Digital Photo Album Tarot by Graham Glover

_{Leisa’s first iPhone reading. Photo taken by Paul ReFalo on his iPhone.}

Implementing a Tarot function on the iPhone is pretty simple and simplistic, but for what it does it works fairly well I think. In a nutshell, you upload a complete set of Tarot card images to the iPhone and let the iPhone shuffle them for display as a slide show. Without doing anything else, you get the iPhone to give you a quick card of the day, and you can set your card as a wallpaper image to be revisited throughout the day. Here’s how I did it on my MacBook. (It should be similar if you have a Windows machine.)

Using the iPhone for Tarot

Select the Photos button from the main menu of the iPhone. Select your Tarot deck. You’ll see an arrow at the bottom of the screen. Select it. iPhone will randomly select an image from your deck. You can touch the image to keep it from continuing to “play” as a slide
show.

When you touch the image, you’ll see an icon at the bottom left of the screen, a rectangle with an arrow. If you touch it, you’ll see you have the option, “Use As Wallpaper” which you may choose. You may wish to “squeeze” the image to get it properly sized for your iPhone.

This seems to work very well for a card of the day function, assuming you accept having a computer shuffle the deck. Also, if you wanted to do more complicated spreads, you could let more cards be shown in the slide show and use pen and paper to map the cards to a spread. You’d might wish to change the Settings> Photos> “Play Each Slide For” setting to greater than the default 3 seconds, though you can always stop the slide show by touching the image.

Card Images

I have a directory of card images I uploaded to my iPhone. In the Mac application iPhoto, it’s a “library” I called Tarot. I took the images from here:

• www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/index.htm
• www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/index.htm
• www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/img/ar01.jpg

The first link is the main page, which also includes a statement of the source of the cards. According to the text near the bottom of the page, this specific set is in the public domain. The second link is an online version of “THE PICTORIAL KEY TO THE TAROT”. If you view any of the card pages and click on the line image, you’ll get the full color scanned image, an example of which is shown in the third link.

I have the complete set of images from here. Depending on how Unix compatible you are, wgetw ith will to grab the relevant directory. You can also click and save each of the 78 images. Alternatively, you can use scans of whatever deck(s) you have, but you should have a complete deck in a “library”. When you sync your iPhone, make sure you include your Tarot image library.

iPhone SETTINGS

From the main menu of the iPhone, select the Settings button. Scroll down to Photos and select that. At the bottom of the list, select ON for Shuffle.

References

I have a couple sites bookmarked for references to specific cards. In this way if I wish to look up the meaning of a card, I simply go to Safari, choose my bookmark, and go to my specific card. The link above to “THE PICTORIAL KEY” is one; the other I use is here: www.learntarot.com/cards.htm

Why I Did It

I have a few decks, but most times when I read I’m away from them. I wrote a command line Python program to do readings while at work. Mostly I do single card readings, but occasionally I’ll do more involved spreads.

In a few days I’ll be traveling with my family. While I could bring a card deck, I thought, “Why not see if I can do something with the iPhone?” Now I have a simple little system on my iPhone that works quite nicely and requires no modifications whatsoever to s/w.

Is it lame to do it that way? I don’t know. I hope not. I like it, and it seems to work for me.

Cosmic Poufball Reading

Here’s the link to the Cosmic Poufball Spread over at the Tarot Channel.

Below is a sample reading for you. I did this with drawing cards on the iPhone, so there are no reversals.

****1****
*********
****4****
*********
2*******3

1. If you’re going out tonight…

VIII of Cups. Boring! This says to me that you won’t get much satisfaction from going out and doing something that was fun in the past. You’ve done it, it was fun, it’s time to move on and do something different. Restlessness is what you may find. I give it a 4 for going out tonight.

2. If you’re staying in…

XIX Sun. What a card. You’ll find joy and energy in whatever you do at home tonight. Cook. Dine. Spend time with special people in your life. Create something. It’s a good night for all of those things. I’ll give it a 9.

3. If you’re working…

XXI The World. Everything comes together, and all the pieces fit. You’re in control and you can look at your work in the satisfaction that everything is going well. It’s a 10 if you’re working tonight.

4. Overall?

IX Cups. For me, this is the Reality Card, the one that says, “Don’t get too cocky.” It can be a great night, but there’s never a guarantee. Things can go well, but you need to pay attention. Still, it’s a good card for a good night, so I’ll give it an 8 overall.

But remember, it’s a wise person who rules the cards, it’s a fool who’s ruled by them. - ^_^

Graham Glover

Graham has been working with Tarot for the last five years. He was first introduced to it through a Wiccan Witch.

He has written a command line program in Python to do Tarot readings when at work, and realized the iPhone could be easily adapted to do Tarot readings anywhere at any time.

He works in technology, and his real-world business card shows him as a Mathemagician. He lives with his wife, daughter, and guinea pig in Virginia.

Sources of Digital Decks

a few to get you started …

• Aquatic Tarot - Watercolor Rider Waite Clone
• Orphalese Tarot - Decks by Friends of Orphalese Tarot
• F. J. Campos Decks- Orphalese resident graphic art virtuoso
• Freeware Esoterica - free for non-commercial use.
• Marseilles Tarot Cards

Tarot of the iPod

In Tarot of the iPod, each tarot card is made up of an audio file with an embedded image.

• Strength - read by Susan Gold
• Wheel of Fortune - read by Graham Glover
• High Priestess - ready by Dena Decastro

In addition to being a way to study tarot on your iPod, MP3 player, or Computer, you can use these files to do readings.

Music Credits

• Opening Music: The Oracle Speaks by William Wilde Zeitler from Elegy for Atlantis
• Transitional Music: September’s Angels by Suzanne Teng from the album Enchanted Wind. (Magnatune)
• Closing Music: You don’t need an iPod by Uncle Seth from Podcasting Service Annoucement (podsafe music)

Play or Download the Episode

 

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