story, paired with the other card or cards. Bakara Wintner has a great rule for this: any time you feel like you’re about to say “uhh,” draw another card. “Don’t be precious about this.” But also be careful not to draw cards just because you don’t like an answer; then you’d muddy the waters.

It’s the beginning of November, so here’s something small you can do tonight before bed. Take out your deck, get in a comfy state of mind, shuffle the deck, take a breath, and pull three cards:

If any card leaves you going, “ummm what?” then pull another card and lay it on top. If a particular card you pulled makes you a little uncomfortable as you start thinking about it, try a trick from Shannon Knight’s book: pull two more cards for that one. The first is something you want to hear, and the second is something you don’t.

I know that journaling is hard for some people. But it’s honestly what helped me look back and see how the divination actually played into my pulls. In September, I wrote about connecting the dots backward, and in October I asked you to pull a card for each week and look at them again toward the end of the month. This is why. Many times, I wouldn’t see the message even if it were written clearly in large letters right in front of me. Sometimes intuition is like that. Sometimes your guides are yelling at you, and you’re just not paying attention. A journaling practice will help you pay better attention.

So write down the three cards and what you think they mean tonight. Then set a calendar reminder to reread them on November 30th and see if you still agree. If writing isn’t your thing, dictate your thoughts into the notes app on whatever device you’re reading this newsletter on. It can be a stream of consciousness—it often turns out better this way. I do this all the time when I’m driving, too, since that’s sometimes when I experience my best thinking (yes, I suppose I’m also focused on the road).

If you’ve been reading for any length of time, you probably already know most of the meanings (though I challenge you to always question your own knowledge), so what do you do now? How do you advance beyond the basic everyday interpretations?

For me, it was using the cards to ask questions about myself instead of about what’s going to happen next. If you want an in-depth look at how to do this, I highly encourage you to purchase Shannon Knight’s book (linked below). It reads every major arcana card for both its shadow and its “golden shadow,” the good parts of ourselves we’ve also been hiding. A bit of a warning on this, though: if it starts to bring up things based around hidden trauma that you haven’t worked on, then I would highly suggest getting a professional therapist to help you while you go on this journey.

And if you want to work on the intuitive side, check out Mat Auryn’s book The Psychic Art of Tarot. All of his books are great for developing your psychic abilities as a witch at various points on your journey, but this one focuses on tarot and is full of exercises to help you with it. I’m not sure I would tackle this one as a beginner, but more experienced folks should consider it a must-have for your library.

(Full disclosure: the links below for the cards and books are affiliate links. If you buy through them, it helps support me and this work a little bit. If you'd rather borrow them from your library or a friend, I fully support and highly encourage that, too.)

The Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) Tarot Deck by Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith
(Bookshop.org | Amazon)

This Might Hurt Tarot Deck by Isabella Rotman
(Bookshop.org | Amazon)

The Fyodor Pavlov Tarot Deck
(Bookshop.org | Amazon)

WTF Is Tarot? … & How Do I Do It? by Bakara Wintner
(Bookshop.org | Amazon | Your Library)
If you're brand new, I would probably tell you to start with this one. It's super funny, a little profane, and intuition-first. It has a short entry for all 78 cards, plus plenty of advice on actually giving readings. Two things I found interesting: she renames the court cards as a family (daughter, son, mother, father), so her Daughter of Pentacles is the Page in your deck, and she doesn't use reversals at all—something I also don’t recommend for folks just starting out.

Dark Shadow, Golden Shadow by Shannon Knight
(Bookshop.org | Amazon | Your Library)
This is the one I'd recommend if you want to go deeper. It's shadow work with tarot, written by a licensed psychotherapist, full of small spreads and journaling prompts. She also shares personal stories of how she relates to and works with the cards, like the one about a friend drawing her as the Queen of Pentacles, and her realizing she loves taking care of people but doesn't want to be recognized for it, which feels very Virgo-coded.

How to Read Tarot by Skye Alexander
(Bookshop.org | Amazon | Your Library)
I often use this as a reference book. It covers all 78 cards upright and reversed; it includes a full range of spreads and the symbolism on the RWS cards (colors, numbers, and little details you might not notice at first). I’ve grabbed this book plenty of times when working on my tarot carousel posts.

The Psychic Art of Tarot by Mat Auryn
(Bookshop.org | Amazon | Your Library)
And yes, I'm obviously going to reference Mat Auryn again. This one assumes you already know the cards and are looking to build an intuitive practice on top of them, with exercises for each of the clairs and some lovely meditations built on the RWS images.

Tomorrow I'm sharing the cards I pulled for this month in a Reel, and on Thursday I'm writing about the Nine of Swords (a card I’ve been thinking about lately). The New Moon in Scorpio is Monday, while both retrogrades are still going (what a time to go dark), and then Mercury and Venus finally go direct on Friday the 13th. Next Tuesday's email will give you a few questions for looking back at what this retrograde stirred up, which will be more of a reflection exercise for me that I’m also offering to you because I feel like we all probably went through it recently.

And on Monday the 23rd, the day before the full supermoon, you'll be the first to see something I've been building since July. Newsletter subscribers only, before anyone else. Get excited. (I am both nervous and excited.)

I'm so glad you're here for the long nights. Pull your three cards and tell me what you got. Just hit reply. I'd love to know how you’re incorporating tarot into your practice, or to help answer any questions you might have along the way.

xo,
Chad