Black Mirror Alchemy: The Path of the Digital Hermit

Black Mirror Alchemy - No Reading is Truly a Cold Reading, Part 3 Welcome back to Black Mirror Alchemy, dear reader! Today, we are going to explore the third installment of our "No Reading is Truly a Cold Reading" series. If you missed the first two posts, make sure to check those out! Part 1: Biases and Heuristics Part 2: Motivation and Emotion In this post, we are exploring the complex world of personality with the help of the Queen of Swords. The Queens in the Minor Arcana embody the nurturing, feminine principle that promotes the growth of their suit. The Queen of Swords, in particular, guides us to bring forth ideas, knowledge, and voices to foster clarity and understanding in our readings. In our past two posts, we have looked at the smaller details of human psychology. The Page of Swords focused on the small details of human cognition, while the Knight of Swords synthesized those details into workabl...

Impulse Gnome Tarot Blog Welcome back dear readers! For this week's blog post, I wanted to take a quick break from the "No Reading is Truly a Cold Reading" series, because my previous post inspired me to share my experience with tarot and looking for a job. In our current Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand and Twenty-Four, many of us are struggling with issues related to the economy, employment, and labor. So, I wanted to shift focus to another important figure in the tarot: The Knight of Pentacles. Knight of Pentacles Unlike his brother in the suit of swords, the Knight of Pentacles is a steady figure who knows how to sell his labor to the best employer. He understands his expertise and weaknesses, which allows him to be clear-eyed when it comes to work. While he is not the fastest of the mounted knights in the tarot, he understands the need to stay mobile and flexible in the ever-changing economy. He knows when to stick it out ...

Welcome back to Dark Mirror Alchemy! We will take a quick break this week from The Hermit's Journey to discuss the combined arts of reading tarot and reading people. I have had the pleasure and privilege to learning tarot while also getting my degrees in psychology. So, I wanted to share in this blog series how the different levels of psychology can help us read tarot better; especially if you are in situation where you are giving a reading to a stranger.  With the help of the court cards in the suit of swords, this series will be comprised of four posts, which will explore each of the following levels of human psychology:  Biases and Heuristics with the Page of Swords  Motivation and Emotion with the Knight of Swords  Personality and Identity with the Queen of Swords  Groups and Culture with the King of Swords The first two installments of this series will teach you about the very basics of human behavior. If you like mixed metaphors, we are going...

Welcome back to The Hermit's Journey! In this blog post, we will discuss the significance of ritual in our lives and how tarot can aid you in engaging in ritual for psychological benefits. Ritual plays a crucial role in our human experience, allowing us to connect with the hyper-real in a controlled space, keeping us oriented to the real world. So, in this week's post, we will explore the definition of ritual, how tarot can help you establish your own rituals, and some next steps for nurturing your spiritual life. Ritual Rituals can be seen as a series of formalized acts and utterances that create a holistic performance. According to Dr. Matt Rossano, ritual has been instrumental in the development of our social-cognitive functions, helping us understand ourselves, others, and the world around us. Typically, rituals possess four characteristics, which serve as key indicators for creating our own tarot rituals: Rituals are meant to be attention-grabbing to outsiders. Rituals fol...

 Welcome back to the Hermit's Journey!  In today's post, we will explore the theoretical underpinnings of tarot cards to understand how they might work and why your readings tend to be correct.  When I first started to explore tarot cards, I immediately began to notice that my readings tended to be more accurate than not. While this was incredibly affirming to me and helped keep me motivated to learn more about the tarot, it did cause me to question the forces that were at work which made these readings so spot on. Was Satan himself picking the cards out of the deck for me? Was this an elaborate game of self-fulfilling prophesy? Or was there something more mechanistic in the architecture of the deck at work here?  In the past ten years I've tried to answers these questions and find my footing with regards to tarot. Over my life I have found myself in a particularly awkward position where I was raised southern Baptist with all the dogma and superstitions which come al...

Welcome back to the Hermit's Journey series.  Today, we will discuss the Major Arcana cards in your tarot deck in a little more depth. The Major Arcana cards can be thought of as cornerstones in a reading as they take precedence and influence all of the Minor Arcana cards. I liken the Major Arcana to waves in the ocean. They are forces of nature that we cannot control, but we do have the choice of how we deal with them. Will they toss us into the tide and drag us out to sea, or will we choose to ride the wave and see where it takes us? Either way, the Major Arcana will be taking us to our destination, willing or not.  As mentioned briefly in the first Hermit's Journey, there are a few ways to interpret the Major Arcana cards. In this post, we will explore deeper into two of the three methods: archetypes and astrology. However, these methods are not mutually exclusive. In my readings, I often layer the meanings on top of each other to provide a more comprehensive interpretation...