Table Of ContentTAROT LIFE
MONTH 2
REMOVE THE BLOCKS
Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin
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Authors Note: This is Month 2 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life
series; you will require the previous Month 1 booklet “Discover
Your Destiny” to follow the sequence over the year. Some of the
exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone
pieces of self-discovery or re-purposed for use in daily,
personal or client readings.
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INDEX
Introduction 4
Removing the Blocks 5
A Simple Method for Beginners 6
The Cards as Blocks 10
The Active Divination Method 37
Conclusion 40
Bibliography 44
Websites & Resources 45
TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE
A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year.
Introduction
In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a
break from the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight
innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual
considerations of Tarot Inspire to offer a unique practice of our work.
You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a
newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do
something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a
linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined
by the results of real-world activities – you are going to
fundamentally alter the way you experience your life.
We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of
practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the
biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being.
This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in
the sequence given. You can start at any time, although New Year,
your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times.
This series is accompanied by a closed Facebook group for
discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this
journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life
– it is about to become a truly Tarot Life.
Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist &
Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot
Removing the Blocks
“The first injunction inscribed on the walls of the Institute is
‘believe nothing, not even yourself’”.
G. I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World (1984) p.
200-201.
Whilst we began to examine the nature of Will in the first booklet,
corresponding to the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, and the
corresponding tarot card, the Emperor, we turn now to the nature of
belief. This corresponds to Taurus, the next sign of the zodiac, and
the card of the Hierophant.
When we begin to change, we challenge our own beliefs. It was
therefore important to spend a month trying to steer ourselves to our
destiny, even somewhat blindly, so we could experience the
challenges of our environment and beliefs. Too many people start by
planning, resolving to do better, having ambitions, and so forth,
without ever doing – like the Crayfish on the Moon card – whereas
we know that from doing comes everything.
So we have spent a month trying to do things that accord with our
Will, and now we likely consider ourselves somewhat lacking or
perhaps actually content with our progress. Or maybe a mixture.
Now we can divine, we can discover more, and begin to set the
foundations (Taurus) for a stable growth (Earth) ahead.
The secrets of successful action and creation are not only hidden in
the cards, but their patterns and sequences, and their
correspondences to other systems – including life itself. This is what
we mean by Tarot Life. Every day is a “reading”, every event is an
“image”. Every decision and thought is an “interpretation”. We are
already divining our life – now, with the Hierophant, we will learn
what we call “active divination”.
Firstly we will present a simple spread/method based on blocks.
A Simple Method for Beginners
In our first book of this series, we gave a simple method for reading
which could be used for general purposes. In this book, we offer
another method for beginner use, based on blocks. It is a useful six-
card reading we have found for people in stuck situations (you can
also consider the “Next Step” method in Tarosophy).
Ask the Querent, Client or Yourself to consider the situation in which
you are blocked. Shuffle your deck.
Lay the deck face-down.
Take the TOP CARD and turn it face-up. This card is your
DISTRACTION card. It tells you how you can overcome the block by
distracting yourself in another manner. In distracting yourself away
from the current situation, whilst at the same time working cleverly to
overcome the block, you avoid self-sabotage.
We will see how this works in a real situation shortly.
Then take the BOTTOM card and turn it face up, putting it next to the
top card (it does not matter how you arrange these two cards). This
second card is your UTILIZATION card. It shows you how you can
utilize the current block into a powerful spur or starting block for
further progress. We do not “remove” the blocks in our life – we have
them for a reason – we observe, recognize, incorporate and utilize
them!
Next take the solid block of remaining 76 cards and consider that
these represent the whole block on this situation or aspect of your
life. Really get a sense of the block itself, stuck as a solid set of 76
cards stuck together, unmoving and non-resolvable.
Take a deep breath (because the cards are still moving in an infinite
number of patterns until you take the moment to lay them out) and
split the deck as equally as you can into two piles, lifting the top-half
of the deck up and placing it to the left, about two card-widths away.
Consider this is showing you that you can indeed do something –
you can split your block into two equal piles. Nothing has changed,
other than the way you see it. It is now two smaller blocks.
Next take another deep breath and – because if you can do it once,
you can likely do it again – split the two decks into half again, laying
the resulting top halves to the left of the original two piles. You
should now have four roughly equal piles of the deck.
Turn all four piles face-up to view what is the bottom card of the
upturned piles.
These four cards represent:
1. How to Partition the Block
2. How to Progress through the Block
3. How to Begin to Change the Block
4. How to Orientate to the Simplest Solution of the Block
This spread is very suitable for the keywords we gave in Tarot Life
Book 1 and for general readings. I find it useful if I use the Tarot of
the New Vision, which has an interesting perspective on the usual
tarot images, by drawing the standard Waite-Smith design as if you
were viewing the card from behind the subject. This deck is useful
for giving new perspectives to even the most jaundiced reader or
pessimistic client.
Here is a real reading using this spread.
How do I work with the block I have about Project X?
Distraction: 9 of Cups
Utilization: 5 of Pentacles
In these first two cards, there is already a surprise and new
information for the querent. The 9 of Cups in the Tarot of the New
Vision shows what is going on behind the drapes shown on the
usual Waite-Smith card. Three children are seen playing and eating
a snack. They are totally lost in the playful moment, secure in the
knowledge that everyone has forgotten about them, yet they are
safe. This shows the Querent that their distraction is to find the
playfulness and enjoyment for its own sake in their work. Rather than
face their block as a challenge or obstacle, just ignore it and start
playing. You might as well watch the stars when a hole in your roof
has just fallen through.
This is combined powerfully and elegantly with the 5 of Pentacles,
which shows how the Querent can utilize the block. In this deck, the
card shows inside the building depicted from the outside on the
usual Waite-Smith deck. We see an impoverished figure – perhaps
one of those outside in the regular image – caring for a child. His
crutch is leaning on the wall. It tells the client that they can utilize
their block by demonstrating compassion. If they can hold “grace
under fire”, they may earn respect and recognition in some future
role or situation. It is a test of their character and their ability to think
of others, even whilst their own situation is blocked and they feel
“impoverished”.
These two cards already start to form an action plan for the Querent,
as they formulate a response. In a sense, these cards provide a
dynamic pair, leading to empowerment, much like the pairs of cards
we saw last month in our Destiny Path method.
We now look at the other four positions when we turn the four split
piles face-up:
Partition: The Empress (III)
Progress: 3 of Pentacles
Change: Temperance (XIV)
Orientation: 2 of Wands
The partition card shows (again) children playing behind the
Empress. As we are viewing the card from inside out, we look
beyond the Empress to see that she is looking out to an open garden
gate and a path leading gently up a hill. It tells our querent that he
should “put his house in order” first, as a first step.
He should find time to make a partition – a gate as we see in the
image – to allow time to play (as we saw in the distraction card).
There is a sense that he must cordon off time and gain security in
doing so. Perhaps he should tell his employer that he is not working
late all the time.
The Progress card picks up the theme of work/play, here with the 3
of Disks showing clearly that the Querent must make progress by
recognizing what he is learning, the skills and experience he is
acquiring. A wagon seen in the distance in this deck shows that his
skills may not be used now, but there is another journey to come.
In the Temperance card next in the position of Change, we see a
symbol of alchemy, the nature of which is also depicted on the Thoth
Tarot by Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris – who renamed the card
to “Art”. The suggestion of change is that “what does not kill me
makes me stronger”, or that the person’s block is actually preparing
them for change. This confirms the other cards, and that the block is
actually a limited belief that the present situation is an end to itself,
not part of a larger situation.
To orientate to this new information, the Querent has received the 2
of Wands. This shows the simple task of planning ahead, of utilizing
one’s experience to look at the big picture – the figure in the card on
many decks holds a globe. The block then, is not thinking big
enough or beyond the present situation. When one orientates to this
truth, the block simply vanishes.
