A Review of 'Tarot Magick' training with Phil Callaghan
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 11:24 PM
I ‘dabbled’ with the tarot in my teens but never really took to working with it, perhaps because I thought of it only as a tool for fortune telling and other tools suited me better. More recently I gathered some beautiful packs for their imagery and used them as gateways for journeying, but I never formally ‘learned’ the meanings. Phil Callaghan’s ‘Tarot Magick’ weekend offered to teach much more than fortune telling, so I was interested to see what the weekend would bring.
Phil spent the first day giving us frameworks for easily accessing and interpreting every card’s symbolism. After one day I could now work intuitively from this framework, as everything makes sense and is easy to remember. Just a bit of practice and I could give good tarot readings, if I wished. And Phil has a way of using tarot for divination that makes SO much more sense to me than traditional readings.
I found Day 1 fascinating, absorbing and satisfying, then Day 2 opened up many new ways of working with the tarot, that I loved for their creativity and practicality. He first explained the underlying structure to all magick, in a way that makes simple good sense. He then explained how tarot symbols and images key into stable archetypal energies and can therefore be used to access these energies in a reliable way. This is safer, quicker, easier and stronger than other methods and I love it! - So much so that I have been working regularly with the tarot ever since.
Since much of this information was new, and not, as far as we know taught or written about elsewhere, I am deliberately omitting details of the specific exercises and techniques we learned.
They do have parallels in some of the methods and techniques I teach in advanced crystal healing trainings and that are taught in systems of magickal training. However, in both cases the training path would be much longer – working with the tarot in this specific way is a bit like Reiki versus other energy healing systems – quicker to learn, reliable and safer.
Phil has a wonderful way of opening up possibilities and unfolding teachings so that all the fascinating pieces are clear, logical and link together elegantly in a satisfying whole. If you want to know more about tarot, magick or working with archetypal energies, I recommend this training.
Susanna Bellini
