The Tarot Podcast with T. Susan Chang

Episode 38: How Can Tarot Help Me in a Crisis? with Theresa Reed

The fabulous Theresa Reed is back on the show! to talk about how your cards can help you in a crisis. Tarot is a matchless resource for those moments of acute agony that arrive uninvited in our lives; even when you feel you’re at rock-bottom, the cards can help you feel seen and chart a course to a place of more ease and stability.
If you’re in need of a crisis tarot reading from someone other than yourself, you can find a kind, trustworthy, reputable diviner on the Tarot Podcast’s list of recommended readers.
Theresa Reed (aka “The Tarot Lady”) has been a Tarot card reader and astrologer for 40 years. She’s the author of multiple best-selling and award-winning books, including The Tarot Coloring Book, Astrology For Real Life, and The Cards You’re Dealt. She’s a featured writer for The Old Farmer’s Almanac, where she writes about moon phases, zodiac elements, astrocartography, and more. You can find her at https://thetarotlady.com and on Instagram as @thetarotlady. 
Mentioned in this episode:
The Cards You’re Dealt: How to Deal When Life Gets Real
The World’s Simplest Problem-Solution Spread (ep. 09 of The Tarot Podcast)
 
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Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!thetarotpodcast.com
Continue your tarot journey with The Living Tarot book and/or The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book!)
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Episode 37: Shuffling Tarot Cards

Tarot cards are GIANT compared to regular playing cards.  How the heck do you shuffle them?! This week, the Tarot Podcast has a quick explainer episode for all your shuffling needs.
If you enjoyed this show and would like loads more tips on how to read tarot, check out my book, The Living Tarot, available wherever books are sold.  Or, consider The Living Tarot online class! (discount for class available if you purchase the book – just email me.)
What are your shuffling rituals—and how did you come up with them? Write to me on the Tarot Podcast Discord server (if you’re a Patreon member - to sign up and support the podcast, visit patreon.com/thetarotpodcast). Or you can reach me through the contact form at thetarotpodcast.com.
 
Mentioned in this episode:
YouTube version of the episode (so you can watch the shuffling videos!)
Episode 25: Reversed Cards
Benebell Wen’s DIY fanning powder video
 
For further exploration...
Become a Tarot Podcast member! patreon.com/thetarotpodcast
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Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!thetarotpodcast.com
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Episode 36: Robert M. Place + the Alchemical Tarot

The Tarot Podcast has TWO different interviews! with two different deck creators this week.
Here in Episode 36, we chat with Robert Place, the creator of the best-selling Alchemical Tarot. Bob drew the Alchemical Tarot in the style of 17th century alchemical engravings, and it became an instant favorite in the tarot community on publication in 1995. Along with Bob’s books, this deck is a crash course in Western esotericism, and we had a lot of fun talking about the wondrous synchronicities that accompanied his creation of this deck.
On Patreon, we have a written interview with Catrin Welz-Stein, the creator of the Tarot of Mystical Moments, a stunning and surreal woman-centered deck. At the end, there’s a one-card reading from me. You can check it out by visiting  patreon.com/thetarotpodcast and signing up to support the show. (Thank you!)
Featured in the show art this week: The King of Coins, 5 of Wands and Lady of Cups (equivalent to the Page of Cups in RWS-based decks) from the Alchemical Tarot.
Robert M. Place is the designer and illustrator of over twenty Tarot and oracle decks: including the internationally acclaimed and award-winning Alchemical Tarot, The Angels Tarot, The Marziano Tarot, the award-winning The Tarot of the Saints, The Buddha Tarot, The Vampire Tarot, The Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery, The Tarot of the Alchemical Magnum Opus, The Alchemical Tarot of Marseille, The Hermes Playing Card Oracle, An Ukiyo-e Lenormand (based on Japanese culture), The Raziel Tarot and The Burning Serpent Oracle (for both of which he collaborated with Tarot diva Rachel Pollack). His newest work, The First Occult Tarot, is a deck and book based on the descriptions written in 1781 by the Comte de Mellet, the first occult author to describe a Tarot deck.
He is the author of The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, which Booklist has said, “may be the best book ever written on that deck of cards decorated with mysterious images called the Tarot.” He is the author of Astrology and Divination, Magic and Alchemy, Shamanism, Alchemy and the Tarot, and The Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism.
 
Pick up a copy of the Alchemical Tarot
Check out Bob’s website
The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination [book]
The Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism [book]
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Become a Tarot Podcast member!
Shop for cool stuff made by your host!
Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!
Watch the episode on YouTube!
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Episode 35: The 8 of Wands in Real Life

Like a spring-loaded arrow, the 8 of Wands speeds through the world’s networks and pathways to land at your doorstep! The fast-talking (and morally ambiguous) 8 of Wands is known also as the Lord of Swiftness; when you draw it, look out for the following themes:
Mail/packages
Travel (esp. by air)/ being ready to go
SURPRISE!
Storms/electricity
Acceleration/going viral
Bright ideas/news
Mercurial phenomena
For my brief intro to decans, see episode 06: https://youtu.be/Z3cAUavJBjQ
To share your stories about the 9 of Wands for the next Tarot in Real Life segment - please join as a Patreon supporter of the Tarot Podcast!You can also write in to the show at thetarotpodcast.com/about, using the contact form at the bottom of the page.
Shop for 8 of Wands talisman tags and keychains! (& other cool stuff made by your host!) 
Grab your copy of 36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot!
Become a Tarot Podcast member! 
Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!
Continue your tarot journey with The Living Tarot book and/or The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book!)
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Episode 34: Can I Use Tarot in a Magic Spell? with Judika Illes

As tarot readers, we specialize in divination—but what about magic?  Magic and divination are two sides of the same coin—but in this week’s episode we bring them together. How we can use the symbolic language of tarot to create a magic spell? Spoiler alert: it’s easier than you think.
My guest is Judika Illes, who has written so many books devoted to magic spells, spirits, and witchcraft. My favorite is the best-selling Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells, which is off my bookshelf more often than it’s on it, that’s how much I use it. Judika is also a teacher, a reader, an editor, and a practitioner of the very arts she writes about. So gather up your witchy herbs, give your cards a shuffle, and settle in as we search for answers to the question: Can I Use Tarot in a Magic Spell?
Judika Illes is a lifelong lover, student, and practitioner of the magical arts. She is the author of numerous books devoted to magic spells, spirits, witchcraft, and saints, including the best-sellers Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells and Encyclopedia of Spirits, as well as the creator of two card decks: Magic Spells Oracle and Protection Spells. Her other books include Pure Magic: A Complete Course in Spellcasting, Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Witches: A Compendium, and Daily Magic, a perpetual calendar of spells, rituals, and feasts. A certified aromatherapist, Judika has been a professional tarot card reader since 1988.  She teaches about spell-casting and other topics in the US and internationally, live and virtually.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJudikaIlles Instagram: @judikailles
Books mentioned in the episode:
Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells
Pure Magic
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Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!thetarotpodcast.com

Episode 33: Five Questions with the Motherpeace Tarot creators

The Motherpeace Tarot (familiarly known as “you know, the round deck” in the tarot community) is a foundational document of the modern tarot era. First self-published in 1981, the Motherpeace revolutionized the world of tarot decks. Its creators, Vicki Noble and Karen Vogel, set out to dismantle the patriarchal underpinnings of traditional tarot with cards that honored indigenous, pre-historic, and matriarchal cultures.
In today’s conversation, Motherpeace’s creators share a glimpse of the psychic foment of 1970’s Berkeley, California. They tell the story of how two feminist academics found the Goddess, and sought to express and uphold her presence by changing the practice of divination from the ground up.
In the reading we did at the end of the show, we drew the "Shaman of Wands" (equivalent to the King of Wands in Rider Waite Smith-type decks). Here is the image, for your reference.
 
Pick up a copy of the Motherpeace Tarot: 
motherpeace.com
 
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 😊 And...don't forget to like, rate, subscribe, and share!! 😊
Vicki Noble is a feminist healer and wisdom teacher, co-creator of Motherpeace and author of numerous books, including Shakti Woman and The Double Goddess. For decades she has traveled and taught internationally; her books are translated and published in various languages. Retired from teaching as a graduate professor in two Women’s Spirituality Masters Programs in California, she teaches regularly in Europe. At home she works as a professional astrologer and healer, adapting Tibetan Buddhist Dakini practices for her Goddess students and holding private intensives in Santa Cruz, California.
Karen Vogel, co-creator of Motherpeace, is widely known as as a tarot reader, teacher and writer as well as an extraordinary artist. She is the author of The Motherpeace Tarot Guidebook (1995), the novel Coyote Tails (2007), and the essays “Love of the Goddess” (Foremothers of the Womens Spirituality Movement ed. Miriam Robbins Dexter and Vicki Noble 2015) and “Female Shamanism, Goddess Cultures, and Psychedelics” (ReVision, winter 2003). The worldwide success of the Motherpeace Deck (currently over 500,000 in print) has afforded her the time to develop as an artist and sculptor of wood and stone as well as continue her exploration of the intermountain and far west. She has a degree in anthropology and a background in women’s studies, art and shamanism.
 
 

Episode 32: The 7 of Wands in Real Life

In this episode, we examine how the 7 of Wands shows up in the lives of regular folks—like you and me.
The 7 of Wands explodes onto the scene with the individualistic quest energy we will come to associate with Sevens. Challenging and courageous, the 7 of Wands is known as the Lord of Valor. When you draw it, look out for the following themes:
Courage/Standing Up for Yourself
Perseverance
Exertion/Exercise
Hardship/Fighting
Horses! or Going places
Inspiration
Literal 7’s/Counting to 7
For my brief intro to decans, see episode 06: 2 of Wands + intro to decans.
To share your stories about the 8 of Wands for the next Tarot in Real Life segment - please join as a Patreon supporter of the Tarot Podcast!You can also write in to the show at thetarotpodcast.com/about, using the contact form at the bottom of the page.
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Become a Tarot Podcast member! patreon.com/thetarotpodcast
Shop for Tarot Podcast MERCH! & cool stuff made by your host! etsy.com/shop/tarotista
Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!thetarotpodcast.com
Continue your tarot journey with The Living Tarot book and/or The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book!)

Episode 31: Do Archetypes Power the Tarot? with Deb & Joseph from This Jungian Life

In this episode, Deborah Stewart and Joseph Lee  from This Jungian Life return to the Tarot Podcast to talk about the commonly misunderstood Jungian concept of the archetype.  What are they? and what do  they have to do with tarot—if anything?  Thinking about archetypes is notoriously tricky, but your intrepid hosts give it their best shot, peering into the depths  of depth psychology…and hunting for a glimpse of the cards.
Deborah Stewart is a Jungian analyst, Gestalt therapist, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker who migrates between Cape Cod and Sarasota, Florida. She is a member of the Philadelphia Association of Jungian Analysts and the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. She also is a graduate of the Westchester Institute for Training in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.
Joseph R. Lee is a Jungian Analyst who co-hosts the podcast This Jungian Life and co-created Dream School, an online program that teaches dream interpretation. He lectures widely on the Western Mystery Tradition and Hermetic Qabalah. His teaching and clinical work are informed by almost five decades of research and practice with Tarot and other symbolic systems.
This Jungian Life [podcast]: Three Jungian analysts discuss myth, mental health and life
Dream School: An online self-paced course in dream interpretation
Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams[book]
Become a Tarot Podcast member! patreon.com/thetarotpodcast
Shop for Tarot Podcast MERCH! & cool stuff made by your host! etsy.com/shop/tarotista
Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!thetarotpodcast.com
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Episode 30: The New Year's Spread

Want a super-simple spread that will tell you one unexpected and interesting thing! about your 2026? Well, here you go!  Forget about the Celtic Cross, forget about the “Wheel of the Year”—with just two cards, tarot can offer you a relevant and specific scene from the year ahead, tailored just for you.
If you’ve enjoyed this spread and would like to learn how to design your own simple spreads, check out my book, The Living Tarot, available wherever books are sold.  Or, consider The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book – just message me.)
If you try the New Year’s Spread, let me know how it works out! Write to me on the Tarot Podcast Discord server (if you’re a Patreon member - to sign up and support the podcast, visit patreon.com/thetarotpodcast). Or you can reach me through the contact form at thetarotpodcast.com.
Here’s the 2026 Decan Reference Chart for you to consult when you do this spread!
 
Become a Tarot Podcast member! patreon.com/thetarotpodcast
Shop for Tarot Podcast MERCH! & cool stuff made by your host! etsy.com/shop/tarotista
Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!thetarotpodcast.com
Continue your tarot journey with The Living Tarot book and/or The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book!)
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Episode 29: Five Questions with Jamie Sawyer + the Out of Hand Tarot

Indie tarot artist Jamie Sawyer has created many decks, of which my favorite is today’s showcase: the Out of Hand Tarot.  Drawn (mostly) from a first-person perspective and packed with sly references to the Rider Waite Smith tarot, Out of Hand invites you to step into the cards and experience those familiar archetypal presences in a 21st-century setting. Jamie’s decks have limited print runs and sell out quickly, but she has made this one available again through the modern magic of print-on-demand!
And be sure to check out this week’s video bonus content for patrons, where you can watch a time-lapse video of one of Jamie’s cards evolving from start to finish: patreon.com/thetarotpodcast.
Jamie Sawyer is an artist who enjoys exploring the many ways that creativity weaves through the tapestry of life. From a career in tattooing that has spanned over 2 decades to learning the Tarot and its lessons via illustrating the art and archetypes, Jamie has developed a unique artistic style. A self-proclaimed “creatrix with a busy mind and a lack of vices,” Jamie has self-published over 10 divination decks (including tarot, oracle and Lenormand). She also is known for her miniature handmade heirloom resin and wood “Tarot Tiles,” a tactile way to experience some of her creations. Her preferred method of connecting with the Tarot is through layered readings using the many creative divination tools she makes.
 
Where to find Jamie:
Explore Jamie’s website! https://www.jamiesawyer336.comBuy decks at Jamie’s print-on-demand shop! https://www.makeplayingcards.com/sell/jamiesawyer336Support Jamie on Patreon! https://www.creativedivination.comIG: @jamiesawyer336YouTube: @Jamiesawyer336Substack: https://jamiesawyer.substack.com
 
✯ MORE TAROT GIFT IDEAS for the holidays! ✯
✯ TSC’s Etsy shop ✯ 
etsy.com/shop/tarotista 
Arcana Cases
elemental and zodiacal perfumes
custom perfumes based on your sun, moon, and rising!
8 of Wands talisman key chains and luggage tags
9 of Swords blankets
Tarot Podcast merch!
✯ Gift certificates for readings and classes ✯www.tsusanchang.com/shop
✯ The Tarot Podcast memberships & gift memberships ✯www.patreon.com/thetarotpodcast
✯ The Living Tarot Online Class ✯www.tsusanchang.com/class
✯ Readings with TSC ✯www.tsusanchang.com/readings
✯ TSC books ✯
Dreaming the Decans (hc/pb): www.lulu.com/shop/t-susan-chang/dreaming-the-decans/hardcover/product-v8kqed2.html
36 Secrets (hc/pb): https://www.lulu.com/shop/t-susan-chang/36-secrets/paperback/product-zzrd79
The Living Tarot: https://www.amazon.com/Living-Tarot-Connecting-Everyday-Readings/dp/0738772259
Tarot Correspondences: https://www.amazon.com/Tarot-Correspondences-Ancient-Secrets-Everyday/dp/0738755125
Tarot Deciphered: https://www.amazon.com/Tarot-Deciphered-Decoding-Esoteric-Symbolism/dp/0738764477
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