Ways of Knowing

Comparing remote viewing, astrology, and Tarot

I became a subscriber to Future Forecasting Group’s paid website when they announced in September 2023 that their remote viewers had seen a dramatic event coming in the near future.  Sure enough, the conflict between Israel and Hamas then began on October 7, 2023.

Many of Future Forecasting Group’s remote viewing assignments use blind targets, where the viewers do not know what they are looking at when they look at it. I like this approach because it seems more likely to produce results uncolored by personal biases. If you know you’re attempting to remote view a controversial public figure like Elon Musk, it would be pretty easy for your own preexisting feelings about him to leak into your data.

However, at the end of each month, the

Future Forecasters

also remote view events for the next month. In that case, they know, in late February, that they are looking for events that will take place in March, for example.

The Astrology Podcast also regularly puts out, at the end of each month, an astrological forecast for the next month. Their methodology is completely different from remote viewing. Instead of letting their intuition guide them to sketch and scribble, they look at the objective cycles of the planets. For instance, there is a specific date on which the planet Mars enters the sign of Pisces, and, at that point, the symbolism of Mars is likely to combine with the symbolism of Pisces.

For March 2024, The Astrology Podcast and Future Forecasting Group’s monthly forecasts included a common theme. Astrologically, Mars moves into Pisces on March 22, 2024, and conjoins Saturn in Pisces on April 10, 2024. Mars is aggression, Saturn is obstruction, and Pisces is the ocean. Putting all that together, Chris Brennan and Austin Coppock talked on The Astrology Podcast about potential problems involving ships and shipping in late March-early April starting around 2:05:27 of the video.

In Future Forecasting Group’s forecast for March 2024, two out of five remote viewers saw a ship being attacked or sinking. Ships have been a theme in other Future Forecasting Group monthly forecasts over the past several months too. When multiple methodologies produce similar results, that’s something to keep an eye on!

12-month Tarot readings

I can only do remote viewing when I’m in the right mood for it. At this point, I don’t know how to reliably get in the right mood for it.

My mood has less of an effect on my ability to do astrology. When I print out a transit worksheet from Solar Fire to write daily horoscopes, I’m essentially reading a piece of sheet music. The notes are on the page, and I just have to play them. My mood might make some performances more passionate or focused than others, but ultimately the notes don’t change based on my feelings about them — it’s like how choirs hundreds of years apart can sing the same Mozart composition.  

However, that approach to astrology doesn’t bring in my intuition too much, and sometimes I do like a more intuitive way of looking at the near future. One midpoint between remote viewing and astrology, in terms of blending intuition and objectivity, is the 12-month Tarot reading. A 12-month Tarot reading typically has a center card that gives the overall theme of a 12-month period, and it’s encircled by one card for each of the next 12 months.

The example above, my 12-month reading done in March 2024, uses the Cat Tarot deck. It starts with King of Wands for the current month in the 9 o’clock position and proceeds counterclockwise from there.

I find 12-month Tarot readings most useful when aggregated over multiple months into a spreadsheet. One reading can potentially be affected by a bad mood or off day, but looking at several readings together teases the signals apart from the noise.

In the example shown here, I’ve color-coded repeating cards or themes. Red text is potentially bad money cards, and green text is potentially good money cards. Blue text is potentially significant world events. Yellow background is same card, same month; orange background is same card, plus or minus one month; pinkish-orange background is same card further than one month apart from other hits.

I flagged all the knights regardless of suit with light blue background because there seemed to be a lot of them. My post on Pluto in Aquarius last month talked about each generation getting promoted into a new role, so I wonder if this pattern in my Tarot readings speaks to that theme of a younger generation becoming more prominent in world events.

It’s hard to know sometimes whether my 12-month Tarot readings refer to personal or collective issues. I haven’t necessarily set a clear intention, which probably doesn’t help. Do all the hits of The Hierophant and The High Priestess over the next few months refer to a collective quest for truth and authority, or do they refer to me recently beginning Jungian analysis to try to figure out my personal life? Some of both could be going on.

You might as well do it yourself to see what results you get. Sometimes the hardest part of trying something new is getting started, so I have made a 12-month Tarot reading spreadsheet template for March’s paid subscriber goodie! Also, paid subscribers now have the ability to ask me astrology questions using Substack’s chat feature.

News and opportunities

• Please welcome

  The Astrologer's Co-Op's Journey through the Decans
  to Substack! The introductory article by Marlene Seven Bremner just went up yesterday. Starting with the Aries ingress later this month, every 10 days, a different astrologer will write an article of roughly 1,000 words about the decan of the zodiac that the Sun is currently transiting. I am scheduled to write about the second decan of Cancer this summer.

• I’m finally ready to deal with making the IngramSpark paperback version of Impossible Dreams, which will make it easier for bookstores to stock the book. However, IngramSpark’s cover design tool seems harder to use than the Amazon equivalent. I am looking for a freelance graphics person who can take a blank template provided by IngramSpark, put in the front cover graphic panel I already have, and add text to the spine and back of the book cover template in fonts matching the Amazon version of the cover. Please write to me at astrologybooks@proton.me if you are interested in this job. Best-case scenario would be someone who can also make astrological charts that look good at 300 dpi for the paperback version of Booby Prize, but the most urgent priority now is the IngramSpark cover for Impossible Dreams.