The book Past Life and Karmic Tarot by Edain McCoy is part of the ‘Special Topics in Tarot’ series of books published by Llewellyn. Many among us who believe in the concept of reincarnation and past life, want to explore the different past lives that we have led, and understand the various Karmic lessons that we are meant to learn in this lifetime. Using the Tarot cards to do readings to gain this kind of insight is a great idea.
Past Life and Karmic Tarot by Edain McCoy has, chiefly, a large number of different spreads that address a variety of questions that might come up while exploring the various past life lessons and experiences that one might want to know about. I have often used the different spreads given in this book to ask questions to the cards and have gained a lot of insightful information that has helped me understand my various life lessons. 🙂
So without any further ado, lets dive right into the various sections of this book, and see what it talks about.
Foreword by Mary K. Greer
Past Life and Karmic Tarot by Edain McCoy features a foreword written by none other than Mary K. Greer, a master of Tarot herself, which serves as a great beginning to an even wonderful book.
Introduction – Tarot and Your Past Lives
This section basically introduces the concept of past lives to those who don’t know much about it. After that, you learn about how to go about using the book, and how to keep records of your readings. There are also a number of links provided to websites on the Internet, where you can find more information about Tarot as well.
With the introduction of the basic concepts done, we start right away with the spreads. Needless to say, each of the spreads are explained and outlined and an example reading has been given so that we can easily grasp the spread properly.
Lets look at the spreads.
1 – The Invoking Pentacle Spread
This spread gives one a broad idea of the various aspects of one’s past, including inherited traits that make up one’s personality.
2 – The Dark Moon Spread
This spread shows the hidden aspects of ones Karma from a past life, and how that karma can manifest in this lifetime if one stays on the same course of life.
3 – The Irish Cross Spread
This spread helps you understand if you are on the right course for your future, or whether a change in your life can change the future for better.
4 – The Solomon’s Seal Spread
This spread is considered to be the hardest to learn to read, although it might look simple. It shows the elemental influences on your past life issues. One is therefore able to see a theme running through one’s current lifetime that comes from a past life.
5 – The Karmic Choice Spread
If you want to know how a particular Karma that formed over several past lives has manifested in your current lifetime as a major karmic challenge, then this is the spread to do. Here, you also get to see two choices or two paths that you can take so that you correct these imbalances and also shows you a probable future for each choice.
6 – The Rainbow Bridge Spread
If you are curious to know what happens between two lifetimes and why one chose a particular lifetime and those specific issues to tackle with, then this is the spread to go to. The Rainbow Bridge covers the time between two lifetimes, when one chooses the challenges and lessons for the next lifetime.
7 – The Tree of Life Spread
Based on the Kabbalah Tree of Life, this spread helps you tap into the mystery of your Karmic lessons using the Tree of Life as the guiding force.
8 – The Big Picture Spread
With this spread you can get a macro view of who you were in a past life. You can choose to focus on a past life that you already know of, or choose to see a past life from a particular time period or set of circumstances etc.
9 – The Feng Shui Spread
This spread helps you see who you were in a past life, and compare it to your present life to see if there are any blockages or lessons still to learn.
10 – The Lifetime Convergence Spread
If you want to know what your karmic connection with another person is, and how, through several past lives you and that person got together to forge those karmic connections, then this is the spread you want to do. This spread helps you see your relationship with a person across several lifetimes.
11 – Omniscient Time Spread
With this spread you can see four of your past lives that have the strongest impact on your current life.
12 – Growth Over Three Lifetimes Spread
If you want to trace the evolution of your energy or growth pattern over a course of several lifetimes, then this is the spread you want to do.
13 – The Next Challenge Spread
If you want to know what your next challenge / major hurdle will be in your current lifetime, then you can do this spread to find out about it.
14 – The Future Life Spread
Want to know what your next life is going to be like? Well, then the future life spread is what you need to do.
15 – The Constellation Past Life Wheel
This spread looks at a past life through the cycle of some of the major constellations in the heavens. We can compare the energies of the different constellations with the cards to find out more about a past life.
16 – Unmasking the Past
If you have past life connections with several people in your current life, then this spread helps you look closely at one of those relationships and the influence that this relationship holds over your past, present and future.
17 – Past Life Epiphany Spread
If you want to know about the important lessons that you’ve learnt in your past life, then this spread shows you what the lesson was, whether you’ve learnt it or not, and if you have, then how, where, when, why and how you did.
Once these spreads are done with, there are 2 more sections / chapters to go.
Entering the Tarot Cards
In this section, you learn an interesting technique using which you can enter into the image of the Tarot card, and visualize and imagine and interact with the characters present on that Tarot card.
You can also refer to an article I wrote a while back about Entering a Tarot card.
Uncovering Your Past Lives
This section offers a number of tips and ideas that will guide you and help you as you explore the realm of your past lives and gain a deeper understanding of your life’s lessons, challenges and purpose. Learn how you can work with a friend whilst doing these exercises. Find out how you can work through your past life regression exercises by yourself. After a regression exercise, you need to record it so you can recall / go through it later on. You can learn how you can do that in this section as well.
My Thoughts
I have always been interested in the topic of past lives. In fact, I have been through a very interesting past life regression workshop several years ago, that has given me great insight on my life’s path. The spreads from the Past Life and Karmic Tarot by Edain McCoy have been very helpful for me to keep this quest alive! I have been able to work through and find guidance about several karmic lessons and challenges using the different spreads from this book.
My favorite spreads are the Rainbow Bridge Spread and the Lifetime Convergence Spread. 🙂
Buy This Book
Your Turn
Do you already have this book? Did you like it? Were the spreads useful to you? What are your thoughts about it? Do share in the comments section below.
