Looking Inside the College of Psychic Studies – Tarot and Time
Time mirrors sounds like something from science fiction, perhaps, but the Tarot cards are just that. Reflectors which you can use to rethink the past, shift your angle on the present and come up with many, many potential outcomes.
Tarot is wonderful for problem-solving in this way, and in this podcast and feature, I’ll show you how to do it. My inspiration, which I am now passing on to you, is Britain’s most interesting archive for psychics.
I recently accompanied my friend, Imogen Edwards-Jones, into the College of Psychic Studies to look at one of the very first decks of the Smith-Waite Tarot, launched at the start of last century. Imogen wrote up our visit in The Evening Standard with her usual style:
“ I joined the college more than five years ago when I was researching a novel and have never quite managed to leave. It was described to me by a friend of mine, astrologer Jessica Adams, as “Hogwarts for grown-ups”. And she was right. She told me to turn up in the incredible library, packed with shelves of books on the occult, Wicca and spells, and the books that I was looking for would “make themselves known”. Obviously, they did. Obviously, they didn’t fly around the room and land in my hand but, obviously, I found some more alluring than others. And, obviously, I joined the college. Why wouldn’t I? Set up at the end of the 19th century, the college has been at the forefront of all things psychic in the UK for the past 135 years. Initially called the London Spiritualist Alliance, it really took off under the auspices of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the Twenties.”
Strange things happen at the college, just when you need them most, and what looks like a random rubber band, on a scuffed old table, with an even older deck of Pamela’s cards, led me to the podcast you can hear in this feature.
Reading Your Possible Past, Confirmed Present and Potential Future
Having trained as a trance medium at the college, I was shown a completely different view of time. Later on, exploring the tarot of Pamela Colman Smith and Arthur Waite, I began to see how their unique view of the afterlife (shown in cards like Judgement) also contributed to a non-mainstream view of past, present and future.
I love this photograph, a rare original, of Arthur E. Waite as he preferred to call himself. Held in the archives at the College of Psychic Studies, it reveals him captured for all time – gazing into the remembered past, perhaps. He was looking backwards at something the photographer at Webster Bros studio could not see. He looks a little like Doctor Watson from the old Sherlock Holmes books here. The author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, nearly joined The Golden Dawn and would thus have been a contemporary of Arthur and Pamela.
Synchronicity, Infinity and Time Loops
The Tarot and astrology, which Pamela and Arthur both studied at The Golden Dawn, are based on the same thing. Quirky time. Odd time. Strange time. Carl Jung called this ‘synchronicity.’
When I was handed a deck of Tarot cards over 100 years old to shuffle at the College of Psychic Studies, the rubber band holding the box together, fell into this shape. The lemniscate. It is sometimes called a Mobius Loop or Mobius Strip. You may know it as the infinity symbol. In this podcast version of a talk I gave some time after this astonishing experience in London, we worked as a large group to identify the likely past of a card (the left-hand side of the loop) and the ‘now’ (the small centre of the loop) as well as the possible future of a card (the right-hand side of the loop).
Understanding the Before Tarot and After Tarot – New Methods
Working with new Italian decks based on Pamela’s original illustrations – the Before Tarot and After Tarot – is inspiring. You can glimpse so much about how your memory of what you assume happened (the remembered past) can be moved, 
rather like moving the angle of a mirror. Another way of thinking about these decks, is to see your life as a theatre set, being filmed for The National Theatre in cinemas. All angles work. All angles are ‘real’. Which seat suits you best?
The After Tarot is rather similar. The old way of learning Tarot (or being read for) when you were locked, hard and fast, into one outcome, or one verdict, are gone. In the podcast you can download now, I talk about astrologers like Dennis Elwell and how their view of time, building on the discoveries of Einstein, has altered the way we predict.
The heiress and Golden Dawn celebrity Annie Horniman began her Abbey Theatre in Dublin on the verdict of a Tarot card reading which proved to her, that her business venture would be a success. When W. B. Yeats came on board, along with Pamela Colman Smith, the cards began to show outcomes. Yeats would go on to win the Nobel Prize and Pamela would find her illustrations for Arthur Waite at the heart of a huge global boom in Tarot, which continues to this day. What is also interesting to modern readers, is the fact that Pamela’s visions have been borne out by science. She so often illustrated clouds in her cards. Along with the repeated theme of the lemniscate or loop, this is very close to shorthand for some contemporary 21st century ideas about what time might be. About what our reality might be!
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10 Responses
Hi,
When I download this it comes out mega fast..?
I’m sorry about this. Mercury Retrograde is with us. Please contact Justin by clicking on the Support button. Thank you!
Hi Jessica. I am a Sagittarius. This whole year has been a stall for me, nothing has progressed or moved forward. I want to know if this is in line with the current stall you talk about on this weeks/months horoscope. Also, does this stall also refer to love? Work? Or everything in general? What areas are set to improve December 7th? Thank you
We have had some important retrogrades in 2019 (when planets appear to get stuck and move backwards) and if you have been stalling, that may explain why. We are now in another ‘stall’ period as Mercury has to cross over the position he occupied back in October. On the plus side it’s a really good time to review 2019, rewind, rethink and plan for 2020. Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently next year? If you have the Sun in Sagittarius your greatest concern will be money, and you will sort that out in stages, starting now until the end of January next year. Mercury Retrograde finishes on the weekend of 7th December and wheels will start turning then. You’ll have an important decision to make about your money, house, business, charity or apartment in January 2020 and that has a general impact on everything, of course.
Due to lifelong low income i.e living in poverty, live in bedroom at sister’s house. Can’t afford rent through real estate agency, or sharehouse. Not eligible for mortgage/loan of any kind. There’s 20+yr waiting list for housing commission. Housesitting does not suit me and there are no long term ones. No caravan parks in the area. I’m forbidden to buy a house to rent out (lose benefits income).
Yes, I’ve Mars and Saturn in Cancer. I’ve put up with sister’s abuse for long enough. Enough is enough!
Both parents died unexpectedly, problems and workload of what they left behind is unbearable. I thought staying in their house would be a way of escaping sister’s abuse, doesn’t work. Thinking of selling the house when all the work is done. No jobs/limited opportunities in the area. There is no money in the estate. Reimbursement only of own money and time put in due to large workload.
Would like to buy villa unit max 3 on a block in Melbourne, within walking distance of train station, to have more opportunities. Do you see a suburb? (3 psychics told me I would get help from the universe to do this, but don’t know what that means). I’ve no family/friends. If can’t get work, thought about doing a blog to help others like me going through extremely difficult life through no fault of their own despite trying everything they can think of, I feel writing is a skill but perhaps I’ve missed the boat? (I realise there are many other, and better!, writers than me).
My sister (8/3/69, Echuca,12.38pm) pretend boyfriend is going to move in 20 Dec. Will this be the beginning of the end for them since he is extremely lazy and hasn’t worked in decades? (born Jan/Feb, think ’68).
There are no children/young people – individuals/en masse in my world at all (you previously suggested this would make me happy…children/young people actually make me feel worse. Don’t see relatives, thank goodness as they too make me feel worse, as does being in groups (done a lot of to try to help extreme shyness which has contributed to poverty). I’m 1:1 person for sure. I’ve never even been on a date so at least I don’t have to worry about becoming pregnant, and am too old for that now anyway. Also tried writing down what’s cooking in my life, to get new recipe and lit candle, didn’t work. Also left out what I can offer overnight.
My other question is, Oct/Nov 96 started working (til 98) with Quentin, 14/11/63, London. He is the only guy that ever really liked me and I liked too. Are we going to end up together? I really miss him. It’s been really hard ever since without him.
Thankyou
You should keep writing and think about joining an existing series of blogs/websites/forums or create your own and then link to others. You are going into the new Gemini North Node-Sagittarius South Node cycle from May 2020 until January 2022 and that picks up your Third House of computers and Ninth House of authorship. You sound as if you have been through an incredibly hard time and you have done extremely well to get this far. What you wrote down and left out overnight will work. You meant it, and it has been seen by family and guides in spirit. The three psychics who told you about help from the universe were correct. What it means is – you get signs. Little, obvious guideposts or funny coincidences or twists of fate. None of that is an accident.Just follow what you are being given. You obviously know you live with depression. The black dog. Or – I assume you do. You are lucky to live in Australia where The Black Dog Institute is a very good starting point. The situation with your family makes you depressed, which I completely understand, but there may be other reasons why you are carrying ‘the dog’ as we know him. You are in a good position to address that. Beyond Blue is also excellent. Your doctor can and should be told about your extreme shyness, if this has not already happened. You are a good writer and should explore that too. You’re smart and articulate. The depression and social phobia (which is all it is) should not stop that. In fact it would be a waste of your abilities. Please don’t live with this any longer. Try something else please. I am always getting you to try things, but – when you go to sleep tonight, breathe in for the count of four, hold it for the count of two, breathe out for the count of four, hold the out breath for the count of two, then repeat. You’ll likely just fall asleep halfway through. See what dreams you have. See how you feel when you wake up!
ps I’d heard fairly about a very similar breathing exercise, already doing. I’d never fall asleep halfway through it, but it does help a little to relax so that is a coincidence. I rarely remember dreams, usually they’re about people used to work with which reminds me of how I was ill treated/not in employment now. Working is really important to me and although I work the equivalent of more than 1 job due to current circumstances impossible to be working right now anyway, the whole thing in society of ‘what do you do?’ (meaning with my time due to not being actually employed, everyone thinks I do nothing) is very hard to take when it comes from every person I come across, even known acquaintances whom I thought would show a bit of understanding by now and not ask ie treat me as if I’m working which I am, just not employed. Have you any ideas on how best to deal with that? And it’s also the protestant work ethic which I now now is not true – wish had’ve known earlier! Don’t feel any different when wake up after the breathing – also I’m not a morning person.
I also wonder I don’t think my birth chart portrays how difficult my life is? I wonder could my birth time have been rounded up, (but since was in humidity crib for 6wks thought they’d likely be more careful about such things?). Would it make much/any difference though anyway?
Thanks a lot, really appreciate it
S
Your birth chart is set up for the year 2017 – please re-enter your time, date and place of birth correctly so I can check. Thank you.
Just reading the comments, I feel compelled to tell you that you are just so very sweet!
And you are very sweet, for saying I am very sweet! Merry Christmas.