A Magical Experience with the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot
Now then, it’s been an intense 22 weeks since I started connecting with the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot, Vitruvian Edition (SKT) by Benebell Wen. I’m not great with following instructions for a long time. But out of curiosity and a feeling of “what’s the worst that could happen?” I followed the recommended initiation process that included ritual coloring of symbols in reprinted images of each card, scrying into each card, and intimate habit-forming over those 22 weeks. The two activities—ritual coloring of the deck’s Book of Maps and the 22 weeks of specific daily practices—didn’t have to happen simultaneously, but they ended within a few days of each other, on either side of the Lunar (Full Moon) Eclipse in Cancer last week, which also, if you didn’t know, has been the start of Saturn and Pluto’s conjunction in Capricorn.
While I’m not sure that it’s relevant to this particular situation, I can’t say that it isn’t, so I should note that I’m also a little over half-way through a 13-moon ritual series focused on shadow work, also by Benebell. I started it at the Solar (New Moon) Eclipse in … Cancer. F*ck, I didn’t realize that until just now, although I should have realized that when I hit the midway point (the seventh moon) with the Solar Eclipse in Capricorn. Okay, that probably does add to all this. Also, that first ritual was apparently with the Hungry Ghost Moon. Also relevant.
Significant shifts happened in those days, and I felt some shifts in my own practices and my relationship to spirits, as well as working with this deck more broadly. So I want to share that experience with you before I dig into a new interview with the deck that I soft-promised before starting all the initiation work. It’s a long story, and it’s focused on me, so it might not seem interesting, and it’s definitely self-indulgent, but it’s important to how I view my intuitive and magical work and the reflections I’ll be doing on that work over the next few weeks or months.
It’s also a cautionary tale with a not-so-terrible ending, and it should have been obvious and predictable from my initial interview with the deck. But the ending is only not-so-terrible because of depth in one’s tarot work, and that’s a useful reminder. It’s work, y’all. It’s practice. It’s craft. I love doing it, but it’s hard work.
Picture it. San Antonio, 2020. (That’s a Golden Girls joke.)
It’s a time of self-organizing and transformation. Beyond the conjunction of Saturn (organizing and karmic justice) and Pluto (endings and transformation), 2020 is an Emperor year—a year of taking the ram by the horns. That’s due to numerology (2 + 0 + 2 + 0 = 4) and tarot correspondences (Emperor is the fourth in the numbered major arcana). But it’s also a Death year—a year of endings and transformations—because last year was a Hanged Man year by the same system (2 + 0 + 1 + 9 = 12, the Hanged Man), and Death follows the Hanged Man in normally numbered decks. So yeah, I want this year to be special, to transform and empower myself, and I wasn’t going to let this particularly transformative time in January pass me by.
And perhaps it’s because my midheaven is in Scorpio, but I thought I would start by digging into some old wounds that, by my assessment, hadn’t properly healed over the last six or seven months. There was some reason to think this, but I won’t try to justify it now with what I thought then. It was ultimately a selfish decision that I went about it in a selfish way, forcing things like a tyrant might rather than the beneficent emperor I would prefer to see myself embody.
One of the things that I did to prepare the environment for this desired change was to call on one of the spirits in the deck, as you’re supposed to do as the deck’s Spirit Keeper. I wasn’t quite finished with the initiation process, but I felt close enough, and I felt as though I understood the situation and what I wanted out of it. I chose the Corrupter (7 of Chalices). Okay, I know. Why would I ever draw on a spirit called the Corrupter to do anything remotely redeemable? I don’t have a good answer to that other than to say that none of the spirits in the deck is inherently malefic. Spirits outside the SKT? Sure, malefic entities might exist, but they’re not the ones linked to the deck.
Yet there was also something else niggling at the back of my mind, my initial deck interview. Since you probably don’t remember that interview with the SKT, let me remind you that the final card I drew for that interview (for the question in that old spread, “Where will the deck and my relationship end up?”) was the Corrupter. I think I was subconsciously drawing on that and my nearing of a new relationship and transition point with the deck. Well, let’s go with that anyway. From an objective point of view, it’s clear now that it was going to be a terrible decision. At the time, it seemed appropriate. And it might actually have been less of a catastrophe had I actually used the deck with all of its built-in wards. Maybe I would’ve learned the lesson without causing others pain. But I didn’t do it the right way. I just did it in my mind, willing that energy into my life, free from the protective barriers designed into the deck. It was all out of bounds and just so bad. And what a lesson it taught me in a matter of days. Thankfully, I recorded parts of my experience in my journal, and it’s just such a whiplash of emotions and confusion.
If you have read my initial deck interview recently and remember it, you might notice that there was a lot of conflict coming into my relationship with the deck. There were a lot of signs of fighting and battles. Did I heed that? Yes, up to a point.
With Corrupter-like energy on my mind, I set things in motion and waited for the pieces to fall where they would. That may also sound terrible. But if you recall from my initial spirit guide work, I did admit that I’m drawn to the energy of a divine smith that is willing to destroy what isn’t strong enough in order to make it better (in his eyes) in the long run. Well, what wasn’t broken still almost shattered. It was terrible.
What might be worse is that I actually saw it happening in my readings around the situation, and I just willfully misread the results. Just at the point of no return, I conducted the Keeper’s Reading. In that reading, you ask as many as four questions in a space protected by the four Shields of the deck (the protective Queens). Even in this special first instance of the reading I was still asking basic and self-centered questions. I was getting answers that I accepted but didn’t like, so I kept pushing the nuance to see how I could twist things to my advantage. The answers I needed were there all along, but I pushed and pushed to try and find a solution that fit with my ego. I wanted to use the energy of the Eclipse to do something big for my situation and myself, and the reading confirmed that this was a good idea. But I was going about it all wrong, which the reading told me in clear ways. The warnings were there. I noticed them, but I didn’t think through the repercussions until too late. I mean, this whole thing was a cluster, so no one should really be surprised by that, but it’s worth reiterating. Trust your guides for gods’ sakes.
Fast-forward to a few days later, the day of the Eclipse when problems really seemed insurmountable. It wasn’t as simple as just admitting that I had acted selfishly and asking forgiveness and trying to pretend like I hadn’t done anything. I couldn’t control it anymore the way that I thought I was going to be able to, like some unintentionally malevolent puppet-master. So now it was a matter of ending pain and resuming healing, for others and not just me. I decided that I would go for a Hail Mary and petition the spirit realm for an assist.
I’ll admit that this is not something I’ve actually done before in any specific way. I have worked magic before, but it didn’t involve seeking out specific spirits with a request (even the Corrupter request was more indirect and abstract). And frankly, I didn’t like that aspect of this deck originally or the aspect of Solomonic magic on which I thought the deck’s aspect was based because it felt a bit like spirit enslavement. (My own early experiences of scrying into some of the cards in the SKT instilled this fear, but I came to understand the messages in a different way over time.)
But I also felt as though this could be a worthy exercise because I would use this magical energy for others’ healing rather than my own baser goals. I truly felt as though I’d learned much about my own inaccurate assessment of things, my points of failure and of looking to the wrong energies, and my new assessment of what was both desired and needed, based on others’ input.
Now, believe me or don’t. I followed the instructions for petitioning a specific spirit. I wrote my request on a slip of paper and waved it in front of incense. I repeatedly called on the particular spirit and spoke my request before a lighted candle while holding the relevant cards until, as the ritual instructions say, there was a shift in the environment. It was a cloudy and cool day, and the sun briefly came out after I’d spent about a minute focusing on my petition, so I saw that as a sign that it was time to send the petition up into the heavens. So, again per the instructions, I burned the slip of paper with my request. As soon as it was completely burned, and I mean as soon as that last bit of paper became char, the clouds parted and the sun shone warmly down, and not just for a moment. The clouds fully broke in that part of the sky. I had such a sense of peace and hope that it had worked, but my rational mind felt that it couldn’t be. I went into the fray of that situation with a feeling of dread and assured failure.
But it did work, or at least it appears to have worked. (It’s only been a week.) Things took a sharp, unexpected and almost surreal turn later that day, and they seem to be on a healthier, healing track. It’s a minor miracle. My magic happened on a highly charged day (in astrological and magical terms), but I did my magical work in a moment of desperation where the will is focused and there’s no benefit in doubting any longer. Thankfully, divine grace understood my sincerity. And moments like that can totally change the way that you see the world.
On the next day, Benebell did a reading for me. I had ordered it a little over a week before, and I wouldn’t get it for another few days, but I wasn’t even expecting it for another week, so it was beautifully timed. It was so on point for this experience and my shifting views on spirit work. I had a few interrelated questions, but one aspect was mediumship, something that has been coming up for me in increasing intensity over the past year. I assumed that I needed to find a mentor or some form of official schooling as a next step, but she identified internal barriers that I’d set up out of safety. Now, she doesn’t know me from Adam. But through the reading, she saw that I had the ability to connect already, but I’m also potentially connecting to unintended energies when making contact (she gave me the analogy of an early-model walkie-talkie). Talk about being in tune with what I was going through. There was much more to the reading, which was excellent by the way (10 out of 10 / would recommend), but I’ll save some of that for another post. This one is already plenty long, and it doesn’t even include the deck re-interview. But I have found such experiences as my final days of initiation to be rare and profound, far beyond the kismet of drawing the perfectly affirming card (say, the Fountain or the High Priestess when asking about intuitive work) or hitting on a meaningful touchpoint in a reading. This felt like real magic. It’s no wonder I’m excited to see what comes next with this deck and its compendium of spirits.