Intro to Tarot Magic (Free Mini-Course)

Welcome to Tarot Magic — a revolutionary new way to use the archetypes of the tarot for powerful personal transformation, practical enchantment, and spiritual growth.

In this mini-course, I’m providing free access to selected material in the full Tarot Magic course. If you enjoy this material, please consider signing up for the complete course here. The full course is much more comprehensive and goes into great depth on many of these subjects, plus much more, including many practical rituals.

Regardless of whether you take the complete course, this free mini-course will deepen and strengthen your relation to the cards and teach you some powerful meditations and visualizations.

If you’re new to tarot, however, I recommend signing up for my Tarot Foundations course, which provides immersive, in-depth instruction in all aspects of using and reading tarot. Learn the history of these remarkable cards and discover a powerful, no memorization method of reading the cards for yourself and others.

If you’re new to the practice of magic, this is the ideal way to get started. Tarot Magic doesn’t require the adoption of any particular spiritual system, teaching, or outlook—it’s ecumenical, based entirely in the tarot, and all you need to do is follow the instructions to experience the profound power of ritual when combined with these ancient archetypes.

Please follow me here on Medium and sign up for my newsletter to get updates to this and other courses. Now … enjoy!

Here’s a video with an outline of the full course.

In this free mini-course, available only here on Medium, we’ll cover:

• Goals of the course
• Creating sacred space
• Definitions of magic
• How Tarot Magic is different
• The aces and the classical elements
• The Fourfold Rite meditation
• Breathing the Elements meditation
• Four weeks with the aces and the elements
• Tarot Altars
• Tarot Magic at the Crossroads

Materials and Readings

To get the most out of the course, the following materials are suggested. Note: Some of the suggestions contain affiliate links, for which I get a tiny portion of the purchase. I am grateful if you use them, but please feel free to purchase anywhere, particularly if you have a local store that sells or can order these items.

1. Blank notebook to chronicle your progress: This is what we will call your Magical Diary. A paper notebook is strongly preferred, and one that is solidly constructed and will last a long time is best (I consider a Magical Diary a potent magical object). A magical notebook doesn’t have to be covered in pentagrams or made of leather, but aesthetics are important in magic, so find one that speaks to you and feels special. You can supplement your Magical Diary with a computer notes app — I use Apple Notes, which syncs across my phone and laptop, but use what works best for your devices. I use the app as a place to catch ideas and take notes to later transfer to my paper Magical Diary.
2. Candles At minimum, a white glass-enclosed (prayer style) candle.
3. Incense charcoal and loose incense (for instructions, see my video). This is also a great resource I recently discovered.
4. A Marseille-style tarot
   This will be your primary deck for magical work. Here are some recommendations. Almost any Marseille deck will do; I prefer those reproduced from antique decks, just for aesthetic reasons and the link to earlier times, but they tend to be pricier. If you find a deck that isn’t listed, let me know and I will be happy to share my opinion on its usefulness for the course. But in general, any deck with the Marseille pattern will be acceptable.

• CBD Tarot de Marseille
• Marseille Vintage Tarot
• Tarocchi Marsigliesi Fratelli Recchi — Oneglia, Torino 1830
• Marseille Tarot Professional Edition (these are large cards, excellent for meditation and ritual purposes. I use them when I teach in-person classes.)
• For the full online course, I also recommend what I call an inexpensive “burner” Marseille deck—for which you will use, and sometimes destroy, individual cards. It is not necessary for this mini-course.

Recommended Reading

• Tarot and Divination Cards: A Visual Archive by Laetitia Barbier. This may seem expensive, but it’s a steal at $36, as books of similar quality and production often sell for three times the price. A real treasure and a beautiful coffee-table book that you will cherish and return to.
• The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marianna Costa (I will share excerpts from this book, but you should have a copy and read it — it rewards regular revisits).
• Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe by Dean Radin
• Magical World of the Tarot: Fourfold Mirror of the Universe by Gareth Knight.
• A Deck of Spells: Hoodoo Playing Card Magic in Rootwork and Conjure by Professor Charles Porterfield
• SSOTBME Revised: An Essay on Magic by Ramsey Dukes
• Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism by Anonymous (Valentin Tomberg). Don’t let the title put you off if you’re not a Christian — there is deep wisdom in this book.
• Six Ways: Approaches and Entries for Practical Magic by Aidan Wachter
• Weaving Fate: Hypersigils, Changing the Past, & Telling True Lies by Aidan Wachter
• The Inner Guide Meditation: A Spiritual Technology for the 21st Century by Edwin C. Steinbrecher

Recommended Websites, Videos, and Podcasts

• Sherryl Smith’s wonderful Tarot Heritage website: https://tarot-heritage.com/about/
• Ramsey Dukes/Lionel Snell on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RamseyDukes/videos
• Weird Studies podcast: https://www.weirdstudies.com/
• Esoterica with Dr. Justin Sledge: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoydhtfFSk1fZXNRnkGnneQ
• Angela’s Symposium
  https://www.youtube.com/@drangelapuca

Ready to get started? Bookmark this page and you can begin proceeding with the steps below.

1. Tarot Magic Mini-Course Main Page
2. Goals of the course
3. Creating sacred space
4. Definitions of magic
5. How Tarot Magic is different
6. The aces and the classical elements
7. The Fourfold Rite meditation
8. Breathing the Elements meditation
9. Four weeks with the aces and elements
10. Tarot altars
11. Tarot Magic at the Crossroads

Now let’s start your journey into Tarot Magic!

> Lesson 2: Goals of the Course

Michael M. Hughes is a writer, speaker, game designer, and magical thinker. He is the author of Magic for the Resistance: Rituals and Spells for Change (coming soon in a revised and updated edition), the Blackwater Lights Trilogy, as well as numerous other works of fiction and nonfiction, and he speaks and teaches classes on magic, tarot, pop culture, psychedelics, and more.

His comprehensive tarot course, The Art and Magic of the Tarot: Foundations, is available here, as well as his most recent course on Tarot Magic.

Michael’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, CNN, The L.A. Times, Rolling Stone, Comedy Central, Wired, Elle,Vox, Cosmopolitan, The Tamron Hall Show, and even the ultraconservative The American Spectator, which wrote: “He may play footsie with the devil, but at least the man has a sense of humor.”

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