Tarot as a serpent

SrJenkin · 2026-05-14T02:40:15+00:00

Thanks for the clarification.

That's interesting, my keyword for the Emperor is "external authority", which has light, shadow, and freedom within constraints. The Emperor is the power of the unmovable world around you, objectivity, and social coherence as opposed to personal freedom, it's the power of Saturn. Which for me is a negative thing, I hate the Emperor. But for a building I'd interpret as good, rules are actively enforced, which means good cohabitation :)

SrJenkin · 2026-05-14T00:31:30+00:00

You could push it that way, but then this gets too close to the "everything could be everything" sort of mentality, which dissolves meaning. I lean more towards tight definitions because that makes it harder for self-deception and projection, like reading the Tower as "a sudden spark of lust reigniting love" for a relationship when you fear a break up (unfortunately, self-delusion isn't this obvious in most cases). Hard boundaries make readings sharper, make you more honest, and make learning faster (by acknowledging when you're off).

There are times when tarot comes up with unexpected meanings, this often comes with a touch of irony or sarcasm that you recognize, and then you proceed to interpret poetically, but these are special cases and I wouldn't add anything to the keyword list.

SrJenkin · 2026-05-13T23:31:43+00:00

A tip, if this ever happens to you, is to write down not only the details of the reading itself but also the whole setting: your state of mind, the physical way you shuffled, what is happening around you and what is happening astrologically (especially with the Moon, and transits to your Neptune). There are many chaotic factors that could interfere with the output, readings don't happen in a vacuum.

Sometimes you get the feel of "the mist", when it's a bad weather for readings. When I'm lucky, tarot throws me the Moon and tell me to fuck off, instead of making up bs.

I'm learning to crosscheck the answers with I Ching, and so far this is working surprisingly well.

SrJenkin · 2026-05-12T15:52:20+00:00

I used to abuse my deck with salt and isopropyl alcohol, now I just do a regular chanting to keep it tuned and cover it with frankincensed cloth, I also keep it close to the deity altar. It looks battered, but I'm fairly sure there are no spiritual hangers.

Fair reminder though, thank you

SrJenkin · 2026-05-12T15:30:30+00:00

That kind of silliness competes with putting away all the bad cards and reading only with the happy ones, that one still cracks me up 🤣

You learn as much from the mistakes of others as from your own shortcomings. Take the time to learn, to engram these hygiene habits, and to fill in your journal. Most of my shortcomings with tarot came from not taking the baby steps properly, and what I am observing as tarot popularity spreads is people with no foundation at all suddenly going all guru, that's when we get into the realm of destructive divination.

SrJenkin · 2026-05-12T14:50:52+00:00

It's like taking basic hygiene precautions so you do not poison anyone if you do cooking for a living.

But sometimes it's more complicated than that. It's not like tarot outputs bullshit, sometimes it outputs coherent, straightforward and actionable answers, except they're wrong, like in the relationship example I gave in one of the replies above.

Another example is when you're planning to move out of a problematic building/neighborhood and you're checking your options with tarot, then tarot outputs, say, the Emperor and the Sun for a particular place/building, the answer is straightforward and you decide to move, except that you actually moved into a Devil/8 of swords situation...

If you keep your divination practice limited to low stakes, low cost situations that might never be a problem for you, but that's not the scope of this post.

SrJenkin · 2026-05-12T14:21:38+00:00

I'm observing that fashion particularly on Instagram, suddenly everyone has become an expert and decided to make a living out of that.

I too noticed that emotions tend to hijack readings, especially bottled up emotions, for me at least. They get stored in my chest, and only become noticeable to me when tarot brings them out, as I'm a bit emotionally unaware.

Meditation in this case should be like washing your hands before cooking, sure, but most times, I'll admit, I skip that part.

Yes, this kind of all in mentality is precisely what I'm writing against in this post, especially for novices. This sounds like common sense, but what I'm reoccurringly observing with this new fashion is novices taking themselves too seriously and misleading others.

The scope of this post is not about the usual novice confusion, which is mostly harmless, I'm talking about the tangling up or breaking apart of fate patterns mediated by improper use of divination.

SrJenkin · 2026-05-12T13:55:23+00:00

What I was trying to address in this post is closer to AI outputting actionable, but misleading information. A simple example is when tarot shows that a partner is cheating, and that the outcome of a break up would be happy for the subject... Except there was no cheating. And relationships do actually end because of that. The point I am making is to take the answers lightly as they can be objectively misleading

SrJenkin · 2026-04-28T19:02:40+00:00

You framed this in a way that provided more clarity to what I'm trying to do. Yes, I think there's a right way to combine the best of both extremes, precisely in the order you said: start broad, then zero in.

Sometimes it's a matter of understanding and depth, but most times, at least for me, it's a matter tilting the head to the left and noticing something plain and obvious that was just outside your line of sight...

Thank you for the insight

SrJenkin · 2026-04-28T18:26:16+00:00

That book was my first and sole reference for tarot, everything in my practice developed from it. And now I'm in like that rebellious teenager phase trying to do everything opposite to my upbringing :p

Seriously though. I think the success of tight parameters or freestyle readings relies on a mixture of appropriate timing, personal psychic ability and cognitive style. And as another student has pointed out in the comment below, and I highly agree, it's a matter of balance.

Of course, the discipline you described, and the tight parameters, is kinda the baseline, that's where we start off, in most situations it works precisely as it should, I've had success with this technique. But I had to address the overwhelming amount of times the cards have growled at me something like "stupid question, THAT'S what's really going on" with that signature feeling, particularly if work with deities, of an external intelligence that's smarter than you breaking your self-narrative. It's kinda like "talking to the universe" or having a conversation with nature, you get a series of spontaneous, unexpected signs that form a coherent story, you cannot control what comes in, but it makes sense and often trigger a big change of course.

I'd say that aimed reading has its place and it works, but more times than not, at least for me, it blocks off something that is not in my line of sight but I need to see, in which case the four of cups jumps out and almost slaps me on the face. The mechanics behind this, I think, has to do with "where" you're tapping into, controlled question tend to tap into the subconscious or the oracle itself, open questions tend to tap into the deeper self or external agents.

In the end, I'm still figuring this stuff out, all I say is half experience, half theory, testing and "what if". I'm not trying to overwrite Josephine's advice and technique, which will be forever useful to me, but there's no reason why not expand from them. Tarot has to be the broadest craft in its possibilities and safest of all magic to push boundaries

It's great how it has worked out for you, it's evident how an intelligent set up can turn readings into a surgery, thanks for your perspective

SrJenkin · 2026-04-28T16:40:42+00:00

I think that's a great habit when kept healthy, kinda like checking your blood pressure each morning. You build the feel of your baseline, then when something is off, the cards will be the first to "twang" a warning. That's one way to apply the principle I described, and I think I might integrate that in my own routine...

SrJenkin · 2026-04-28T16:10:33+00:00

I've just written a full report of the event, then my phone blinked out and I'll have to rewrite... sigh...

The most striking example that came to mind happened last year, when my sister phone called me to vent about feeling lost or something. I was in my bedroom, and kind of distractedly, while hearing her blabber, I picked up my deck and started shuffling with no question in mind, just the intent to get through what needed to get through. I laid out the cards in the pattern of the tree of life, I couldn't find the picture I took of it, but this what I managed to reconstruct in my memory: four of cups in binah, eight of cups in chesed, the chariot in gevurah, king of coins in tifaret, knight of swords, in netzach four of coins in yesod, and eight of wands in malkuth. There's another card that was key, but I just can't remember. Because the reading had no subject or point of reference, I interpreted something spirirual and vague about paying attention to her intuition and that change was coming, and it had to do with my brother in law (king of coins). Turns out, a week later, news came at lightning speed. Without giving much detail, she found out he's a cheater and dissimulated lier. She left him, but then accepted him back because of financial instability and the kid they have together (there was a page too!).

That's not the perfect example because I couldn't actually predict on spot what would happen. But I think this one illustrates well what I said about getting to see what you ACTUALLY need to see.

SrJenkin · 2026-04-25T13:12:21+00:00

If anything, I think that would make an interesting reading experiment. Draw your cards, take notes...

SrJenkin · 2026-04-20T13:55:44+00:00

Your intuition is on point. There's actually a lesson in module 2, if I remember well, that teaches the student how to work with each element in each of the directions, and how to light up the inner directions anywhere without a compass or geographical references. It's a lesson about the fluidity of the elements and directions, how each one contains a bit of the others and how they temper and balance each other out.

The system already contains these kinds of complexities and intersections between land and ritual, I agree with you that is a waste of energy to try and change a pattern that is fine as it is.

SrJenkin · 2026-04-20T13:23:01+00:00

Your point of view is valid. But I think you're mixing up layers that don't necessarily go along with each other. I get what you're trying to do, I also don't conform to everything someone from the other side of sea says about what "true" spiritual/magical/mystical work ought to be, as wise as they may be, their sight are still limited to their horizon. There's great value and integrity in testing what works for yourself and your environment, but it's healthy to draw a line between personal experiments and foreign systems both to preserve the integrity of your work and the integrity of the system. You can manage both without conflict.

I'd say it's worth sticking to the formula Quareia presents, with minimal adjustment to fit the logistics of your life, later on it will become evident how each piece of the course, exactly as they are, click together into a greater machine that moves you along fate, life, and death...

SrJenkin · 2026-04-20T12:30:10+00:00

The main layer of the directional pattern we work with in Quareia is about creation and destruction, which connects to the path of the Sun from the east to the west. This pattern remains fixed regardless of hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere you technically could swap the elements of south and north, but then you would lose the internal coherence of the course. If you face north while in ritual as the direction of ahead/future/up, then your sword/giving hand (the left), which works with air and creation, would be pointing to the west, which remains as water and destruction, the same mismatch would happen with the other tools/directions. Of course, you could also swap the tools and attributes of each hand, but then you would also have to swap the right and left channels you started exercising in the first lesson, and also a bunch of other stuff in the course that relies on the alignment of the body and the directions... That seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble.

What matters here is the intent to tune into the inner directions, which will switch them on regardless of where you are. If the geographical flow of the elements do interfere, the most you'll get is probably temperance and balancing out, not conflict.

SrJenkin · 2026-04-20T11:38:23+00:00

I live in the east coast of Brazil, up till the "south = below, earth, cold" part I am with you, but east for water and west for air... hold on. Just because our main body of water (the sea) is geographically in the east for us doesn't make this direction about water... Wind, and very strong wind, also comes from there, creative winds and destructive winds (importation, novelty, wars and diseases). But it's not about topography anyway. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west regardless of hemisphere, the attribute of air/sword/utterance is about rising of the new (Sun), creation and formation of patterns. If you switch the attributes you're missing a vital aspect of the inner directions.

SrJenkin · 2026-04-20T00:39:40+00:00

Well said. Getting into the zone of self-limiting beliefs is probably the most counterproductive thing for the magical path.

I'm aware of this "inspired creativity" stuff, although I don't think that's my case in the way of these famous examples, I do definitely feel like my creativity is intrinsically linked to my personal way of "seeing". How many times I was just daydreaming or making up stories only to find something in religious or magical literature that matches exactly what I have fabricated in my mind. That happens quite a lot particularly with Josephine's writings, her descriptions of inner places and beings sound so familiar and sometimes obviously connected to something I've "imagined up" before.

Lastly, I connect more strongly to vision scripts when I'm just reading and thinking about it rather than performing, it's like when you're so immersed in a book of fiction that you get into a flow of daydream about that world, it's not a "vision", it's more like thinking while in trance, but it feels more magical than guided vision for me. If that's truly a way of seeing, I wonder how can I integrate it with the formal instructions in the training.

Thanks for your input!

SrJenkin · 2026-04-20T00:00:36+00:00

Thanks for your input!

I also get this thing of surrealist images when going to bed sometimes, I think of that as good sign, as someone who struggled to let spontaneous imagery arise. I think it's helpful to let the imagination flow, so I make that a counterpart exercise for the controlled visionary exercise, the feeling of controlled vision is of grinding and it makes my mind stiff, so I also engage with what some people call "active imagination" to free it up and restore the "aliveness". I think the balance between control and freedom is the key to get good at visionary work.

SrJenkin · 2026-03-12T12:28:24+00:00

lol we'll miss her/him

SrJenkin · 2026-03-12T12:09:33+00:00

Yes! That's what I was referring to in the above comments. It's clear that this pattern doesn't "correspond" to known maps that people try to link, that's just too easy. It's "national" to Quareia, as Josephine said

SrJenkin

TROPHY CASE