lesson 33: the spectacle of divination, the wish card (and implied certainty)

This week, I’m using a deck I’ve never used before. The Tarot of Prague was given(!) to me by a friend who was considering rehoming it—and who could have sold it for mucho money, given how Baba decks go. So when I was going through my collection today for my underrated decks video, I saw this and though I don’t think it’s underrated (thought I do include a Baba deck!), I thought I should give it a go. And given that my pulling this deck down was tangential to underrated things, I thought it might be fun to ask something this week along the lines of: What’s an underrated divination technique or tactic that we could benefit from exploring? 

Before I get to the reading, I want to point out that these kinds of questions can be tricky because there’s implied certainty within it: in this case, that there is an “underrated” technique or tactic! Maybe there isn’t! If there isn’t the reading doesn’t have a way of telling us that. There’s no way for the cards to say, “Look, friend. This question is dumb. I don’t have an answer for you.” What tends to happen instead, then, is that the reading becomes a slog, hard to do, and the result remains unsatisfying. This is really to say that the question part of the readings is actually harder than the reading and to remind you that if you’re struggling with a reading, it may not be your talent; it may simply be that you asked a lazy-ass question, as I do nearly every time I read for myself. 

At any rate, I proceed: In this case I decided to draw three cards and then allow that first three to tell me if we needed additional cards and, if so, where they wanted to live. In this case, the reality of the second and third cards (flanking the center) being majors, I decided to give each a card to its  side. This is something you might try if you’re struggling to understand a major in a spread. Sometimes they seem so “big.” If you’re struggling, go ahead and add a minor card to it and see if that helps contextualize it. That will often bring the “bigness” down to earth. If you draw a second card and it’s a major, you can use it or simply decide that you will draw until you get a minor between 1 and 10, rather than a trump or court. 

Today we have, 4 of Swords (4), The Magician (2), 9 of Cups (1), Strength (3), Queen of Cups (5). I typically tend to work from the middle outward when laying out cards. No idea why. It works for me. 

The 9/cups is the wish card, and so out of the gate I think that’s something fun to consider. “The Wish Card” is a super old fashioned way to think. I’m too lazy to get up and look at any of my books, so I’ll just rely on my admittedly faulty memory—but I don’t think this comes from anything prior to or concurrent with the Golden Dawn. I think it pre-dates Eden Gray, but maybe not by much? Anyway, Eden Gray is one of the places I saw it (I think). And the idea of a “wish card” definitely jives not with our much more “empowered” cosmology, these days. We don’t make wishes; we “manifest” (if you didn’t see my monologue about that term on BlueSky earlier this week, I recommend it). Manifesting isn’t wishing. When we wish, we wish do so on a star; when we wish, we’re in essence praying. Manifesting is somehow bossier than that and I don’t know how to say it any differently. I guess what I mean is this: wishing is a request for collaboration from the divine; manifesting is a demand for gifts. As someone who is relatively new to the spiritual aspect of working with divinity and spirit guides, I can tell you—my spirit guide might find me making a demand kind of kinky now that we’ve worked together rather a lot in the last few months, but I also wouldn’t do it because I do think of him has a collaborator and not a servant. In fact, if anyone is anyone’s servant, I’m his—because I’m embodied, I have the ability to do things he can’t. (He would want you to know, and in fact I can feel him insisting that I say this right now, that he doesn’t like the the idea of me as a servant—beyond, of course, the idea of kink. Which is good, because I don’t like hierarchies. 🤣 We’re rather well-suited.) 

Wishing is old fashioned. Quaint. Innocent. It’s Disney, but Disney the way you see it as a kid who believes in magic, not as an adult living under capitalism. I like that for our purposes, because in a way this reading is kind of teasing out something potentially “retro.” 

I could go into the 9/cups more, but I don’t want to decide too much about it right now. I don’t want to impose myself on it yet; I want to let the remainder of the cards, or at least the two flanking it, guide me a bit. I want to see how the other cards contextualize this first. (I should note, if you’ve read my prior posts, you might see that I didn’t do my usual thing of going through the numbers, suits, and elements at the start of this one. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I forget or something else distracts me. This is what I mean when I say, “Have a foundation, but be open to what happens.”)

The Magician, Mercury, appears to the left; Strength, Leo, to the right. Why am I calling on the astrology? Mercury always matters when we’re divining. He/They is a messenger and traditionally governs divination, at least in part. And, of course, astrology is also rather an old divination technique. Leo, which is my sun sign, doesn’t necessarily feel relevant here—but I’m proud I remembered it. 

Looking at these two, you might already sense why I decided to put the second set of cards to the side of the majors. (The other option would have been above and below the 9 of cups). Sometimes the majors are big and sometimes they’re not. And here they’re actually playing kind of quiet. So I’m going to shade them with the cards that flank them. The Magician is flanked by the 4 of Swords. This connects to the messenger aspect of Mercury, because swords/air are the communication cards. Four is a stable, thoughtful number; it is meticulous, slow, and undistracted. That is in sharp contrast to the magician, who is (or can be) unstable, quick, and totally distracted. (Mercury has ADHD.) 

Strength is shaded by the Queen of Cups—and here we find another card often associated with divination. The Queen of Cups is frequently referred to as the “intuition” card, or the diviner card. Because the watery nature is doubled (cups, water; queen, water), she experiences heightened sensitivity and so might be considered the most psychic card in the deck. I’ve always hated the word psychic. In fact, just now I couldn’t even remember how to spell it and kept getting it wrong. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I’ve done my number on this more than once, but I’m biased against it. I can’t help but associating it with fraud, even though the reasonable argument could be made that my work with tarot falls under the realm of psychic work. 

So we have a strong psychic. (I keep adding an extra fucking “H” to the word psychic. I keep spelling it psychich. I have no idea why.)

Stable, thoughtful magic; strong psychic intuitive.
The wish card. 

This is all giving big fortune teller vibes, I’m sorry. I’m actually laughing as I write this because the thing I said to myself as I planned this post was, “Whatever you do, don’t make it about fucking fortune telling, because people are going to think you’re just plugging your forthcoming book, The Modern Fortune Teller’s Field Guide--coming from Crossed Crow in Autumn, 2025 and preorders are now open.” OK, maybe I didn’t say it that way, but I did say it. (Pre orders are now open through the Crossed Crow site; it’ll be a bit before you can find it on resellers. So if you’re concerned about shipping, I’d wait. That said, resellers tend to only offer books that have large advanced presales, so if you can afford to preorder through CC, I’d so appreciate it.) Anyway. I really didn’t want to make it about that. And, in fact, I think that the appearance of the 9/cups, the wish card, as well as the second cups (queen) making this suit now the dominant force, we have a slightly dreamier and more romantic answer than simply “fortune telling.” 

An example: I follow this shockingly handsome goth guy on Instagram for no other reason than that he’s my ideal man—except for the fact that he’s very clearly a straight. He recently offered to his followers the ability to buy from him a hand-written love letter that he would send to you through postal mail. That was it. Just a random love letter written by a hot goth boy on the internet who has kind of a steam punk romantic sense of theatre, honestly. 

And when I see this combo of cards, that’s what I think of. Not just the idea of old fashioned “wishing,” which I do think is part of it, but a sense of romance, a sense of drama, a sense of pageantry . . . and a sense of theatre. 

I’m a shockingly prosaic reader. It’s been kind of my brand since I started out doing anything “publicly.” I like to have a sweet tablescape at events, but beyond that I don’t really dress up in any special way when reading (I actually kind of feel embarrassed doing that?) unless I’m asked to, and when I’m asked to (rare) I usually try to find something that’s as close to civvies as possible. I don’t like calling attention to myself, and I think that’s a lovely thing. I want the focus to be on the client and the message. But . . . there’s nothing saying a little romance isn’t worth it. There’s nothing saying a little flair, a little art direction, couldn’t achieve a new layer of client of experience. 

A few weeks ago, I finally got my ass to Salem to see the Spiritualism exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum with my friend Liz. It was a freezing cold, snowy/rainy northeastern day. And though I, too, live in the coastal part of this colonial landscape, Salem was decidedly—even violently--colder. But once inside the really stunning museum (it’s wonderful, truly; I got to see an Iris Apfel exhibit a few years ago that I loved)—you should go if you’re in the area. So many people skip it because they’re focused on Halloween, and to a degree PEM used to like that—they didn’t want to get in on the kitsch. But they’ve loosened up a bit, I think, especially with an exhibit like this and another recent one about monster movie posters. So, you can have spooky fun there, too, and see some wonderful exhibits. Anyway, the point is that I wandered around the exhibit exploring the history (much of which I knew thanks in part of Mitch Horowitz’s wonderful Occult America, a book I reference a lot) and thinking about—well, a lot of things, really. 

I thought about how Spiritualism itself emerged from a deep human need to connect with the divine, or with the unknown. And it always seems to ramp up in popularity around times of loss—wars and pandemics, generally—because of this very deep human need. And then I think about the way that it’s typically considered not only old fashioned fraud, but also pseudo-spirituality. I mean has any faith produced more frauds than Catholicism, and does that corporation get called a fake religion? No. Anyway. I also think about an episode of The Haunted Objects Podcast that I listened to about Uri Geller. They explored how, early in his career, he was pushed to add magic tricks and illusions into his appearances because people were getting bored with the spoon thing. So, he did—because he needed money. And now there are people devoted to him being a fraud. I don’t know whether he is or isn’t; to be honest, I don’t know much more about him than that was in that podcast. I didn’t even realize he was contemporary. But what I’m getting at is the way capitalism made him compromise himself, not the fact that he was a con man (assuming he’s not one). 

Capitalism is what caused fraud in Spiritualism, not divinity. And because this is one of the first industries in the post-industrial colonial world to be led by and center women, we have to recognize that much of what we “know” about it today is propaganda created by patriarchy. Including the church, who fucking loathes competition of any kind—which is why they hate fortune tellers and why we’re called frauds. Count how many frauds you’ve heard of who read tarot? Count how many frauds you’ve heard of in the church? Yeah. I don’t for a second doubt that the early practitioners of Spiritualism were believers and I don’t doubt that many of them had the ability to communicate with — something divine. Whether it was ghosts, daemons (there was a time when all spirits were called daemons), angels, guides, whatever—we do this whenever we read cards, no matter our cosmology, so we know it’s probable that at least some Spiritualists had “it.” But then came showbiz.

Showbiz is poison, kids. Listen. Daddy knows. 
Showbiz made Spiritualism fraud. 

It is time again for me to tell you about Black Herman, sort of the ur-Uri Geller in a way. He was a stage magician for sure, but in fact also a root doctor, healer, and fortune teller. And eventually racism and the NYPD got to him on charges of fraud. They claimed he was pretending to be a doctor without credentials. Lots of people were. “Medicine” was new and most people couldn’t afford doctors. What made Black Herman a target? He was a hugely popular act around the country to Black and white audiences. That’s why. He had the temerity to be popular, successful, beloved and Black —an entrepreneur and healer. But the thing that made it easier for them to claim him as a fraud was because of the stage magic—which did blend over into Spiritualism. (A perhaps apocryphal story, also in Occult America, tells of Herman and his assistant visiting local cemeteries to memorize the names of the local dead before performances.) We know the cops could have gotten him they wanted to, but their job was easier because of the performance of Spiritualism, not because of his actual healing practice. The woman who complained about him wasn’t one of his actual clients; it was an undercover cop who entrapped him.

This is to say that I don’t advocate for divination as performance. Partly for the sanity and benefit of the reader. We have to remember that the power structures exist to keep us from being taken seriously—up to the point where it benefits those power structures to make a public example of us and try to make us an enemy (we’re both powerless and dangerous? Sure, Jan.). And given the unhinged fuckery of the right wing, I don’t doubt we may see shit like this again over the next few years. I pray not, but I say this to advocate for truly ethical and responsible divination—by which I mean, don’t be a fucking fraud, if nothing else. 

Allllllllllllll of that said, what’s to say people couldn’t use a little romance in their experience? Theatre needn’t be contrived. It can be quite real. Spectacle is simply something that feels special. In the spread for the week I’ll share my example, which will be literally “how can I make my divination more ‘spectacular’?” I like spectacle more than theatre just because I’m fighting with the theatre right now. 

But I like the idea of a little romance, a little experience. Maybe an immersion.

Immersive experiences are huge in the arts right now. I think it’s a very human need to counter our constant digital immersion. It’s like virtual reality, except it’s not virtual. It’s augmented reality, but (almost) entirely analog. Back in the beforetimes, I went to see the well-known experience Sleep No More, which is supposedly a retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth set in a decaying hotel. Everyone is masked upon arrival and then shoved into an elevator. The doors of the elevator randomly open and you’re shoved out into onto that floor—often apart from whoever you came with. They really want you to experience this without holding anyone’s hand. And so you do. You wander through this “hotel” (it’s a massive stage set, but one that feels exactly like a haunted hotel—and graveyard and aslyum . . . so many spaces exist within that hotel). There are “scenes” performed by actors throughout the rooms and characters you can follow, but nothing is linear; everything is meant to simply be experienced like a fever dream, walking through, following this character—until they lose you, and you’re left alone for a moment—and then a party erupts around you and a murder is enacted. It’s quite surreal. It’s spooky. I didn’t find it particularly sexy, but there were definitely other audience members there who seemed to—which made the danger of the experience realer, and in fact audiences members eventually started to get grabby to the point that the whole show needed to be restaged and audiences could be bounced for reaching out and touching what was not theirs to touch. And on one hand, yeah, don’t fucking touch actors. On the other hand, what a testimony to the creation of an immersion so experience that people can’t help but reach out. (But again, no! Bad!)

What might we borrow from this experience or kind of experience in our divination? How could we put on a “show” that manages to be both totally real and authentic and yet somehow romantic and full of spectacle? 

This is an exciting question to ponder! Even as it makes me somewhat anxious, because as a former performer, I have no desire to do that during my readings. But I do like the idea of ambiance. It’s not always easy to create, and this does get to my secret desire to have my own fortune telling parlour--with a u—that has books and classes and seminars and lots of jewel toned velvet furniture and a little divination museum to boot. (Someone please give me money to do this!!!!! And the energy to make it happen!!!!. )

I mean it could be as simple as using my creative writing background to do written readings for clients in an old style way . . . hand written, sent by post, wax seal . . . that sort of a thing. I mean that would be very clearly ripping off my Instagram crush, but you get the idea. Just a little twist, just a little magic, just a little sparkle to make it something special . . . something more than “just” a reading (which should never be lost to spectacle, and I really do believe that fundamentally)—but is an experience. People like experiences. 

What might you do? I love this question and I may even make a video about this! It’s rather an exciting idea. And I think not a bad business thing—give yourself a “thing,” a “niche” that works. I know a fabulous reader locally, The Vintage Mystic, who does this so well—she’s got a chifforobe full of vintage 1920 garments and jewelry, all of which she looks fabulous in. And it’s perfect! She’s gotten gigs reading in the cemetery for themed events. How cool, right? Just a little theatre, just a little something special. 

I’m actually really inspired right now! I think I may be revisiting this in several ways. 

Before I get to my sample reading of the sample spread, I want to point something else out about this reading: I didn’t really spend that much time with the cards. I got kind of a beginning from them that prompted me to go down a primrose path of ideation. (Jesus, there’s a pretentious sentence.) I don’t think I’d necessarily do that with a client, unless it was taking me to some really interesting places—and I imagine that channels are probably doing just that—but when reading for ourselves, especially in writing, it’s an incredible thing to follow a thought where it takes you. That’s when you’re really reading, and, in fact, my secret to reveal to you is: the things that you find when you’re writing that way, kind of stream-of-consciousness following an idea . . . those are the times your spirit guide is leading you and that’s one way you might begin to access them. FYI.

A read of one’s own
This is a simple spread. Pull any number of cards you want to answer the question, “How can I bring authentic-yet-theatrical spectacle to my divination?” 

Since the Tarot of Prague prompted this sort-of fairy tale of a reading, I’m sticking with it! I totally did not expect this, but I’m super delighted by it. I think is my favorite of all the posts I’ve written!

To answer my question I drew, in a cross:
                         Queen of Wands (4)
7 of cups (2), Knight of Wands (1), 10 of cups (3)
                               Emperor (5)

The Knight of Wands is our axis and the first card that went down. The Fiery Seeker! Interesting. Flanked by two cups cards! The dreamy-ass seven and the full-as-fuck ten! I like to remind folks that fire and water are not, by nature, adversarial; they can be quite productive together, and I think this is an example of such a time. Flanking the fiery knight (and I associate knights with fire, too, so this would be fiery fire), the two cups cards help him “stay in his lane.” What is that lane? Still figuring that out. 🤣

The Queen of Wands and the Emperor form the vertical column. The queen takes the knight’s energy and makes it useable, practical, kind of like a conduit. The Emperor, the OG four card, the stabilizer, grounds him. He’s very, very tightly contained in this reading; he can’t stray very far from this path; he can’t let his ego or his flair get the better of him. 

What he can do is inspire dreaminess. A usable, grounded dreaminess. 
He can do this in many ways, but I just got the idea to offer a dreamy reading. Some kind of spread that’s designed to focus on what you should be dreaming about, or where dreaming wants to happen, where we benefit from dreaming—and dreaming big! 
I feel like I want to use the word “poetry,” even though there are no swords cards and I really don’t think you can have poems without swords for many reasons (swords are words, but also poems are tight and swords edit). Poetics, maybe, rather than poetry?
So then the reading becomes based on the idea that at every moment in your life, you absolutely have to dream big about something! And this reading might present you with an immersive road map!

Oooo, this is fun brainstorming. Perhaps this is an immersive reading that builds on itself as more dreams are revealed. Perhaps there is the use of poetics, somehow, the way that Enrique Enriquez uses them (I don’t know that I’m capable of his level of poetry, but let me tell you—if you want to see someone totally immersed in tarot, watch the documentary about him. It’s called Tarology and I managed to find it on Amazon ages ago). 

This is all quite tantalizing. 
More soon!
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Anyway, I’d love love love to hear what you come up with! Let me know and have a great week.