Talkin' Tarot with Damon Stang

Talkin’ Tarot With is a monthly feature designed to introduce my readers to different tarot readers from our wonderfully diverse community! Each month, I’ll be asking various tarot readers 3 questions about their tarot philosophy and style, plus pointing you to their websites and blogs so that you can learn more about them! I like to hand pick tarot readers that I feel are talented and interesting.

If I had a wish list of tarot readers that I wanted (or needed) to meet, Damon Stang would be at the top of my list. He’s been on my radar for years and it’s not hard to see why.

He’s hip, edgy, charming, clever, funny, and a major force in the New York sacred arts + occult community. In a sea of other readers, this guy stands out. He has that certain je nais se quoi that commands attention. Plus, he’s also a fellow Gemini and we’re born on the same day (although I’m probably old enough to be his mother). How can I resist all that?

He’s been reading for many years and has great skills in divination but also in witchcraft, with an emphasis on Urban Folk Magic. Damon describes his reading style as: “traditional cartomantic prediction, spirit led gnosis, and good old fashioned common sense.” His reading style can be heard here and here (check out that gorgeous South-African accent!).

I’m not the only one gushing. The media has taken note: he’s been featured in The New York Times, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Elle Magazine, Newsweek, The Huffington Post, Witches’ and Pagans Magazine, and The New York Post. With this sort of exciting attention, it’s easy to get a big head but Damon remains down-to-earth and cool-headed. I love that!

Damon calls himself as “a reader of cards and efficacious worker of root, candle, and charm.” I would define him as pure magic.

Bio:

At the age of 12, Stang received his first ‘Lenormand Fortune Telling Cards’ from his grandmother (herself a spiritualist, cartomancer and Ouija Board enthusiast) and quickly worked himself up to becoming a passionate scholar of divination with a special focus on Tarot. He trained at street fairs, among Sangoma’s in the Maluti Mountains of South Africa, and in the New York Botanicas of Brooklyn and the Bronx.

He is a lifelong practitioner of witchcraft and root work and is a celebrated member of the New York City magickal community. Damon believes in the Tarot as a tool of empowerment and transformation and works with his clients to find open roads that bypass obstacles and fatalism.

Damon’s special emphasis is on Urban Folk Magic. He is Magister of Kings County Coven #1 (as featured in the New York Post), an initiate of Lady Rhea, and a member of the Minoan Brotherhood. He is co producer and ritual facilitator of the popular lunar observance series The Witches’ Compass,

At the clients request Damon is also available for magickal remediation or coaching. You can connect with him at Catland Books in Brooklyn, the one-stop ritual shop where all the cool readers go.

More Damon goodness: I love this interview with him over at Queen Conjure Talk.

Follow Damon on Twitter at @revertstar

Check out his fabulous answers to my questions below:

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Q: What is your philosophy about tarot reading?

Damon: I like to approach Tarot as a multidimensional system; variously it’s a game, a book, a set of paintings, an oracle, an allegory, a cultural artifact, and a mystical tool. Each of these aspects excites me equally. Synthesis is the defining principle of my practice. Each reading has a unique quality and calls for a reconfiguration of the energy between client and me as reader. My job is to intuit the correct approach and procedure (a combination code of sorts) to unlock the charm and story imbedded in the 78-layered box of secrets.

I like thinking of Tarot as a device, one that has a form, structure, and a body of variable rules and procedures. These guidelines can be implemented or discarded as the user sees fit. Tarot has pieces, sections, sequences, values, attributions, shortcuts, poles, switches, alarm signals, and helpful user information imbedded right into its structure. Its origins as a game are a significant part of its formidable oracular versatility.

The tarot is a mytho poetic template capable of producing an almost endless number of stories, and yet always, when skillfully worked, will not only produce the story the reader and client inhabit in the present but also where the available story trails are leading. How marvelous!

I love exploring the making and unmaking of patterns that occur in Tarot. The shuffling, cutting, and dealing of the deck, the actual reading itself and also closing the deck, each of these is a crucial step in my process. Our greeting, our conversation, and our farewell, are all a part of our time together as client and reader.

When I handle the cards I allow a sense of history to run through my fingers and my voice. I imagine men and women in taverns, in caravans, in the backrooms of brothels, of high society parlors, solariums, in the drawing room. They pass the cards back and forth – teasingly, forebodingly, furtively, slyly, calmly, reverently. All these people, for whatever reason, asking the questions as old as time, coming to the cards to see what they hold.

Culturally I identify as a witch. Consequently I embrace a modern intuitive approach to my sessions tempered by a more ‘Old Fashioned ” sensibility. I accomplish this with numbers, spiritual signatures, planetary and zodiacal correspondences, mediumship, and cultural associations. This enables me, at the clients request, to recommend and prepare candles, oils or other items to underscore and support the personal work that they are being called on to do. This part of my practice in no shape or form detracts from the strong message of personal empowerment I believe it is my duty to communicate.

Q: How do you feel a client might get the most out of a reading with you?

Damon: I always think it’s a good idea to read my bio before coming to see me. I have a particular style and voice, so I might not be everybody’s cup of tea. However, I ‘m very adaptable as a reader, and generally I aim to asses your comfort levels in the first five minutes of our time together.

The joy of my practice is the array of humanity I am blessed to meet and counsel. My clientele is quite diverse and includes regular neighborhood folk, acclaimed musicians, prominent psychoanalysts, artists, professors, religious initiates, politicians, and other readers ect. Habitually I find myself reading in rooms with lots of bones and candles, sinister knick knacks and such, so visually I think it’s pretty obvious that we are probably not going to be visualizing divine light emanating from our crowns.

I joke.

It is true though; I favor a mood of witchery and spirit conjuration. Don’t worry it’s much cozier than it sounds!

My regular clients know that I like working with questions, it brings focus, however general readings are fine as well. I don’t require preparation from my clients. I would suggest bringing the willingness to listen. Also realize that experience has brought me to a place where timing is crucial. I know exactly what speed to read at, so allow me to gently guide the session along, believe me you will always get your chance to speak.

Currently I offer two live session formats: 30 minutes/ 60 minutes. Here’s how I would break that down, 30 minutes is great for a precise question requiring a concise answer, and 60 minutes is an in depth exploration of possibility and consequence. Although I understand when new clients opt to begin with a 30 min. reading, many end up craving more.

So much information can emerge in the space of an hour that it really is worth the investment. 30 min readings are ideal for maintenance; check ins, and burning questions. People have asked me why I don’t offer longer sessions; honestly I find it dilutes the power of the exchange. Things get fuzzy on the edges; the information begins to lose form and impact. One hour is just right.

I have the privilege of seeing both walk-in and by appointment clients; I enjoy my street traffic clients in a whole different way to my appointments based work. That said, please note: I always recommend booking an appointment, this ensures that I am at my best. I have warmed up my Spirits, I have lit my smoke and candles, I am neither hungry nor thirsty, and when you are settled we begin. When, and if I have time to see a walk-in client I will ask you to wait, this can take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. I have ways and triggers, rituals, of how I like to move my headspace from secular to sacred. One moment I am debating the merits of a viral internet meme with my coworkers, the next I am immersed in the world and Spirits of a total stranger. My regulars all know to book well in advance.

Q: What is your best piece of advice for an aspiring tarot reader?

Damon: I am going to address this question to a young novice, but my advice would remain consistent to a novice of any age group. Learn; learn however you can; books, videos, pamphlets, talks, and seminars. Make it a passion. Especially when you are starting out, don’t disregard one whole entire approach (i.e. Numerology), just because it seems daunting. Give it a shot! Just because people tell you to not read books doesn’t mean they are right. It just means the books did not work for them. Books will not interfere with your intuition. Personally my scholarly adventures into Tarot have often served as wonderful leap into sudden and unexpected revelation.

If books are not your thing, don’t despair. The Tarot is such a wonderful system that it offers it’s reader many choices, and the more of those choices you explore, the closer you will come to working and interpreting the patterns.

If you truly love tarot and feel that for you it is a vocation, a driving force in your life that you feel moved to practice and also share with others. Then find a mentor, somebody who works the cards for at least a reasonable part of their income. Make sure that this person is good and ethical, sane and rational, and as excited about the tarot as you are. Make friends with this person, one of the best ways to do this would be to get a reading from them, if it works out, get another. Express your personal interest in Tarot reading to this person. You will quickly be able to gauge if they are open to mentorship. Whatever happens, learn from this experience. Whenever possible learn about Tarot both as a practice and as a business. The favor of a successful respected reader is gold to the novice. Don’t be pushy though, a service exchange is often ideal in these circumstances. When I was a teenager in Cape Town, South Africa, I would run grocery and laundry errands for my mentor.

You are a beginner so practice! Read for yourself and read for your friends. Also read with the book in your hands (this is only temporary), your clients are going to enjoy the experience so much more when they know you are committed to giving them a good reading based in a verifiable cultural tradition. Being a beginner is such an exciting place to be, every card is a fresh discovery.

If this is your path, you will find the road opening beneath your feet, leading you ever forwards, your knapsack slung over your shoulder, head tilted toward the limitless sky.

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Fist bumps to Damon for taking time to chit-chat with me about tarot.

If you like Damon’s work as much as I do, get to Catland and get a reading from him today. You can follow him on Twitter at @revertstar

Blessings!

Theresa