Tarot Magic Mini-Course: Lesson 3: Creating Sacred Space
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.
- Tarot Magic Mini-Course Main Page
- Goals of the course
- Creating sacred space (you are here)
- 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 elements
- Tarot altars
- Tarot Magic at the Crossroads
The Centering Ritual
Please practice and learn the Centering Ritual I developed. It’s a quick and easy way to prepare yourself for the work ahead. You can use any method you like to create sacred space, however, if you already have a practice you like (such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, or LBRP), feel free to substitute it. Later in the course, you will learn how to create a magic circle or crossroads using the tarot aces.
Please download the Centering Ritual PDF and the guided audio version (mp3).
There is no need to “banish” before your work, however, unless noted.
More on creating sacred space, including the physical space, cleansing, use of incense, sound, and other advice.
You sacred space should be quiet and undisturbed. If you need to work privately if you have a roommate/spouse who is not supportive, you can say this is a series of exercises to help you become a better tarot reader and connect with the cards. Or simply meditation — very few people are weirded out by meditation anymore.
Preparing yourself — for major rituals, a shower, salt bath, or just splashing your face with water and washing your hands can be conducive to cultivating the proper mindset.
Incense: See my video. If you can’t use incense on charcoal, sticks are probably best, since you can just burn as much as desired and stub out the burning end. Look for good quality, the cheap stuff often has synthetic and potentially harmful additives.
Always use proper fire safety with candles and incense. I keep a fire extinguisher in my ritual room.
Sound: Using a bell or singing bowl, which can have an immediate and powerful effect on your consciousness.
Music/sound (singing bowl, bell): Tintinnabulation recording can be purchased on CD or streamed here:
Spotify | Apple Music
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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