My name is Will and I'm Garon, and unlike moulderin Scully, want to believe. So we've embarked in a journey of discovery.
We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and metaphysical world.
We've thrown ourselves into weird and wonderful experiences. I even joined a coven of witches.
And wait, you joined a coven yep.
All on the interest of finding something, anything, that will prove that there's something beyond this physical.
Three dimensional world we all live in.
This is the Skeptic Metaphysicians. This episode of The Skeptic Metaphysicians was recorded live at the Edgar Casey Are Today we're tackling a very popular topic in this space, the Toureau, and our guest today has studied, read, and taught the Toureau for over fifty years, so you know that her information is rock solid. Her collecting background allows her to bring diverse spiritual elements and practices to her readings, giving
her a very unique perspective. And she also teaches and needs workshops in charm casting, creating, vision boards and pendulum design and dowsing. I'm thrilled to welcome to the show, Russa Harju, thank.
You so much for coming on, Thank you for having me.
Tourou is a stalwart right in when you think about psychic fairs or things like that, or or in Newage movement. The tourou has been around for a very very long time. It's what you think of crystals to row things like that, right. So my biggest question, and I know we're going to go deep into it, and you're graciously going to be giving us a quick little mini reading later on, so we're excited about that. But when you when a reader uses the cards, do the cards have the messages in
them themselves? Or is the toroau are the cards actually just a gateway for your intuition to come through both? Okay, thank you, I thank you for joining us.
Well let's even start before that. What are turo or tarot or how do you pronounce it are? What are the cards?
Okay? Well they are not as old as people think they are. People think, oh, ancient Egypt, all that stuff. They first deck they have on hand is from about mid fourteen hundreds in Italy and it was a card game. But with any kind of game they turn into divination tools and so these cards. This particular deck, the wait Smith deck, is one of the most popular ones there is. And this one came out in about nineteen ten, so it's public domain and it's very different from the earlier cards.
And they were designed to be a gateway. They were designed that each symbol opens you up. But you don't know, you don't need to be working in your psychic development. You can read the cards by noting the symbol. You know, the Emperor's card number four, that's stability and structure. His corresponds with the sign of ares. The rams show you that. So there's pints and all the cards and so it's uh, basically, yeah, the messages are in the cards. You hear from spirit.
It opens you psychically. If you do a little ritual before you read, like I do, opens you psychically. So it comes at you from all different angles.
Okay, and you mentioned something I was going to ask about. You said, you do a ritual before you start. What what is that like? And do you have to do one?
No, you don't. That's the one thing that drives men says there's so many weird myths about taro, you know, like you can't buy your own deck. That's that's a nonsense. Okay, if you had to wait till someone gave you one.
Yeah, I've been waiting all this time.
That's given.
No one's giving one. If anyone's out there, I'll need to do it.
You can go to the gest store. At the bookstore, they have some really nice ones. But yeah, you don't none of that. You know, don't let other people touch your cards. I let other people touch my cards all the time. There's a lot of silly myths about it. But uh, the same thing with the rifle beforehand. Some people say, oh, well you have to cut the cards three times and then this, and you know, that's what happened is somebody saw someone else's a ritual and didn't
understand why they were doing it. So there's a lot of that nonsense, like that old story about the family who every time they had a pot roast, they cut a piece off, put it to the side, and for two generations and then somebody said, why are we doing that? They asked a great grandmother and she said, oh, when I was first married, my pot was too small. So it's just doing something without knowing why. So a ritual is to set you up. For example, I always use cloths.
I make claws, they sell cloths. I never put my cards on a blank, bare table because and first all, I don't know what's been on that. And secondly, when I see this, it starts to wretch at me, right into the alpha state, which I want to be in in order to read. So when I see this, it's like you seeing teable set for dinner. You know it's time to eat. I know it's time to read. God, okay, So.
Put you in the mind space absolutely.
And that's the start. And then before each reading, I do a little breath work. I have a certain hand motion that helps me get in the alpha state. It's something I've trained myself to do over the years. So immediately I'm in the alpha state, I do a quick little intentional prayer. I ask my ancestors, I ask the Goddess. I ask all beings of light to help make my reading as accurate and helpful as possible. You know, for the high it's good of all concerned. Just that's my ritual.
Other people do all, yeah, whatever works for them, cutting the cards, knocking the cards, there's a lot of different things you'll see people do. And if they've worked that out, themselves. It's great. If they're just copying someone else, it's really not.
Very helpful right now. It can't hurt though to incorporate some else.
Does it hurt out? I love the aesthetics, but I keep my cards at a box wrapped in silk. Do you have to do that? No, but I like the tradition of it. I like the aesthetics as well. I clean my cards with selenite in between each reading.
I was going to ask you about that.
Yeah, I mean I don't do that at home if i have like a one on one, but if I'm in a psychic fair, I'll do it for a minute. Can you hold that up so we can see it celenite? And what does that do for the selenite cleans anything. I'm a very lazy person, so if I've got to clean my cards, I'm not going to stand there and wave seventy eight cards over POLOSOFTA. I'm just not going to do a lot of work. It's too much. And I buy I make jewelry, but I buy a lot
of vintage jewelry at state sales. I don't know who's warrant come home put it on my selenite. I don't have to do any other kind of cleansing. I don't even cleanse the selenite. It cleanses itself. So it's just really handy. And you know, I'm not going to smudge stuff all the time. I'm not going to put it in a bowl of salt and forget it. Yeah, and you know all that it's just too much work.
If only would clean the bathrooms, put it in there, you come back the next morning.
Try.
I haven't if it if it had a possibility, I would have tried.
The energy of the bat.
Yeah.
So the cards are you mentioned a gateway to a large extent, The right of wait is the traditional deck everything.
It's the most popular deck there is. It's not traditionalist and old, but it's right.
But it's the one that people most think of when anythink.
Toro, they do, and most modern decks are based on it. You know, there are a couple of different like the Crowley decks a little different, and the artisan Taro is a little different. But ninety eight percent of your decks, even the novelty ones, are based on the way deck.
Okay, oh, I was going to ask about the novelty ones because I saw like a Britney Spears. Will that work?
I have a couple because they're pretty, you know, But and I have the Buffy the Vampire Slayer one because I wanted to say Spike, but it's it could work. I wouldn't use them because this deck has a depth of symbolism that those decks aren't going to have. I think they're just for fun.
Right. You can bring up a good point because symbolism symbols are powerful. So when you say that the act is a gateway, the symbols themselves might bring something out based on the symbolism. We talked about Sacret, Jim Amitri and all that kind of stuff. There is something to be said about I always say traditional, but the writer wait for me. Whenever I see it it it lists a certain response. Where I pick up the Britney Spears deck,
It's not going to give me that same response. It's gonna it's gonna.
Does not the gravitas.
It doesn't have the gravitas.
Well, I mean this was developed for that.
Uh.
Weight and Pamela Coleman Smith, who was the artist, were members of the Golden Dawn and the Golden Dawn is a magical society. Back in Victorian times, and it was you know, a lot of rich, you know, British guys.
Sure, so they.
They work. They had like a magical brotherhood I guess called the Golden Dawn, and this incorporated a lot. They're the first ones who in modern times correlated the Taro and the Kabbala and Taro and astrology. So every single card has an astrological correspondence. The major arcana, which is the twenty two cards, like the Emperor and the Tower, they are either correspond to is a sign of the
zodiac or a planet. The minor arcana. Each of the four suits pentacles corresponds to earth, cups corresponds to water, swords correspond with air, and ones correspond with fire. Although there's a little controversy about that. Sure, there's a lot of controversy in Terrance.
Everybody with how you've pronounced or whatever a time.
Car But Young studied the tarot and we use a lot, or at least I do use a lot of his terminology when I read, you know, the cards fall how they're supposed to fall, that synchronicity. The major arcana cards are archetypical images, and that's another reason they have power when you see the hermitage, you see the wise man who gives you information. When you see death, you have an impact from that guy.
Yet, if I'm not mistaken, death is not a negative card. Is just a transition.
It's a transition that's so intense that it's as if you died and were reborn. It's that kind of a transformation. It's huge.
So does it make a difference if they're upside down or right side up and following up to that upside down or right side to the reader or to the reading.
That's another controversy. Yeah, people will tell you different things. Some people don't read reversals at all. Yeah, that's when they're upside down. I do, because there's seventy eight cards. If you read reversals as well, then you've got whatever that is one hundred and fifty six or whatever it is. So to me, yeah, reversals can mean the opposite, or they can be like when a planet's retrograde. You know, whatever that change is, whatever that energy is, it's taking
a little longer to manifest, gotcha. So I read it as facing me because it would just be too much metal gymnastics, and I it's like reading a book it's right in front of me. So that's how I do it. Some people don't read reversals at all, and everyone has different opinions, and you do what works for you. You know, if your readings are helpful and accurate, that's what counts if your client is satisfied.
So can anyone just pick up a deck and start reading off the bat or is a special type of training you have to.
Have ETI to practice. I mean, you can't just throw them down and do see. There's three ways to read. There is totally this is what the card means. This is what the card means in this position. You know, that's a very you know, straightforward, you lose a little book till you have it all memorized. Another way to read is just to look at the pictures and make up stories. So you have your book learning, you have your intuitive and then you have the way I do it,
which is a hybrid. So I know what the cards mean, but I also have flexibility in that. You know, each time I look at a card, I might notice a different symbol, and so that would shift the meaning for me a little bit.
Okay, So it's not as easy as just looking at that because I know the weight deck actually has descriptors.
Of each card, and what it means is that a little white book.
So somebody might be seeing the deck in reading from it. It's perfectly fine. But the more you use it, the more in depth the message.
And when I was learning, what I did was go to a lot of different readers so I could see how they did it, because everybody had different methods. You know, some people would just randomly pull cards and not to spreads. Some people to spread, some people don't just spreads. Some people have the quarrent pick a card. There's so many different ways to do it. You do what works for you. To me, the most important thing about a reading is people come to you and some people are scared. You're like,
oh gosh, I don't want to hear anything bad. And to me, your reading should be empowering. So if you couldn't do something about what your reading says, I get one. But to me, if you know, first of all, you're forewarned, and second Tara tells your potentials the way things are right now, these are the energies in play, These are the forces in play. If you like how that's going,
you keep going that way. If you don't like how it's going, Let's explore how you can change it or at least get a lesson out of it to have it be of benefit to you. So no one should leave a reading feeling scared or nervous or anything but empowered and positive.
See. I love that intention that you're putting behind your reading. But we all know that there are people out there that are making a quick book, and a lot of our audience they don't know how to tell between someone who is legit like you've been doing it forever. You're obviously very well educated and well versed, and someone who's just trying to make a quick book. How can you tell? How can you protect yourself with someone going to get a reading?
That is like one of the most frustrating things, because I think what people come to read for you for reading? I mean, sometimes it's for fun, like it's affairs here, But most of the times people come to you because they have a problem or they have a worry a concern, And so to me, to take advantage of someone's vulnerability
like that, it's just awful. I would say. The big thing is how they talk to you, you know, do they are they trying to scare you or are they trying to help you find a way out of whatever situation you're in, you know, because yeah, I watch myself too when I read, because I have a tendency if I look at the card that says to do this, oh you should, and then I stop, because that's one thing I hate people saying to me you should, So I always try to say it would serve you best too,
or you might do well too. You know, I don't have to listen to me. I'm just telling you what the cards say, so if they are trying to steer you in a direction. And then there's the fear thing, I mean, some of the stuff people believe. I knew a woman once who she'd had a horrific year. I mean, her brother was murdered, she was thirty, she had a hysterectomy, her house burned out, my mom. She had this year
from help, and she went to a reader. This is before I ever knew her, and the woman told her she was cursed and if she gave her five hundred dollars, she would, you know, burn it and take it off. And she, under normal circumstances would never ever have fallen for that. But her life. She was just so damaged. Then that's right. Yeah, that's to me the worst thing someone can do.
Peebaging off the fear topic. There are some people that feel that to row cards and things like that maybe aren't from the light side of things. What would you say to someone that says, oh, this is like a demonic thing or something like that.
I've had people say that. Actually here, once I was reading it, some woman ran into the reading room and said, please, please, please, can you convince me they're not of the devil? And they're not.
I mean.
The really the old old decks are all church symbols. You know. The Higher Effect was originally the Pope, the High Priestess was Pope Joe. I tell people, if you're nervous about it, go get an angel deck. You get something that makes you feel better. It's a tool to help people. There's nothing demonic about it at all. And if some people they're just not going to believe, you're into that particular mindset. But I think when when you talk to people about what these cards mean, this and
they are to help you navigate through life. Because you don't even have to be spiritual to use tarot cards. You can use them as a psychological tool. You can use them for personal development. You don't have to have any sort of spiritual beliefs whatsoever, and you can still read terror.
That's good to know, But I would still like to have a spiritual belief before you.
So I hear the different readers about different spreads. How many spreads are theres just like those thousands of cards, Like how many like card ranges and from like two to fifty You're like, how oh, there's way.
More than that.
Some people use all the cards right.
A single and you don't have to put you the spread either. You could just put cards down randomly. What I do sometimes at the end of a reading is I just fan the cards that have people pick a few randomly so that they're getting more involved. But yeah, there's loads and loads of spreads. There's a few famous ones like the Celtic Cross, or I do an astrological
spread that I like a lot. But there's so many, And you could my whole books just full of taro spreads right right, like one hundred and ten perisprits, you know, fifty tarot spreads.
You can wow, you don't realize that, see to me, I just or wwhelms me.
It's a lot.
I just like, you know, here's the three cards, or maybe I'll do a Celtic cross or something like that, but anything other than that. It's just like I had a reading done once where kept pulling cards, you kept playing cards, like, when is it ever going to end? They so it was just it was just too much for me.
Well, it's you get used to it. And the great thing with this is it corresponds to so much. You know, if you're weak on tarot but you know astrology, you've got that tiet. If you're weak in taro, but you have numerology, got that. Yeah, there's just there's a book, there's a big bye. What's her name, Keith Susan Chang. That's all correspondences. There is a correspondence for every card. There's you know it's a zodiac, there's this's that. But there's also a music note for each card. There's a
crystal for each card. There's just anything you can think of, the Hebrew word for each card. There's just so many correspondences. I've been doing this. I got my first deck when I was eleven, and learn I'm seventy one and so i learned stuff every day, you know, every day I learn more and more.
How accurate are the readings? Like, I mean, like how details can they get?
It can get insanely accurate. But a lot depends on the input too, you know, because a terror reading should be a conversation. You know, you don't yet you don't just sit there passively, right like.
Those people come and goes, okay, the psychic tell me about me.
That's the worst. I'm like, you want to waste your time and your money for the cards always fall how they're supposed to fall. It will if you start doing it, it will always amaze you. It's like funny sometimes the way they fall. It's like, oh yeah, could you be more blatant? They always fall how they're supposed to fall. We, however, may not interpret them correctly.
Yeah.
So yeah, sometimes I have no problem with asking I think this means this? Does that mean anything to you? Or do you think it could be something different? Because it should be a conversation. And the idea too is the person has there's levels of openness. Sure, when you do a reading with someone, you link on a subconscious level.
You know. That's why I prefer in person to you know over the phone or zoom, even though we know time and space is just an illusion, right, It's just you feel more of that connection when we when you're next to someone, so anyway, you're picking up from their subconscious. Your subconscious knows basically the way things are going, what's going to happen to you. And what happens is the reading articulates it for you. You should be sitting there. It should resonate like, oh I know that. I know
that because you knew it. They're just pulling it out and like I said, articulating it for you.
It just giving you information that you should already know and then helping you to move it forward.
Right, And that's that's the big thing too, is you know, what do you want to do with it? You know, if all your cards look great, yay, if you do it you say, oh yeah, there is a little you know issue here, you know, with some family issues. Then you take the cards, you do a new spread on how can I best you know, alleviate these issues? How can I best bring harmony to my family? So, you know, just you keep working leading it to the result you want.
Well, you, before we started recording, you graciously offered to do a very small little reading for us. I think Karen had a question that she was going to ask.
I did well. First, My question is so you said like yes or no? But could you do like a three card spread? Is this table too small for that?
Is there a three cards three card we could do for yes or no? You could do past present future.
Let's the past present future.
So I always have the person ask me the question. Some readers don't like that, but I find people don't know what to ask sometimes, or they just kind of ask in a wrong way. For example, you should I move here or there? It's like we do one at a time, and you don't want to say should I to yes or no? You want to say what are the benefits? Or how will I fare if I move to this place? What are the benefits? You know, how
will it work out if I work there? So you want to keep it open but not too much, you know, like when will I find love? Yeah? People, oh I'm looking for a relationship. When will I find love? We could you could go adopt a puppy? Said, So you want to be open but specific to it. It depends. Okay, okay, So what exactly did you want to ask, well, so I'm kind.
Of in the process of starting a new business and I'm just wondering. I mean, it's a little more challenging than I thought it would be. But I'm wondering, is this something that can ultimately be successful? And asking that incorrectly that.
Would be good. So will my business ultimately be successful? Let's give it a time frame though, okay, like within a year, within two years, three years, because you know it's forty years from now, you don't care. Well, that's true, I'll still be here. Let's say a year, okay, So will your business be successful to the degree you want within the air? I've got to give you the cards and ask you to shuffle them with that question in mind.
And I always tell people they're an awkward size. Okay, so I don't feel you have to look good.
Well I'm awkward, so it's perfect. I know that. And you always look and I just rolled up my sleeves because yeah, the hard work.
Just wants as many till you feel they're ready. I told you you don't have to look good. They're just a little bigger than usual. Okay, so this works. We tossing coins at work. There's a Yoruba system of divination where they toss pieces of coconut and if they're white or black. If there's two or three whites, it's yes. If there's two or three blacks, it's no. So this is the same way, except with reversals and upside down. You know, upright? All right? I give it longer than
a year. The good thing about terror cards is this is a solid note because you got three reversed. But the cards give us insight into what's going on. Okay, the lovers love this card. It's a Gemini card. It people look at the say, oh, you know, soulmates all that. It's more of a Youngian concept of individuation of the male half the female half combine in order to know the higher self. So this says in your business, you really don't have a secure knowledge of where you want
to go with it. Ultimately that there's more looking in where you have to do to find out why it's not happy. This is the card of dissatisfaction. So yeah, until you know exactly what you want, you're not going to find satisfaction until you know exactly who you are
as a business person. And then the final outcome is I would not depend on it for my income for the next year, because this is the card of having lots of money, and you have it reversed so it would not be super financially profitable within the next year. The way to improve that is through self knowledge, through bringing together all the different parts of yourself that you're trying to express with this and self knowledge. That's the most important thing to have all your eyes dotted, your
tea cross, to know exactly what it is you want. Hey, because even if you were financially successful, which we don't see, it wouldn't be satisfying to you. Yet you don't have it exactly.
How you want it.
Okay, does that make sense to you?
It really makes sense. Yes it does.
And knowing what I know, it makes fantastic sense to me. It is like and not exactly what we wanted to see, but it makes perfect It is absolutely what we should have expected to see.
And the thing is you have you know a path you can follow. You know that this is what you have to work on. This card. If if this were my reading, I would take this card. If I had a deck or you could put These are public domain. They're all over the place. You can just print an offline, and I would hang it around my house as a vision board to remind me to explore myself more. Because you know, the male the female half the angel. The
male represents your conscious mind, woman's your subconscious mind. The angel is the super conscious. The only way you can get any kind of spiritual enlightenment is through the inner self. That's why the man's looking at the woman's looking at the angel. So this is a whole union process of individuation, he said. That's why we're here to know ourselves completely. And so that's taken all your shadow, your light, all those parts and coming to understand them so you can move forward.
Let's take you something you said earlier. This, like you mentioned, this is a solid no within this next year. That was a question that Karen asked. However, you did mention that this is malleable, so they could potentially change within absolutely a month and be a toy.
I wouldn't say a month, but I would say in three or four months. You could ask again.
But if I make these changes here and look in myself and make sure I have the because I'm not a business person per se, I'm sure I'm missing a lot of tea's that I need to cross and yeah, there's.
But there's things you can do, you can because it's not just knowing about the business, but knowing you know what parts you're going to hate, you know, because there are parts that are the pits. You know, you have to deal with the financially, you have to deal with all those other things at getting good advice, you know, I would I look on Score on their website all the time when I want information on how to run a business, that sort of thing. So there's there's things
out there you can learn. But this is more within yourself. Okay, it's not just that, but knowing which aspects you would hate, Like I hate marketing. I hate putting myself out there going hi, you want to. It just embarrasses me. But other people love that part and they hate, you know, the financial part, or they hate you know, different other parts. So knowing what you want to deal with and what you don't.
All right, that is vertin.
This is spot on wonderful. Thank you so much for doing this for us, as well as thank you for coming and helping us to get a grip to understand a little bit better the power of the terrorists.
So much, so much to it. There is so much to it, and that's what's great about it is you know you'll never get bored. There's always more to learn. Now.
I know you said you don't like marketing, so we're going to do it for you. If someone wants to reach out to you, to have a reading done, to learn, to attend a workshop or something, how's the best way for them to get in touch with you.
Oh, lots of ways. I have a website russoreads dot com. I have a Facebook page that tells you what's coming up.
Well, thank you so much for coming and it was a pleasure to meet you. We look forward to learning more about the Torow with you in the future.
Great.
Thank you so much.