Introducing Tarot Tableau: The Fool's Journey
At the beginning of April, I published my first book, Tarot Tableau: The Fool’s Journey, as a PDF, available here on my site. It was a work of many months, and I was so excited to be done. (Do you hear that? Faintly in the background, you may be able to hear laughter. That’s the sound of people who have self-published before, laughing at my naïveté.) There are now three digital formats and a printed coil-bound workbook version. There will eventually be a standard paperback version sold on Amazon, but I’ll get into those details in the next post. First, I want to officially welcome you to the system and give you a sneak peek if you haven’t already seen the book.
If you haven’t seen Benebell Wen’s amazing introductory video to the tableau on her Sightsee the Tarot, be sure to check it out. She covers the basic spread and the sample questions that can be asked of each of the Major Houses in turn before turning to the initial steps of the basic method. It’s a powerful exercise, but it’s just the start!
And if you want additional guidance using the method or you just want to explore the method further, be sure to check out my Tarot Tableau teaching videos.
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[Excerpted from my book]
Welcome
from Thomas the Hermit
Let’s be honest. Sometimes it feels good to see a whole mess of cards. Most tarot readers probably know that too many cards water down the meaning and that one card can lead to revelations. But with a solid game plan, you can get a clear message out of a bunch of cards.
For the last year or so, I’ve been learning about the Lenormand and loving it. And I thought it would be fun to bring one of the most classic features of the Lenormand into a spread for the tarot, the Grand Tableau. Thus I present to you a new way of reading tarot: Tarot Tableau, the Fool’s Journey.
This guide includes the standard tableau spread I’ve designed and the strategies I use to interpret the tableau. Plus I’ve included a boatload of reference tables to help you get started, as well as suggestions for ways to customize or alter the method. There are even worksheets available on my website for those who like structure or need extra guidance.
This tableau is more than just a spread: it’s a reading method mixing tarot and Lenormand cartomancy strategies. The method will feel very technical to many tarot readers at first, just as the Lenormand itself does. But you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the depth of the results, and with practice, it goes quickly. Before long, your intuition will make it seamless.
Thank you for trusting me to teach you this method. I hope that you gain enormous insight from it. And if not, I hope it’s a least a fun mental exercise.
Purpose
See where you are, what factors are in play, and what lessons & influences await you on your current journey
This large tarot spread is designed to help you see where you are on your current life journey, what factors are already in play, and what lessons you will need to learn or influences you will need to exert in order to progress toward your highest self. There’s a starting point, an ending point, and a “you are here” sign post, but beyond that, this journey is a metaphor.
With the standard layout and interpretive method, you are not meant to go through each card as though taking literal steps on this journey. Heck, it’s entirely possible that you won’t even interpret some cards (quelle horreur!). Instead, you’ll look at the high-level picture with just a few cards and then dive into as many details as you want or need to move ahead. The reading can be as general or as specific as you make it, but the standard reading is intended for “big picture” questions, even when the cards are read for the fine details. Some readers will use this for general readings, without reference to any “journey” beyond the one we call life.
As with any new divination, you should read through the steps first to make sure that you understand the spread and set the right intentions. That way, your subconscious can guide you clearly. Alternatives to the standard spread, described in appendix A, have slightly different purposes, and it’s important to know what you’re getting into.
For example, you may find that this tableau is most useful for mundane matters, and I provide guidance and reference tables for that. And you may want to just read the cards in their Major Houses intuitively. That’s fine too. Get to know what works for you.
The tableau is best done only once per month. Significant shifts can shorten that recommended time frame, and tableaux that must be read as retrospectives (where the significator is in the final position) may be redrawn after understanding the current tableau in order to help you or the querent focus on the future.
[End of excerpt]
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That’s just a little preview of what’s in the book. The digital versions are almost 100 pages long, and the printed version is 120 pages. (A few of those extra pages are blank for printing formatting, but twelve of the pages are for the standard worksheets, which are sold separately for digital readers.)
I explain the different versions and provide screenshots in the next post. If you’re interested in purchasing an eBook and the worksheets or in pre-ordering the printed book, you can do so in the new Tarot Guides section of my shop.
The cards shown are from Tattoo Tarot: Ink & Intuition by MEGAMUNDEN and Diana McMahon-Collis (Laurence King Publishing, 2018). All rights reserved, used by permission. They have nothing to do with my Tarot Tableau other than that it’s a beautiful deck for those who want to try a Tarot de Marseille deck that isn’t the old-fashioned version. If you want to learn more about the deck, you can read my interview with the deck or see my synopsis on the Decks Available for Readings page.