Quantum Tarot Virtual Launch Party on Monday 1st September

The Quantum Tarot is officially published by Kunati on Monday, September 1st (though it's been on sale on Amazon for a few weeks already!).

To celebrate, Chris Butler are holding a Virtual Launch Party on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum and you are cordially invited to attend.

We chose Aeclectic for the party, because the deck was born as a result of the forum, and it evolved and flourished thanks to the encouragement of many of our friends there.

Along with the virtual champagne and canapes, we'll be holding a raffle with lots of Quantum-related goodies to give away.

These include:
- A copy of the deck & book set, signed by me.
- Four A4 colour prints from the deck.
- A unique copy of the 2007 Quantum Tarot calendar

And, most exclusive of all, Chris is preparing two limited edition copies of the major arcana, using images from the deck given a unique twist (see photo above).

So, please drop in to the Tarot Decks forum on Monday, have a tipple and a nibble, and choose a tarot card to enter the raffle. There may also be some quickie one-card readings with the Quantum.

We'll be starting the party thread on Sunday night, and I'll post a direct link then. Look forward to seeing you there!

The Quantum Tarot can be ordered from:
Amazon.com
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
Chapters (Canada)
Amazon Japan
Amazon Germany
Amazon France

The Real World

XXI The World – A Theory of Everything

A Theory of Everything (TOE for short) is a single, coherent theory that explains all the phenomena in the universe. Many physicists, including Einstein, have tried and failed to find a TOE – it remains the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail. Any TOE must reconcile quantum theory and relativity and also explain the many different types of elementary particles. A current contender for the title may be M-Theory (see the Sun card).

We are limited beings, but our imaginations encompass the infinite. The Judgement card shows the process of waking up to a world beyond limits, and the World shows the next step – accepting the paradox of limited existence in an infinite universe. Traditionally the World shows a dancer, a naked, androgynous figure floating in space, bounded by a circular wreath. The World dancer demonstrates the ability to live happily in material reality while still being aware of the unseen and unbounded levels of being. The World brings us back full circle to the innocence of the Fool, but now the innocence is consciously chosen and embraced.

World Questions: In what area of life have you come full circle? What have you completed? Are you ready to dance?

World Things to Do: Celebrate the completion of a project. Share your wisdom. Start a new cycle.

World Quotes: We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

World Movies: Babel

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Judgement Day

XX Judgement – The Multiverse

The multiverse is where new physics starts to sound like something out of Star Trek. This highly speculative theory suggests that instead of one universe – our universe – there may be many, or infinite, universes all going on at the same time. These universes may be connected to each other or totally independent. They may all have the same laws as our own universe – or not! One version of the theory claims that universes are seeded by black holes, and in fact own universe may have started off as a black hole in another universe.

The idea of a multiverse is pretty challenging to contemplate. Even one infinite universe is hard for us to imagine, let alone an infinite number! We feel the stretch of our limitations when confronted with such ideas. The Judgement card throws down this same kind of mind-expanding challenge. It represents a time when we must grow in awareness, awaken to a new level of reality. Sometimes this may feel like a rude and difficult awakening, as the light of understanding may be blinding. We may be pushed way outside our comfort zone, but Judgement represents a great opportunity, a time of potential where we can awaken to the beauty and wholeness of our true selves.

Judgement Questions: What lost part of you has been reborn What wake-up call have you received? How are you being challenged to grow?

Judgement Things to Do: Start believing again in your lost dreams. Take a step outside your comfort zone. Become aware of what you have previously resisted or ignored. Do something you believe you cannot do.

Judgement Quotes: The awakening is
to transformation,
word after word. Denise Levertov

And you shall wake, from country sleep, this dawn and each first dawn,
Your faith as deathless as the outcry of the ruled sun. Dylan Thomas

He hath awakened from the dream of life. Percy Bysshe Shelley

Judgement Movies: The Terminator
The Matrix
Little Buddha

Quantum Tarot flies high on Amazon

This week the Quantum reached the lofty heights of #6 on the Amazon.com Tarot Top 100. It also reached as high as #2 on Amazon.ca's Tarot list! All this and still two weeks to go before the official publication date.

Amazon being the all-powerful institution that it is, the Quantum is already available for order on Amazon.com, and indeed some early purchasers have already received their decks. So this may account for our jump in the ratings.

However, we're still going to be celebrating on September 1st, which is our official roll-out date. Chris Butler and I are planning an online Virtual Launch Party, with a free deck raffle plus readings and other goodies. I'll be posting soon with more information and details, but if you fancy a try at a free Quantum Tarot, pencil September 1st in your diary!

The Quantum Tarot is published by Kunati and can be ordered from:
Amazon.com
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
Chapters (Canada)
Amazon Japan
Amazon Germany
Amazon France

Let the Sun Shine In

XIX The Sun – M-Theory

String theory (see the Star card), suggests that fundamental particles are tiny vibrating strings. Superstring theory extended this vibration into ten dimensions (see the Moon card). But then physicists hit a problem; there are actually five different versions on superstring theory and no-one could work out which was the “right” one. M-theory offered a way out by suggesting that each of the five theories are in fact different aspects of the same theory. It added yet another spatial dimension to make this work, so the current thinking is that strings vibrate in eleven dimensions – the three normal spatial dimensions plus time, and seven tiny, curled-up dimensions.

M-theory represents a powerful shift in awareness in the field of theoretical physics, bringing us one step nearer to understanding the nature of the universe. The unification of five disparate elements into one over-arching theory parallels the Sun card’s function in unifying the different aspects of our personalities. When the Sun appears in a reading it shows that we have reached a level of awareness when all of our different inner voices are singing in harmony. We are one step closer to expressing our true selves, and our inner light is beginning to shine. People are drawn to us because we radiate a quiet warmth and power, a strength that is drawn from our increased connection to our inner wisdom.

Sun Questions: What are you becoming conscious of? What areas of your life are coming together? How is your awareness expanding? Who is being drawn to your inner radiance?

Sun Things to Do: Express your ideas to others. Sing. Look at yourself naked in the mirror (you can sing at the same time too!). Be true to yourself.

Sun Quotes: There are moments of existence when time and space are more profound, and the awareness of existence is immensely heightened. Charles Baudelaire

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. C.G. Jung

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness. He alone lives, while other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of dream. Virginia Woolf

Shine out, my sudden angel,
Break fear with breast and brow,
I take you now and for always,
For always is always now. Philip Larkin

Sun Movies: Lawrence of Arabia
Seven Years in Tibet
A Beautiful Mind
Good Will Hunting

Back In Time Tarot

This week I had the privilege of reading and reviewing an advance copy of Janet Boyer's Back In Time Tarot Book. It's due to be published October 17 , but already available for pre-order on Amazon.

Reading this book was like talking tarot with a good friend. In an accessible and engaging style, Janet describes her Back In Time (or BIT) reading method and shares her own readings. There are also a stellar collection of guest readings from tarot luminaries such as Mary Greer, Mark McElroy and Lisa Hunt.

Janet says that her BIT method – which came to her while taking a bubble bath! – involves “Deconstructing memories and then consciously choosing Tarot cards to represent their components can forge a deeply personal link between a person and individual cards.” She explains how to associate personal memories with the cards, chosen consciously for their instinctive association with those memories. The method involves breaking down a memory or an experience into its component elements, choosing a card for each of those parts.

Janet applies the BIT method to everything from works of literature such as Of Mice and Men, to world-changing events such as 9/11, and juicy bits of celebrity gossip like Paris Hilton’s incarceration.

The BIT method is playful and fun, but also a powerful and experiential way of learning and understanding the tarot. I've already tried out the method, and found it extremely illuminating! I hope to post some of my readings here over the coming weeks.

The Quantum Tarot will be published in September 2008 by Kunati, but it's already available for pre-order from:
Amazon.com
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
Chapters (Canada)
Amazon Japan
Amazon Germany
Amazon France

Strange Phenomena

XVIII The Moon – Extra Dimensions

If string theory (see the Star card) is correct, all the fundamental particles in the universe comprise of tiny loops, or strings, that vibrate at different frequencies. The early versions of string theory suggested that strings have only one dimension, but then superstring theory proposed that strings might vibrate in ten dimensions! How is this possible? Well, apart from the three dimensions of ordinary space, and one of time, the theory claims that the other six dimensions are curled up, or compressed into a very tiny space. The strings wind themselves around these “curled up” dimensions like a kind of cosmic cat’s cradle.
Because these other dimensions occupy such an unimaginably small space, we may move through them all the time without realising it. The Moon represents this idea that there is much more to the world than we are usually aware of. These inaccessible extra dimensions are like the extra dimensions of our lives; hints, hunches, movements out of the corners of our eye. The Moon represents a fearful mystery to those who like everything to be explained. To the more intuitively or psychically-minded, this sense of something extra, something more than we can detect with our everyday, physical senses, is no surprise. The Moon shows up when the indefinable starts demanding attention in our consciousness – and to the conscious mind this can seem like a threat.

Moon Questions: What are you struggling to explain? What makes you irrationally afraid? What intuition is rising into your conscious mind? What strange thing are you desperately trying to ignore?

Moon Things to Do: Get a tarot reading. Make a note of your dreams. Take notice of your “hunches.” Go with your gut, even if it seems completely illogical.

Moon Quotes: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Shakespeare, Hamlet

Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do not see. Our eyes of flesh see only night. Victor Hugo

The unconscious is the ocean of the unsayable. Italo Calvino

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. William James

Moon Movies: The Sixth Sense
The Shining
The Gift
The Orphanage

My Quantum Tales Blog

I've started a new blog, focussing on using the tarot as a storytelling tool.

For my first series of posts, I'll be looking at ways to use the tarot for writers. I'm experimenting with a simple spread to help develop the shape of a story. This is designed to be used in the early, planning stages of a story, but could also be used at the revision stage for troubleshooting structure. I've included my own example reading (using the Quantum Tarot of course).

Working with this spread is a five-step process which I'll be posting in sections over the coming weeks.

In future I plan to post general story readings for, ahem, normal people rather than writers! These work in exactly the same way as an ordinary tarot reading, except the reading is told in the form of a story. I've been experimenting with these for a while over on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum. You can read some of my efforts here.

The Quantum Tarot will be published in September 2008 by Kunati, but it's already available for pre-order from:
Amazon.com
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
Chapters (Canada)
Amazon Japan
Amazon Germany
Amazon France