Convergence Between Tarot, Lenormand and Horary Astrology
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Whenever I’m confronting a major decision or a significant occurrence in my life or the lives of my clients, I find it useful to perform both a tarot (or Lenormand) reading and a horary astrology event chart. I’m looking for convergence in their testimony, particularly in the status and placement of critical features, that will give me an indication of both future conditions and the best way to proceed. Obviously, in “on-the-clock,” face-to-face sessions I won’t often go to such extremes, but in my own circumstances (where I have the luxury of all the time I need), I take these hints “under advisement” along with more conventional decision-making insights since — up to a point — I can never have too much information.
With tarot I’m looking for the cards that speak most directly and plainly to the matter at hand, and they can just as well be minor cards as courts or trumps. (Lenormand presents a level playing field with all 36 cards being equal in power no matter how they are combined.) In horary astrology I’m seeking the planets that have the most to do with the situation, both in their location in the chart and their relative strength or weakness according to a range of vital characteristics. In both cases it’s an exercise in “pattern-recognition.” I identify the factors that stand out most clearly in a reading and try to link what I find into a coherent narrative explanation that makes sense as well as being engaging for the sitter from an anecdotal perspective.
When I was first learning predictive astrology back in the early ’70s, it was commonly understood that the planets and their aspects will show what will happen in the seeker’s life, the signs they are in reveal how it will happen and the houses reflect where it will happen. The German astrologers added a twist by assuming that only the “hard” aspects of 45 degrees and its multiples will convey visible events; everything else is the incidental stuff of psychology and of little interest to the event-oriented practitioner. Planet-and-house correlation was the main objective from the standpoint of prediction, with the signs adding thematic background; think of it in terms of sports broadcasting in which you have both the play-by-play announcer and the “color” commentator.
With horary forecasting I’m mainly interested in house placement of the signifying planets for the querent and the “quesited” (the subject of the reading), any sign-related essential or accidental “dignities” they display, and any major (that is, Ptolemaic) aspects between them. There are numerous minor indicators from traditional astrology that can increase the depth and detail of prognostication but I find that I can usually obtain what I need from the basic components without having to resort to such minutiae. (For completeness, I should also mention that I seldom use the minor, or “Keplerian,” aspects and the three modern planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in my own work.)
In some cases, tarot reading also employs a “significator” card to represent the querent or the question, and in those instances meaning derives from the nature of the other cards that appear with it in a spread, particularly when they are in close proximity to one another. Different forms of “dignity” generated by the conflation of various qualities such as suit, element, number and rank are often used to indicate their potency in combination, and other influences such as reversal and the presence (aka “preponderance”) or absence of similar features can also be applied. Beyond individual card interpretation, the key elements in most of my readings are position meaning and the sequence of those positions in the layout coupled with the evidence of the cards that land in them, attributes that I treat as essential in spread creation and usage. I consider spread position to be akin to a horoscopic house in that it “conditions” the expression of the resident card and “biases” it in a specific direction, all in the service of effective storytelling.
To be honest, horary astrology has more in common with Lenormand reading than it does with tarot; both are literal in focus whereas tarot is more fluidly impressionistic. In my experience, horary astrology and Lenormand can fill in knowledge gaps where tarot can only guess according to the principles of intuitive free-association. Since I no longer do much character analysis or psychological profiling with any form of divination, I find that Lenormand in the field of cartomancy and horary in the realm of astrology are the most useful tools in my diviner’s toolbox. While tarot can be fun to experiment with and is what most clients expect when they sit for a reading, the other two are the “meat-and-potatoes” of my own approach and I tend to filter my tarot observations through the same pragmatic lens by relying on knowledge-and-experience-based methods with only a thread of mystical conjecture running through them.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on August 14, 2024.
