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10 Reasons Tarot Magic Is Super Effective and How to Make It Work for You, by Sasha Graham

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Tarot magic is an effective way to enhance your life in mind-bending and satisfying ways. It will bring you into alignment with your highest self and deepest wisdom. Casting a tarot spell is sensual and fun. It requires you raise energy and direct to toward a specific goal. Learn simple and effective ways of creating personal tarot rituals and mysterious spells in my new book, The Magic of Tarot; in the meantime, here are 10 things to keep in mind about tarot and tarot magic.

1. Tarot Magic is Simple
   Easy enchantments are often the most effective. The energy moves in a clear, direct manner. There's no need to complicate spells. Magic isn't about impressing others; true magic helps up evolve into who we were always meant to be. Elegant magic can be cast by clearing the mind, focusing on the breath, and casting your gaze into a single tarot card. Chose a card to signify your magical goal. Bring a soft focus to your eyes. Gaze into the card. Imagine your desired outcome.
2. Tarot Contains Everything Required for a Spell
   Casting spells might feel intimidating at first. The mechanical aspects of gathering ingredients for a spell, while pleasant, can be time-consuming. Luckily for you, everything you need for casting a spell already exists inside the cards.Traditional spell casting has you activate the four elements, or directions. Tarot's four elements are reflected in the four aces: Earth = Ace of Pentacles, Air = Ace of Swords, Fire = Ace of Wands, and Water = Ace of Cups. Pull out the four aces from your tarot deck and use them to activate sacred, ritualistic space.
3. Tarot is Visual
   Tarot speaks via symbol. Symbolic language enters the subconscious directly (this is why vision boards work so well). To cast a spell, the first step is using your imagination to clearly visualize your goal. Which tarot card does your end goal look like? Choose an aligning card for your spell. Looking for a romantic partner? Grab the Lovers. Desire financial abundance? Invest in the King of Pentacles. Want to travel? Turn to the Chariot card. Once you are clear about your magical goal, activate the energies you will need to obtain that outcome. These exist inside the deck, too. Want to boost your sexual attraction? Find the Queen of Wands. Require extra charisma to land the job of your dreams? Pull the Magician. The card's keywords will tell you what their magical powers are.
4. Tarot Interrupts Negative Thought Patterns
   We must have a firm grasp upon the nature of our mind in order to change our reality. In order to avoid negative thought spirals, it is helpful to become aware of a harmful or dark thought when it pops up. The act of noticing a harmful or detractive thought is the first step in putting space between the thought and your inner self. Tarot takes heavy and confusing ideas, issues, and thoughts out of your head and puts them on the table in front of you. When you cast cards in a tarot spread, you can examine your life from a bird's-eye view. This way you can choose how to respond rather than unconsciously reacting to challenges.
5. Formulating a Tarot Question is a Magical Act
   Powerful questions are magical because they set you on a direct course of discovery. A good question opens possibility and fosters flow. It helps you operate toward your highest potential, thus moving you toward desirable experiences. Good questions acknowledge the role you play in your future. Always create questions for your cards starting with, "How can I …" or, "What can I…"Enhance your magical questions by including your intended outcome. For example, are you looking for an incredible career path? Ask: "How can I access my talents in a pleasurable way to bring me financial abundance?" Are you looking for a new home? "What will bring me into alignment with (insert the home of your dreams)?" The tarot will tell you exactly how to cultivate these things.
6. Working with tarot is a two-way conversation We approach tarot with our needs and questions, but tarot desires things from us, too. The cards are deep wells of wisdom, so when you have a particular challenge or you feel out of sorts, you can meditate into a card to obtain a specific answer and valuable advice.
7. Tarot is Aspiration
   Tarot is aspiration because everything we desire is there inside the cards. Working with tarot is like having a council of wise elders, teachers, and friends at your fingertips. Let the cards inspire you. The Page of Cups will teach you to be wildly imaginative, the Emperor wants you to be strong, and the Star offers lessons on vulnerability. All you have to do is observe and listen as they whisper to you.
8. Tarot Brings the Light of Consciousness to Our Life
   We read tarot to discover the things we don't know. This is why tarot teaches us to cultivate comfort in the unfamiliar and be okay with cards that don't make sense to us. Why? Because one day it will become clear, and you will have learned something from the cards you wouldn't have understood in any other way.
9. Tarot Teaches You to Trust
   The most valuable piece of tarot and magic is that they teach you to put trust in your process and walk away from it. When you ask tarot a question and receive your answer, you have to walk away from the cards. It is unhealthy to keep pulling cards or coming at the same question from different angles until you hear the answer you want. Once you cast a spell, put it out of your mind. Let the universe do its part. You learn to trust. Trust leads to space. Space leads to manifestation.
10. Tarot Reveals the True Nature of the Universe
    The structure of the tarot is repetitive. The Fool journeys through each of the major arcana until reaching the World. He then begins the journey over again. The same structure repeats in the minor arcana. The ace blooms like a sprouting seed, moves through the series until it reaches completion in the ten. The cycle is thus reborn as a fresh ace.Life's true nature is as repetitive as the four seasons. The sun appears to rise and fall as day turns to night. We move around the earth as it circles the sun. Our bodies inhale and exhale with the beat of our heart. In every second, every moment of life, we have the freedom to change our pattern. We can choose new thoughts like cards from the deck. We can adjust our decisions thus altering our destiny. We have the supernatural power to become anyone we want to be. We are born to be who we truly are. When we evolve, the universe evolves alongside us.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2021. All rights reserved.

Is it natural to want to do bad and hurtful things to someone you once loved post-breakup? I recently ended a relationship and as much as I try to forgive and forget, random urges come over me to say and do hurtful things to him. Sometimes I act on those impulses. Afterwards I always feel bad yet I keep going through this same cycle as if stuck in limbo. Is there something I can do to stop myself from thinking and acting on these thoughts?

Taylor

Susyn:

It's common to feel anger and resentment after a break-up, and for these feelings turn into actions we later regret. Our level of spiritual development often dictates how we respond to the loss of a close relationship. Initially, it's a good idea to journal about your feelings of loss and resentment. Committing them to paper will help you process the pain you are feeling. Reviewing specific incidents that you still feel angry about can help you put them in perspective.

Whether your feelings are justified or not, there are ways to get beyond them. Keep in mind that anger is a cover-up for fear, and that in the end, you are only hurting yourself when you act on urges to retaliate.

Once you have your feelings in written form, you can burn the pages as a spiritual ritual to release the hold they have over you. You may also want to freeze your ex, which won't him but will minimize the emotions that rise up when you think about him. You can find the instructions for the Freezing Ritual at my Kajama profile.

Next I recommend a practice called Corralling Your Thoughts. This will help you let go of the past and refrain from acting on any thoughts of doing hurtful things to him.

It works like this: When your ex comes into your thoughts, stop immediately and say, I will not think about this now; I will think about it tonight at 9 p.m. Continue this practice throughout the day whenever he crosses your mind. Then at 9 p.m., allow yourself 15 minutes to think about him - no more, no less.

At the end of the fifteen minutes, if he comes into your thoughts again, you must wait until the next night at 9 p.m. to think about him. If you miss the time the next night, you will have to postpone those thoughts until the following night. After three days, reduce the time to 10 minutes, and after six days, to five minutes. This will help you gradually reduce the time you are thinking or obsessing about your ex, and minimize your concerns about him.

These practices can help as you move away from a relationship that obviously was not healthy for you. If you are without a relationship at this point, it's time to open yourself up to finding new love. However, as long as you are focused on your ex, you will be unable to find the ideal partner with whom to build a strong, healthy relationship, for to build a brighter future, you must first break free of your anger and resentment from the past.

*****

Mata Maya:

As the Buddha taught, holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. Though you may want to hurt your ex, the person your hate is hurting the most is yourself. By holding on to pain instead of letting it go, you are keeping yourself stuck in an endless cycle of suffering.

While it's perfectly natural to feel the way you do, the pain these thoughts cause you is a sign that your thinking is not in harmony with the peace and happiness you desire. You feel bad because your inner being is urging you to think loving thoughts in order to manifest loving experiences.

These thoughts and feelings are a sign that you are still wounded and need more healing. Your anger is a primal reaction to feeling hurt. When you have these hateful impulses, you might picture yourself as a wounded, cornered little animal lashing out at that which you perceive to be the cause of your pain.

As you picture this, instead of saying to yourself, I am so angry, remember to say to yourself, I am in such pain. This will help you shift toward a more sophisticated, constructive perspective on what's happening on an inner level, which will facilitate a faster journey to healing and new happiness.

Next, recognize that what you do to others comes back to you; what you wish for others you draw to yourself. When you keep in mind that what you wish for another, you wish for yourself, it becomes much easier to stretch toward forgiveness, to shift from wishing your ex a lifetime of loneliness and misery to praying for him to find new love and happiness.

I am sure you have been similarly upset in the past. If you think about it, you will see that it was only when you started to let go of your anger and resentment toward the individual involved that you began to feel better about your own life and began to move into new and better circumstances. Whenever you find yourself thinking hateful thoughts, stop and remember that you are cursing yourself, and begin to send out positive thoughts and wishes instead.

Finally, you would be wise to remember that you wouldn't want to be with someone who doesn't really want to be with you. Everything happens for a good reason whether we can see it at the time or not. If you realize that you have been set free from the wrong relationship so you can end up in the right one some day, perhaps you will eventually be able to thank your ex for making it so clear that he was not the right one for you.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.