I love this stuff. As I’ve tried to impress upon you, without a strong right-brain muscle, I believe we cannot be really psychic. But we can’t do brain crunches and lifts, so what can we do? Here I share with you some things I’ve invented to exercise the right brain.
Okay, so now you have all the tools you need to do two kinds of readings: (1) the garden-variety fortunetelling kind having to do with love, money, and career; and (2) the targeting health issues kind. Using the seven-card spread and the card meanings I’ve given you, you can for sure do a credible job in category 1. And if you’re meant to be in the healing group, you can start to learn to do a good job as well in category 2.
Again, many cards have more than one meaning. So how do you know which meaning is intended? Yes, you use the write a tarot sentence method, adding cards until things are clear and logical.
But, as I said earlier, you should also start working to develop the right hemisphere of your brain, so things will just “occur” to you after a while. You can actually get to a place where you’re not even thinking, and words you had no idea you’d say are just spilling out of your mouth. After a while the instinct will be there, and you’ll just say the right thing at the right time.
So here are some exercises to help you develop your right brain.
Absorb the Meanings of the Card Combinations
As you go through this book, each time I mention a combination of cards, lay those cards on the table and just look at them a moment, with the meanings in mind. You’re teaching yourself by a kind of osmosis when you do this. Your subconscious mind is picking up details and cues that may come in handy later. And you’re seeing the images together, which is crucial to recognizing them together later. Meanwhile, the right hemisphere of your brain is kicking in.
Keep Your Head in the Clouds, Literally
Look at unstructured things and “see” other things there. See pictures, forms, faces, and the like in swirling marble, plywood, Formica countertops, etc. Basically, wherever there’s chaos, look for things you recognize. It doesn’t matter if they’re real. What you’re doing is forcing your brain to do something it was told a long time ago not to do: daydream, fantasize, imagine.
So just start seeing things in other things. Remember, when you were three this was easy! The idea is to get to the point where it’s just as easy to do at thirty-three.
I’ve even been known to drag my students into my bathroom to take a look at the very clear faces that “happened” in the manufacturing process of the material around my sink, some kind of black stone with white swirls throughout.
But to get out of my john … I once had a discussion with a skeptic at a party about the validity of psychic work. The guy’s point was that it’s all bogus. So he says, “Fine, then, what do I do for a living?” I looked at the foam on the inside of his beer glass and “saw” a police officer and a desk. So I said, “You’re a cop with a desk job.” He nearly fell over. He was a cop with a desk job.
Then there are the images that can appear in cappuccino foam. And coffee grounds. And, yes, even tea leaves, and in the chocolate pudding swirls left on the bottom of the bowl.
Just start looking around, see what you can see, and find what isn’t there. I promise that in many cases you’ll be astonished.
See the Forest, Not the Trees
You’re riding in a car, or on a train, or on a bus. You’re waiting for the washing machine to stop. So take out your cards and sort of look at them, one at a time, but don’t sit down and memorize them. Don’t look carefully. Just let the images sink in below the level of consciousness. Look at the cards as if you’re leafing through a magazine, looking at the pictures. This way, at some point in the future, if a detail is needed in a reading so you can be specific, the card with that detail will show up (trust me), because it was in your head all the time. Like somebody who’s hypnotized, you’ll be able to recall in the future what’s sinking in now.
Imagine, for example, that one day the idea of Sweden may be important in a reading, and something in one of the cards will appear to tell you: Sweden. (Your subconscious mind already associates things with Sweden. It will be one of those things that will appear on the card to tell you.) It’s not logical. But it doesn’t have to be. It just has to work. And it does.
Work with Symbols
Ask for dreams before you go to sleep. Ask to understand them so you can get a handle on your own symbols. This way you can develop an ability to be conscious of the hidden things in yourself and you can learn how your own symbols work for you.
Look for Direct “Messages”
Notice shadow patterns on the sidewalk, the pattern of shells on a beach, the lines in your palm. You’re looking for images you recognize: a star, a triangle, whatever. I once walked down an unfamiliar street asking if a certain relationship would last, and I soon came upon a red heart with a black slash painted through it on the sidewalk. Question answered. (Accurately, as it turned out.) Things like this are around us all the time. Start training yourself to notice.
Draw
Yes, draw. It doesn’t matter if you suck at drawing. Make yourself do it anyway, five minutes a day. Result? Right brain activated and getting stronger.
Look into the Lives of Famous People
As I mentioned earlier, until you know what you’re doing as a reader, you can attempt to look into anybody’s life. Pick famous people whose stories you know or think you know.
Last week, one of my newer students decided to look at playwright Harold Pinter, and she was discouraged because what she was seeing didn’t fit his life—as she knew it. Actually, what she was seeing made total sense for the life of a writer.
So I told her it doesn’t matter about being accurate at the start. It only matters to start working with the cards. The more she works at it, the better and clearer her readings will be.
And this is crucial: Do not let your left brain (what you know) decide that you’re wrong about what you see (right brain), as I did with the I Ching and Elizabeth Smart. Because maybe what you know is either not actually true or not the whole truth. You need to learn to trust yourself as a reader. And this comes only with experience and practice.
So be patient. And be in this for the long haul. It takes commitment to get good, as with most things.
Solve a Crime or Two
Another great tarot “game” is to use the cards to solve crimes. Who killed Kennedy? Where is Jimmy Hoffa? Who kidnapped the girl you just read about in the paper?
Ask your question and lay down the seven cards. The first and last cards will be crucial in the case of a crime, because they’re the issue and the outcome. Do your best to understand what’s going on, adding cards to each of the seven. (To start, I recommend “solving” a crime that has already been solved, so you can see how the process works for you.)
In your mind as you lay down cards is the question: Who?
If you can’t see who did what, start a new spread. Lay down seven cards again and ask: Why? If you can nail the motive, you can usually nail the criminal. (Thank you, Law & Order.)
Here, the whole point is to see what cards appear for you, to be able to describe the facts you already know about the person you’re investigating.
One word of warning here: Do not intrude in police investigations unless you’re invited. You can’t help, and you may even hurt the proceedings somehow. I recommend this exercise here only because it forces both hemispheres of your brain to work in tandem. Great detectives and physicians can do this. You can learn too, if you have the detecting/doctoring muscles.
Books and Movies
Try to read for characters in books or movies you know well. See what they look like to you when you use tarot. You may know, for example, that Raskolnikov was filled with guilt for his crime in Crime and Punishment. You may know that Chester Gillette was not filled with guilt for killing a pregnant Grace Brown long ago in An American Tragedy (based on a real-life crime). You know Harry Potter is a wizard. So check out characters using tarot. See what you can find. You’re looking for the combinations that describe what you already know about a character and his or her actions.
And for you fiction writers out there, try using the cards to know what your own characters should or would do next. You might be surprised at where this takes you.
Basically, all these exercises, if done every day, will strengthen your right brain the way physical training strengthens muscle. If you’re already an artist, your intuitive sense is probably already developed to a degree. But if you’re not, you have some catching up to do.
So just relax and, basically, let yourself be a kid again.
Or maybe even for the first time?