The “Penultimate” Tarot Timing Method
PENULTIMATE: the last but one; second to last
It’s probably safe to say that every tarot reading performed in response to the question “What will happen?” has an initially unspoken postscript: “When will it happen?” It’s equally true that the precise timing of future events with tarot cards is a tricky undertaking; many techniques have been tried and few produce consistently reliable results. Part of the problem is their rigidity: for example, in many systems all Wands are “quite fast” and all Pentacles are “very slow” to varying degrees with the other suits sitting somewhere in the middle, while astrological correspondences decree that “Moon” (Pisces) events will happen in February and “Emperor” (Aries) events will occur in March even when a short-term matter has been brought to the reader in April. This model doesn’t always square with the experience-based temporal envelope for the type of activity in question; a querent’s affairs often involve rapidly-moving circumstances such as job-application decisions that wouldn’t realistically take months or years to play out even if the cards say so. (I can’t fathom how such predictions can be made with a straight face.) Undoubtedly, the simplest and cleanest way to handle this conundrum is to include the time-frame in the question: “What will happen in the next three months?” But not every sitter has the presence of mind to frame the inquiry in this way, and not every reader is sensitive to the distinction, thus getting blindsided when it eventually surfaces. (I’ve actually become pretty good at “verbal tap-dancing” when confronted with it.) So I decided to sharpen my pencil and come up with a more coherent event-timing model that collates the best of the approaches I’ve used in the past with some novel ideas; skip to the end of this essay if you want a peek at how it works before diving into the details.
My personal opinion is that the ne plus ultra of tarot timing invokes the “SWAG” (scientific wild-ass guess) method slyly touted by some nuclear engineers of my acquaintance. Informed judgment of the “educated guess” kind may well be the most useful yardstick since it can take the testimony of the cards with a large grain of salt if the forecast doesn’t immediately smack of reality, and go into “estimation” mode. We might well say with some conviction that an event will happen “sooner rather than later” or, on the other hand, that “you shouldn’t hold your breath” waiting for it. Trying to put concrete date ranges to highly-fluid conditions can be an exercise in futility, and blindly adhering to a precise timing regime is a waste of effort as well as often presenting the querent with a counter-intuitive enigma.
With the concept of flexible approximation in mind, I set about to create a “penultimate” timing method (once again, skip to the end for an explanation) that makes no attempt to pin exact arrival dates on anticipated events, instead offering a “rule-of-thumb” guideline using a blend of number, suit, rank and astrological correspondence. In this design, “very soon” might mean 10% earlier than the typical turn-around time for the kind of event being contemplated, while “greatly delayed” could convey an end date 50% beyond that expectation; there is no talk of hypothetical dates that are weeks, months or years into the future because all bounding assumptions are based strictly on the context of the matter at hand. For example, an upcoming event that is reasonably presumed to take two weeks to “mature” might come to closure a couple of days early, or it might be set back a week beyond the target date. In short, the briefer the window of opportunity the narrower the superimposed band of “date creep.”
The time-frame for occurrences that are reckoned to slip farther into the future for various reasons (unavoidable conditions such as weather or available resources; planning constraints; past experience; etc.) would be adjusted accordingly. Suppose we’re contemplating a “seasonal” matter, such as being asked in late July “What would a week-long vacation in the tropics in mid-Winter be like?” (assuming of course that we can get a reservation at that late date). To remain within that seasonal range, we might want to shift our temporal window a bit to something like “plus or minus 20%;” that would give us an “earliest onset” (Ace of Wands) of the end of January and a “latest arrival” (10 of Pentacles) of mid-March. Assuming a favorable prediction for this proposed adventure, research by the querent would then tighten that target date even further once the reading suggests a preliminary span of time. This makes it clear that the “gestation period” is dependent more on the nature of the activity than any on any arbitrary ranking system.
My assumptions are that all of the Aces are prompt and all of the Tens are tardy since the former are the least encumbered of the series and the latter are the most constrained, with the rest of the numbers from Two to Nine falling into intermediate states of increasing delay. These numerical placements are largely free from the usual timing considerations for the suits of the Minor Arcana, with scant credence given to the traditional assumption that Wands are “hot” (categorically fastest” in their operation) and Pentacles are “cold” (or always slowest to act). For example, in practice I might “nudge” an Ace very slightly in one direction or the other depending on its suit; in that sense each colored portion of the attached table can be seen as a graduated “band” rather than a catch-all “bucket.”
All of the horse-mounted Knights are more rapid in delivery than the standing-but-stationary Pages, which are in turn more seasonable in their action than the enthroned and deliberate Kings and patient Queens. Combining the hierarchical ranks with the elemental qualites of the suits permits a sliding scale of timeliness for the court cards as shown in the attached table.
The timing for the Major Arcana doesn’t follow the unworkable Golden Dawn convention of predicting events according to the zodiacal month of a card’s sign (which only addresses 12 of the 22 cards anyway); instead, in most cases it employs the incremental daily motion of the corresponding planets for the planetary trumps. (To make this work across the board, I adopted the modern planetary assignments for the three “Primal Element” trumps with some discretionary “fudging.”) Generally, for the sign-based trumps I followed the zodiacal sequence, with the springtime signs being the swiftest, the summer and fall signs of moderate promptness and the winter signs the most sluggish. (As an afterthought, I should add that the connections between the Minor Arcana and the 36 Chaldean decans run afoul of the same limitations as the Major Arcana zodiacal model as far as not always passing the “giggle test” for timing predictions; I can’t in good conscience tell a client in June who draws the 2 of Wands (first ten degrees of Aries in late March) that the certified letter they’re expecting in a couple of weeks will arrive next March.)
In a few situations I based the timing estimate on the divinatory usage of the cards rather than on the overarching planetary and zodiacal premises. For example, the potentially explosive Tower is placed within the swiftest group even though its associated planet, Mars, moves more slowly than the Moon, Sun, Mercury and Venus; the same pertains to the World, which descends into the tardiest group although its planet, Saturn, moves faster than Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The Fool is among the fastest despite the fact that slow-moving Uranus would suggest it belongs in the least rapid population; this is because Uranus is known for signifying abrupt, unexpected events similar to the Tower (as Monty Python might have said “He doesn’t so much fly as plummet”). I moved the hide-bound Hierophant with its Taurean inertia out of the normal zodiacal sequence because I felt that it fits most comfortably with the methodical Virgo of the Hermit rather than with the more light-footed, vernal Empress and Emperor. Similarly, I relocated the Devil to the slowest group because its sign, Capricorn, announces the onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and the stationary Hanged Man obviously belongs there as well. The Moon and the Star I relegated to an earlier status because they have a more dynamic presence.
To follow this method you should ideally start with a question that includes both a “what” and “when” dimension, and use a spread with a closing “outcome” or “end of the matter” card for which the second-to-last (“penultimate”) card can — in addition to it’s usual divinatory meaning — serve as a signpost to announce, at least in general terms, the expected “time-of-arrival” for the augury revealed in the final card. This penultimate card should be read using the considerations described above. Line spreads are certainly the best vehicle for this, with the three-card series being the minimum length for which the “last but one” (in that case the middle card ) holds the temporal “reins” for the outcome. Thus, the timing determination becomes a two-step operation with the leading card setting the stage for development of the ultimate conclusion (think of the “Near Future” and “End of the Matter” cards in the Celtic Cross spread, the first of which presages the second).
I’ll leave you with the new “tarot timing” motto that this train of thought led me to: “Wrap the timing around the context, don’t try to make the context fit the timing.”
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on February 25, 2022.
