Tag: cause and effect

The Karma Cards of the Tarot: Lessons, Consequences, and Course Corrections

Some Tarot cards seem to carry more spiritual gravity than others — the ones that reveal how actions return, lessons repeat, and growth becomes inevitable. These are the “karma cards,” reflecting the Kybalion’s Principle of Cause and Effect. Each shows us where the soul confronts the consequences of its choices — and how to rise into a new level of awareness.

What We Mean by “Karma”

Karma isn’t punishment or reward — it’s simply the universal law of cause and effect. Every thought, every word, every choice sends ripples into the field of consciousness, and those ripples eventually return to their source. When we see a “karma card” in a reading, it doesn’t mean the universe is judging us. It means the universe is teaching us.

In The Kybalion, this is expressed as “Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause.”

In the Tarot, that principle unfolds symbolically through specific archetypes that reveal how energy cycles back around, how old patterns resolve, and how the soul grows through awareness.

The Major Arcana Karma Cards

Justice (XI) — Karma in its purest form

Justice is the balancing of the scales — the moment when truth emerges and consequences unfold. It represents the return of equilibrium after imbalance, reminding us that integrity, fairness, and honesty always realign the cosmic order. When Justice appears, something in your life is finding its balance again.

Judgment (XX) — The higher reckoning

This is karma’s spiritual octave — the point of awakening. Judgment calls us to review the past with clarity and compassion, to rise from the old self, and to claim renewal. It shows that karmic patterns are completing because understanding has dawned.

The Wheel of Fortune (X) — The turning of cycles

The Wheel reveals how karma is always in motion. Life rises and falls, fortunes shift, and every chapter becomes another turn in the spiral of growth. This card reminds us that luck isn’t random — it’s the natural consequence of the energy we’ve set in motion.

The Hanged Man (XII) — Seeing karma differently

When we find ourselves “stuck,” suspended between worlds, it’s often because the universe is asking us to pause and see things from another perspective. The Hanged Man teaches surrender, acceptance, and the wisdom that comes only when we release control. Sometimes, karma simply says: Wait. See. Understand.

Death (XIII) — Karmic transformation

Death ends what has outlived its purpose. It’s the natural completion of a karmic story — the moment when the past dissolves so new life can begin. In karmic terms, Death is liberation, not loss.

The Devil (XV) — Karma we create ourselves

The Devil shows entanglement — the cycles of desire, addiction, and illusion that keep us bound. It’s the reminder that we forge our own chains, and the key to freedom lies within. Whenever this card appears, it invites us to stop creating new karma and start unbinding the old.

The Tower (XVI) — Karma as course correction

When we resist growth, the universe sometimes intervenes dramatically. The Tower represents those moments of sudden change that dismantle illusion and force renewal. It’s not cosmic punishment — it’s divine intervention, clearing away what can no longer stand.

The World (XXI) — Karma fulfilled

Here, the cycle completes. The lessons have been learned, the soul has integrated its experiences, and balance has been restored. The World is the joy of completion — the karmic graduation that makes space for a new beginning.

Karmic Echoes in the Minor Arcana

While the Major Arcana show the grand architecture of karmic movement, echoes of those same lessons appear in the Minor cards.

• Ten of Swords — the final reckoning of a mental or verbal pattern.

• Ten of Wands — karmic burdens carried too long.

• Six of Pentacles — the law of giving and receiving, the return of generosity.

• Eight of Cups — walking away from a karmic cycle that has served its purpose.

Each of these cards shows a microcosm of cause and effect — personal moments of realization that mirror the larger soul journey.

The Deeper Message

The Tarot doesn’t show karma as destiny written in stone — it shows movement, opportunity, and awareness. Every card offers a chance to respond consciously, to change course, to balance energy, and to evolve.

When we recognize a “karma card,” we’re not seeing a sentence. We’re seeing a mirror.

And in that mirror, we find both the story of what has been — and the power to write what comes next.

Please feel free to leave questions in the comments section and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of The Kybalion by Dan Adair – A kindle ebook available on Amazon.

The Wheel of Fortune Reversed and Turning it Over

I recently made a decision to start turning some of my problems over to my Higher Powers.  And I found that for me – as a Wiccan who tries to be emotionally and intellectually honest – that was a surprisingly easy decision.

Sometimes life turns into a shit sandwich.  It happens to everyone sooner and later and this was my turn.  Within a period of just a few months I’d lost my beloved life partner to cancer, I was embroiled in a nasty probate process to settle her estate, and the unpaid bills just kept piling up like malevolent imps that had taken up residence on my desk.

In other words, The Wheel of Fortune Reversed.  A prolonged period of bad luck.

I was beat up, beat down, and hung out to dry.  Emotionally and spiritually exhausted, I knew I needed some help from the higher realms to keep walking down my path, and getting to that help turned out to be more of a revelation than I could have anticipated.

The first realization was that I actually trusted my Higher Powers.  I had drifted a long way from the little boy kneeling in a catholic church, being taught that god loved us so much that he let his only son be murdered just to prove it.  My view of the universe no longer included some scary, bipolar, vengeful, patriarchal god who might be equally inclined to toss you into eternal flames or welcome you to heaven, depending on how much you’d prayed and how little you’d masturbated.

Somewhere through the many years I’d lived, my view of Higher Powers had morphed into angels and spirit guides, fairies, elves, and gods and goddesses (with a lower case, “g,”)  who actually loved and cared about us. The face of Jesus, writhing in pain and covered with blood, had been replaced with the smiling, tender faces of Lakshmi and Tara.

It was kind of a shock to me, to tell you the truth.  Despite all of the poison that had been planted in my subconscious mind when I was a child, despite the fact that I was going through a terrible, terrible time in my life, I found that I had unquestionable faith in a loving and nurturing universe.

And that brought along a second, equally powerful revelation:  I can live – for the most part – without the need for a constant cause-and-effect spirituality.  The universe doesn’t always have to be a comfortable place for me to trust it.

Cause-and-effect spirituality is the basis of all organized religions and has a large part in New Age spirituality.   The idea is that if you’re a really, really good person then really good things will happen to you. And if you’re a really, really bad person then really, really bad things will happen to you.  And there’s a lot of truth in that.

But then you look at someone like Donald Trump and you think, “Huh . . . what happened there?  Why has this tangerine colored, demon infested, piece of human excrement who’s never caused anything but misery been blessed with all of this material wealth?”

Or you have a friend who is a kind, loving, wonderful person who lives in poverty and dies an agonizing death and you think, “Huh . . . what happened there?”

As I said, cause-and-effect spirituality appears to be true a lot of the time.  But not always. People have been trying to come up with explanations for why good things happen to rotten people and vice verse since the beginning of human existence.  Maybe it’s karma from past lives. Maybe they forgot to say their prayers or slaughter an ox and two sheep and offer them to god. Maybe they masturbated too much. Who knows?

That’s what The Wheel of Fortune Reversed is really all about.  Shit happens. It doesn’t put any value judgements on it, it doesn’t say shit happened because you were a bad person or you brought it on yourself.  It just quietly observes that shit happens, sooner or later, to all of us.

And that’s a Spiritual Law, just as surely as the Law of Attraction.  It can be scary if you need to view the Universe as a neat and tidy place where everything happens for a reason, the good are rewarded, and the evil are punished.  Or it can be a strong motivator to deepen your spiritual resources and to cultivate your inner strength and resilience BEFORE it happens. As The Desiderata says, “Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.”