Basic Directions

The cards are lettered and the rows are listed from bottom to top, since that's how you build an I-Ching Hex.

For each card position, there's a designation of firm or flexible, which indicates how easily the querent or subject may change the quantity outlined in each card.

In some cases, conditions in the past may be designated flexible, which means they may be changeable even after they have occurred. Obviously, this is not as simple as picking up a rock. More on that when the theory is posted.

In terms of reducing all these elements to a coherent reading, if you draw a line from the white dot to the black dot on the chart, and do the cards bordered within, you get a simple and coherent "past, present, future" linear narrative.

The other quantities represent functions that spread through time in non-linear ways. The black part of the Tai Chi can be read for practical purposes as a "Yang Wave," and the white part as a "Yin Wave," starting at the tail and culminating at the head. (If you review the theory disseration, we will see that this is not quite accurate, but it's close enough for simple divination).

The Yang Wave is a wave of increasing firmness and/or active energy. The Yin Wave represents a wave of increasing flexibility and/or receptive energy.

Positional Meanings

a) Future time, physical environment (major yang, very firm)

b) Past time, physical environment (major yang, very firm)

c) Present time, physical environment. (minor yang, minor yin, somewhat flexible)

d) Future time, health or body (major yang, very firm)

e) Past time, health or body (major yang, very firm)

f) Present time, health or body (major yang, major yin, somewhat flexible)

g) Future time, process or action (major yin, minor yang, flexible)

h) Past time, process or action (major yang, major yin, somewhat flexible)

i) Present time, process or action (major yin, very flexible)

j) Present time, things known or secrets unknown (major yang, very firm)

k) Future time, things known or outcomes unknown (major yang, major yin, somewhat firm)

l) Past time, things known or secrets unknown (major yang, minor yin, firm)

m) Present mental/spiritual state (major yang, major yin, somewhat firm)

n) Future mental/spiritual state (major yin, very flexible)

o) Past mental/spiritual state (major yin, very flexible)

p) Present understanding or intention (minor yang, minor yin, somewhat firm)

q) Future understanding or intention (major yin, very flexible)

r) Past understanding or intention (major yin, very flexible)

For a more detailed discussion of the theory behind this layout, click here.

Deriving the Hexagram

These are increasingly advanced techniques for reading the Chaos Tarot. You can bail out at any point after doing the positional readings, but you'll find that going all the way through gives you an extraordinarily rich, detailed and (most important) pragmatically useful reading.

Top trigram:

Top line: r, q, p
o, n, m
l, k, j


Bottom trigram:
Top line: i, h, g
f, e, d
c, b, a

UPDATED: To calculate a line's yin or yang qualities, use the following formula.

Fire and Air are yang.

Water and Earth are yin.

Convert the major arcana to yin or yang as outlined below.

If a line has three yang elements, the line is yang (solid line). If it has three yin elements, the line is yin (broken line).

If a line has two yang and one yin, it is yin transforming into yang. If it has two yin and one yang, it is yin transforming into yang. If you prefer a simpler reading, simply use a majority rules approach.

You can also get a feel for the positive or negative connotations of whether the calculated line corresponds to the "correct" yin and yang for each line. If the line is "incorrect," you can presume a negative cast on the cards dealt. The correct values as seen running across the entire layout would be:

YANG TRIGRAM

yin
yang......yang
yin.......yin
          yang

          YIN TRIGRAM

The correctness calculation also yields two long lines, as seen above connected by a dotted line. These can be read as units, the "Yang Timeline" and "Yin Timeline," for additional insights into how each of those properties are reflected in the reading.

Yin/Yang of the Major Arcana

Yang: Magician, Hanged Man, Intemperance, Wheel, Tower, Eschaton

Yin: Fool, World, Moon, Sun, Star, Progenesis

Yang: Shaman, Between Worlds, Watcher, Devil (Ascended Individual), Death, VALIS

Yin: Priestess, Hermit (Introspection), Strength, Lovers, Balance, Emergence

Note that each Major Arcana Grouping also indicates a progression from Individual to Universal, in the order listed here. This may be helpful in context, especially in a reading which shows a sequence of Major Arcana.

The tai chi (yin-yang) symbol provides a map for how events unfold in non-linear time, which can be traced along the Chaos Tarot spread. The black part of the tai chi represents a wave of Yang that propagates and increases clockwise around the diagram. The white part represents a wave of Yin. Technically, the Yin wave propagates counter-clockwise, but it may be read as clockwise for purposes of easier comprehension.



The amount of white or black over any given card position, as well as its shape, velocity and momentum, are representative of the position's yin and yang qualities (flexibility and firmness). Positions with strong yang are events or situations which cannot be easily changed. Positions with great yin are highly changeable.

While the positional meanings include comments on the amounts of yin and yang affecting any given card in the spread, the intuitive reader should also view the cycle and wave diagrams with an eye toward root causes and effects outside of linear time, and the action of yin or yang increasing or decreasing, or cresting. By examining these aspects (particularly the roots of the waves), the Chaos Tarot offers the skilled reader insights that are simply unavailable using any other method of tool-based divination.

Linear Timeline (Past, Present, Future)

A more traditional Tarot linear time path of "past, present, future" can also be traced by drawing a line from the white dot in the diagram to the black dot and examining the card positional meanings (above) for two sets of four cards on the time scale indicated by the line (below).