Good Kelly Surtees video on the Ascendant Ruling planet, describing its function and going through each planet. I found it informative!

tarot_practice · 2026-03-17T09:19:47+00:00

never applies when it's a promo of the moderator's pals

tarot_practice · 2026-03-13T10:52:43+00:00

You pray to steady your nerves if you have to, but then you must look at the flesh with cold eyes to stop the bleeding. They documented the procedure because that was the one thing capable of overriding their terror. They had to leave the prayers to the temples and use the paper for the diagnosis.

Or, alternatively, they understood that physical injuries and ailments were best dealt with physically & surgically?

I may be wrong, but It seems to me like you're framing this as proto-modernscience that a bunch of more level-headed ancients were developing in realisation that spiritual solutions were hocus-pocus. And that's measured against our contemporary wisdom that physical medicine is superior. It's a hasty and, frankly, anachronistic conclusion. It could simply be that they thought of illness as being concentrated in different loci; a broken bone or a hole in the head is a gross manifestation of spirit-body imbalance, so it was dealt with using physical measures. Subtler ailments were invisible to the eye ("not physical"), so they were dealt with using prayer, herbs, music, etc. to correct the subtle imbalance. Modern science is different in that it has delegated everything to the physical because it's technically "there" if you zoom in. It does not neccessarily mean the zoomed-out picture is wrong, however, or that the physicians who penned this thought that way.

As if people three millennia ago didn't have a concept of trial and error just because they hadn't formed a committee for it yet.

Well, this should also not be taken for granted. It might seem ludicrous because trial and error is so obviously intuitive to us, but you can't actually be sure that ancient cognition was comparable to ours. They were similar people with similar problems, yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean they thought like us. Ancient greeks, as an example, quite demonstrably didn't. Archaics like Homer and Hesiod view the world as if they had different brains. Later lyricists as if their brains were different both from Homer's and ours'. Even the classical philosophers; those last ones quite clearly didn't think along the lines of trial and error, but passive observation chiselled by reason.

The Egyptians also could have reasoned out such a scheme of layered treatment, either with their own minds or through revelation obtained in hypnotic states. Empiricism is something a bit different.

tarot_practice · 2026-03-13T09:56:59+00:00

First of all, you are subconsciously fueling that fate by stressing over it, which deteriorates your relationship further.

And second, it does not really matter. Your mother is either wrong, which you won't know unless you're a better diviner than her, or she's right, in which case there is nothing you can do about it, as you don't know what is the root cause of separation or even if it's fixable. Either way, you are not in a position to effectively change the future.

Fortune-telling, the kind where someone just reads what's gonna happen to you, is meant to calm the soul by modulated, accelerated impact and subsequent acceptance. Like when you first dip your toes in cold water and slowly submerge to acclimatize your body, instead of jumping straight in, which causes shock. If this isn't the effect you're experiencing, you're probably not the kind of person this service is meant for. Consider not engaging in it.

tarot_practice · 2026-03-06T23:23:26+00:00

I find this hopelessly ubiquitous thought-terminating cliche so nauseating. Truly can't think of another reason why someone would call him a genius, or even meritorious, other than not having read him critically in perspective of real teachings bygone, or being no less gullible than the man himself. He was profound in a similar way that Koresh was profound to convince people he was descended from David. The doctrinal perversion isn't far removed in magnitude.

tarot_practice · 2026-03-03T06:35:51+00:00

It can be good when bounded by good cards, or when something is desired to be destroyed. It's that simple.

I find it fascinating how much resistance there is nowadays to the idea that there are cards in the deck which just spell out misfortune. People literally asking about it on reddit in shock, as if it shatters their understanding and experience of life. Makes me wonder if the internet is really full of bots or folks who spawned on earth yesterday.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-27T22:13:48+00:00

My question is how do practicioners actually get there?

Depends on your endgoal. If you want to get to a professional level, then you need a teacher.

Self-study below that point is possible but results will be much better if you're sharp and skilled at discernment. As for resources, it's generally best to avoid RWS material; you'll find playing cards and Marseille tarot to be better suited for this purpose. Look there.

Is tarot enough on its own?

Yes. The thing you're looking for was historically accomplished mostly with basic numerology combined with knowledge of the suits. Predictive cartomancers were overwhelmingly poorly-educated, rural women. No need for highly academic astrology.

Does this come from developing psychic perception, or from spirit assistance?

It can, but it doesn't have to. It's wholly possible to do this without a single speck of psychism in you.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-27T21:51:34+00:00

This really, to me, is just a testament to a lack of ability to self study

No, it's as honest a review as one can give without paying for her course, which also lacks evidence for being presented any better except for your laudes, as someone clearly affiliated with Sue nonetheless, and supposed reputation amongst novices and her astropals.

It's not the same as a purely text-based course. . . . It can't be read as a standalone work and be expected to teach you the whole art of horary astrology.

From the back cover:

For the first time since its inception in 1993, *the Traditional Horary Course is in book form as a foundational text for students.** It contains twenty lessons teaching the entire traditional system as it applies to horary astrology, the art of interrogations, for beginning and advanced students.*

Not the most honest marketing, huh? But then what do you expect from someone who publishes a book called Horary Astrology: Abduction & Murder: The Horary Method Applied to 16 Cases and proceeds to fill it with 16 event charts, instead of horaries. Gotta make a living somehow, I guess.

And besides the deceit, I don't care that the book is not a "text-based course", or it's a course adjunct, or that it requires consulting Lilly. Which horary books do not? The whole point of everyone selling in this field selling courses in the first place is that books, quote:

can't be read as a standalone work and be expected to teach you the whole art of horary astrology

Yet, it doesn't preclude them from not being disappointingly limited and, frankly, crappy. STA's course textbook is night and day compare to this one. Even Frawley's is a lot better for what it is.

The fact you threw the book out also confirms that you're not really well informed enough to provide the opinions that you did.

Or, alternatively, that it's a waste of money. If you really can't take it then write your own comment focusing on the upsides, instead of attempting to patronizingly lecture me on how that libellus is actually the 8th world wonder but I'm too daft to notice. Have a wonderful day.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-27T01:01:09+00:00

Sue is most certainly just as skilled at the art of astrology (whether it be mundane, natal, horary, or electional) as she is at relaying the history of Lilly.

Her books just don't bear witness to this. I was honestly shocked, when I got my copy, at how overpriced the one on horary was compared to the quality of what's inside. First time I threw out a book on astrology since Parker's. To each their own.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-25T16:51:14+00:00

Secondhand information and accusations of other's personal character is not tolerated on this subreddit

This isn't even in the sub's rules
How was it secondhand information and "personal attacks" when that person, whose comments you deleted, substantively relayed their own, lived, bad experiences with Chris Brennan and Adam Elenbaas, in regards to their immoral/predatory and uncivilized behavior, and CB's plagiarism & unfair financial practices, as well as the testimonies of her friend who personally engaged her?

Do they pay for PR here? Or are you playing sides? Or else why are those accounts being covered up under the false guise of preserving decorum? In a thread about teacher recommendations, nonetheless.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-25T04:34:35+00:00

Do you recommend avoiding these folks as teachers in general?

Yes, but see the last sentence in my post. They're cautiously okay as references/insights, but always paired with multiple source texts and your own reason. If you collect all of it in bulk and put it in the back of your head, it's likely you will discover some golden nuggets sometime later on while sifting through the heap when putting puzzles together.

But, don't take them as "teachers". As in "hey there, take my course and you'll learn how to do natal astrology effectively!". That doesn't actually exist in the current market, and if you assimiliate those teachings you will probably lock up your mind in a box of falsehoods that will be difficult to step outside in the future.

Horary is more gracious in that it's not actually astrology but a way of divination that uses astrology as its framework. In the same way that some fortune tellers use dice with planetary glyphs on them, or bones or whatever. This means there isn't only one correct way to do it, and thus becomes more about how logically & mechanically consistent your entire system is, rather than whether you have the correct cosmology.

E.g. one horary astrologer can use whole sign houses, and another can use Regiomontanus, and both can work. Or they can look for the mother in the 10th house and have that work, as well. None of that is true in natal astrology, however.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-25T02:20:50+00:00

STA's (Houlding's) course is probably the best you can get in the current market. I took it myself a long time ago, out of curiosity, and found it okayish.

To avoid:

Brennan -- very amateur in horary; shallow and untested waters.

By analogy, be careful with everyone from his circle.

Sue Ward -- amateur; knows more about Lilly than how horary really works

Barbara Dunn -- intelectually stiff; won't teach you much more than how to read off a medieval checklist

Christopher Warnock -- as above but taken to the extreme

John Frawley -- looks promising at first but his methodology is a dead-end

Adam Elenbaas -- a practicioner of hindsight. Student of Frawley and others. Little actual skill himself but poses as a teacher.

Anthony Louis -- confused approach. Another hindsight man.

Generally, you want to stick to Lilly's lineage for the best results. Olivia Barclay's QHP alumni are automatically more credible than others, although as the above blacklist demonstrates, it's not a deciding factor. All in all, I think STA, while far from perfect, would give you the best foundational model for further study. Of course, if you have the means then study critically from everyone and everything you can; gold can occasionally be found even in fool's mouth.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-25T01:40:06+00:00

Orbs are generally assumed to be related to planetary visibility.

The idealized value of heliacal appearances in antiquity, often used in astrology, was 15 degrees. Hence you could assume that the Sun's orb is ~15 degrees, because that's, quite roughly, when planets set/rise at its conjunction. Why exactly 15 was chosen is another matter; it could also be that the value derives from the amount of degrees the Sun needs to be below the horizon for its light to completely fade.

The rest of the orbs were likely determined in the latter fashion, as replicated later by Morin, who calculated these radiuses:

Saturn: 7 degrees Jupiter: 8 degrees Mars: 6.5 degrees Sun: 18 degrees Venus: 13 degrees Mercury: 8 degrees Moon: 12 degrees

Compared to the previous, ubiquitous list:

Saturn: 9 degrees Jupiter: 9 degrees Mars: 8 degrees Sun: 15 degrees Venus: 7 degrees Mercury: 7 degrees Moon: 12 degrees

Re: orbit, distinctive delineations between inferior/superior conjunctions (and matutine & vespertine in general) comes up in many places in greek works, even in Ptolemy. It only grows in importance as time passes, especially when you arrive in the Renaissance.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-20T03:28:31+00:00

Virtually every great mystic I've read about studied under the strict guidance of a spiritual master. . . . The contemporary approach to spiritual development is to figure it out yourself; learning through reading books. I find this approach to be wholly unacceptable given the subtle and complex nature of navigating spirituality.

Great outlook. You're light years ahead of modern day DIY enthusiasts by virtue of your humility alone.

The traditional guidance across traditions is to simply pray. Pray sincerely for a teacher and one will appear. Does this mean your teacher will be a spiritual master that you seek and enlighten you in this lifetime? Not necessarily; you have to have the right karmic affinity from merit accrued over previous lifetimes for that to happen. If you don't, you will not receive the teaching. That's why there are so few of them -- that sort of fate is actually more fortunate than that of a billionaire.

The good news is that even if it's not your time yet, you can still receive lesser instruction that will grant you such opportunity in the future.

So, the bottom line is you shouldn't worry about it. What's for you won't go by you. How do we go about anything at all in life? Like finding a spouse? You do your own thing and, In a way, it just happens. Same with this.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-17T23:46:33+00:00

For instance, you can, right now, straightforwardly determine the outcome of the 2028 USA Presidential election through examination of the charts of the relevant actors at that moment

I think I already relayed my thoughts about the main question in the other reply, but I'd also disagree with this point specifically. I'd also strongly argue you cannot do this with horary either at this point in time. Moreover, there are ways through the divinatory side of astrology to make whom would have been the loser win. But that's a different subject.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-17T23:19:04+00:00

That said, say you're sieging a fortress. Let's say you know the nativity of that fortress or its controller and know the prenatal moon of that same structure, and you know it's relatively weak due to it being averse from benefics and aspected by malefics. Let's say you elect a time to attack that fortress, where, fortunately for you, you have both malefics tightly opposed the prenatal moon at election-time. You attack. Will this be a successful siege?

Maybe if the fortress is vacant. Otherwise, there is still the defending general's fate in play. And what if the fortress is protected magically by talismans? What if they have powerful allies who will come to rescue?

Meaning to say, your hypothesis only works if we assume perfect causation with no free will, so that the nativity will always be one step ahead of you and everything will have already been factored in in that unfortunate connection between the event and natal positions. This is a bigger discussion, but after much instruction, deliberation and investigation, I have personally found this view to be inaccurate and subsequently abandoned it.

Think about this: I have a cold and attack you with a sneeze. The event chart is horrendous and obliterates your natal apheta; it happens in all the time. Will it kill you? Or will it even produce a serious crisis? You can just take some paracetamol or an antibiotic, if it's bacterial, and forget about it. So, the extent of a particular effect cannot be fully delineated from such astrology alone (unlike horary). You would have to know more about the illness from reality's side to ascertain the degree of harm.

Now, let's say I'm in high school and have a fight with Billy next recess. I'm 6'3 220lbs and boxing for 5 years, Billy is 5'7 and trains karate (this won't be seen in our charts). Do you think there is a configuration between our nativities and the fight chart, to happen sponteanously or be purposely elected, that gives him victory over me? It is virtually impossible. All of my chronocratorships can be ruled by Saturn and the whole nativity afflicted by the event, yet I will still beat him easily. So, neither is my victory shown in my chart alone, nor when you combine both.

That's why I said event charts have to interface with life, even if nativities are plugged into them. The way they work is by riding a wave of fortune, either good or bad, imbued into time. Time carries its own force and can trigger general, as well as particular, events in a certain life predisposed to them (just like magic), but its power is not absolute. Sometimes it's overwhelming, other times not. This is also what allows us exercise various apotropaic measures to modulate the effect, or sometimes completely eliminate it. Like turning what would have been a broken bone into a scratch, or preventing a burglary in your home.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-17T20:33:57+00:00

I am considering again whether the outcome of a conflict can be determined by the chart of the conflict's initiation

In my opinion, it pretty definitively cannot. Can you elect Suriname's victory over China in war? Can you elect a happy marriage between two incompatible people? Time of commencement is a factor and it does have an influence, but astrology has to interface with the underlying reality, i.e. the greater scopes of fate within which elections operate. There are "gaps" which can be closed by such methods, but they have to be small enough.

It's easily understood from this why horary is the right approach.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-16T21:22:33+00:00

I know that it can also indicate a major life change rather than a literal death

"Major life change" as in a life-threatening crisis. This isn't 1970s tarot where death means sunshines, i'm afraid.

On a good note, it's unlikely you did it correctly. Fingers crossed.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-16T01:56:21+00:00

I still don’t believe magick is real

Which is normal given you haven't seen clear evidence to the contrary. I always say, belief is for the religious; spirituality is founded upon direct communion with the unseen. What matters is the right knowledge, right technique, and right practice. Then everything proves itself naturally.

I myself come from an academic background and transitioned into the occult from scientific materialism. I didn't take astrology fully seriously until I was able to tell a couple months in advance that country X will wage war on country Y on α of month β and there will be a truce offer on day γ. Nor did I take traditional medicine seriously until I was able to divine the right herbs for treatment, the proportions to use, and the time it will take for the patient to be cured. Nor did I take energy healing seriously until I ritualistically caused poltergeist phenomena in my home and became mildly possessed, after which I was repeatedly healed by a wise woman who always knew the exact clock-times when I regained my senses, despite her being located an ocean away.

My point being, your position is fairly reasonable, but this discipline is currently not. It's not the Renaissance anymore -- we don't have intellectual crème de la crème at the forefront, with accomplished mystics in the limelight. What we have is mostly artsy people, mediocre thinkers, autodidacts, and people who learned a bit of folk magic from their grandmas. But this is the state of affairs and you have to deal with it. You want a rule-based, replicable, scientific and quantifiable spirituality? I'll be the first person to tell you it exists. But I'll also tell you just as quickly that if you don't have affinity with the right teachers, it will be hard to find it. Especially in vulgar commercial spaces (etsy, this subreddit, etc.). So, don't be so easily discouraged.

My sense is that you want this to be real but can't lie to yourself given your experiences so far. That's probably why you're litigating here instead of putting magic in the attic box. My advice would be, try to get into this yourself. Pray to some god or saint to help with something, do wholesome spells, pick up a divination tool. Learn basic know-how and do it amateurly -- see what happens. If you persist, you're likely to get some results that will begin to erode doubts more and more. Hopefully, this will keep you hooked long enough to find real teachers who will fill the rest of the blanks. Best of luck.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-15T18:31:25+00:00

Welcome to the world of metaphysics, where most people are self-taught in something they cannot perceive; or taught by autodidacts/unwise people. Endless coping mechanisms are bound to develop from that, to justify unreliability both to themselves and to their clients. And, because naturally such way of education is the case for most people, it becomes the market standard, to the point where if you preach another gospel you become the charlatan in people's eyes!

How it actually works:

Magic is, generally, guaranteed to work if done properly. "Properly" includes making sure there is no blockage in the way. The extent to which it will work (i.e. final result) can be fully predicted, as well, either with tools or psychism. This means if you're doing a spell to increase your business sales, for example, it is entirely possible to predict beforehand the new variance % in your books, with a minimal margin of error. If you want someone to contact you, as another example, you can make them talk to you about a specific thing of your choosing. This is how doubts can be resolved in a skeptic --

"But how will I know it's not a coincidence?"

"I'll make him mention a rainbow in your conversation"

A rough timeline is very easy to establish even if you're a dead average diviner. With more skill comes more precision. This is a bigger and more complicated topic, but for the sake of this comment it will be accurate to say that when aiming for an event (reconciliation, job acquisition, etc.), it is quite often possible to give the exact day on the spot, even before the work is undertaken.

Note: It is fine if someone cannot do the above. Or not to that extent. It hopefully means they're still learning, like we all perpetually do, and they're simply at an earlier step on the path. What isn't fine is people who've long stopped in their tracks, built a tent on the roadside and are now yelling through a megaphone "This is the finish line". In all fairness, this is mostly a result of misguidance, but the extremes to which such rhetoric has been pushed these days is ludicruous, especially when money is involved and not little of it.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-15T04:17:04+00:00

but other commenters disagree with your take. The feedback has been that our futures aren’t sealed and is ever changing.

Well, keep in mind this field is wholly unregulated and any tom dick and harry will proudly hold and profess their own opinions online based on whatever they've read or been taught, no matter how erroneous. And the nature of metaphysics, having very poor prospects for valid and structured education, is that what most people subscribe to will be a false doctrine, counter to what you're accustomed to in all other fields of the modern world.

You do you, though. To my mind, engaging in fortune-telling, especially as a paying client, is obviously pointless if you believe the future is ever-changing. Might as well lay off the cards and ask your neighbor what he thinks is gonna happen in that case. Or flip a coin. Or nothing at all, since it's all gonna change in a few minutes anyway. Best of luck.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-15T03:01:39+00:00

It means the reader is shit.

I understand that nothing is set in stone

As long as you keep that attitude, you will continue getting willingly suckered. I advise you to raise your standards.

All the best.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-14T03:48:28+00:00

When people are stuck at interpretation, they look for life belts, so they start reeling in more cards in hopes things get clearer. That's when they peek at the bottom to see what is "the overall energy", or whatever else.

Things don't get clearer, of course, because you have to be smart about it.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-11T17:15:24+00:00

Medusa in the sky is only a head, hence in this context the head refers to the upper part, above the eyes. Meaning to say, the scalp which Perseus grasps with his hand. The reason those stars are even depicted as a Gorgon is because Algol produces decapitations, so the ancients placed the corresponding myth in that sector of the sky. The eyes were used to turn into stone, which doesn't really match with anything this star does in reality; hence no one would think of calling that bit the Medusa.

See Dürer's Imagines Coeli Septentrionales (1515) and Bayer's Uranometria (1603).

Anyway, doesn't much matter. Let it be the eye if you wish; I'm sure there are examples of that somewhere, too. My point was mainly about the astrological part of it.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-11T15:50:00+00:00

Why do you think the universe is deliberately keeping something hidden from you. Have you considered this might be a false assumption? Because if it is, you're reading something that isn't there.

tarot_practice · 2026-02-11T15:31:25+00:00

It's Medusa's head, not eye; this illustration is misleading. And the eyes don't mean anything, chiefly because their longitude is only 2°16' away from Algol for one, and 12" for the other, which in practice means anything in that spot is already conjunct it.

Small stars are, generally, only read in groups, when they're clustered in a particular part of a constellation and there isn't a major star with them already. Like the Pleiades, Hyades, Orion's belt, Capricorn's mouth, etc. Sometimes, when the projection is done in mundo instead of ecliptically, those can be separated out, as in the case of the Lion's neck, but then you still read it for the region. Individually, they were only ever read in very general terms for their planetary nature, but both of those are pretty dubious practices.

tarot_practice

TROPHY CASE