Now is the time to get your friends together and try out a couple of experiments. Using only the Major Arcana cards, ask a friend to pick one card from the pack at random and give it to you. You should then try to apply the message on the card to her current situation. Ask her to give you some feedback on your findings. Here is an example of the technique in action.
You are going through a period of rapid change just now, which should bring an improvement to your life in general and to your finances in particular. You will soon be able to take advantage of many different opportunities. These opportunities may be financial, social, educational, or career advancement. You are not completely in control of these changes; they are, to a great extent, in the hands of fate or destiny.
This card was picked at random by a young woman who had just changed her job. She was temporarily short of money because she had bought herself a car in order to travel to this job. It's just a thought, but I wonder if the wheel on the Wheel of Fortune card represented her new form of transport?
Now pick one for yourself and see what you make of it, then try the same thing out on one of your friends.
This is where you will find the key idea section in the previous chapter useful. Please feel free to substitute or add your own key ideas. If you have difficulty in interpreting any of the cards, look at the supplementary and negative sections in the previous chapter for added inspiration. If two cards just don't appear to blend together however much you try to make them do so, then use the first card to indicate a past situation and try the second one as an indication of future events.
Here are a couple that I have worked out for you, but please look at them yourself and make up your own interpretation of the situation.
Patience, endurance. The gentle force. Good or improved health. Assertiveness. The return of confidence. Tact and diplomacy.
Quiet contemplation and introspection. Centering oneself. Wise counsel and enlightenment. Retreat, reflection, and a time of patient waiting or preparation. Being alone by choice.
The Questioner may be enjoying a calm spell that will promote her mental, physical, spiritual and emotional well-being. A calm, tactful, and wise approach to problems should be sought. Quiet study is recommended at this time rather than action. My own instinct and intuition as a Tarot Reader would be to tell the Questioner to seek sensible advice, to keep a few things to herself, and also to enjoy the period of retreat and reflection that is being imposed upon her.
The following pair of cards doesn't seem to have anything in common, but they do have a link with each other via the opposite ideas of freedom versus bondage.
Unnecessary feelings of guilt. Bondage to the past or to a situation that is no longer relevant. Misplaced loyalties. Sex, lust, fear, addiction. Also a healthy commitment such as a mortgage.
Movement and change. Travel and transport. Conflict resulting in victory and triumph over adversity. The need to control opposing or conflicting forces (also indecision).
The combination of these two cards would suggest to me that the Questioner is facing a choice between staying put and trying to alter an obviously unsatisfactory situation or getting out of it altogether. (However, remember that Tarot interpretation is an intensely personal thing, and if you feel differently about these two cards, please follow your own instincts because they are never wrong.)
My interpretation of the combination of these two cards would be that the issue of freedom and bondage is the common factor. The other factors of sex, addiction, lust, and spiritual enlightenment (The Devil), and of travel and transport (The Chariot), don't seem to me to fit together at all. The supplementary idea of indecision does fit, however, because any situation that revolves around freedom versus bondage requires difficult decisions to be made by the Questioner. In a full reading, the surrounding Minor Arcana cards would supply the reasons for the bondage and the means of obtaining freedom.
Here is a two-card combination for you to work out for yourself. This one is easy because there is an obvious link between them. I have even hinted at the connection by emphasizing the common key-idea words.
Experience and wisdom combined with intuition. A cool head ruling a warm heart. Help, advice, tuition, possibly given by a woman. Something that is not yet revealed. Psychic ability.
Faith in the future, making plans. Hope, success and expansion of horizons. Education.
Here are two more combinations that I have picked out at random for you to work on:
Peace versus upheavals perhaps, or moderation versus excess, spirituality versus practicality, or boredom versus excitement. See what you think about the combination of these two cards.
A situation that has come to a fruitful conclusion. I think this is an apt point upon which to close this chapter of my book!