The Questions I Ask Myself, Roughly In This Order, To Interpret Any* Tarot Spread:

This is kind of a large question so I apologize but I guess I'm curious on how you're able to get such specific or like. unique (i mean this in a good way) answers from tarot? Like your "what magic should i learn next" stuff or how to pick up what a spirit can do through tarot. like idk how to translate these cards into what the spirit is trying to say

Hi!

There's no easy answer to this question, partially because I've now been reading tarot for almost exactly 16 years. This isn't at all to say that it's just the passage of time, but that in that amount of time I've done tons and tons of different things to expand my understanding of, and usage, of tarot.

Tarot didn't come to me very easily, and part of that journey was doing a lot of experimentation in an effort to figure it all out. My reading practice is still very much typified by a huge amount of experimentation and custom reading methods.

It hasn't been a linear process at all. I go through periods of months (or more!) where tarot just doesn't click for me, at all. So just because I picked up my first tarot deck 16 years ago doesn't mean that I've kept a consistent practice (I'm just now getting back into it after just such a fallow period ^-^)

My feelings on experimentation is that it gives me new ways to think about not only the cards, but also spreads, methodologies, and readings as a whole.

In addition, my experiments with other forms of divination (most especially casting lots, energy readings, and playing card readings) have heavily influenced my tarot readings.

Here is a post I wrote that I think expresses my feelings on experimenting within tarot.

Here are some examples of tarot experiments I've performed, and/or methodologies I've explored. It's these sorts of things that have been building blocks in my abilities in tarot. But no single one of them was a "key."

Elemental dignities: The elements of the cards dictates how they interact with each other. Air + fire can mean a supercharged firestorm, but water + fire can mean a controlled fire under a stewpot, or blocked progress of the fire. This experiment helps with understanding how cards can link together, and how energy can flow within a spread.

Elemental landscapes: Spreads are laid down in lines or grids and each card represents one aspect of the landscape. You must brainstorm and choose your own meanings. E.g., 8/wands is an exploding volcano. Queen/Cups is a lake inhabited by mermaids. Read the flow of weather patterns and energies through the spread as an answer to the question. This experiment helps with intuitive reading and working with a spread as a whole, instead of focusing on individual cards.

Elemental portents: Assign an element to your question. Draw a card. If the element on the card agrees with the element of your question, the portent is good; if it disagrees, the portent is bad. This experiment helps with learning how to phrase questions and how the question themselves can influence the balance of the deck.

Astral landscapes: This was an elaborate system I built around the Wooden Tarot. I worked with each card to assign it a mystical association that could occur in an astral landscape. The major arcana were spirits who could travel across the landscape. Each spread was like a playing board of a generated landscape and the spirits that interacted inside of it. This experiment was fun for considering the metaphysical ramifications of the energies of the cards themselves.

Numerical virtues: The number value of the card indicates its power and magnitude in the spread. 2 and 3 value cards are always of smaller power and significance. 10 and court cards are always of higher value. Aces may be high or low. This experiment gave me a new way of thinking about importance of each card, and how to blend magnitudes of significance.

Infinite directional wheel: I wrote a post on this actually, but basically you can keep placing cards forever in the cross-quarter positions. It's a meditation on the concept of elements and directions within witchcraft. Also, an extremely useful spread. This was a vital experiment for me in understanding spreadwork, flow of information, and linking cards.

Card doubling and tripling: Place two (or 3) cards together and determine the meaning as if it's one single card; there is no border, and the images combine with each other. The pictures and meanings of each combine into a single card.

Card doubling and tripling, but in spreads: For each position in the spread, place two cards (or three cards!) in place of one. Read the dyads or triads as if they are a single card. It isn't beginning/middle/end; it's a single triple-complex card! These doubling experiments helped me with the concept of card linking and blending meanings into unique interpretations.

Custom meaning sets: Basically, swap out all the default meanings with your own. Extremely useful IMO in learning how sets of meanings work together, and how to balance sets of meanings. I wrote a post on it here. These experiments have perhaps been the most vital for me in developing new interpretations. I believe that the magical skills readings you referenced were the result of custom meaning sets.

No meaning sets: Instead of using any card meanings, all spreads are resolved using a combination of elemental portents and numerical virtues. I.e., the element and number of a card in relation to other cards in the spread determines the reading. Here, the experimentation is allowing the cards to have strict, defined roles within a spread that can't be overwritten by personal intuition.

As a final note, I highly, highly recommend recording every reading you do and every card you draw. For the first couple years of my practice I recorded all readings, and it was a huge boost to my learning.

I saw a headcanon somewhere about how Jon is always staring right into the camera when someone takes a photo that he happens to be in and it's all I've been thinking about. Picture this, a group of friends take a photo together that Jon is in the background of and when they look at the photo they notice him just watching. They turn around and notice that he's clearly in the middle of talking with someone and doesn't even notice them. Now THAT is my shit! We need more spooky photos of Jon!

one(ish) sentence summaries of every magnus archive episode PART 3 (111-154)

HELLO FRIENDS In honor of one of my friends starting tma i am posting the rest of what i have for this series

I'm going to be honest, i wrote all of these like a year and a half ago so i don't even remember if all of them are as accurate as i thought they were at the time so tell me what u guys think ( ALSO IM SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO POST THESE)

if you guys want more i can be convinced to relisten to the series and finish this and also send me asks i love getting asks

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111. god fuck he just wanted his friends to call him gerry

112. guys I have a great idea for a game it’s called murder tag and there are no downsides I promise

113. sweet dreams goodnight don’t let the carbon monoxide poisoning bite

114. cleaning lady takes a trip to mandela effect land

115. ship cook discovers an infinite meat glitch!

116. oh god the unknowing ritual is fnaf security breach

117. alright guys it’s time to prepare for clown time let’s do a roll call

118. martin burns some stuff and gets traumatized while Jon and the homies are sneaking through an interactive wax museum.

119. ah fuck it’s clown time

120. omg! you were in the archivist’s dream last night! so cool!!

121. dude I’d KILL for a good night’s sleep

122. the worst person you know tells you about their "new philosophical theory" for 24 minutes

123. man is scammed into being the helpless mod for murder reddit

124. old man ruins our austrian mountain trip with impromptu skydiving

125. bagpipe music makes an entire town do a The Purge (2013)

126. man is so shit at sculpting that it literally makes four people loose their minds

127. hey guys… eye am not feeling so well…

128. skinwalker delivery man mourns the loss of his skinwalker delivery husband

129. we needed this rain

130. HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA WILL FILL YOUR HOLE WITH MEAT

131. I get the guy who turns peoples’ bones to turn my bones and also tell me the story of how he started turning peoples’ bones

132. MAN OPENS COFFIN. WE ARE VERY WORRIED FOR HIM.

133. My son’s weird boyfriend is a little too invested in my treasure hunt.

134. journalist takes a short and awful trip to dystopia land and it gives both her and adelard decker an existential crisis .

135. let me tell you about our lord and savior: shadow jesus.

136. my boss does a reverse pinocchio.

137. I am saved from the real horrors of war by spooky ghost horrors of war.

138. my dear jonah, it seems my years of fucking around have finally caught up to me, and I am nearing the time in which I will find out.

139. Local cult cooks up an antichrist and then deals with the terrible consequence: parenthood.

140. 17th century homoerotic rivalry between an astronomer and shadow jesus

141. our captain got depressed and then made us all steal a camera

142. hey sorry your archivist got addicted to eating trauma. yeah he’s just watching people on the street now. yeah he’s pulling statements from them like teeth. yeah he’s been showing up in my dreams and he is all eyes.

143. we KILL this evil orb using the power of looking at it too closely

144. math podcast makes man foresee the end of the world

145. gertrude drops the hardest diss track of the century on the desolation / part 2 of local cult’s adventures in parenthood

146. man is stalked by a sneaky door.

147. the archives is stalked by a sneaky spider lady.

148. Security camera guy loves his job so much that he becomes a security camera.

149. weird trash art in the Amazon rainforest bites researcher

150. HOMOPHOBIC SUBURBAN HOUSES

151. have you ever played aquarium tycoon

152. let me introduce you to the world of recreational dirt naps ( I am not asking )

153. evil worm polycule

154. i quit my job and my hot goth wife kills me.

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