Tarot and Spirits

pagan.hare

Thought I'd share an experience of mine from about 10 years ago when I performed a very different reading.

First I need to give an little background. A very old online friend of mine from Canada called Wendy, mum died around 20 years ago now. Wendy , although very religious, is both open minded and very spiritual and knows there's more in life than any church could explain and so has always excepted me for who I am and trusted in me. Wendy was very close to her mum, Marian, and found it difficult to move in her life beyond her mothers death from a brain tumour.

Wendy asked me if I would do a tarot reading and I stayed up late yo do it live online via chat. It was a perfectly normal reading and one she found moving. But nothing like one she would have later.

After coming offline I cleared everything away, taking my cards upstairs with me. As I settled down to sleep I was restless. Next thing I know I am sat drawing out a very specific layout and I am making notes including two very specific cards and a time when the reading should be done. I wasn't sure why...but I just realised there was a reason.

A few nights later I set up for the reading, along with my spirit guardian John and my notebook and pen. I removed the two cards and started to shuffle. Even this was strange. Almost detached in feeling. I laid out the cards, as directed, and placed the two cards, then I started the reading. I found myself speaking out loud, which I don't normally do. As I progressed, I wrote the reading down. I realised quickly the reading was no ordinary reading. As I wrote down the reading I realised that his I was writing was changing and this was a message. The 'you' changed to 'me', 'I', 'we'!

I found I was also getting emotional and this hit the nail on the head for me that Marian was speaking through me. My empathic side had kicked in big time and I was highly emotional as I read the cards. As Marian pushed harder with her heartfelt message to Wendy, I became more emotional. My writing changed again as she begged me to give this message to Wendy and I found myself saying that I promised she would see this. It ended when John severed the link because I was becoming a wreck as Marian got more upset. She was desperate for Wendy to move on and not hold onto Marian so strongly.

When John severed the link the tears, shakes etc literally just stopped and I was fine. I sat there looking at the cards and realised Marian had found her way to me via the reading I did a few days before and felt this was her only way. When I shared it with Wendy she was so emotional. I had no idea what her parents looked like, but the cards struck a striking resemblance. The reading was filled with things I knew nothing about and she admired it wasn't the first message from her mum. But the only one like this.

I was impressed with Marian that she used the cards, my empathic and psychic skills to send the message from her heart to her daughter.


Anyone else use them in a similar way?
 

chaosbloom

I generally avoid invocations as I find them a tad dangerous, so that's a no from me but I found your story very interesting. Two questions. Was there anything in that message that spoke of the spirit's condition? Was she in some sort of heaven or hell or some intermediary place? Freely roaming? Attached to some place or person?

Also, what exactly is a spirit guide?
 

Tanga

Well - that was not an invocation. That was channelling without particular intent as I understand it? (which I think does happen to mediums). Are you a medium usually pagan.hare, using the cards as your tool in this way - or was this a one-off?
Thankyou for sharing your story.

@ chaosbloom. A spirit guide - as I understand it, is a dis-embodied entity of some sort that aids you with your life/spiritual practice/mediumship. It can be a dead person that you know or don't know, an animal spirit, an angel, or other. You can have more than one.

Definition from google:
" 'Spirit guide' is a term used by the Western tradition of Spiritualist Churches, mediums, and psychics to describe an entity that remains a disincarnate spirit in order to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being."
 

Barleywine

I haven't used the cards this way (I have a close cousin who is a Spiritualist Church minister and a skilled medium, so I defer to her for information from the departed). But I have used the cards for ancestral contacts. There's a thread around here somewhere that might interest you.
 

Lareia

I work with spirits and I've used the cards for that too, but I don't think I'll ever want a channel like this. It would creep me out too much. Waaayyy too close for my personal comfort.
 

chaosbloom

Well - that was not an invocation. That was channelling without particular intent as I understand it? (which I think does happen to mediums).

Technically, the two main branches of conjuration are evocation (calling something to come forth) and invocation (calling something to enter you). Most types of voluntary possession like channelling fall under that.

@ chaosbloom. A spirit guide - as I understand it, is a dis-embodied entity of some sort that aids you with your life/spiritual practice/mediumship. It can be a dead person that you know or don't know, an animal spirit, an angel, or other. You can have more than one.

Definition from google:
" 'Spirit guide' is a term used by the Western tradition of Spiritualist Churches, mediums, and psychics to describe an entity that remains a disincarnate spirit in order to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being."

:confused: Fascinating, especially the suggestion that a spirit chooses not to become incarnated for some reason.
 

Tanga

Technically, the two main branches of conjuration are evocation (calling something to come forth) and invocation (calling something to enter you). Most types of voluntary possession like channelling fall under that.

Yup. Those are the ones. :)
But I understood that the OP didn't deliberately set out to do the reading in this way, if you see what I mean - though I may have misunderstood this bit as it's not that clear in the post.
(I suppose you could argue whether being open to such a possibility is an invitation or not :) ).
 

seedcake

I must say that's a beautiful story :) Thank you so much for sharing.

At some point, I think there was a kind of "invasion" of your comfort zone but you had been open for it, for sure. You already work with spirit guides so no surprise for such happening. And it's good it went well for everyone. And definitely, you gave a lot of comfort :)
 

chaosbloom

Yup. Those are the ones. :)
But I understood that the OP didn't deliberately set out to do the reading in this way, if you see what I mean - though I may have misunderstood this bit as it's not that clear in the post.
(I suppose you could argue whether being open to such a possibility is an invitation or not :) ).

Consent in invocations is a bit of a grey area. You don't always have control after you open the door in some way. In ancient theurgy, children were sometimes used as vessels for invoking Gods and I doubt those children volunteered for that. Even though the actual vessel might not have consented to the ritual, the sorcerer was performing an invocation for all reserves and purposes (in those particular cases I think it was divination).

The concept and idea of possession changed completely with Christianity when all types of it were deemed evil since the entities doing the possession were labelled evil as well. Check out this ridiculous little tale from Acts 16:16-19 (KJV)

16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

19 When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.
 

Tanga

Consent in invocations is a bit of a grey area.

Indeed.
(I am named after an East African Loa who communicates via possession of young girls.
Always given me the creeps. :). She's a harvest oracle.
I do talk to her a bit now - since the thread below that I've just linked, and since I went to a Santeria workshop some months back and we talked a lot in there about ancestors - of course. The Loa is from my tribe, so I am a descendant.).

The concept and idea of possession changed completely with Christianity when all types of it were deemed evil since the entities doing the possession were labelled evil as well. Check out this ridiculous little tale from Acts 16:16-19 (KJV)...

Sound like lovely people all round (NOT!). Lol. Poor slave girl.

I haven't used the cards this way (I have a close cousin who is a Spiritualist Church minister and a skilled medium, so I defer to her for information from the departed). But I have used the cards for ancestral contacts. There's a thread around here somewhere that might interest you.

Here's the thread - some difficulty finding it as an error message kept coming up with the search.
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=233975&highlight=Ancestors