The Cartomancy Workbook

My new book ‘The Cartomancy Workbook – How to tell Fortunes with Playing Cards’ is now available in paperback and as an e-book from Amazon.

The Cartomancy Workbook is a new, comprehensive, and user-friendly approach to the ancient art of telling fortunes with ordinary playing cards. It contains a carefully graded course of practical exercises designed to give the student a sound working knowledge of the traditional attributions and divisions of the Playing Card Deck and the meanings of the cards in the shortest possible time.

If you prefer to borrow books before investing money in one, it costs nothing to borrow this book from Kindle Unlimited. Of course – you do have to pay if you want to buy it afterwards! 🤣

Keeping it Simple Stupid …

People can be a bit snotty about proverbs – and it’s true that anyone who uses them a lot can be maddening to be with –  but although proverbs can seem obvious and trite and hackneyed and boring they are actually educational and reflect who we are, and sometimes they shine a strong light on events and people and remind us of the truth as nothing else can.

To put it in a nutshell, ‘Honesty is the best policy’ describes Brexit to a ‘T’.

A Bit Tied Up at the Moment?

The Eight of Swords shows a woman bound and blindfolded, surrounded by swords that seem to imprison her.  These restrictions are self-imposed, symbols of the outworn thoughts and beliefs that prevent her from ripping off the blindfold, undoing the bonds, avoiding the swords and walking away.

Like most Tarot readers I see a lot of the Eight of Swords in the course of a days’ work because, often, outdated and negative thoughts and beliefs and the restrictions they create represent a comfort zone to people who fear (quite rightly!) that discarding them will remove familiar predicaments and replace them with uncomfortable options, and may mean having to admit mistakes.

Is the desire to stay locked in an uncomfortable comfort zone, trapped, limited, and apparently powerless, the sign of a victim mentality, a stubborn refusal to admit a fault, or a sincere belief in personal infallibility?

Could be any, or all of those things, but in every case the result is a distorted perception of reality, an unwillingness or inability to accept help or recognise the existence of alternative solutions or the validity of other points of view. And it’s never a good place to be.

Don’t let Brexit take you there…

A Nudge is As Good As

Not meditation, not contemplation, a ‘nudge’ is just a card propped up on a desk, tucked away in the corner of a screen, stuck to a ‘fridge.  A reminder.  Something to encourage the unconscious mind to track down the source of discomfort, find an answer, identify all the options, initiate a course of action.

It doesn’t have to be a Major Arcana card.  What better than the 7 of Swords, for example, to evaluate pros and cons, identify what steps need to be taken to achieve a balance between what’s wanted and what’s currently possible, suggest a course of action to bring about a desirable outcome?

The card has a reputation for betrayal and deception – but that’s a short-sighted way of looking at it.  In fact it’s the card of mental preparedness, the rehearsal and visualisation of desired results, the positive mental habits of a winner.

Psi Cards – One of my Favourite ‘Things’

Psy Cards were invented by Nick Hobson sometime in the mid 1980’s.

At the time everybody I knew bought them– primarily, I think, because of Maggie Kneens’ beautiful and evocative illustrations – and worked with them for a while,  but most of my friends are committed Tarot people so I suspect that many of those Decks met the standard back-of-a-drawer fate of loved, but not favourite packs of cards.

Psy Cards are not an alternative to Tarot Cards (although the present Psycards website likes to pretend that they are). They were designed to act as a mirror for your inner self, to help YOU, the reader, gain emotional insight into yourself; understand your own feelings and motivations; become aware of the possibilities your life offers, make informed decisions, and understand the messages your unconscious mind is trying to send to you.

In fact, Psy Cards are the only cards I know of that will let you read accurately for yourself, and they work like a charm.

One other plus:  In the past there were books that acted as ‘companions’ to the cards – for all I know there still are – but (for once!) the little booklet that comes free with the cards is all you need to make a success of using them.  There is no need to learn anything, the meanings given are just suggestions, and there are no right or wrong interpretations.

The 40 card Psy Deck consists of:

One card to represent the Querent (The Inquirer), Four Pointer cards designed to give straightforward answers to questions (yes, no, now and never) with the remainder divided into 5 sections of 7 cards each:

7 Fundamentals that cover everyday things like home, money and friends that are common to us all;

7 Archtypes (the father, the mother; birth, death, etc) that depict forces within us that are common to all men and women);

7 Symbols that have resonated in our hearts and minds for centuries (the sun, the moon, the wheel and so on);

7 Characters: different aspects of our own personalities and those of the people around us in our daily lives; and

7 happenings: events that take place inside us, and in the outer world that impact and transform our lives.

The Deck is available from The Psycards Store or The Holistic Shop.