Uncovering the Archetypes – Discovering Your Feminine Intuition Through Tarot Cards

The Fool’s Journey to Wholeness as depicted in the Major Arcana, represents a psycho-spiritual map that initiate students of the Tarot follow to enlightenment. Enlightenment is a cosmic awareness of oneness. The cycles of birth, death and rebirth, egoless-ness, love, and the balancing of primary energy forces – masculine/feminine, black/white, chaos/order, nurturance/self- care, love/fear, movement/stillness, doing/being, sacred masculine/sacred feminine. 

Just as all spiritual paths have prescribed tests to be successfully navigated for expanded consciousness in preparation for the ultimate desired state of wholeness, so does the Tarot. These expanded states prepare the initiate’s consciousness to manage and contain the energy surges rising from the personal and collective unconscious. As experienced Tarotists attest, this movement to expanded consciousness ever spirals around and upward. You continue to expand beyond your first arrival to wholeness – the state of wholeness being a process, not a fait accompli! 

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It wasn’t until I began comprehending the Major Arcana, that I understood the power of this process acting in my life. In the beginning, when I wrote the Major of the Month for the web site, I was only struck by the synchronicity of how appropriate the card of month would relate to events taking place in my own life. At some point, perhaps two or three months into the work, I was astounded to realize that this was more than synchronicity – this was magic. In awe, I noted a resonance between my Majors work, and my life events. In a moment, I realized that my students were going through the same transformational process in their lives; transforming life events dancing in step with their journey to magical readership. 

Magical readership is the kind of readership that gracefully and brilliantly combines intuition with Tarot academia, empathy with self-awareness, practicality with frivolity, and Yin with Yang. Ffiona Morgan, author of the Daughters of the Moon states, “There were times when I feared our intense transformational process would prevent the tarot’s publication. Events in my life and the environment threw boulders in my path at every turn.”

Morgan describes this dynamic interaction happening to all the wimmin involved in the Daughter’s of the Moon creation almost 30 years ago and many others have discovered this same phenomenon. Central to my point is that The Initiates Journey to Magical Readership represents a feminine path to enlightenment. 

The core of the Tarot experience is reading the Tarot cards in a layout for self and others. This is ultimate expression of the Tarot’s teachings. The Tarot as Guru-ess, guides initiates along a sacred path to wisdom whereby they will act as wise ones guiding others through their readings. The Tarot teaches and demonstrates the developmental tasks that are archetypal through a series of images that point specifically and uniquely to the almighty power of the sacred feminine. 

Additionally, readership is a profoundly relational activity and wimmin develop within relationship.. (Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice 1982). Also read Star Hawk’s book Spiral Dance Special 20th Anniversary Edition). 

Re-framing Personal Narratives with Tarot Readings

Herstorically, wimmin have been judged lacking in moral development. For example, their personal focus narrows their ability to only see the big picture making it impossible for them to possess the necessary objectivity to be judges, politicians, and policy makers. Until Carol Gilligan completed her ground breaking research that demonstrated how wimmin grow to full maturity within the context of relationship, wimmin were described as immature males. 

Cynthia Giles, author of two excellent books on the Tarot, points out in her work that women have traditionally been the fortune-tellers while predominantly, males have Kinged the presumably loftier positions as the academic esoterics. I think it’s about time for us to reclaim the word fortune-teller just as the wimmin’s movement have reclaimed other words like “crone”, “hag”, “witch” and “dyke”. I encourage readers and psychics to use it whenever they can!

This is an important piece of work for us to address as Tarotists in the 21st century. Women as fortune-tellers” have been doing valuable psycho-spiritual work in their communities. They have followed a path to enlightenment which profoundly exemplifies what a woman’s path to enlightenment looks like! Wimmin doing the grass roots work of nurturing others to enlightenment, empowerment and ultimately freedom. The interpersonal aspects of counseling is exemplified in the vision of a womyn sitting at her kitchen table with friends and their deck of cards. Empathetically, and with words of encouragement, and love sharing their worries, hopes, dreams, fears, angers, and joys. 

The Kingly males in the Tarot profession (Paul Foster Case, Edward Waite, Aleister Crowley and other known male members of the Hermetic Order) meanwhile are writing and pontificating on the meanings, dictating how the cards should be read, and determining how the true divinatory meanings should be defined. 

The Journey to Magical Readership is a womyn’s journey to wholeness, magic, and enlightenment. 99% of Tarot readers are wimmin and 99% of people who go to readers are wimmin. I hear this everyday in my practice, “Why do you think mostly wimmin go for Tarot readings?” I think this feminine domination of the practice of reading the Tarot, points to a deeper reality. The Emperor, the Hierophant, the Hermit, the Hanged Man, and The Devil represent the masculine path but they tell a very different narrative to womyn. 

This is why I maintain that it is crucial that Tarotists wishing to achieve magical readership read only decks that are non-racist, non-sexist, non-classist, and non-hierarchal; in effect that we favour only decks that are inclusive. Magical Readership can only be attained with the right tool! 

“Our belief in gods and goddesses must serve our need to understand diversity and to promote creative solutions to difficult human problems. For myself, belief in an ancient creative Goddess brings a deep respect for the life-giving power of the female body and promotes a deep spiritual ecology, which we will all need to find a more natural balance in our beautiful earth. However, the ancient mythologies of the Father God are a part of our history and culture, and the influence of these ideas runs deep in our consciousness and cannot be overlooked in the context of the Tarot.”( Alexandra Genetti)

Exploring the Mystical Nature of Witchcraft Through Tarot Card Reading and Divination

The Fool, number 0 represents the beginning. With raw potential, the Tarot student/initiate enters the Tarot world like the Fool; naïve about the abyss s/he is about to fall into; positive and open-minded, optimistic, reckless with inspired energy, and fertile with professional readership potential. They anticipate that this journey will be fun! Get a deck and a book, maybe take a course or two, learn the meanings of the cards, and how to place them and we’re off to readership. “The Fool’s journey takes him to all the realms—for he is never fixed in one place—so you, like the Fool, are free now to explore these places: the land of dreams and imagination and the land of the dark unconscious. Unlike the Fool, however try to hold onto what you find and bring it back with you to enrich your life.” (Genetti) 

I’ve taught the Tarot predominantly at evening college continuing education, and community centres. Most take the course because they’ve had a Tarot reading and suspect they possess psychic ability. Associating cards with play interestingly is often the Initiate’s first reaction. There is the ancient kinship of games and divination systems. In Nigel Pennick’s, Games of the Gods, he demonstrates that games including chess, snakes and ladders, and mah-jongg have their roots in divination techniques. In the initiate’s mind this association suggests that learning the Tarot will be easy, just learn the rules of the game and onto readership, however as anyone who knows games – learning to play the game and mastering the game – is marked by hours and hours of practice!

At Number One we meet the Magician. The student steps into the role of the Magician, s/he peruses her tools; Tarot deck and texts. The Sword/pen will note her intellectual and insightful understanding of cards’ meanings. Her emotional commitment and enthusiasm is the water that will carry her intentions along the river of deeper insight and secure her commitment to the Tarot on a deep emotional level. 

The Wand is the fire that heats up her passion and commitment to practice and the earth is her disk of grounding in the cards and texts. The cards are the physical, earthy element that will serve as the conduit for her powerful psychic insight. 

Putting all the primary elements together in the Magician, the Fool/Tarot Initiate begins to play with this magical divination tool. She draws a card to answer a question and receives an astounding and valuable piece of advice and guidance. She has demonstrated to herself that she holds a sacred and genius tool.. In using this tool, she has uncovered a vision of herself as confident, self-reliant, and able to transform her thoughts into reality. With this tool in hand she becomes a visionary story-teller, problem-solver, and truth-sayer. She becomes the Magician! 

The elderly women students find themselves the centre of attention at family gatherings. Previously absentee granddaughters are phoning and visiting. Grandma is cool. She reads fortune-telling cards! Grandma is getting more attention, awe, and respect than ever before. One of my students slipped into the abyss when she decided this tool could be used to forward her agenda with her grandchildren. I knew trouble was ahead when she had 2 Princess of Wands in her deck! I warned her that using the Tarot to forward her own propaganda could result in the loss of her power. If she didn’t cease this practice at once she wouldn’t be able to advance and benefit from the gifts of the High Priestess!

At the stage of the Magician, students comprehend the power the Tarot holds. They do a reading for themselves that is eerily accurate. As they play with this new-found tool, they discern its magic and venture to tell others. The Magician stage is marked with increased communication. Typically when a student tells friends and family about their developing magical skill, they are inundated with requests for readings. The student realizes that not only does the tool itself have power but in the eyes of others, they do too. 

At the High Priestess, the student, as the Magician, plays with the cards, and communicates their growing understanding of the Tarot with friends, family, other students and colleagues. In a profound moment, the student experiences a dream, a vision, or draws an astonishingly appropriate card and is abruptly plummeted into the mysterious world of the High Priestess.

“A-ha!”, exclaims the High Priestess. “Aren’t you getting all caught up with yourself and your new found earthly power! Don’t forget that I’m the Spiritual Mother. You are studying to be a conduit of unseen world to see world. Your new-found power on the earthly plane is little compared with the power and responsibility I bestow on the worthy. I will assist you in translating the messages, but in acquiring this psychic power you must be wary of the temptations of ego. Remember that I will grant you these gifts as you prove your worth in egoless sacrifice and gratitude. And remember too that in your times of pain, sorrow and regret, I am here to hold and nurture you back to spiritual health.” 

The High Priestess brings forth the vision from the unseen world to the seen world for the Magician to manifest in the world. She reveals emotional concerns, hidden factors, psychic feelings and hunches. The student of the tarot at this stage is reminded to listen to her inner conscience, knowledge, gut feelings and heart 

Students ask questions like, “Why do I keep pulling the same cards?”

Students report dreaming about their cards. One student described nightmares related to the Tarot. Scary predictions. The High Priestess stage represents a time when the initiate’s unconscious is constellated by the Tarot and responds. The High Priestess stands strong at the gates marking the boundaries between the unconscious and consciousness. The High Priestess stage is marked by an increased interest in the student in psychic ability and its relationship to reading the Tarot, dreams and their relationship to the Tarot. 

There’s more to magical readership than knowing the meanings! One student reports that he’s having trouble learning all the meanings of the cards through his practice because the same cards keep turning up in the readings. Laughing, he has an insight that the cards he often draws that he thinks are meant for others, are actually messages, lessons and guidance intended for him from the High Priestess at this juncture in his development to magical readership.

In expressing our gratitude and selfless commitment to the sacred feminine at the High Priestess stage, the Empress emerges on the journey with material bounty. The Empress signifies mother love and points to growth, fulfillment, joy, satisfaction, productivity and love. She is the experience and expression of love as a healing force. She represents the nurturing support and caring aspects of being a reader. At this stage rewards abound. We exhibit some facility in working with the cards to friends and family who don’t know what we are doing right and wrong. People ask us to read for them and present us with earthly gifts as an expression of their appreciation. Some offer money, others dine initiates with delicious meals, or gift them generously with art, jewels, sacred objects, decks, books. They refer their friends and family to the initiate for readings. They bulge with pregnant promises to the successful and desirable reader. The initiate glows in the light of all this expressed appreciation. 

At this stage, students report how moved they are by people sharing their inner-most fears and hopes and how wonderful it is to have a tool to help them. The High Priestess and the Empress exemplify and depict an important spiritual growth spurt for women.. The High Priestess and Empress represent both aspects of the Great Goddess. Spirituality and manifestation. 

One student brought in her Daughters of the Moon Tarot during an Intermediate class to use in doing her practice readings. The reading was so powerful almost everyone in the class left the class determined to get their own Daughters of the Moon! What was so powerful in the reading was the depiction of women doing women things. Activities and characters the reader could immediately and profoundly identify with. This represented an example of magical readership. The Daughters of the Moon are multicultural, non-hierarchal, and women-centred. 

I did a reading for a black woman recently, and when she saw black women depicted in the cards, she deeply resonated with the reading, elevating this reading to one that was magical. There’s more to it than this. When we use a tool that is inclusive we draw in larger, broader and deeper energies. This is the true magic that is only suggested and hinted at in the Magician stage.

This stage may also be marked with students claiming reader names that reflect their identity transformations. One student announced at the 6th class that her reading name is Madame Solanga. Another announces she is Kayka and wants this printed on her graduation certificates. This is a signal of their stronger connection to the inner, sacred feminine. 

Following on the heels of the successes and bounty the student feasted upon from the Empress, the student’s confidence is bolstered. Their ego receives a flush of energy from the unconscious contents that are rushing to consciousness as s/he moved from the High Priestess to the Empress. S/he is taking pride in their newfound channeling power, and is developing some awareness about the sort of responsibility that accompanies this new flush of personal power. At the Emperor stage, the student is becoming a leader and their ideas are providing direction for others. The initiate is boldly moving forward with courage, determination, self-mastery, achievement and ambition. 

As the student familiarizes themselves with ego power, s/he moves into the house of the Hierophant where they will learn the power of belief. The Hierophant instructs the student about commitment to ongoing study. 

The Hierophant sternly warns, “You still have much to learn about being diligent to do your readings with a profound stewardship towards your chosen profession. There will be those who are vulnerable to the words, tone and inflection you use during a reading. Be respectful and be wary of the potential for a puffed up ego that you tasted in the Emperor. The gift of reading will not come without moral responsibility, and a serious commitment to know your work.” 

This is a time when the student examines what role their faith will play in their profession. The determine whether their teacher of the Tarot (whether this is a live, author or online teacher) is just, honest and caring. They go through an assessment of the depth of faith they have in themselves and whether they are judging themselves based upon a dogma or a true sense of common good. At this stage the student wrestles with dogma, social approval and conformity. Are they ready to rock the boat? Will their concern for appearances, manners and being nice outweigh their adherence to truth and independence? Both the Emperor and the Hierophant also represent a time for students to examine how patriarchy and it’s dogma have played a negative role in the formation of “shoulds” in their lives.

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By Famous Canadian Psychic Kathleen Meadows, M.A.