The Mystic's Tarot & Oracle Cards™
Online Book
Ways to Work with The Mystic's Tarot & Oracle Cards
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Dear one, welcome to this page. Here I share an example of how I conduct readings with my clients, incorporating the Eight Sacred Families and the Interlacements.
That said, I made The Mystic’s Tarot & Oracle Cards to not need a guidebook because your inner wisdom is your guidebook. But because it’s traditional to offer guidance, I am creating it here so as not to disappoint.
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Your Inner Wisdom is Your Best Guidebook
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I designed the cards so richly to amplify your natural ability to tap into your Divine Self by triggering your imagination. What French philosopher, Henry Corbin, called Mundus Imaginalis— imaginal ability. Through this process, how you work with the cards will ultimately surpass any outside instruction.
Therefore, how you relate with The Mystic's Tarot & Oracle Cards (MTOC), understand the Families, and apply the Interlacements is up to you. Everything is optional and open to your own interpretation.
I trust that your inner wisdom will guide you to develop your own special approach to working with all aspects of The Mystic's Tarot & Oracle Cards. So, please do feel encouraged to do so.
The following is a way to get started, not “the right way.” I say this so often because my belief that each of us is fully empowered to work from our own divine knowing is my foundational belief. Connection with the Divine, with Life needs no intermediaries, the MTOC are simply a bridge, an open window.
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A Word About “Emergent Space”
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My primary goal is to create an “emergent space” for my client. Emergent means: coming into being, arising unexpectedly, spontaneously, fluidly.
Why an Emergent Space?
Emergent space is an unforced environment in which deep and unexpected insights can well up.
What Creates It?
For a space to become emergent, the client needs to feel safe, embraced, protected, comforted, and held as, as I put it, “whole, wise, and divine.” Because when they don’t have to protect themselves or keep up the appearance of having it together, truth can flow.
Loving, empathic listening and being vulnerable with the client are the two chief ingredients of creating an emergent space.
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How I Understand The Mystic's Tarot & Oracle Cards and Work with the Eight Sacred Families and the Interlacements
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I structured The Mystic’s Tarot & Oracle Cards unlike other Tarot decks in three ways.
№1 The Deck contains two sections: 22 Tarot Trumps and a set of 16 cards I call “Oracle Cards” for lack of a better word but that, to me, are additional Trumps. №2 The MTOC are woven together by Eight Sacred Families that, similar to the suits of the Minor Arcana, are about various dimensions, or aspects of life, feelings, and intellectual constructs. |
№3 The MTOC are arythmantically connected—through numbers—I call Interlacements, creating an even greater web of interconnections. I did so to mirror the philosophy of interbeing that says that everything in the universe is interconnected, or the way I like to put it, hangs together in loving connection.
Let’s Get Started
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The Opening
I don’t usually offer “one-question-per-reading” readings because I use the Tarot as a life coaching tool. I want my client to feel free to explore. And what I hope for is that we’ll unearth surprises. Because surprises usually turn into profoundly helpful aha’s.
While shuffling the cards, I ask them, What would you like to explore today?
They share what’s on their heart and mind. I will stop shuffling to take notes if their share becomes quite far-ranging. I visualize it as a fabric, woven from many strands, in contrast to a single issue. |
The Body of the Reading
For example, one client wanted to deal with feeling vaguely unhappy. They also wanted to start a business but weren’t sure what kind. Then they also had some issues with being overwhelmed at work and being the only sibling who helped their elderly mother.
I don’t fix my attention on any one thing but listen obliquely to allow a picture to emerge unhampered by developing notions on my part.
Rather than using my intellect to “figure out” what we should do in the reading, or how I can help, I let the divine guide me.
If my ego wants to jump in to make sure we’re doing a good job (which, should I let it, will inevitably lead to a terrible job), I use the mantra, “Let the divine do it.”
If my ego wants to jump in to make sure we’re doing a good job (which, should I let it, will inevitably lead to a terrible job), I use the mantra, “Let the divine do it.”
Divine Metaphysical Guidance
As the client talks, I get impressions, images flit through my mind. My body gets feels. There’s “mind-speak”—words spoken in the voice of my mind.
In the case of this client, what I keep hearing is Selfcare! Ask about selfcare. I lovingly ask, How’s your selfcare. They say, My what? then laugh. Oh that. Then tear up. The laughter is a sign as much as the tears are. There’s something important going on. We both fall silent. This silence tends the emergent space. My job now is to just be with them with all my love, empathy and compassion, and tenderness.
Pulling Cards
I pull a card and lay it into the silence—the emergent space. If I feel guided, I may draw more. I make a note to which part of the conversation they belong.
How a Reading with the MTOC might unfold
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After a while, I’m guided to ask, Do you give a lot? The client nods. What would happen if you gave a little less, kept a little more for yourself? Or any, they say with a sarcastic laugh.
They wipe away fresh tears. All hell would break loose, they say. What else? I ask. They wouldn’t like me very much. Who? Oh, everybody.
I lay down another card, make another note that it belongs to this last statement. |
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The Picture
Thoughts coalesce now that maybe they give so much of themselves to become worthy. That being not worthy makes it hard to feel the agency to start a business, hard to say no when given too many tasks at work, and to ask their sibling to help care for their mother.
Now I feel we have enough of a picture. I put it in my back pocket, so the session remains free for divine wisdom to make course corrections if needed.
Co-Creating
I show the cards I pulled to the client and say, This card came up while we talked about selfcare. What does the imagery draw from you in relation to selfcare? |
There is almost always gold. Inner wisdom rarely fails to well up. It uses whatever is at its disposal—imagery, guidance, the card's number, the invitation of the presence of loving attention.
If the client hesitates for a while, or says that they don’t know, I assure them that I’ve already seen some answers but that I want to give their inner wisdom a chance to chime in.
Sometimes, the client’s answers are so spectacularly wise, so deep, so true, there is nothing to do but validate and amplify. To champion. How I love those moments.
Guidance as Needed
This client wants more help. I describe the symbolism of the cards. I mention the Families they belong to, their Interlacements. Each piece adds to the picture.
Together, we pick which of the families most speaks to the issue. I, then, gather the other cards of that family and surround the spread with them.
For this client, it is the Family of Love of which Connection is a part. The siblings are Connection, Enchantment, Kinship, Divine Love, and Agape. I gently nudge the client by asking how these might interplay with selfcare and caring for their mother.
The Family of Love
That’s where things get exponentially richer. It’s always a little of a surprise how well the cards are related to what the client seeks. They say, Well, my mother was always working, so maybe it would help me to do some self-parenting (this, in regard to Agápē which shows a baby in the lap of an elder). They continue, I see how Divine Love and Kinship might encourage me to think of self-care as a spiritual thing. And my cat is my best friend (Divine Love depicts a kitten loving on their mother).
These are all observations I could have made and shared. Also, they don't appear unique or interesting. But that's so only on the surface.
There is magic in a client making their own discoveries. It causes a different relationship with the insight, one of ownership.
Just think of how seldom we take advice or our advice is taken when we give it. We experience our own insights as much fresher and empowering.
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Gentle Offerings
When they hesitate with Enchantment (two flowers kissing), I ask, Can you imagine what it might be like to become re-enchanted with life like you were when you were a little child, discovering everything for the first time? How that could help you decide which of your business ideas to pursue?
If you are a life coach, you may feel that the above descriptions are more like a life coaching session. The difference is in two ways:
1. The client and I are deliberately inviting the sacred, otherworldly, metaphysical into the session.
2. The insights and guidance taps into, what the pioneer of analysis, Carl Jung, called the supraconscious–in Hinduism, the World Soul–that space where our souls meet in higher knowing. |
The Interlacements of the Sixes
Next, I group the interlacements: 6–Connection interlaces with 15–Limiting Belief, 24–Earth Grounding, and 33–Freedom. Oh my, Enchantment again!
All those speak so to selfcare. How our beliefs can make us think we can’t ask for help. How enchantment with life nourishes all kinds of love, including self-love. That non-attachment frees us from limiting beliefs to be good to ourselves.
So many possibilities the client and I explore, the hour flies by.
Action Plan: Bringing it Home
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Lastly, I guide them towards action steps we develop together calling on their strengths and whatever is already at hand in their life.
Suggesting actions that are currently out of reach make it hard to take them. But when we work with what we have, we can create something we don’t yet.
Of course, not every session goes this way. Sometimes, a single card becomes the focal point because of where it takes us. Sometimes only one interlacement comes into play, sometimes none.
What is always present—same as my trust in your inner wisdom being the best guidebook—is my trust in the client’s inner wisdom to lead us where their soul wants to go. I see myself in the role of translator and facilitator.
In the Family of Love, 6~Connection, 24~Enchantment. 29~Kinship, 30~Divine Love, and 32~Agape, to me, signify that Mama Gaia and all the life existing within them is connected. |
Dear Reader,
I hope you've found these descriptions helpful and nourishing. They are my understandings. Understandings that are ever evolving. I wish you the same: expansion. And I wish you happiness with your readings. May you have many blessed adventures with The Mystic's Tarot & Oracle Cards.
Blessings, and expect miracles ~ Henry ♥
I hope you've found these descriptions helpful and nourishing. They are my understandings. Understandings that are ever evolving. I wish you the same: expansion. And I wish you happiness with your readings. May you have many blessed adventures with The Mystic's Tarot & Oracle Cards.
Blessings, and expect miracles ~ Henry ♥
