Cartomantic Traditions – Nocturnal Nuances

The Scales

Warning: The end of a cycle is not a time to create Karma which is a debt & /or credit transferable to/from incarnations. Created Karma comes from interference with the free-will of another ensouled being. Some call it spell-work. What you do to another does come back to you as trading places aka Boomerang Baby! However, at a cycles end transmorgification kicks in with either a leveling up or a downgrade of species density. Light as a feather, heavy as lead.

Image: Adjustment/Justice Trump from Crowley’s Book of Thoth.

Master & Stop Cards

I first began to read Kipperkarten and blog about it while on a break from Lenormand studies in early 2012. It was then I came across the Master Card method on a YT video. I did not further investigate or incorporate it into my readings.

Later in the Fall of 2016 I took a course with Toni Puhle, the Stop Card method was mentioned as specific to a style of reading and layout she taught. The Stop Card is like the period in a sentence, it ends the line and no more cards are placed after it falls.

Both the Master Card and the Stop Card sound somewhat similar in function. However, if one is reading the full deck or Das Grosse Blatt neither are needed as the borders of the reading are already defined. The Nine Card Block which is the core used to investigate person & situation cards is a major key unpacking the information in a 9 X 4 layout.

I often use the Stop Card Reading Toni Puhle taught as it is usually a smaller and faster layout, but it can grow in size when the additional movements of certain cards in the method are taken into consideration.

Kipperkarten when learned from German sources is the most accurate fortune telling deck I’ve encountered. Celebrating ten years with Kipperkarten and still loving it!

The Kipper Vertical Line

In the using of the Kipper deck whether in the full layout or with smaller ones often the column associations of the card placements are overlooked. The basic image below shows the cards in numerical order. Take for example the third row which contains the “person card” or card 12 Rich Girl on the second horizontal line.

Over the head of card 12 is card 3 relationship which says that she is thinking about a relationship and below her is card 21 which is The Living Room which can mean the Rich Girl is involved in a living together relationship. Beneath card 21 in the layout shown is card 30 The Court Person which can indicate arguments or differences being discussed or aired out in that living situation. Card 21 also contains a timing element, which is very helpful to the Reader. All of this is shown in the four cards of the vertical line. A reader looking for the Rich Girl as a daughter, younger sister or close younger female friend of the Querent can get all of the details about her on the vertical line. Life situations which are depicted on the non- person cards can be given depth as well when read on the vertical columns in Kipper.

The horizontal line of a person card is interpreted based on the way the person card faces to show the progression of events. What is behind the person card are prior causes and what goes before it is what will soon manifest as effects. Since the Rich Girl is flanked by money cards- finances are the cause & effects which lead to an exodus (10 travel).

Line three across : 10-Travel; 11 Lots of Money – 12 RICH GIRL – followed by 13 Rich Guy. The Rich Girl facing 11 Lots of Money as a secondary meaning may also indicate large expenditures while the 13 Rich Guy behind card 12 can represent incoming monies being diminished as that card faces in an opposite direction. Rich Guy, card 13 represents finances or securities – and is not a “person card”. The male counterpart to Rich Girl is actually card 22, The Military Person, who appears firstly as son, brother, or a close in age male friend.

THE DECK SHOWN BELOW IS REVERSED AS THE ORIGINAL WAS IN FIRST PRINTING!!!

Yearly Reading for Tarotists

This is a page from an old notebook.

The reading of the New Year can be done on one’s Natal Birthday or it can be done on New Year’s day. The prep is no sexual contact for 24 hours prior; a thorough cleaning of the whole house; taking a ceremonial or herbal bath and donning all clean clothes.

Before shuffling take a moment to acknowledge and give thanks to one’s spiritual allies.

Shuffle and then lay out the center card which gives the general energetic theme for the incoming year

Starting at the first position in the diagram lay out 12 cards counter clockwise. Each card is the monthly adaptation of the theme card’s energy in the coming year. Your Theme Card is paired with the card of the month. These pairs will reveal an energetic tone.

This layout is to be done with a standard 78 card Tarot deck, in the RWS or Marseille style.

Prepping a Kipper Deck

When it is time for a new Kipper deck, which is about every year-it is my process to trim the white borders off of the deck all the way to the black line which is removed as well, then round the corners.

After the cards are trimmed a stop card dot is applied to the deck. This is from the “Bavarian style” taught by Toni Puhle. Others may mark the “Master Cards” which is a different system. The dot is a memory device only.

The Kippers work better in the full deck 9X4 layout without borders for Wii as it allows the action to flow like a story board. The white borders break the flow of the eyes when reading and place the scenes into rooms or separate areas. When dealing with the house system this is well and good but not so when one is looking for directions in the big layout or when adding additional movements in the smaller stop card reading style.

Of course, only the traditional kippers have all the directions and codes attributed to Mrs. Kipper’s system. Card lore says the original cards at some point were reversed by the printer save one, card 22 The Military Person.

This mirroring effect works with the anchor of the one faithful card No. 22 to connect the now rare antique original Kipper cards to the traditional German deck, the only Kipper deck Wii use for fortune telling. Period!

Fortune Telling Cards

After a considerable amount of handling card decks experience has shown when working with clients who want to know about what is coming down the pike, a decan style deck is the most effective tool. The term decan is from Egyptian astronomy but when used here simply refers to the number of cards in a fortune telling deck which is 36. Lenormand, Kipperkarten, Zigeuner are Wahrsagekarten or fortune telling cards. It is their purpose.

The 36 card decks seem to have an affinity with the interplay of the earth plane and the energies that affect it from the skies above the so-called “36 faces of heaven.” The number 36 is a number which relates to spirits & Daimons.* The astute reader will see the 72 spirits attributed to Solomonic Magic is simply the doubling of the number 36.

In fortune telling, two of the cards are the Querent and their significant other. Some decks show other persons or characters as well, the rest are symbols as in Lenormand, or scenarios as in the Kipperkarten and Zigeuner decks. Lenormand with its symbols does not have the same amount of predictive power because it depends upon a reader’s ability to interpret the symbols as if they were seen in a dream without real context. This of course will vary from reader to reader leaving a lot of room for “guessing”.

The Zigeuner or Gypsy deck combines symbols with scenes. It is not a deck of choice for me. It has an atmosphere or a vibration of the Old World which does not trigger any connection to the images. This is key to the use of any card deck -that there be personal affinity. However, the Kipper cards which depend on scenarios and not symbology do spark a link for me. They are in the what you see is what it is camp. The reader does not have to use mental gymnastics to tease out a meaning and they are not read by rote keywords but by placement and direction.

The German language puts many off but the scenes and the signs are in the universal language of imagery. If you want to tell what events are coming for clients, do investigate a 36 card fortune telling deck. You won’t be sorry.

*(See: Austin Coppock, 36 Faces, Three Hands Press, 2014)

Slippery Slopes

Before WIFI (whenever that was on this timeline) knowledge & power were transmitted through an invisible medium. Science named the medium aether but that is only one label of many for the magical agent.

All this to say “downloads” are not new but there is a vast chasm between true reception or KABALAH from higher sources and the ventriloquy of the ego. Don’t fall down into that level because there isn’t a rope long enough to bring you back.

In the illustration of the principle of the carrier wave, the RWS Tarot Trump surpasses the Marseilles deck illustration in that the Tower is shown on RWS as being built on a steep mountain peak and those who have fallen have a long ways to go before reaching the ground. A good theme to consider!

Tarot Jacques Vieville & Tarot de Paris

A package from France arrived. It was not a long wait and the red box was intact. However the bonus Tarot de Paris with it arrived without the cellophane on it and missing a title card. Of course I will not be sending it back to Sivilixi Editions … but I was a bit disappointed.

The cards are for study and historical value. They are beautifully made though after seeing the coloring of modern decks a bit dull. I glanced through the book by Patrick Coq and was delighted with the content. As soon as we all get acquainted and the deck is opened up, I will post a more detailed review.

Exit Stage Left: An Old Fool

Jacques Vieville, printed around 1650, Florney reconstruction

Here is the Fool from the Jacques Vieville deck circa 1650. It follows an anonymous Tarot of Paris of unknown date which also faces left. What is important to notice is that there is NO NUMBER on the card as well as the direction the Fool faces. In the Vieville decks the majors bear no titles and the numbering is different than the Marseilles, which is different than the modern RWS Tarot.

The first acknowledged Marseille deck is the Jean Noblet of 1659. The Florney edition does a modern revisioning of the original Vieville deck and goes one step further by presenting 44 cards with a reversed card in the all majors edition turned to “match” Marseille style decks.

Since the Vieville is older, and faces left wii see this style of card as a remnant of an earlier Gnosis now forgotten. Left to us means the Fool is making an exit from space time.

The right facing Fool as shown in the Marseille style editions wii interpret as the Fool entering and/or re-entering the labyrinth of the Cosmos as tabula rasa to walk its circular path of sequential eternal return.

Remember that the Zero or Cipher is a modern addition to this card. Also the Tarot de Vieville is a unique style of Tarot, just as is the Marseille deck. Below is the all majors double version produced by Editions Le Tarot drawn by the late J.C. Florney.

The New Heavens

Solstice means “Sun stands still.” Because the earth’s axis of rotation was tilted 23 ½ degrees to its orbit around the sun, the sun appears to move north and south during the year causing the seasons to change. Thousands of years ago the sun was in the constellation Cancer at summer solstice in June and in the constellation Capricornus at midwinter’s night or the winter solstice in December.

But not anymore. The Gregorian calendar is long overdue for replacement. The precession of the equinoxes describes the movement of the zodiac signs on the ecliptic 1 degree every 72 years. Now the summer solstice occurs in Gemini and the winter solstice is in Sagittarius. The Virgin card shown above from T: The New Tarot by John Starr Cooke is the equivalent of the World card in traditional Tarot. Cooke shows the current placement of the Equinoxes and Solstices in the Mutable zodiac signs of Gemini, Sagittarius, Virgo and Pisces using a new notation. While Gemini and Sagittarius are straightforward Virgo is the apple and the inverted cup is Pisces in his corner stations.

The starting dates of traditional zodiac signs (plus one) on the ecliptic are now different:

Sagittarius: Dec. 18 to Jan. 20

Capricorn: Jan. 21 to Feb. 16

Aquarius: Feb. 17 to March 11

Pisces: March 12 to April 18

Aries: April 19 to May 13

Taurus: May 14 to June 21

Gemini: June 22 to July 20

Cancer: July 21 to Aug. 10

Leo: Aug. 11 to Sept. 16

Virgo: Sept. 17 to Oct. 30

Libra: Oct. 31 to Nov. 23

Scorpio: Nov. 24 to Nov. 29

Ophiuchus: Nov. 30 to Dec. 17