Learn to Create Your Own Tarot Spreads

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This announcement has been a long time coming! I am teaming up with my friend Coleman Stevenson of the Dark Exact to teach a new class on Tarot spreads!

When reading tarot and oracle cards, context is everything. A well-designed spread can guide and focus a reading, leading to greater understanding and personal discovery. In this 3-week workshop led by Coleman Stevenson of The Dark Exact and Erik L. Arneson of Arnemancy, we’ll explore what makes a great spread, examine how card meanings shift based on position in different spreads, and practice various methods for constructing our own card layouts. Each participant will have an original spread tested by the class and will be invited to submit completed spreads from the workshop for publication in Volume Three of A Small Collection of Specialized Spreads.

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Using Tarot Webs to Understand Cards

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You’ve probably had the same experience I’ve had: no matter how well you begin to understand most of the cards in your Tarot deck, there are still one or two stubborn holdouts, mysteries that make your brain blank when you get them in a spread or as your daily card. In 2018 I got the Queen of Wands once every two days for over a week and I had no idea what was going on. I’m still not sure what was going on! This post demonstrates an exercise you can use on stubborn cards, though of course you can eventually do it to every single card if you wish. The exercise comes out of pre-writing practice and it’s called “webbing” or “mind mapping.” It’s an excellent way to explore the visual and esoteric symbols of any card.
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2022 Forecast with T. Susan Chang and Andrew B. Watt (Part 2)

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2022 Forecast
2022 Forecast
2022 Forecast with T. Susan Chang and Andrew B. Watt (Part 2)
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On the very eve of the New Year, I am joined by my two amazing friends, astrologer Andrew B. Watt and cartomancer T. Susan Chang, for part two of our 2022 Forecast! Join us as we put our divinatory skills to the test. As Andrew interprets astrological charts for each month, Susie draws Tarot cards, and I am there to moderate!

Part two of the 2022 Forecast covers the months of July through December.

Two special notes for this episode:

  • All of us are offering 20% off divination services through January 5th. To take advantage of this, use code BIGASTRO22 on our respective websites, which you can find in the list of links below.
  • There is a PDF that goes along with this episode! You can get a copy by signing up for the Arnemancy Newsletter!

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year!!!!

T. Susan Chang

T. Susan Chang bought her first tarot deck at a Barnes & Noble in New York, where she moonlighted as a reader while working in academic publishing. After leaving the city, she took her practice underground for many years, re-surfacing in 2015 and taking up the systematic study of esoteric correspondences in tarot.

Her interest in tarot is wide-ranging and passionate, and has included:

  • Setting up 78 Spotify playlists for those interested in card-appropriate music
  • memorizing astrological correspondences for the minor arcana while swimming laps
  • writing tarot haiku and spells
  • maintaining a sprawling Card-of-the-Day-tracking database (complete with elemental, astrological, and kabbalistical frequency and percentage pie charts).

When not engaged in tarot-adjacent activity, she teaches writing at Smith College, and writes occasionally about food and cookbooks. She lives in western New England with her husband, two children, and a variable number of chickens.

Andrew B. Watt

Andrew Watt is an astrologer, poet and artist living in western Massachusetts. He works in textiles, wood and words to produce objects for practical magic and mysterious practicality, and seeks the honest wisdom found in the life of an artisan.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
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2022 Forecast with Andrew B. Watt and T. Susan Chang (Part 1)

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2022 Forecast
2022 Forecast
2022 Forecast with Andrew B. Watt and T. Susan Chang (Part 1)
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The new year is nigh! Once again, I am joined by my two amazing friends, astrologer Andrew B. Watt and cartomancer T. Susan Chang, to attempt to forecast the future. Together, we put our divinatory skills to the test. As Andrew interprets astrological charts for each month, Susie draws Tarot cards, and I am there to moderate!

Part one of the 2022 Forecast covers the months of January through June.

Two special notes for this episode:

  • All of us are offering 20% off divination services through January 5th. To take advantage of this, use code BIGASTRO22 on our respective websites, which you can find in the list of links below.
  • There is a PDF that goes along with this episode! You can get a copy by signing up for the Arnemancy Newsletter!

Andrew B. Watt

Andrew Watt is an astrologer, poet and artist living in western Massachusetts. He works in textiles, wood and words to produce objects for practical magic and mysterious practicality, and seeks the honest wisdom found in the life of an artisan.

T. Susan Chang

T. Susan Chang bought her first tarot deck at a Barnes & Noble in New York, where she moonlighted as a reader while working in academic publishing. After leaving the city, she took her practice underground for many years, re-surfacing in 2015 and taking up the systematic study of esoteric correspondences in tarot.

Her interest in tarot is wide-ranging and passionate, and has included:

  • Setting up 78 Spotify playlists for those interested in card-appropriate music
  • memorizing astrological correspondences for the minor arcana while swimming laps
  • writing tarot haiku and spells
  • maintaining a sprawling Card-of-the-Day-tracking database (complete with elemental, astrological, and kabbalistical frequency and percentage pie charts).

When not engaged in tarot-adjacent activity, she teaches writing at Smith College, and writes occasionally about food and cookbooks. She lives in western New England with her husband, two children, and a variable number of chickens.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
Listen on Podcrypt

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A Very Enochian Christmas with Cliff

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A Very Enochian Christmas
Arnemancy
A Very Enochian Christmas with Cliff
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Happy holidays, everybody! What is more packed with holiday cheer than Enochian magic? In this episode, I am joined by Cliff from Enochian Today to discuss his extensive and in-depth exploration of Enochian magic. Our conversation briefly covers the history of Enochian magic and the partnership between John Dee and Edward Kelley, and then we dive deep into the evolution of the system and Cliff’s work with gebofal.

Gebofal is a 49-day ritual that works with complex tables found in the Liber Logaeth. Cliff explains how he worked with these tables, the mathematic structure of these tables, and the hierarchy of spirits that seem to be laid out in the Enochian heptarchy. This is complicated magic, and if this episode interests you at all, please be sure to check out Cliff’s blog for an in-depth look at his process.

Cliff has practiced ceremonial magic for about twenty years, and has been deeply involved in Enochian magic for about two years or so.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
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A Grip of Agrippas

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Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa is arguably the most influential writer in all of Western esotericism. De occulta philosophia libri III or Three Books of Occult Philosophy is his largest and most well-known work. Written, revised, and expanded over the course of two decades, it was finally published in full in Cologne in 1533. The first full English translation was completed by the mysterious J.F. and was published about a century later in London in 1651. For over 350 years, this was the only English translation available.

Then, suddenly, over the last two years, two new English translations have been published. In 2020, a translation by Paul Summers Young was published by Black Letter Press. Close on its heels, Eric Purdue’s translation was published by Inner Traditions in 2021. The modern occult world is now awash in fresh new translations of Agrippa’s seminal work.

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Werewolf Magick with Denny Sargent

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Werewolf Magick
Arnemancy
Werewolf Magick with Denny Sargent
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If you are saying right now, “Reverend Erik, this should have been your Hallowe’en episode,” know that I agree. And here is why: joining me for this episode is Denny Sargent, author of the recently released book Werewolf Magic: Authentic Practical Lycanthropy. He is, of course, here to talk about werewolves.

Our conversation covers Denny’s background as an occultist and magician, and then we explore how the concept of werewolf magic came about, and how it was developed. We discuss the history of shapeshifting as well as the nature of its practice, including topics such as spirit vision, the “Double”, and other related concepts. Most importantly, Denny is a lively and engaging speaker, so we talk for a long time and only sometimes get off topic. I think you’ll be proud of us!

Denny, also known as Aion 131 and Hermeticusnath, is a Seattle writer, artist and university instructor whose extensive global travels and esoteric studies informed the backbone to numerous published books. Involved for decades with many esoteric traditions, the author has published works on alternative religions, Hermetic magic, Taoism, animism, Shinto, and Tantra. His published books include Global Ritualism, The Tao of Birth Days, Your Guardian Angel and You, Clean Sweep, The Book of the Horned One, Naga Magick, Dancing With Spirits, and Werewolf Magick.

If you are interested in helping protect wildlife, especially with gray wolf restoration, please consider a donation to Defenders of Wildlife.

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy
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A Tale of Two Tarot Decks

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The Arnemancy Podcast
Solo Episodes
A Tale of Two Tarot Decks
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In this extra special episode, I will be interviewing two Tarot decks. I know what you are thinking: Tarot decks don’t talk. But what if they could? Well, let’s find out. My first guest this episode is an old and slightly crazy friend, my first edition copy of Robert M. Place’s Alchemical Tarot. And after that, I’ll be working with my second guest: the brand new Moonlit Hermit Tarot from J Swofford.

I will be using a Tarot spread made specifically for interviewing Tarot decks. When some Tarot people get a new deck, one of the first things they do is an interview spread. This spread can supposedly help a reader forge a deeper connection with their divination tools. However, this might not be a very old tradition. The earliest example of one of these spreads that I was able to find on the Internet is from the Æclectic Tarot forum, in a 2010 post from a user called FireRaven.

I have found a number of other spreads in various Tarot blogs and on other websites, but all of them seem to be derivative of the spread originally created by FireRaven.

Here are the six basic questions from this spread:

  1. Tell me about yourself. What is your most important characteristic?
  2. What are your strengths as a deck?
  3. What are your limits as a deck?
  4. What do you bring to the table? What are you here to teach me?
  5. How can I best learn from and collaborate with you?
  6. What is the potential outcome of our working relationship?

The Alchemical Tarot

I have a long history with this deck. I won it in a raffle back in 2003 or 2004. I knew I would win it before my name was drawn, which felt weird at the time. For many years it was my primary deck. I used it as a focus for Tarot meditation. When I started reading for others, I used this deck frequently. But very often, the readings were weird, uncanny, or strange. Sometimes strange things would happen while I was reading with this deck, so eventually, I stopped reading with it for others.

If you want to hear one spooky story surrounding this deck, listen to the episode! And, spoiler alert, below is a photo of my reading.

Alchemical Tarot interview spread

The Moonlit Hermit Tarot

This brand new deck was just published earlier this year by J Swofford. It is based on the Tarot de Marseilles, which is a different system than I am used to. It has 78 cards like a standard Tarot deck, plus 4 cards that were originally meant to represent the Goetic kings: Oriens, Paymon, Amaymon, and Egyn. This deck is available in the Arnemancy Shop!

I have only used it for a few test readings, so it is still very new to me. Will I need to turn to the Little White Book to interpret my interview reading? Listen to the episode and find out! Again, here is a photo of my reading.

Moonlit Hermit Tarot interview spread

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/arnemancy

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Group Mysticism with C.R. Dunning

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Contemplative Masonry
Arnemancy
Group Mysticism with C.R. Dunning
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In this very special episode, C.R. “Chuck” Dunning, Jr., joins me to discuss meditation and mysticism in group practices. Chuck recently published a new book, The Contemplative Lodge: A Manual for Masons Doing Inner Work Together, which is a companion to his earlier book, Contemplative Masonry: Basic Applications of Mindfulness, Meditation, and Imagery for the Craft. While these books speak about Freemasonry, the techniques and insights come from Chuck’s decades of experience as a counselor, meditator, mystic, and magician.

Our discussion covers a lot of ground, but we focus on how group work can help enhance mystical and magical progress. We look at techniques ranging from Rosicrucianism to mystical Christianity to Freemasonry, including a few stopovers with old favorites like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Kabbalah. Chuck has a lot of wisdom to share, and I believe that his words and wisdom can offer a great deal of guidance to everybody, not just Freemasons.

As a disclaimer, I am the editor of The Contemplative Lodge. I have also known Chuck for over 20 years, and consider him an important teacher in my esoteric and occult work. My ongoing friendship with Chuck has only heightened my respect for his work. It is my belief that you, dear listener, can also learn a great deal from what he has to say.

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Alchemical Cocktails

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When I was just a baby esoteric type, I would frequent herbal shops to make homemade remedies—sorry to anyone who partook of one of those back in the day; I had no idea what I was doing, but at least I didn’t charge! Decades later, my study of cocktail and spirit history (the liquid kind, in this case) has me creating far more potent and delicious concoctions. In a lot of ways, modern craft bartending is a continuation of what healers, alchemists, and other “wise people” have been doing for centuries. So let’s ‘double, double toil and trouble’ ourselves with some booze alchemy.
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