A friend of mine who I meet in a local spirituality club has a rather strange way of reading cards. Rather than taking from the top of the decks, he literally picks up cards from the bottom of the decks.
It works for him. As long as he is consistent, any deck he uses will work that way, even if he borrowed one of mine.
I notice there is quite little emphasis of reading methods outside the stereotypical Celtic Cross set ups.
So I am curious is there anything wrong with creating new metholodgies or altering existing ones to read tarot cards?
The Celtic Cross really is a spread, not a "methodology" (which actually means the study of many different methods, not a method). So are you referring to only spreads, or methods of reading?
There are many, many different spreads people use. I personally haven't used the Celtic Cross since about 1982 or 1983.
My method is this, and I don't know how conventional or unconventional it is:
I do no sort of "clearing" or "prayer" or "meditation" beforehand. I simply shuffle the deck: briefly if I have a client, more thoroughly if I don't. Then the client shuffles and cuts the deck. Then I peel cards off the top of the deck, and lay out whatever spread I have chosen to do from the uppermost cards. Then I open my mouth and away we go. At the end, I gather up the cards, stick them in the middle of the deck in a lump, shuffle briefly, and put the deck away.
My spread? Well, in recent decades I really only use my own spreads, unless I am in an exchange circle here with a specified spread, many of which are newly developed.
Would say creating a new unique spread of your own artistry ruin or destroy the energies and messages the cards are trying to give you?
Hell, no.
What about using cards in ways absolutely not related to tarots such as the card flipping I developed
That is *exactly* related to Tarot. That *is*, in fact, Tarot. It's just one of many ways to use the cards.
Is there a reason why most readers stick with Celtic and very few even among experts try to rebel against tradition and create new styles? Why does tarot seem to lag behind?
I don't think most readers do. Every time I join an exchange circle here, the spread is something cooked up by a forum member. I don't think we've ever done an exchange based on the CC, although in the TdM exchanges some of us sometimes use the Comte de Mellet spread which is far older than the CC. And when people ask questions, it isn't an invariable rule (or even a majority thing, I think) that they're asking for help about CC spreads.
Astrology, alchemy, and many divinitory stuff in their modern revivals have had modern experts use their creativity to create new styles. For example there are modern astrologers who are already rushing to add new asteroids to the chart interpretation and alchemists are using modern scientific formulas and discoveries to come up with new elixirs and formulas to the pre-existing traditions.
I don't see a problem. We have people adding extra cards to decks (the most famous would have to be the Happy Squirrel card), and people use their own spreads all the time. I honestly don't see a problem.
