Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
The Cartomancer: Prediction Time

The Cartomancer: Prediction Time

Last updated on: July 13, 2016 at 3:54 pm by Camelia Elias

The Cartomancer: Prediction Time 2016-07-13T15:54:32+00:00 Camelia Elias

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Photo: Camelia Elias, the Popess from the Rosenwald Tarot, 1480, hand-touched in ink and gold by myself

It happens that on occasion I use the cards to predict events. Nice, old-fashioned style. If chance and probability are to make sense, especially for the ones scientifically inclined – I don’t worry about the magic folks – then it is through feedback.

You predict an event, and you’re only as good as your last successful result. That is to say, either you get it right, or you don’t. In fortunetelling prediction is the most brutal of the arts. If you don’t get it right folks are ready to lynch you. But the art of prediction is also the most wonderful, if you, like me, don’t believe in time, causality, and all the other words we use for convenience, such as temporal markers. If you don’t believe in time, you’re free from having to take anything personally – ever. Hallelujah!

Prediction requires a blind faith in your tools, be they gods, cards, stones, omens, bones, or stars. As it happens, while I believe in nothing – I keep telling folks that I’m a Marxist – I have faith. A lot of it.

Why I have faith is connected to my nondualist approach to all things, and the kick I get out of using dualist language to confuse others: I say, ‘yes, things are black, yes, things are white, but wait, there is no black and white, there’s only the associative, the symbolic glyphic or glottal ability of my language, and so on.’ Folks go, ‘Err, here’s another madman’ – or woman.’ Wonderful.

But let me get to the point. Two days ago I decided to predict the finals for Euro 2016 soccer championship: France versus Portugal. I did a three-card reading with the Lenormand cards for each team. I posted it duly on Facebook for all followers to see, exactly 1 minute before the whistle blew for the start of the game. As prediction needs witnesses, this is what I said on my illustrious profile wall connected with these cards below:

The Game of Hope Lenormand, 1880 (facsimile by the Tarot Professionals; photo: Camelia Elias)

“What the heck, let’s do a predictive reading. Who wins the soccer finals?

Top row for France: The Ship, The Birds, The Letter.

The French are slow, talk too much and get the red or yellow card. Meh.

The bottom row for Portugal: The Whip, The Child, The Sun.

They Portuguese are aggressive, dribble in unexpected ways and win.

I bet on Portugal. Good luck.”

So Portugal won, and I got showered in praise – too bad about the impossibility to push virtual champagne on the internet with the same results as having your body praise you for the good choices you make. . . Still. It was good to see so many appreciate the art of prediction.

Now, however, while I was grateful for people’s excitement over my skills, the very idea of prediction made me ponder over a few things. I won’t repeat here what I’ve been saying about prediction in my divination books, on Taroflexions or on my professional website, The Art of Reading. I will just make a quick reference to what I said in the immediacy of the event, when people have asked me about timing in prediction, and what the deal is, when, I, indeed, don’t believe in temporality.

Prediction works like a quick arrow. You have to have a very specific and immediate target if you are to get it right. The longer the time frame, the less predictable the outcome. Getting close to being right is not good enough. As I said, prediction is brutal. Either you get it right, or you don’t.

Prediction also depends on the question. If you ask: ‘Who will get married first, me or my sister?’, then you can have a time span that’s as big as 30 years, not just 3 months. You can only assess the point of prediction to the extent that it aligns with the nature of the question. That’s the art. Or rather, that’s where the art of timing is.

$a graphic of the Mandelbrot set, a fractal image$

Fractal Image Gallery. The Mandelbrot Set. Thinkstock/Hemera

Prediction is close to what happens in mathematics when we talk about infinities that tend to the margins of ‘things’ and then get weird. I won’t bore you to death with what in math is called complex analysis, but I will urge you to have a look at a Mandelbrot fractal. The longer the infinity stretch, the weirder it gets – ‘weird’ is a math term – with the lovely symmetry to begin with getting all distorted and funky.

Here’s a thought aside: ‘Enchant Long, and Divine Short (Peter Carroll, Liber Kaos, 1992: 25). Keep your long term magical projects for enchantments. Divination is for snappy things. You want that elastic to make it or break it.

If you’re a hardcore practitioner of weirdness, such as it is also preached by the Dzogchen school of Buddhism, then you will get the notion that as the cards are never about you, but rather about all that you’re part of already – which you know about, otherwise, no catch – then you understand that prediction runs counter-intuitively to all that which we call ‘the future.’ If you don’t believe me, you can check with the Harvard bros on Wall Street, who happen to enjoy a better reputation than that of a fortuneteller for doing the exact same job – minus her sophistication. Or you can also have a look at my essay, How the Tarot Works, to get the idea.

Predicting is the art of seeing without prejudice. That’s really the best recipe I can give you. Suspend all your judgment when you predict, and see how far you can see beyond your cultural pre-conditioning. If you can do that, you can call me next time you had an 8-figure profit at the stock market, or indeed, the ultimate profit that translates to your seeing things as they really are.

People into esoteric tarot, rather than straight fortunetelling, hate prediction simply because they are not trained in the art of never ever taking anything personally. When I say ‘never ever,’ I mean exactly that, for that is the catch. In tarot for prediction, if you think the cards are about you, about being personal, or about taking anything at all personally, then you’re in the wrong line of business. If you can’t take defeat – OMG, my prediction turned out all wrong today, I’m so ashamed! – then divination for prediction is not for you.

You can predict events accurately only when you’re mad enough to strip yourself of all your masks; when you’re mad enough to know the truth and stand by it; when you’re mad enough to stay away from comparison and competition; when you’re mad enough to stay away from the diplomatic blah blahs; when you’re mad enough to make no distinction between your prediction skills and those of your unapologetic prophesying, to everybody’s horror; when you are mad enough to transmit clearly what you see and at the same time honor your tools, be they gods, cards, omens, bones, your own flesh and blood, demons and devils, angels and fairies – no parallelism intended.

Next time you want to predict something, you may want read a poem, or another madman’s words. Here’s an example from Khalil Gibran:

“You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen – the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives – I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.” Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me. And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”

In your prediction, go not to the infinity of time, but to the zero of time. Let your prediction be the most natural solution that will lead to you singularity, the singularity of the single event that comes to pass just as you said it would. Get rich – on all fronts.

♠

More weird stuff, or predictions that knock your socks off?

Stay in the loop.

Click here to like
Patheos Pagan on Facebook.

Click here to like
the Agora on Facebook

The Cartomancer is published bi-monthly on the second and fourth Wednesday here on the Agora. Subscribe via RSS or e-mail!

Please use the links to the right to keep on top of activities here on the Agora as well as across the entire Patheos Pagan channel.

Previous Post

July 11, 2016

Star Made Witch: A Day in the Life of a Witch

Next Post

July 14, 2016 Outside The Circle: Jailbreaking the Goddess

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Lakeside Hearth Adventures in Wortcunning Alone In Her Presence Arts, Crafts & Cooking Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft Book of Blackbirds Book Reviews Born-Again Witch Cauldron, Sword, Spear, & Stone Cermony and Liturgy Columns Community Dandelion Seeds Dear Jasmine Druid Thoughts Editor's Picks Everyday Pagan Family & Household Practice Family Traditions Full Frontal Magic Gateway Goddess Guest Articles Happily Heathen Health and Wellness Hearth of Hellenism Heathen Woman Hills of the Horizon History Holidays Horse Goddesses Interfaith Interviews Irish-American Witchcraft Jewish Witch Lamp & Labyrinth Letters from Midgard Literature, Media, Film, Music Loop of Brighid Love, Sex & Relationships Magic or Magick Making Light Naturalistic Traditions Nature News Outside The Circle Pantheisticon Politics Prayers, Poems, Blessings & Stories Queer Femme Mystic Queer of Swords Recipes Ritual and Practice Science and Research Seekers and Guides Seeking the Grail Socially Responsible Magic Spear of Athena Star Made Witch Syncretic Electric Technology The Blooming Staff The Busy Witch The Cartomancer The Crow's Nest The Dance of Pagan Recovery The Hearth of Hellenism The Lady's Quill The Other Side of the Hedge The Path of She The Rantin' Raven The Witches Next Door The Zen Pagan Theology, Ethics, Philosophy Tree City Witch Urban Earthwitch Wayfaring Woman Witch on Fire Wyrd Words

Select a Month January 2026 March 2025 December 2024 June 2024 April 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In Hebrews, what was the veil in the temple?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The law of Moses The old covenant Christ's flesh The separation from God