Oracle Cards for Psychic Development

This topic is broad enough, and important enough, to fill a book. Yet, this will be simply a short blog post meant to get you thinking, and to get you using your oracle cards in a deeper and more profound way.

First, let me define what I mean by ‘oracle cards’ and which type of oracle cards I am specifically recommending for this process.

Technically, all cards of cartomancy, tarot, Lenormand, Kipper, etc., are oracle cards. All psychic tools are, by definition, oracles. Yet, in the cartomancy community we have begun using the word ‘oracle’ to describe cards designed for cartomancy that are their own unique system, and not tarot, Lenormand or Kipper.

I will use the term ‘oracle’ in this context for the remainder of this post.

We could loosely divide most oracle decks into two categories. One category would be oracle decks designed for a specific purpose. For example, I have oracle decks designed to do past life readings. I have oracle decks designed to communicate with aliens from other planets.

The second category would be oracle decks that are created for more nonspecific purposes, and often used simply for healing, introspection and general divination. It is that second category of deck I would like to address here.

Most of these types of oracle decks, regardless of their title, artist, or author, have some things in common. Typically, each card is a wonderful and inspiring work of art worthy of contemplation. Each card may have a thought-provoking name, and may include a few words for affirmation, explanation and introspection.

These decks usually include booklets which give a more detailed explanation of each card. Most professionals who work with these sorts of decks will memorize the cards and their booklet explanations., As with all cartomancy decks, the reader will discover the ways the cards speak in readings that go beyond what the booklet explains. Each serious oracle deck reader will develop their own understanding of their tool, and their own methods for working with their tool.

Many of us who own oracle decks, however, don’t do that kind of study with them. In fact, one of the things many of us love about oracle decks is that, unlike systems like tarot, Kipper, and Lenormand, oracle decks don’t require serious study and memorization for effective use.

Yet, a problem arises. Very often, when we read oracle cards, we simply read the word or words on the card, and don’t bother to interpret them in the context of the question, the situation, or the individual. That oracle cards, at first glance, are simple and easy to read discourages us from going deeper with them. Yet, it is in that deeper exploration that real wisdom is found, and that psychic awareness is awakened.

For example, I was recently working with a student. I asked her to draw three oracle cards from her deck to answer a specific question and interpret them. The deck she was using had single keywords on each card. The three cards she pulled were ‘New Beginnings’, ‘Balance’, and ‘Emerging’.

She quickly looked at the cards and said, “Yes, this is exactly what we have been talking about, and what I know I need to do. Yawn”.

I was struck by how clearly her reaction to the cards summed up the way many people treat their oracle card readings. It was a wonderful opportunity to show her how to truly process the cards and find deeper personal wisdom in them, and deeper psychic connection as a result.

If you, like my student, find yourself glossing over oracle cards rather than doing the deep dive, here are some things to try.

First, remember that the brow chakra, or third eye, is the reason that cartomancy is so effective. The third eye is responsible for our eyesight, our imagination, and our psychic vision. When we view an image in a cartomancy deck, we use our eyesight, which triggers our imagination, which engages our psychic vision.

When you contemplate an oracle card, or a tarot card, consider this process and take the time to allow this to happen.

When you pull your oracle card, spend time looking at the image with a soft gaze. Allow your imagination to engage your psychic vision to scry into the image, and see what speaks to you, and what comes to you in thoughts and sensations. Consider how what you see and what you feel during this process might supply answers and information.

Then, look at the word or words on the card. How does what is written on the cards apply to the question, or the individual, specifically? How does that connect with what you have experienced in the picture?

If you have pulled more than one card, how do the cards work together? Do they tell a story? Do they offer options?

A huge part of effective divination is to take your time. As you take your time, look deeply, and ask yourself questions about what you are seeing, reading, thinking and experiencing.

This is the process of divination with any tool of random token divination. As we work this process, we naturally tune in to our own psychic awareness.

The truth of psychic development is that it works like a muscle. The more we use it, the more we exercise it, the stronger it gets. I think we often ignore the power our oracle cards have to help us get this exercise.

A next step is to logically consider how what you have experienced with your card or cards relates to your question, your situation, or your querent. Remember that logically consideration is also a huge part of divination. There is a place where logic and psychic insight meet and work together. That place can often be over a deck of cards.

When You Should Question Your Intuition

Always trust your intuition. Your intuition is always correct. Your intuition will never fail you. Your heart always knows the truth. A woman’s intuition is never wrong.

These are the catchphrases we hear everywhere, from tarot study groups to psychic development classes to ladies’ luncheons.

There is a reason we hear, and say, these things so often. The intuition is a powerful tool for knowing truth. I think we speak more often of “women’s intuition” than of the power of men to discern truth. Yet, I don’t believe intuition is gender-based. I believe we all have the ability to hear the truth that resides within us, and the truth that whispers to guide us.

Most of us have personal stories about times we regret not listening to that little voice. We also have stories about the times we are glad we listened to that voice, against all reason.

You know the voice of which I speak. It’s the voice that told you not to believe your boyfriend’s lies. It’s the voice that told you to check on your friend, only to discover that you arrived in the nick of time to save the day.

Why do I advocate questioning your intuition?

The reason is simple.

That little voice of intuition is hard to distinguish from other internal chatter. It is easy to mistake the voice of desire for the voice of intuition. It is just as easy to mistake the voice of fear for the voice of your inner truth.

Intuition is a powerful tool. It turns a mediocre tarot reading into a profound spiritual experience. It guides us as we make life-changes choices.

Yet, how many times have we made damaging decisions in life because we truly believed we had some spiritual insight guiding us?

If you intuitively feel you should take a different route home from work, you might as well do it. You may discover you avoided a traffic jam.

If your intuition tells you to call your friend, by all means, do. You may discover your timing is on point, and your friend needed to hear from you.

Those are small decisions, and not likely to impact your life if you were wrong.

When should you question your intuition?

You should question your intuition when you feel it is guiding a major decision, especially a decision regarding a relationship.

You should question your intuition when your intuition confirms a fear, a desire, or your particular point of view.

How should you question your intuition?

Take a step back. Try to release the fear, the desire, or the point of view. Remember that anything that is true can stand up to questioning.

Make sure that you aren’t confusing intuition with anxiety. Make sure that you aren’t using intuition to justify an unhealthy desire. Make sure you aren’t using intuition to support a point of view.

Very often, we won’t know whether our intuition was correct until a great deal of time has passed. If the feeling you identify as intuition is causing you to do something that isn’t good for you, consider that it might not be intuition you are experiencing.

The more we question truth, the more solid our truth that remains will be.

Imagery and Energy: The Importance of Imagination in Divination, Magick and Healing

Imagery and guided meditations are tools in every metaphysician’s toolbox. We use imagery to foster intuition, divination, psychic connection, mediumship, past life regression, inner child work, physical healing, animal communication, manifestation and many other things.

Our ability to hold a picture in our mind, and to breathe into a particular part of the body, determines our success in our ability to unlock and decode the influential energies around us.

The more we become aware of the energies that surround everything, and the more we work with visualizing them, the more we become able to actually seem them.

For example, after years of smudging my home, I finally became able the see the gray clouds of energetic shmutz that cling in the ceiling corners.

Likewise, after years of doing energetic exercises with my hands – pulling energy between them, rolling it into a ball – I finally began to see the strands of energy with which I was working.

I am amazed at the number of naïve spiritual seekers I meet who describe, in great detail, the things they see. To me, this is often proof of both the veracity of their claims and of the standard visualizations which we are all taught.

It’s easy to believe that the chakra images are based on truth when a person with no prior knowledge of chakras asks me why they see purple light shooting from the heads of some people, or a glowing blue light on particular foreheads.

Some people are naturally gifted with an ability to see energy. Other need to consciously work with energy for a while before they are able to see with their eyes what they have been trained to see with their mind’s eye.

Working with the mind’s eye, that is, visualization and imagination, sometimes feels counter-intuitive, because we want our spiritual work to be real, rather than imagined.

It’s important to remember that the third eye, or brow chakra, is the seat of eyesight, psychic ability, and imagination. It’s impossible to use your psychic awareness, or to work with energy, without using your imagination.

Recently, I’ve notice a connection between tarot and yoga. A lot of great tarotists are enthusiastic yogis. Now that I am becoming enthusiastic about yoga, I wonder how I read tarot for 20 years without it!

I think this connection exists because yoga works with energy, as well as with the physical body. When we engage in psychic work, healing or magick, we are also working with energy and the physical body.

Much of our exploration of energy can be intuitive and accidental. Recently, I realized I always do the same visualization when I want to connect with my Higher Self in divination. I imagine rolling my eyes up and back, so I can see my third eye from the inside. When I do this, I always perceive a bright blue light, and feel a connection to spirit that becomes obvious in the reading.

You might ask if I am imagining that light, or if I am really perceiving the brow chakra. My question is, as long as the psychic connection is made, why does it matter?

Hermetic wisdom teaches “as above, so below”. This is key to the concept of imagery and visualization. If we can spiritually, with our imagination, visualize something into being, it can truly come in to being within the material world.

Energy can be made manifest. Energy can create healing. The more we work with the energies around us, and the more clearly we can visualize them, the abler we become to direct those energies to the purposes of healing, divination and manifestation.