LESSON 42: Grails, Why divination matters, science, and sundries.

In the fountain pen world, a land I’ve dabbled in, pen fans talk about “grail pens.” These are the great pens of all time that are either rare, exceptionally expensive, and often both. My grail pen is a Visconti Homo Sapiens, or really any Visconti pen would do (the operas, in particular . . . drool)—but the Homo Sapiens is a material unlike any other. It’s made from lava rock. Visconti known for the elegance of their pen capping and their dreamy nibs. I will never, though, justify spending close to a thousand dollars on a pen when I rarely write by hand. 

I bring this up because this week we’re using one of my grail decks this week. There haven’t been many in my career. Robert M. Place’s Vampire Tarot (which I got), this one, and the University Press edition of the Waite-Smith (the one with the pink Ankh on the back that Rachel Pollack mentions being her first, which is why I wanted it—and I got that, too). I can’t think of many others that I lusted for but that were either rare or too spendy. I’m not drawn to many decks purely because they’re hard to get or expensive. In fact, the cost of a deck can frequently deter me because I’m a rough shuffler. 

I never thought I’d get my hands on this one, but after commenting on someone’s post about it (and how much I lusted for it), the OP said, “You know, it’s not getting any cheaper.” I’d just graduated from undergrad, too (I think—or I had some other reason to pretend I needed to treat myself), so that was all the encouragement I needed. I got it. I love it. It’s strange. It’s an aggressively esoteric Marseille-style deck, with nods to many systems I don’t practice and/or appreciate. It is entirely intended to be viewed through a hermetic lens. And, much like all such decks, I just don’t care. It has a character I cannot resist. Like my inevitable love affair with the Thoth deck. I don’t like what it “stands” for, but when we’re dancing together it “stands” in a whole other way. 

Anyway, gaydies and gentletheys, The Grand Tarot Belline, (1966, France Cartes/Grimaud). In the “US,” it seems only gettable on eBay, which is where I got it years ago. I don’t know if that’s changed. 

Anyway, to the cartes themselves, n’est-ce pas? 
Five of Coins (4), Wheel of Fortune (Le Sphinx) (2), Two of Cups (1), Six of Wands (3), Chariot (of Osiris) (5). 

The guidebook and the text on these cards—and there’s a lot of text on the cards—are all in French, and I have only tiny, tiny, tiny knowledge of French. But I actually quite love working with decks in languages I don’t speak as long as I know what cards I’m looking at. I love the look of descriptive text and handwriting on cards; I just don’t want to know what it is. Anyhoo. I do know, with my limited language skills, that the Chariot in this deck is also called “The Chariot of Osiris” as well as La Victoire--Victory. What is quite cool about the Chariot showing up, and why I allowed myself to go on that long diatribe about grail decks and pens, is because Crowley said that the Charioteer is holding the holy grail. That’s what the disk being held by the driver in the Thoth deck is. And so, a grail theme may in fact emerge from this reading! Who knows?

We do, after all, start with the two of cups! 

I know enough French to know that the descriptive text on this translates to “union of sympathetic hearts” — which is quite cute. But in many ways, isn’t that really the experience of doing a tarot reading for someone? In theory it is. For the duration of the reading, whether in person or not, you are in union together, in many ways speaking from heart to heart—or whatever chakra you’re working with that day. 

Back in my new hire training days, I used to tell my trainees that “customer engagement” should be taken literally. When we’re speaking to a customer, we should think about the common understanding of “engagement” as the intention to marry. For the duration of a customer contact, we are engaged to--or married to--the customer. They are the single most important thing in the world. These days, I’d get laughed out of the training room if I said that (and not just because I don’t work for that company anymore). This “country” has invested so much in its hateful individualism, getting a smile from someone ringing up your groceries is impossible. And why should they want to? They’re being treated like crap by the business. Being acknowledged by a person who stepped on your foot on the sidewalk is too much to hope for, now, let alone an apology. I’m not being nostalgic; I think this country is showing now who we always have been. But the myth of customer-centricity is being thrown down the toilet much the way the myth of this being the “land of free” is.

When we’re reading for someone, there is a union. But, and I think this is important to highlight, I don’t think it’s really between the client and the reader. I think the real union is between the message and the client. If we were to think about the two of cups through this lens, than the reader is the cups—the container holding the union, holding the reading. But, as I frequently say, we are merely a translator. I feel strongly that this is so partly—mostly—because my experience tells me this is so. But also because I think it reminds readers that we have to get our damn egos out of the equation. And that’s a thing I’ll harp on a lot, too. There’s that cliche that in meditation if you’re thinking about how mindful you’re being, you’re not being mindful. I think as a reader, if we’re thinking about how good or bad we’re reading, we’re not reading anymore. We’re patting ourselves on the back or beating ourselves up. These are two sides of the self-same coin. I think if we thought of ourselves as channels—and I’m certain there are readers who do—we would have a better time managing our own egos. 

It’s tough with tarot, or any physical divination (as opposed to, say, clairsentience) because that the reader does actively have to learn a system and has to actively interpret the cards. We’re not merely receiving, we’re receiving and translating. So we are part of the reading. We’re the ones “figuring out” what the reading “says.” But the more I work with divination, I think the more mature I get at doing it, the more I realize that so much of the process is simply getting out of the way and just . . . following our impulses. Because those impulses are, if we can get a bit metaphorical, the synapses that our guides fire in order for the correct words to come out. It’s like, they’re in our sphere aiming their little thought lasers at this part of the brain, then that one, and suddenly the word “union” comes out of our mouth. It feels like we “thought” of it, but really we were just manipulated in such a way that the word came out. 

That’s a far more spiritual way of thinking about it than you may be used to from me. But I don’t really think of it that way. I think that’s always how it worked, but what I’ve done over the years is understood that I’m actually not that important a piece of the puzzle. Not in a self-shame way, not in a negation of my gifts—I’m a very good reader—but in the way that I understand more and more that I’m a conduit for the oracle, not the oracle itself. I think I’m a good reader now because I’m much better at getting out of the way. I would have said in the past, and have said, that readings are simply pattern recognition. They are. But: I think the ability for us to recognize patterns exists in part because we’re being guided. In essence, we’re not entirely alone out here. But that would have been an unfathomable thought for me years ago. I wouldn’t have been able to understand it, enjoy it, and certainly not articulate it.

The 2/cups is flanked by the Wheel, a card I see a lot of lately, and the 6/wands. It’s almost as though the Wheel is chaos and the 6/wands is order. That’s not a keyword I typically assign to the Six of Wands, but the cards also typically doesn’t show such a neat arrangement of scepters. Sixes do have an association with beauty, and when we’re living in chaos, order can be quite a beautiful thing. (By the way: here’s an example of me getting out of the way . . . I didn’t tell these two cards what they meant together; I let them tell me. I glanced at them my and brain went—ORDER AND CHAOS—and boom, there was the interpretation. I got out of the way and the cards spoke.)

Actually, glancing at the whole spread, if I read it from left to right, I might say, The uncertainty of life (5/coins) is never-ending and unsettling (Wheel), but the uniting of client and message (2/cups) brings a stately order to their energy and their efforts (6/wands), so that they can keep chasing their grail (Chariot). (This is another example of me just getting out of the way. I happened to glance at the cards to reference while I was typing and this whole sentence formed in my mind because I was being receptive. I’m primed—now, after years—to receive more. I do impose, especially when I’m not “hearing” anything. But more and more and I have to do that less and less.)

In essence, it defines what divination is and why it’s helpful—especially now. Which is funny, because this morning I thought, “Oh, maybe I should ask ‘what is tarot?’ for this week’s blog” and then said, “No, that’s dumb.” But that’s essentially the answer I just got! Hilarious. 

If I return to what I had been doing, mirroring the flanking cards, I only hadn’t gotten to the 5/coins and the Chariot, which—when mirrored—say a similar thing, in context of the other cards. Moving on from and despite life’s uncertainty. 

It’s nice to be reminded that what we do matters. One of the things I attempted to do with The Modern Fortune Teller’s Field Guide (open for preorders now!) was make the case that fortune tellers matter. Not in like a defensive way, but in the sense that the world has always needed people who can decipher through chaos. The world also has needed people who can see what’s happening and what the patterns are and work with them. And, of course, to see the world as it actually is, and not as our desires or insecurities paint it. People want information, people want clarity. I don’t think divination systems of all kinds would keep having resurgences in history if they didn’t work. I know they work, because I see them work every day. I’m among the most cynical people you’ll ever encounter, I’m a skeptic in all ways . . . except that divination has proven to me that it works.

I’ve recently made the argument that skepticism is colonial. To retreat to a world of “logic” and of “science” that makes no room for magic or belief is, in essence, to commit the sin white liberals commit constantly: to buy into the idea that correctness and wisdom only come from “experts” who have passed certain tests of expertise set up by the privileged. That’s a convoluted way of saying “they got credentials from higher education, so we believe them.” And I want to be clear, I’m not anti-science. Or education. I’m quite pro-science. I benefit from it. But “science”—the gatekeeping kind—should have a “yes, and” attitude and instead it frequently has a “no moron” attitude. “Science” (I’m using the quotes here like I use “christianity”) doesn’t care about “what if . . .?” which is the main question of science. It’s attitude is, “That doesn’t seem reasonable to me, so it’s fake.” 

If you want to find out how or why something works, and even to change it—which, let’s not forget, is the very reason we have science--you have to be open to any possible answer. A science that isn’t, isn’t science. (Meanwhile, diviners are out here asking questions and being open all the damn time. Or we should be, anyway.)

It’s ego. Science and medicine are fields dominated by straight, white men—men who can afford advanced degrees in those fields. If the fields are more diverse than once they were, that doesn’t negate the fact that the culture, the lessons, the books, the ethos, everything, has been designed by those men in ways that make sense to those men—and anyone who doesn’t agree with those men are “uneducated” and “ignorant.” 

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

Science can tell you why it feels like your heart is breaking when you think of your lover cheating on you. A diviner can tell you what’s causing the feeling, the reasons you are prone to that kind of mindset, and even things you can do to recover from it. 

Divination is the lovechild of science and magic. Science is magic, when it’s approached with openness. We don’t get cures to diseases when people say, “well, that disease isn’t real.” And we know that has happened and know it continues to! We know that certain group of people are entirely dismissed by their doctors because their doctors have bizarrely inhumane beliefs about them (studies—recent studies—show that med students actually think Black bodies have higher pain tolerances than non-Black bodies). 

This is real and it is verifiable. It is science. 

Knowing this, you’d think science (and medicine) would admit, “gee, we might have a fucking bias issue in our industry—and because it’s really hard to see bias, we might have it in way more areas than just whether or not we hold racist stereotypes about Black skin that we KNOW, because we’re scientists and we have the evidence, were placed into the collective mind deliberately by enslavers to justify their fucking crimes.”

Or something. You know. Just a suggestion.

And this rigidity, incidentally, has made it acceptable for every “American” to consider themselves both an expert and a scientist, and to feel completely comfortable pontificating on their “expertise” without concept of consequence or even the idea that maybe, just maybe, they’re fucking wrong about something. 

This is an influencer culture. People see guys like Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye go on their anti-astrologer benders—discussing something they don’t know about because they don’t want to know about it because they don’t think like scientists —at least in this case--and so blow all their own cred out of the water—and speak with absolute conviction and authority about things that cannot be proven. Yet. And then we all go out there and ape them. I’m not immune. My social media persona has, for years, been incredibly “fuck you” to anyone who doesn’t agree with me. Granted, a lot of my opinions are things like, oh, trans kids deserve a happy childhood and the chance to be themselves and we should stop murdering Palestinian babies, so if you disagree with me you deserve my fuck-yous. But I also know, and have known, this attitude never changes minds. It’s never changed mine, that’s for damn sure. But we do this because it feels necessary, it feels correct, and it feels that way because we see people of influence doing the same thing.

I’m not saying we should tone police ourselves or anyone else. No. Frankly, social media is an emotion waste bin. In some ways that’s healthy. We dump our shit into the ether and then it’s been released and we can move on--usually. Unless we managed to hit someone’s nerve and we wind up in a battle. And I do think that anger matters. While I may not have changed minds with mine, I have had people tell me that they are glad to know they’re not alone in their anger, or that they feel less disgusted by the world knowing that there are people out there who are angry on their behalf. Anger, social media rage even, is, in a way, something we give to the people who already agree with us to sustain their energy. But changing minds, social change, requires a different voice—and that’s a reality. And it is sometimes hard to admit that because it feels so good talking like a so-called “expert,” which is to say acting like a know-it-all and getting praised for it.

I’m quite big right now on the the ideas of aggression and receptivity. Our society prizes aggression. That’s why we love a good, old-fashioned take-down on TV. “Watch Bill Nye Obliterate Astrologer” is a video title that isn’t hard to imagine, right? (I made that up.) This is how we talk. This is our culture. In fact, we’ve being trained to think and talk this way by the “experts” who know that we are more likely to click on videos with highly emotive terms like that. We’ve gotten more obsessed with aggression these days, which is saying something—because the world-as-influenced-by-the-US is an aggressive place.

Aggression is closed. Aggression is, “No, that’s not real, because I don’t like it and I don’t think it is.” 

Receptivity, on the other hand, is open. People think this is passive. Not at all. Passivity means anything can just come wandering on in. No. Receptivity allows for curation, but also for potential. It is a state-of-being that says, “approach before I decide . . . and when I decide, there are phases of deciding . . . every moment of our interaction will be a phase of deciding.” Actually, that’s a convoluted way of thinking about it. How about this? It’s like a date. OK? Two people are attracted to each other, they want to know more, they may even want to see each other naked, but they also don’t know whether that’s a risk worth taking. But the excitement of some co-created nakey time with an attractive person is worth the journey, so they stay open to each other.  Up until they feel or know they want to see the person naked, or don’t—or want to see them naked but that it’s just too much of a thing . . . That’s receptivity. 

Aggression is, “I’m gettin’ laid tonight!” Reception is, “I’m open to getting laid tonight if it’s worth my time and energy, but not otherwise, and either outcome is fine.” 

Sorta. 

Anyway! This is yet another weird journey, but I enjoy it. I like when cards take us unexpected places. And that’s, for me, the great joy of writing this. 

A read of one’s own

There’s so much going on in this week’s post I didn’t even know what to title it. But I think the main take-away, at least from an action oriented standpoint, is to consider aggression and receptivity.

I suggest three cards each to answer these questions:
“Where can my work be more aggressive?”
“Where can my work be more receptive?”

Another thing you might try a three- (or more) card reading on:
“Why are fortune tellers (or whatever term you choose) important right now?” Here’s a quick sample from me for that question. (Deck used, Shadowscapes—only because it’s closer to me right now than the one I used to wrote the post.) (See photo, below.)

Oh I love tarot so much. 🤣 Here’s what I got:

Wheel of Fortune (4), Eight of Pentacles (2), Temperance (1), Eight of Cups!(3), Ten of Wands (5)

There are moments when you lay out the cards and you don’t even need to interpret them to feel the delight of “knowing.” These cards—including the two eights—really couldn’t be more perfect!!! I felt my body sort of sigh with glee? is that a thing? when I saw these cards. (Doesn’t hurt this deck is a stunner.) Here’s how I’d interpret them:

Because we blend (Temperance) the practical work of life and the spiritual work of life—because we work in both the practical and spiritual realms of life always (8 penties/8 cups). Out potent energy (Ten of Wands) can actually influence the fates (Wheel) with our deep (water) connection to divinity (fire+water—8/cups+10/wands). This isn’t magic. It is the translation of the universal flux (Wheel) into the daily flux (8/penties). It is, however, ART (which is the title of Temperance in the Thoth deck, which I love about it). Our work generates steam (fire+water) that makes it possible to actually blend the universal and practical (wheel+8/cups)—which is really what divination does. Thus, we are artists who blend the universal into the daily, generating steam for our clients. With steam, they can power their own wheels of fortune—the mini ones that are basically the 8 coins in that card!

What a joy. 

Be good.