The Crafts: Wixes, Spells, and the Weaponized Placebo Effect

i'm a newb. made my own deck because i gotta keep it quiet. did a small fall to winter ritual plus salt/fire/water/air cleansing and blessing of the card stock before i made it into a deck. looking for input from other readers on what some of these weird answers might mean.

Spoiler: interview spread

note: nested spoilers are the interpretations that i looked up; i'm keeping them hidden to avoid bias.

1. What are you here to teach me? Tower, upright.
   Spoiler

   Something will be torn down or shattered violently; something you are unwilling to face but must, you have no choice. Truths will be laid bare, revelations and breakthroughs are not only possible but likely.
2. How do you see yourself? Ten of coins, upright.
   Spoiler

   Inner satisfaction; independence, enjoying the benefits of your hard work. At peace with yourself. No longer relying solely on others. Move closer to nature. Spiritually rewarding. Intuition might run high.
3. How do you see me? High priestess, reversed.
   Spoiler

   Hidden agenda, lack of compassion, selfishness. Relying on superficial/surface knowledge, not intuition. Lack the ability to understand situations as they appear.
4. How can I best work with you? Two of coins, upright.
   Spoiler

   Balance and change. Opportunity to learn new skills and make significant changes. Need to find balance. Try to focus on one issue at a time. Put yourself and your needs first. Don't try to be everything to everyone. Flexibility is important.
5. What are your strengths? Star, upright.
   Spoiler

   Strong connection to the Universe, open gateway to understanding the big picture. Optimistic card, peace, harmony, inspiration, hope, healing. Reopen your heart to spirituality, let go of self-doubt.
6. What are your weaknesses? Empress, reversed.
   Spoiler

   Indecisiveness, inability to act, overly dependent on others, infidelity. Stagnation, standstill. Emotionally drained.
7. What is the potential of our working relationship? King of swords, upright.
   Spoiler

   True authority. Intelligence, prudence, power, fairness, caring. Direction with firm leadership. Objective. Do not overuse your power. Being a caring individual will prevail.

this feels pretty obvious. the ... disastrous ... and slightly nasty ... answers 1 and 3 don't surprise me given my life lately. i feel like answer 6 means the deck might be likely to give me too many options, or not a very clear direction, and i'll have to use my brain/intuition.

Spoiler: asking the deck about me

1. About me in general: what is my most important characteristic? Five of wands, upright.
   Spoiler

   Challenges. Opposition and challenges are driving you forward. You will be put through many tests. Out with the old and in with the new. The outcome will bear its fruits and be positive. Keep your anger and other emotions under control.
2. What strengths do I already have as a reader? Hermit, reversed.
   Spoiler

   (This isn't a strength, friend…) Loneliness, self-pity, immaturity, acting hastily. May be living in the past, refusing to look at the present and make changes. Isolated to an extreme. You have set aside all your spiritual knowledge or lost your spiritual self. Lack of accepting the consequences of your behaviour. Inflexible. Someone you know may be too arrogant in their advice, but: are you taking responsibility for your actions or are you blaming others?
   • Clarification card. King of cups, reversed.
     Spoiler

     Won't accept reality, unable to express feelings, believes no one will fully understand. Has to be in control. Overdoing it. Self-centered. Do not react immediately. Take time to think things through.
3. What limits do I feel as a reader? Ten of cups, upright.
   Spoiler

   (Did you flip these around??) Count your blessings. All is right with the world. Satisfaction. Harmony.
   • Clarification card. Knight of wands, upright.
     Spoiler

     New ideas and realizing them. Lack of fear, charges forward without regard to consequences. Watch out for too much impulsiveness.
4. What key lesson can I learn on my developmental journey? Four of wands, reversed.
   Spoiler

   Forgetting to take care of unfinished business. You need to work harder. No free rides. Your ego is getting in the way. Don't stick your nose up at other people's efforts.
5. How can I be open to learning and developing on this journey? Queen of coins, reversed.
   Spoiler

   You may be putting your career or material possessions ahead of the love and attention your family needs from you. Self-centered woman, jealous, envious, suspicious. Empty and alone. Totally focused on material possessions.
6. What is the potential outcome of this journey? Strength, reversed.
   Spoiler

   Possible set-backs, self-doubt, weakness, alienation, misuse of power, disharmony, fear of the unknown. Victimizing others, or intimidating and overbearing, lacking in confidence, needy to a fault, inadequate and insecure.
   • Clarification card. Eight of swords, reversed.
     Spoiler

     You will start thinking more clearly. You possess the power to rebuild your self-confidence. You are no longer the victim of circumstance. Use your intuition. Let go of the past and start planning and living for the future. Use your energy to the best of your ability.

this feels way less obvious. either the deck isn't interested in showing me any strengths of mine, or i'm not interpreting well. this spread confused me.

 

@unaccustomedSyncretist I'm not an experienced tarot reader or even any sort of craft-oriented person at all so take me with a grain of salt. But I do think the whole idea is pretty fascinating.

Maybe the second spread makes some sense in context of the first. I'm thinking particularly of the tower. Something you thought was very solid is not solid at all, and it's about to be upended. Something foundational is about to fall completely to pieces. Your weakness is that you're willing to accept that overall, things are okay. They are not. Your strength is that you've been seeking inward unsuccessfully and are about ready to just throw up your hands and pitch the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe it was a bad baby. Maybe that baby has to go.

You're dwelling and ruminating too much, but this is a necessary part of your journey. It's okay, and it may feel like you're just thrashing around blindly in the brush or at a standstill, but when everything is upended, things that looked like weaknesses will give you strength. This may hurt a lot, but it will give you a fresh start in an important way. Brace yourself, and for the love of Bob don't rush it.

Dunno if that was helpful at all. Maybe it's at least a new perspective?

 

@Verily hmmmm. thanks for your input. i will think on it... (how ironic)

anyone else has thoughts, i'd love to hear them.

 

I'm. Increasingly drawn to the spiritual.I'm agnostic, I think, but a small and defiant part of me has always believed in magic and the fae. I feel like the land where I am rejects me just as hard a I reject it, although there was a time of truce when I briefly maintained a lovely vegetable garden before my life went to shit. Australia is just so hostile, especially in my area, and I'm a person who needs to see the colours change in autumn, and be able to lay outside looking up at the stars without being hyper-alert for aggressive creatures.
I started looking into Wicca when I was in highschool, but that was curtailed pretty quickly by my mum because all the educational materials I was given were incredibly sexually focused.

Spoiler: unpleasant thing

Spoiler: abuse cw

Unsurprising, in retrospect, as my stepfather was becoming increasingly overt with his """"interest"""" in me about that time ://

But now...I don't know.
There's been a few times in my life when I have desperately tried to extend my consciousness and reach for...something. Hope, assurance. One time I felt like I was heard and answered, while on a tiny boat in the middle of a very vicious storm that was about 40 minutes away from land and also not particularly seaworthy in the first place. I remember being sure I was going to die, and seeing the waves lit up by lightning overhead, and the wind was howling and the rain was like needles on my skin, and I just flattened myself to the bottom of the boat and prayed that I would survive that. And somehow I did. Felt like the sea heard me, and let me go.
I don't even know what I'm asking here. Maybe if there's something I can look into?

 

If your interest is in the Fair Folk you could look into Celtic pagan practices in particular? I can gather together some resources to share where Celtic reconstructionist practice is concerned. I don't have anything on Neodruidry resource wise, though. It's an entirely different thing. I can also talk to you about your feelings about the ocean and share my own weird feelings about it if you'd like.

 

Thank you, the reconstructionist resources would be grand C:
When it comes to the ocean, I have a very healthy awe and respect for it, and I've made a personal commitment to never go back into it, at least in Australia >.> Over the years the sea here has made it quite clear to me that I shouldn't be in or really around it. Every time I've gone in the ocean, I've been stung by a jellyfish. I've had multiple very unfortunately close calls with sea snakes. Now that I have the autonomy to decide to stay away from the sea, I'm doing that. It let me make it back to the harbor in that storm, and I feel like that used up all my goodwill.

 

So this is the CR faq. It's old and not everyone follows every little thing about it but it is a good starting point. This meanwhile is the mary-jones archive. It has a variety of texts, legal and mythical, from across the Celtic countries. The translations on it are pretty dated but it is a good library. Additionally here is the CELT archive. Again it has a lot of texts. Mostly old and clunky translations but it's there. It's also specifically focused on Irish texts.

Also that is very different from my own experiences with the ocean. I've been hurt by it definitely before. Jellyfish, being raked along stones, and so on. But I've never felt that I was told to stay out. Quite the contrary honestly. I'm incredibly drawn to it and I'm happiest when I'm around or in it. Though I do live in So Cal and the ocean here is amazingly chill. It's temperamental at times, but never in an awful fashion?

 

Thank you!! Sorry it took me so long to reply, I opened tabs, started reading, had a nap and then immediately forgot what I was doing.
I am conflicted on the subject of deities - I just don't get the bone deep sense of a presence that I do with other things, which is hard to explain in of itself? I rambled on my blog about it at one point but it's buried now. It's like how some people say they go to churches and can feel the presence of God around them? Except more just a sense of something. Less of a fully realized being, more. Idk. Concentrated emotion. Some places I feel at peace in immediately, others reject me, others feel dead?
My mum took me to a tree cathedral in the UK when I was very young, and that place felt like a pair of hands reaching out to take mine. Every time we went to Scotland and I got to lay on a bed of heather on the hillsides and watch the clouds, I felt welcomed. Almost every place I've been in Australia I've gone has rejected me. I don't fit here. The closest I found was in a couple of different rainforests, and even then it felt less like Home and more like cautious tolerance, if that makes sense?
Where I am in the rural suburbs feels kind of like it's dead, or in the process of slowly dying and trying to take everything else out with it. Shit's depressing.

When it comes to the ocean - the pattern of harm is so very strict regardless of what I do to try and mitigate it, further attempts feel like I'm just asking for trouble. For instance - when dragged down to the beach one day I hung back near the sand dunes as much as I could, and tried to build a sandcastle. The wind was howling and burning my face, it was starting to drizzle, and I wasn't allowed to go back to the house so I figured I'd just try and stay out of the way. After scooping out a foundation for a castle, I brushed against something buried in the sand and then my hand is on fire, and it turns out that against all the odds I'd found a buried jellyfish. Something about the Coral Sea doesn't like me >.>

 

I have a similar feeling about sensing the divine. I don't feel a specific presence so much as "well this is doing something for me, but I sure don't know what." I feel it by/in running water, walking alone in wooded areas, in some places of worship, and occasionally on city streets.

 

My very, very level-headed maternal family line have a pretty damn convincing ghost story; it would be totally out of character for these people to make that up, and none of the standard non-ghost explanations seem to work for it. Meanwhile, I've never seen so much as a funny-shaped shadow and I am disappoint. Is it possible to learn?

 

@ChelG
... Can I hear the story? =o

 

Okay...

Spoiler: cut for length

My great-grandmother lived in a converted mill. While she lived there, none of the family said anything to each other, nobody ever actually saw or heard anything, and the male members of the family never seem to have noticed anything. Great-grandma was quite comfortable there, but my mother and nan have independently told me that when they went up the stairs they would be absolutely certain there was a hanged body at the top, and that they never mentioned this to each other at the time. There never was but they say they knew it in the same way one would know the sink would be there when one entered the kitchen. Nan says she didn't know what the person would look like, but was certain they were hanged; Mum says she doesn't know if they were hanged, hovering, or just standing, but she was sure it was a man in a big 1600s hat. That might be waved away as suggestion because it seemed like an appropriate place to hang someone, but it gets weirder.

When Nan and her kids slept over there, they would sleep in the room under Great-grandma's; Nan would never be able to fall asleep until exactly 3am because of the feeling of a presence in the room. One time she had to go up there during the day to fetch something she'd left, and the creepy presence was still there, so she grabbed her stuff and booked it. She never said anything about this to Great-grandma because she had to live in the house. Several years later when Great-grandma moved out, she brought up the haunted feeling on her own, and said that every night as long as she lived there, she would wake at 3am, certain that someone had just come up the stairs and was standing outside her room. It would go away after a few minutes. I do know of the explanations about sound waves and electromagnetism forming impressions of a presence, but they installed electricity in the building while living there and I think they'd have noticed if it made a difference, and I doubt any form of that would so suddenly switch rooms at the same time every night.

My mum was under nine years old at the time, and when they'd just got home from a trip there she spontaneously told Nan that she'd woken up to find a lady in a long dress and a man in a "big hat and long socks" standing over her bed, and they'd taken her downstairs to a "party" and all the furniture was different, and then she'd gone back to bed. She was very insistent it wasn't a dream, and this was the only time she came out with a story like that. Apparently the only time they discussed this, Mum insisted Nan was mis-remembering it, but Nan insists she wasn't. Since Mum was under nine at the time and it's within her usual patterns of behaviour to insist she remembers something going a certain way when it didn't, I'm inclined to believe Nan's account. I only just heard this part of the story this week, and I don't know if it's reasonable suspicion or anxiety that is making me wonder if Nan made it up because she knows about my death anxiety and wanted to assure me ghosts exist or something. It would be completely out of character if she did, though - she's refused to lie to make people feel better in circumstances which were responsible for breaking off a branch of the family before.

When Great-grandma moved out, the people who bought the place said they loved it and wanted it to be their forever home. They moved out eighteen months later, and the people who bought it from them only lasted a year.

 

@ChelG
Thank you for sharing, that's a great story!

 

It is quite probable Mum's story was a dream, but even if it was, it's weird that it was that specific thing in that specific place.

 

I mean bonking into spirits in dreams is not NOT a thing, dreams and especially the half-awake stage of falling asleep are liminal as fuck.

 

All I can confirm is that something weird was going on. I can't swear there wasn't an obvious non-ghost explanation we're just missing but I do know my family don't lie to me, and I'm not arrogant enough to presume that just because I've never experienced something like that nobody else could. I am, however, really disappointed it's never happened to me. My family aren't exactly any more open to weird shit than I am, either, so it's not just a perception thing. Maybe I've just never been in the right place.

Similarly, I found some stories about serious sceptical explanations for alleged telekinetic or ghost-contacting things which are a lot sillier than the ghost theory. For example, the medium Daniel Douglas Home allegedly either played the accordion telekinetically or had a ghost do it for him in a well-lit room in front of reliable witnesses. Two explanations sceptics have given involve him hiding a harmonica in his moustache or a music box in his trousers. Leaving aside the fact that these instruments sound nothing like an accordion, his moustache didn't cover his mouth and he was holding conversations while doing this, music boxes of the time were fairly big and couldn't have been concealed in the trousers he was wearing, and the investigators had watched him get changed beforehand to make sure he didn't do that. Strings quite possibly could have been involved, or any number of other mundane explanations, but I'm not buying the explanations above.

 

I just got the Night Vale tarot deck as an early Christmas present! I am excite!

...except that I've never had one before or done this kind of thing or am even particularly sure that it's "my thing" so to speak? I see people talking about decks' "personalities" and "interviewing" them to get to know them- could you guys maybe offer some advice to start with?

(Also I can't properly shuffle even regular-sized cards, and even if I could I'd be worried about damaging these gorgeous things that way. How do?)

 

there's an interview spread that I've used, example is here, it's pretty useful

not really sure about shuffling though, I've never been good at it

 

honestly I don't even shuffle, I just spill them out in a pile and push them around a bunch until they're mixed up

 

i've been shuffling in multiples of three while thinking about my question or speaking it aloud. I also try to change the direction i shuffle in (like, what edge is down, whether the cards are face up or face down) every time. just ... feels like they're being exposed to more of the universe that way.