Tarot Reading and Psychic Insights: Exploring Divination, Universal Wisdom, and Spiritual Transformation with Marv Machura

In this podcast episode, we explore the world of tarot reading and psychic abilities with expert practitioner Marv Machura. 

Marv discusses his unique approach to interpreting tarot cards, which is based on universal wisdom, symbolism, and his personal experiences as a writer, performer, and retired educator. 

He shares deep insights into the power of divination, the importance of ethical psychic practices, and the significance of aligning with universal laws. 

We explore the symbolic language of tarot cards, their connection to the cosmos and the psyche, and the responsibilities of using such mythopoetic power. 

Marv also provides valuable advice for beginners who want to explore the mystical realms while maintaining authenticity and integrity. 

His guidance offers an enlightening perspective on spirituality, self-discovery, and navigating life’s challenges through the lens of tarot and psychic intuition.

You can connect with Marv and obtain a reading here: https://marvmachura.com/

Transcript

PMD: 0:27

Our guest today is someone whose life has been marked by artistic expression, intuitive abilities, and a passion for teaching and transforming lives. Marv Machura wears many hats. He's a writer practicing psychic, performer, and retired educator with over 35 years of experience as a student centered classroom teacher. Marv's psychic journey began at a young age when his grandfather opened his eyes to the world of vibrational energy by teaching him how to find underground water sources using a willow branch. And from there, he discovered he could see into the future using a regular deck of cards, eventually transitioning to the tarot as a professional psychic reader. In the artistic realm, Marv is a prolific singer songwriter and engaging live performer. Known as a neo folk artist of Western Canada, he has released four CDs over his 40 plus year music career, performing for thousands at events, festivals and concerts. His recently published poetry collection, entitled Wonder, explores those transcendental moments of miracle and clarity. But perhaps most notably, Marv dedicated over three decades to educating and positively impacting the lives of thousands of students. He has presented at numerous conferences and published works on teaching, media ecology and the transformative nature of the classroom experience. A true renaissance man. Marv joins us today from his home in Vernon, British Columbia, where he lives with his life partner, Brenda, their cat, Nihatik, and dog, Cherie Amour. And from the verdant valleys of Vernon, British Columbia, emerges the thread spun of many strands, writer, musician, teacher, and most enigmatic of all psychic channel to the luminous depths. Marv, welcome to the Transcendent Minds podcast.

MM: 2:40

Thank you so much, Peter. Honor to be here. You are most welcome. There's a chronicle of mystery and enigma speak to us of your earliest awakenings of the unseen worlds, because how did your grandfather's humble willow first attune your spirit to the vibrational whisperings pulsing through land and seed? Yes, it was a very visceral experience when you first feel that pull downward of the branch, and you are a conduit of the energy that is there in a water supply and it's a century, God knows how long mankind has learned about this, or humankind, I should say, and you just feel a clear channel. And from that moment that I first felt that vibration and then get the confirmation from my Guido or Ukrainian grandfather was transformational moment for me. And it was direction setting for up until this day it's the spark that ignited a feeling for the unseen, the unexplained magical power of the universe, if you will. The family that he was from and my mom is too, they lived more closely to the land and the metaphysical vibrations that are there as they weren't separated from it. So like back on the farm, they came to Canada as Ukrainian, more or less peasants, they were educated to a point, but not intellectuals by any stretch. They were farmers. They were people, peasants, if you will. They just lived that way. They didn't question it. Like my Guido was very nonchalant about all of his power. He'd just say, yeah, there's water down there, eight feet, good water. How do you do that? Yeah. I don't know. Like he'd just. Just done. And so I was, very blessed to experience that and carry on in my life with a very blessed purpose, and being aware of those vibrations. Yeah.

PMD: 4:39

The affinity to the land, the, compatibility of alignment between nature and the human, like the shepherd who wanders with his flock, but, guides them and let them be guided by them. And they have a different kind of education, a different kind of sense about the natural worlds that are not steeped in the halls of academia. But in the practicalities of their existence, in the practical application, and that's a very different kind of education. Cause I think we tend to see education in terms of, it's the PhD or the doctorate or whatever that may be, but there is a different kind of education.

MM: 5:29

And it's great to have that too. But if you have to decide to, like I would be the last person to say that my university degrees and stuff were worthless. They were not. I was very much transformed by the power of formal education and again, becoming an educator I know that I've seen miracles happen in my classroom daily almost, what the power, the magical transformational power that can happen in that short period of time in that drama, you'd say of a classroom.

PMD: 6:01

What potent magic lit the spark of second sight in your young mind and unsealing your inner eyes to the arcane knowledge woven into something as simple as a deck of cards.

MM: 6:18

Yeah. Yeah. It was always there for me, in my earliest memories, which go back to at least I was maybe three or when I became a consciously aware of myself, wherever that date would be. And pretty young, for me and I would have the ability to take myself out of the situation and go somewhere else. I didn't know it was called astral travel and I thought everybody could do that. But I could do that as long as I can remember. And also for me, I think what really maybe part of that too, at a very young age I realized that we're mortal. And that doesn't happen for a lot of people, some people never, they never engage with that thought that you're going to die. Life is a very short period of time and it doesn't go backwards. It goes only forward. But for me, it was a maybe grade one or two when I realized, I remember distinctly after Christmas holidays in school and I thought it's over. It's not coming back. I can't do it again. And even from that moment I had that inkling that, yeah, life is very special and you've got to make the most of each moment. And I was also very prayerful kid, I guess you could say, always the universe talked to me and I'd listen and be open to ideas that would just come to me and to those moments of wonder and mystery that I think all children have them, but as we grow older, we lose them. I can still remember seeing my daughter. She was on the swing set and, swirling around at the swings. She was like about that age. I just looked at her. I remember doing that. And when you just have this moment of clarity where you're not there, but the universe, the vibrations are all in harmony, those moments of wonder. And they come to, I think all children especially children that are in horrible situations, which is of course happens sometimes, but if they're secure and they're loved and they can have those moments more carefully. Those are between the person and the universe. I think the universe speaks to them for just for them, just for all of us. And it still does when we're older, but we tend to tune it out. And we lose those moments of clarity and transcendence. Unfortunately, but I think my life is all about those moments that come and you can't sustain them. There's no way you can sustain that moment. I don't think maybe some people can, but I believe you've got to collect that moment. Okay. It's done. It's over. Cause then life carries on in its own way. Like the way we're programmed or just stuck in this This particular plane of existence. You go out of it, but you come back and then you you carry on, but you got to collect those moments of wonder carry on and to keep believing and having strong faith in your life and the power that is incomprehensible around us. And we're so special it's such a great gift to be human in spite of all the suffering and pain and anguish and whatever comes to that way. It's a very special place, this earth.

PMD: 9:18

Yeah, life is a moment by moment affair and you're right. We can't have our time twice. Maybe not in this lifetime. But your odyssey traces what seems to be an unbroken current back to primordial root sources and the Tarot itself is a river of symbols flowing through many centuries untold. How did you first drink from these eternal waters?

MM: 9:49

In my twenties, I started researching it in the library and back in those days you had to go to the library. I remember those. Yeah, I know. I was a library guy. I was, always picking up books and being a teacher was great too because we had a beautiful library at the college, and, so that's where it started from those sources. I guess I was aware of them but when you read a book that resonates with you too, and you think this is really something, and books have that ability to change your world, to transform you, and certainly, that's where it came. Just doing it in trying it out, like I'm never afraid of trying new stuff. And I still remember the first card reading I gave and I was amazed as the person was really by the impact that I had on them and what I felt with engaging in that kind of dousing, if you will. My life carried on, I'm a teacher, I'm a father, all those things. I wasn't doing that too much, just friends and family and parties and keeping my toes in it, but not full immersion until a few years ago and the story goes I was playing at the farmer's market during COVID because that's the only place you could play music live. Everything else was shut down. And the thought occurred to me, I thought, yeah, I can make a little bit of money here by reading some cards, and I haven't looked back from that moment. The idea just bothered me. And as I got approval to do it and I just walked into Cole's bookstore. It's a normal bookstore here in Canada, nothing special It's not esoteric and just walk down to the metaphysics sections and picked up this particular deck for whatever reason, the Toth Tarot. And it's a newer deck, but I think it's going to be enduring. And this deck had inspired my book. And I'm writing another book on it too, that goes into a deep dive into it. The artist, Renaldo Lecter, I've had contact with her, and I've got permission to use her cards and she's an amazing, deep person, like it's just almost like supernatural but she's put so much into this card deck, and I started learning about the Tarot and of course the Rider Waithe deck and all the other decks that are out there. It's crazy nowadays how many there are, but not all of them will be enduring of course, but I believe this one will be. I hope so anyway, and maybe in my small part I'll keep it going that way too, but this deck was based on the Toth deck that Alistair Crowley and Harris built in the early 1930s or something like that. It was only published in the 70s and still pretty popular. It's one of the most popular. What they consider the main three or four of them. But she used that deck and took it to another level for the new age. Cause Crowley believed that the old deck with the King was not appropriate for the new millennium that was starting, where it was not to do the King's will, but to do your own will more to find your own way. And so in his deck, there is no King. That's one of the main differences. The King is replaced by a knight. But it has the same sort of meaning and I believe the tarot has evolved over time. I don't think there was always kings. Maybe there was pharaohs in the tarot. And I just recently met another psychic at one of the fairs. She's from Mexico and she showed me the man deck. That's an old deck. It's 22 cards. 22 trump cards. Just a little different, and she uses that Mayan deck, which I'd never seen before. I was quite surprised. So who knows how far this goes back. This book of graphical information about the human condition, 78 cards that teaches us about what it means to be human in our relationship to the universe, and it's got numbers and it's got astrology. It's a combination of a lot of things in my study too. I'm getting into the Kabbalist thought and feeling and the tarot is 22 letters in the Jewish alphabet, 22 cards in the major arcana. There's so many parallels.

PMD: 13:38

You've got sacred geometry in there

MM: 13:40

sacred geometry. Yeah. The tree of life and all that.

PMD: 13:42

If you add up seven and eight, 78, that's six, which is looking out into life and, going out into life and so all is within all and this is what I mean about getting a true education. So I think tarot is part of a true education. We've reduced it to its lowest common denominator, rather than its highest common factor like a lot of these arts, you mentioned astrology to someone. They go, they dismiss it immediately. I cannot understand why, because people, they only think of your sun sign in your horoscope and are you a Leo? Oh, that means you like territory. Are you a Scorpio? Oh, that means you've got a maligned press. Distinct from understanding thing the astrological fermentation of each sign and funny enough, it's 12, they used to have 12 members, they still do in a jury, and they used to pick one from each sign. When you start to look at it from a kaleidoscopic lens all these things merge into one another. They're all part of universal laws. Were there any initiations that carved the channel through which your gift could come through in this art and be a guide for the soul seekers of our modern age?

MM: 15:05

I suppose it's a combination of things. I can't point to a single event that would be the awakening, so to speak, but there's been a lot of different awakenings in my life that have led me to where I am today. For sure, the work that I did with education and the transformational nature of classroom learning is very much a part of who I am and it'll never change that. I was never happy as a teacher just following the rules and teaching the curriculum. I wanted to see that awakening in all my students to higher vibrations, if you will, or to learn, because, as I say, like I used to tell my students, if you come in the classroom and you leave the classroom the same as you came in, I haven't done anything. I always say I can't teach you anything I can help you learn. I think maybe, yeah that, that would be the highest moment, and I didn't plan to be a teacher. Again that's something that just came out of the blue. I was going to be a performer. I was just going to be a musician. But one day I woke up after I got my arts degree and I just decided to apply the university to an education. I. I still can't explain why I did it, but I started into an after degree program. And the first time I got in a classroom, I realized I felt very at home there. And I felt I had, this is where I belong.

PMD: 16:19

Yeah. You're here to teach. You're here to that's what you've come to do. That's part of your soul's subpoena.

MM: 16:24

I think so. I'm very blessed. I'd be the last person to say I wasn't, but maybe, things happen. Everything happens for a reason. I guess that's what it is and I'm just grateful to be here and be with you too, right now and sharing this moment. Yeah.

PMD: 16:38

Thank you so much for the book, the five card pentagram tarot. Thank you. In bearing your life's journey through the pages of this book. What are some of the dearest visions and hard won wisdoms did you hope to impart?

MM: 16:55

The basic one is that you're not alone that you have a spirit, if you will, God be with you, the universe be with you, you are a child of God, you're a child of the universe. I know God, those are loaded terms and Allah, the one. In the Jewish Kabbalah they can't put a word to it's Keter, but it's the incomprehensible, but I'd say that's my most important thing to listen to the stars listen, take some time to engage and don't wonder all alone. We're not meant to be alone. And as Bob Dylan said you got to serve somebody serve, if you will, the universe, serve the good make your life worthwhile. And that is worthwhile in terms of helping people you. Like John Denver said at best, my understanding comes from the understanding that you are gift to me and that we're not here to be against each other. We're here to help each other forward. I hope that comes through strongly and all the conflicts that you have a reason and there's always a way out of it and a way forward. And most importantly don't hate your life. Don't hate don't find reasons to be angry at God. Let's say you're angry at the universe. Look at life from that lens. Because it's not a, it's not a positive lens and that's a sideways path that a lot of people take and wind up wasting their time in that kind of zone where they're comparing themselves with others and, either being arrogant or being vain or being sad because of that, because some have more, some have less. Charles M. Schultz says, be yourself. Everyone else has already taken, you have your special path. That's the overriding thing I would like people to get out of my book. And I believe again, like with using metaphysics too, to engage with the tarot, to find a pathway forward for problems that are going to come up and learn more about the human condition. From my perspective, a self help book using the tarot cards as a guide to what you need to do to go forward in your life and get around problems. I think that's why the tarot works so well as a divinatory medium like a willow stick, which finds water. It there's so much of the human condition in the 78 cards, that the metaphysical vibrations could pull the card that you need at that moment to tell you it's either warning you to stop doing something or encouraging go forward in terms of your spirit, your health your possessions, your material wealth, your material wellness, your mental wellness, and your emotional wellness. It's not there to hurt you. It's there to help you forward.

PMD: 19:39

And can you shine a light on the sacred geometry underlying your unique approach to this divinatory practice for those still finding their way down the path? How might this fivefold roadmap best illuminate the wonders that are awaiting?

MM: 19:59

Good question. And I'm still learning about that for sure. It comes from that sacred geometry that we're all connected and every strand, every fiber in that sacred geometry is there for a reason. We may not understand it, but we can at least get a glimpse of it and move towards it, towards a deeper understanding of our thread our path in that universe to reconnect with the good matrix, if you will, that's hard to put that way. Sorry, Peter. I don't, I'm still grabbing hold of those, that sacred geometry.

PMD: 20:33

Me too. it's having the commitment to not only lifelong learning about it. But it's also the alignment to that learning so you can start to embody it. It can become part of your basic constitution because then you can amplify that as a beacon and that takes time. It's not a one and done. Okay, I'm going to read about this in a book and, have good storage data and then When somebody asks you, that's not learning, that's just good data storage. Right? And so I think it happens on a cellular and molecular level, as well as an energetic level, when we start to understand more about sacred geometry.

MM: 21:20

Right now, I thought occurred to me, like our ancestors knew that better than we did because they designed their environment very differently than we do around the sacred vibrations of the old cathedrals. I'm just learning about that too, learning and watching Randall Carson, I don't know if you follow him or not, but he's talking about the cathedrals In Europe as channels and set up such a way to that increases our awareness of the sacred vibrations, sacred geometry. They didn't build things just willy nilly and maybe the pyramid builders and the old ancients, even the Romans, like the master builders of the old of our ancestors were much more in tune to that and they designed the temples and their living places to encourage the people to be that way. Actually marshall McLuhan said, we design our buildings and our buildings design us. Another thing I'm interested in is like the Plains Indians of or first nations of Western Canada and they lived in the circle, the round teepee and it was really hard for them to accept a square building as a whole, especially the spiritual people, the medicine men.

PMD: 22:28

You started speaking about architecture. We can even go into could architects build pyramids today? No, they have no idea how they may be getting some idea now they're doing more investigation into it, but you think that was a relationship between the cosmos and the earth, the ethereal and the material. You look at tarot, it's symbology and it's numerology, but those images are gateways to an essence of some kind, whatever that essence may be. And we try and give that some kind of description. Cause I do think when I look at tarot, I think there is a planetary lens. I think there is a creational lens. I think there's a universal lens to look through when reading tarot. So someone could come to you and say, in terms of, I'm having problems in my relationship And then, you might be able to, through the tarot, explain that to them on a material level, what's going on for them, what they may need to do. But then they could lead more into maybe they're not in line with universal laws in their life. So they're getting battered repeatedly to say, Hey, we're tech, we're giving you the cosmic tap to say, get on board with this. But if you don't, we're going to slap you. Yeah. With a Cosmic 2x4!

MM: 24:00

Yeah, that's yeah, that's really opening my mind here, Peter, for sure, that's yeah, it's realigning and, interesting. One of my seekers just the other day, she was sent me a message back. She says, I feel realigned today after the reading.

PMD: 24:14

Yeah.

MM: 24:15

And I didn't know what to think about that, but you've just explained it perfectly. And I wasn't aware that's what I was doing with her, but that's essentially, that's what I do. Yeah as a psychic and the tarot is the helper to realign their their life energies of the universe and our earth here in it,

PMD: 24:35

because your agency has been shaped in such a way that you are able to amplify that alignment and that divinity. The tarot cards are neither here or there.

MM: 24:50

Yeah, that's true.

PMD: 24:51

They are a tool for you to be able to put discernment to work. So that people can get clarity on their situation, but do they get clarity on what I would call a first self level, a material level? Do they get clarity on a second self level, which might be their standards, their foundations, their principles? Or do they get clarity on a spiritual level, on their third self? Does that alignment co mingle with all those three things where we start with the material? If they want to then open up that lens and say, oh, I'm gonna open up the aperture on this one And the more things can come through and that alignment becomes a compatibility of alignment between you as the reader. the cards and the person sitting in front of you. So it's a triadic structure in a sense. Yeah. Oh yeah.

MM: 25:55

Yeah, it is.

PMD: 25:58

Because then that becomes part of their basic constitution. This client, you said, I feel aligned. That means she's embodied it. In other words, her cognition has processed her physiological response to it. Because now she's embodied it, she's embraced it, now part of her way and style, whatever that might be, but part of her mission would be to enact and extend it. That's the ripple effect.

MM: 26:29

It's deep. Yeah, that's

PMD: 26:31

right.

MM: 26:32

For sure. Yeah far beyond just telling fortunes, right? Mind, body, and emotions and mind realignment with that triad for sure. Speaking to you right now, you're blowing my mind because I think it's deeper than that. I I was looking at tarot books and a lot of them were too esoteric and too deep to provide a seeker really good advice. And other ones were too simple. And so I thought, I'm going to write a book in the middle and there's no way I can touch everything about the tarot. But I'll just focus on one reading and the five card reading it's not very common in tarot readers, but what it does is draw one card from each part of the deck. And you have a spirit card and then you arrange them in that five card pentagram shape. And my main reading I do, I can do other kinds of readings, but that's the main one I feel that I'm most comfortable with. And the way you just spoke of it it's a lot more than I thought it was because yeah you're drawing a real balance between all those five elements.

PMD: 27:32

You're using a five fold pentagramic framework. That fivefold pentagramic system you're using, is green, yellow, blue, red, white. And that's also part of our makeup. You've got five fingers. You've got seven holes in your face, two you don't see one, two, three, four, five. So seven is made up of five and two, right? But what you're working with is your five fold system is working with a seven fold government of form, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. In other words, if you jump off the Eiffel Tower, you will die. Okay. That is the government of form that we have. But you are also addressing it through a threefold consciousness.

MM: 28:25

Yes.

PMD: 28:26

What I call the three E. What I mean by the three E is like conscious, semi-conscious unconscious, and the stem is the spine, right? So you've got the fivefold pentagram with a sevenfold government of form addressing a threefold potentiality of conscious, semi conscious and unconscious. Yes. It's what Jung says, making the unconscious conscious.

MM: 29:00

Peter, I'm glad we're taping this, because I want to hear this again a few times. That's deep.

PMD: 29:06

This is what springs to mind reading through your book. And as we delve into the depths of your spiritual journey. I'd love for you to share any transformative moment or experience that has deeply impacted your path. Was there a moment where you felt a profound shift in your understanding of yourself and the universe?

MM: 29:28

I feel like I'm in the presence of a great teacher too, which is great here. One time when I was just driving down the road by myself back from my family's cottage, it have a lake in Northern Alberta and I was just driving down the road and I was probably as driving age. So 17, 18 years old, somewhere there. And I was just going around the bend of the highway and all of a sudden I saw the world in a different way. It was like everything's connected and I just left my body while I was driving. And it was just this feeling of wellness and goodness and connection with the universe. And it was a full on moment of wonder. It didn't last very long, but it just came out of nowhere as these moments of wonder do. You can't really when it was over, I was able to analyze it and that was a moment I'll never forget. And I've had similar moments through my life of higher awareness that when you you see that you just leave your body and you realize that it's like a mystic vision. Everything's connected. One great book that I read not that far ago was a black elk speaks. He was a mystic, a first nation, a very famous kind of guy. And he described that to his vision, that we're all together. Everything on this planet is somehow connected in a magical vibration of life. And that moment was similar to what he described to that shaped his life. Gratefully, I had it, I still recall that moment and then stepping back from it and analyzing it. So yeah, and that definitely put my life on the trajectory that it still was on. Yeah. That moment of wonder and magic that came when I was driving. I can visually see that road and the way the highway was and yeah.

PMD: 31:20

And you know it's real because I think I told you about my NDE and dreams you get fragments of them and then two or three minutes later, it's gone. I still remember it, which was 18 months ago now. I still remember, I can describe it to you in graphic detail.

MM: 31:43

Yes.

PMD: 31:44

Everything about it and at the time I thought, Oh my gosh, this is a dream. And I remember saying to the nurse, can you give me a piece of paper and a pen? I've got to write this down because I'm going to forget it. Yeah. And I was coming out of the anesthetic and it was like, no, I didn't need to write it down. And I am sure that has shaped my agency in some way. Now it's okay, what do I do with that? And I really don't know what to do with it. All I can do is not try to push the river down the stream. I just need to align and flow with the current. So it takes me into all the different tributaries wherever it takes me, it will take me. So I feel guided by that. And that involves a huge element of trust because what's problematic in our society today below the line is suspicion and antagonism, but above the line is openness and trust. Yeah. So if we can move into the understanding that we are divinely tethered because each of us have has a unique DNA unique fingerprint and so on. There is something unique and precious about each person. So what is the energetic signature of that person? So if we look at someone like Sitting Bull, why was he called Sitting Bull? He wasn't called Fred, because his uncle was called Fred. He was called Sitting Bull because he amplified defiance. The essence that flows through him, probably like when you play music, it flows through you. That was the essence, the stubbornness, the defiance that flowed through him that's what shaped his agency. So I think when we start to understand that we're more than what we are, not only on a planetary level. But also on a creational universal level.

MM: 33:54

Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And understand that everything we do has ripples that carry an energy, like when you say, hi, how are you doing a good, have a good day that has some meaning and carry forward a good energy and the opposite is true too. Like when you curse somebody and give them the hairy eyeball or whatever that energy carries forward just the same. It's best that we avoid at all possible costs, that disruptive energy that we are also capable of generating.

PMD: 34:25

Yeah. You become what you think about and what you think about you become.

MM: 34:29

Affects the river of humanity too. We're in a time where a lot of things are so outta whack, like the way we treat our animals for our food and stuff like that, that, we go on and on with how we've the environmental this thing.

PMD: 34:41

We don't wanna feed that. What we want to feed is the work that we're doing. So I think it's very easy to be hypnotized by all of that and then look at the what's wrong mentality as distinct from the what works mentality. Because the hell aspect of it, not that I believe in the hell, but the hell aspect is like, what can I get? But the heaven aspect is what can I do? What I can do is have these conversations with esteemed people such as yourself, so we can do the holy work. Because yeah, we could wax lyrical about all the different wars going on and nuclear and so on and I'm not immune to it. I'm not saying that I don't recognize it's going on. Of course I do. And I'm not saying that, Oh, I'm living in this illusion of everything is like peace and love and light, man. I'm not living in that illusion. I do keep an eye on what's going on, but at the same time, I don't want to feed it. I don't want to watch the news. I don't want to feed it because it's got a very subtle way of manipulating your psychology. So it drips in and it seeps into your sinews before you know it you're talking about it. You're talking with others about it. But can we talk about the constructive aspects of what being a human being is all about and how we then find the scales and the chords and the harmonies so the orchestra can play something that is harmonic and concordant and has this beautiful sound to it and let that ripple out.

MM: 36:36

That's yeah. Expressed Peter. That's what it's all about. That's exactly.

PMD: 36:44

And in your work as a psychic you have a great opportunity and I would say a responsibility as well when you connect with clients on a deep and personal level, what are some common themes or insights that you find consistently emerged during your readings? Can you shed some light on any recurring patterns you've observed?

MM: 37:12

As we speak right now, the very recurring pattern right now is people being very much bothered by the news bothered by that particular vibration, getting angry and feeling helpless and in the tarot it's the it's the devil card. When you've given up your personal freedom to something that is instilling fear in you and fear is controlling you and driving you into places where you shouldn't be because we're born free. I'm seeing a lot of people that they're not technically addicted to the news, but they can't stop watching and they can't stop feeling fear and it's disrupting their whole vibration. Interesting. Like you just pre seeded this with I don't want to listen to that negative. I don't want to become part of that, that rumble of this dissonance. And I think very wise to people have to pull away from that dissonance and not engage in it to the point of when they feel that they're no longer in control of their life and then it takes over, so that's the most common right now. And I've seen a lot of people that way too, that and I can even relate to myself. I've gone down that rabbit hole too, where you look at all the distant thing that you can get through online nowadays, of course, and it's just it affects your physicality, I, I I limit myself, nowadays I you can't you can't live in fear, you have to decide to be free. You can't be controlled. Yeah. Mainly I can see that their health vibration is that minute they sit down, I can almost tell right away where they're at with that vibration in terms of their health, cause they're not sleeping. And it's very easy for me to know that they comes across pretty clear.

PMD: 39:00

And that's really, the whole aspect of the characterization of the devil card is you become shackled. You become shackled to that fear. That's the nature of it. It wants to recruit you into that dynamic, it's that fear dynamic. Can cause fragmentation and fracture and separation, not unity. That's not its job.

MM: 39:26

No it's the opposite. Yeah.

PMD: 39:27

Yeah. It's the old rule of divide and conquer, where here's the problem. Let's confuse everybody. So people start debating about it and you have all these different opinions. And then, oh, but we can provide you with a solution. So you outsource your sovereignty to something that has caused the problem in the first place.

MM: 39:52

That's right.

PMD: 39:53

It's sinister. Man, it's sinister.

MM: 39:57

It's you don't like when people are lost in the woods, for example. It's not the woods that kills them. It's the fear. It's a fear. That's the fear. I always tell a lot of my clients too, ghosts can't harm you. They can make you harm yourself. And same with the devil's in the tarot card. If I'd showed it to you, the devil's hands are always tied behind his back because he can't hurt you. He makes you hurt yourself. And unfortunately that's a very common theme in our world today.

PMD: 40:23

I think the symbology, let me just see if I can find it

MM: 40:28

I'll see if I got one here. Yeah. Let's compare devils.

PMD: 40:33

What have you got?

MM: 40:34

Here's the Millennium Toth Tarot devil. Wow. And you can see his hands are behind his back. He can't, but there's the figures in front of him that are in his bubbles doing his bidding. Yeah. It's a powerful card. Of course of all these, this particular deck.

PMD: 40:55

This is the one I have.

MM: 40:59

Interesting. Similar, but different. Yeah. his hands are not hurting anybody, but they're. They're holding power and very frightening card again, using the fear method to make people

PMD: 41:11

Again it's not to scare people as such. It's like the death card. People go, Oh, the death card. Yeah. But it's more about the very fact that it's the inability. of the human being to be prized loose from the rock of his culture or her culture or their environment or their customs. You become held in bondage also by your habits and your lusts and your greed.

MM: 41:44

Yeah. You give into them. Yeah. And ego.

PMD: 41:47

You become the victim of your own weaknesses whether it's conscious or unconscious, but you become that victim of your own weaknesses and it's the inability to free oneself from those shackles from the the ring of collective ignorance. Because unless you wise up, unless you start to claim your own sovereignty, then you've outsourced your sovereignty. So I think that we have to think of the inhumanity that is being promulgated in our 21st century. And we can see many instances of that without going down that rabbit hole.

MM: 42:32

Yeah. But certainly the COVID pandemic highly illustrated that for me, the mass psychosis that can happen, the way it was, and it was all based on fear not intelligence and freedom of expression. Those things were cut right off. And again, in any totalitarian system that's how it operates with mass psychosis of the people, I used to always wonder how did Germany, how did these intelligent people who gave us Beethoven and how did they descend into this madness in the world war II and during the COVID pandemic I can see it. And there's a book called The Mass Psychosis. I forget the author, but I read that and it really explained it well. But what can happen to society when it moves from freedom of thought to suppression of thought due to fear and propaganda, the way it happened. I could see it was just an eyelash away from fully engaging my Canadian society, we're tearing apart families and an absolute fear mongering from the media. And, I won't go down this too far, but we had that trucker convoy, the freedom convoy that literally broke apart families. I've lost friends because of it, they were absolutely so fearful of this virus. And anybody who spoke against it was to be slaughtered, to be wiped out. I shouldn't say slaughtered. That's maybe language too inflammatory. They were freezing anybody. A single mother gave 8 donation to the truckers. Our government stepped in with the war measures act and froze her bank account and that's just one example. So you can't feed your kids and we still haven't come to terms with what happened during that time, but hopefully there's going to still be that second thought and realizing how that happened and what damage it cost to what we know as being Canadian and part of the free world.

PMD: 44:27

I appreciate it there are lots of things going on in all of our respective countries in the U. S. It's in Canada about speech about being censored about pronouns about war conspiracy and it goes on that's what I'm saying about not feeding that because if we do feed that then in a way we feed the energy of it. We've become complicit.

MM: 44:52

And it's always been around. It's not going to go away. It's a wake up call for all of us. It's something that we have to deal with and maybe it's one of those mountains we have to climb and we have to get through.

PMD: 45:03

Well and the arising of these things like the convoys, like the farmers, they are a symptom of something that's saying something needs to change. Yeah. When you read into it, you can get into the minutiae of all the politicking of it, but what it's saying is something needs to change. That's the symptom, and it's nature's way, it's a planetary way, a human way of saying, we can no longer accept this. Something needs to change. And if we've got a, protest in Germany with tractors on the freeway, then that's what we're going to do. Because look, the Berlin wall didn't come down through political discourse or mandate. It came about from discussions like this from people in coffee shops. That's the power of it. And that's why I'm saying if we feed that, then we give away our sovereignty. But if we feed the things that we can talk about and the things that where we can exercise our freedom and our sovereignty that allows us to build a different energetic signature

MM: 46:17

Yes, and that's the work. It's the work of every day. Yeah, that's right it's all of us as humans that we deal with I think that's very much part of the human condition

PMD: 46:28

Exactly In terms of, your book introduces a unique perspective on tarot guidebooks, emphasizing a more balanced approach to interpretation. What inspired you to take this approach and what do you hope readers will gain from it?

MM: 46:49

Yeah, good question. What inspired me was the fact that I wasn't seeing that in any other book about the tarot that I was researching and reading. And it was a very organic kind of growth. I rewrote that book at least 10 times, maybe more. I've never gone through so many revisions with a piece of writing in my life and I was using three different editors. My main editor, my daughter she did lovely work, but it was also my wife and my other daughter who read it and just kept giving me things. And I was very open to all kinds of. Criticism and thinking about it and that was the first draft was way bigger and pairing it down and then seeing as organically kept growing, what more and more, what I wanted to get from each card and developing that you've read at the three paragraph essay that goes to one thing. There's a unity there that I really like each card is similar, but different. You defined it very well like it's a little different approach, a holistic approach to humanity or divination'cause there's a tone, if you will. Does that make sense? A tone for each card. There are no bad cards. They're all there for a reason and some of them are more encouraging of you to continue to do what you do and the ones that are encouraging you to make some changes trying to do that too and every card has positives and negatives in it. So I wanted to have that organic feeling. And so when you read that the card that you pulled and you read what I wrote about that card, that would give you what you need at that time and place and moment and it would be something that would stay with you and help you forward. It was not to scare you. It wasn't to please you it was there to help you forward and like I say, I wrote the book, but I feel I was more channeled to write that book and I'm very proud of that book of course. I think it has a potential to help a lot of people in their life. That's not how I started it, to tell you the truth, Peter, I wasn't starting it to be a self-help guidebook, in general about humanity. But that's where it went and I wouldn't change a thing about that book, which is really rare because if you're a writer too, there's always things that you might I don't like that, but it's it's very much, I'd say like a song that that the completion starts, there's nothing discordant about it. In using your words, a whole harmony of viewpoints work together to create that magical song, if you will, that has well, artistic unity. How could we use that word? Of I remember that from university days. A great short story has that artistic unity, every word in it contributes to the theme and I hope that's what my book does.

PMD: 49:31

When the orchestra has come together and they've all got their own instruments and they're separate in one way. But when you tap with your baton they all come together in this unity, and that's what the writer or the soul, that is what you're orchestrating. So what happens is you might write hot, but then you edit cold.

MM: 49:57

Yeah. Hemingway said write drunk, but edit sober. Yeah. That's the truth.

PMD: 50:01

And you bring all those pieces together to produce that harmony because that's what the soul does. It's a semi conductor on behalf of the universe. So you establish this ever ready media there's two way traffic between you and what you're divinely tethered to, and thank God you've held onto that string from your early days, and that flows through you.. Because like you say, I never imagined that I would be a self help guide writing this book. You wouldn't until you start to step into the stream and flow with the current. You may hit a few rocks on the way, but then you shake the drips from your feet and you carry on and you go down the tributaries, it leads you down and this is one of them. which is fantastic because now people are receiving that. You mentioned in your book that each interpretation of the tarot cards reflects a part of yourself. Can you elaborate on how your personal experiences as a teacher, performer, writer, and psychic have influenced your interpretations?

MM: 51:13

Yeah, for sure. I think the most important part is my relationship to the universe and God, if you will, whatever you put it that way and helping people teaching them through examination of their own life and making them move forward to something better, something then they are, when they entered my classroom. Some new thought came into their mind and I feel it's myself as a human being, as a teacher and a psychic that's the unity behind that book. Very much I use that quote from the Max Erbman poem you're a child of the universe. No less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. That resonates for me and hopefully that resonates from the very front of the book to the back of the book. Your life matters. There's a reason for it. Don't lose hope. Don't lose faith. Don't waste your life. Don't wish it away. Act. Engage, don't hate, love, those are what I live my life by and it finds its way into the book in various ways.

PMD: 52:15

I certainly feel that from reading your book and and I also saw that it provided practical advice for preparing for a tarot reading, including the significance of items like silver and stone and liquor, the spirit. Can you explain the symbolism behind these elements and their role in enhancing the divination process?

MM: 52:40

As I say, when you're engaging with divination it's good to have ritual and things like we said earlier, it's maybe not too necessary, but there's a expression in Ukrainian called Treba na Treba, which means what's not necessary is necessary. It doesn't translate exactly, I don't know why I thought of that, but it's, it is necessary to settle your spirit down draw upon the metaphysical vibrations that are around us, much like the willow stick. The liquor is the spirit of life. Again, in Ukrainian culture, for example, it's very important when you enter a home, typically for the first time, they give you a shot of liquor, salt, and bread, like the spirit, the salt of the earth and the substance the bread and the three things there. And like I say, the something stone brings you back to the earth. The silver brings you to the moon color and the spirit is the the vibration between them, the energy level. I call it the three S rule. You should have these things nearby and just to put yourself into the right space and bring down the metaphysical vibrations in that threefold harmonic way that is expressed through those three elements. Yeah. Stone. Silver. Spirit.

PMD: 53:56

Love the symbology of it and the five card pentacle layout is a prominent feature of your book.

MM: 54:03

Yes.

PMD: 54:03

Can you walk us through the significance of this layout and how readers can effectively utilize it in their tarot readings?

MM: 54:12

Very good. Yeah. Pentagram has got a bad rap with the witchcraft stuff that people are afraid of it. They look at the pentagram and that symbol is an ancient symbol that's been misused much like the swastika, it wasn't always a evil symbol. It's twisted that way. And of course the pentagram can be reversed. As children, like we love drawing that star, the universal star, you can sit there and for hours and draw it over and over again, that's a very elemental thing. It releases good energy. It's a protective symbol and a good fortune symbol, ancient as can be. And there's a reason why children love to draw it, because it just releases good positive energy and protective. So when you're engaging in the five card reading, that part of the pentacle comes forward in the reading especially at the intention, like this reading is to give you good fortune, and it's also to protect you from other things that are negative. When you, engage with the five card reading you're getting that, double bonus of all that symbolism and positive energy that the universal five pointed star has and even when I engage with a reading with somebody, I'm seeing this more and more that's what comes through in these five card readings I think more strongly than other things. It comes through what do you need to have good fortune and what do you need to protect yourself from bad fortune? That's something that grew organically out of this book. I just thought I can't talk about every kind of spread. There's way too many layouts, the tarot cards that would make the book a volumous, so I just I'm going to focus on one, one particular spread in the five card spread. I don't know who invented it or whatever, how old it is, but it's not a popular one. It's not the most popular one, but it tells you what you need to know for the close future, not the far future down the road. It's where are you now and what advice can the tarot give you as you travel forward from that reading? The next day and next day onward. It doesn't look at your past It just looks at your where you are right now. What does your spirit need to know? What does your, what is your health, emotion, and mind, and money, and material? You draw one card from each part of the deck, so it's very kind of organic and takes the tarot into where the five parts are. And again, with that ancient meaning of the five card or the pentagram symbol people wear They used to put it on their homes before the days and the witch hunters came, and they'd have an epigram, may your troubles be less and your blessings be more and nothing but happiness come through your door. And even people who practice Wiccan nowadays, of course they, they use the pentacle for that same purpose. Especially the people not taking the left hand path, but the right hand path of magic. It's very similar. You get people who look at the pentagram if they're wearing it around their neck and think, oh, you what's, whoa, what's that? Yeah.

PMD: 57:17

that's the problem is that people go from perception to story to conclusion very quickly as distinct from understanding the foundational reasons why those things existed. What they connected to, what the significance of it was, whether they are historical markers and this is really, I see as part of the devil card part is where you're shackled to that narrative. You're shackled to that narrative and the impressions one has immediately is a witch, a bad omen or whatever descriptive value they give to it as distinct from what is the nature of it unto itself? What is the essence of this symbology? Because most people are symbolically illiterate.

MM: 58:08

Yes, they are. Yeah, for sure. Couldn't agree more.

PMD: 58:13

What advice would you offer to readers who are new to tarot reading and may feel unsure or intimidated by the complexity of the practice? How can they approach it with confidence and openness?

MM: 58:29

The first step is to realize it's not bad. It's not an evil process. The cards are there to help you. They're not there to hurt you or anybody and that would be the number one and unfortunately people who do spiritual work or reading tarot there's a lot of books about witchcraft and you are engaging with something that is scary and you can't give in to that fear and you got to be strong enough to not let yourself be drawn into ego. Those basic things. Yeah. You're not strong enough to stop yourself from going down the rabbit hole that is there in the metaphysical world where you believe that you're doing this on your own you're casting spells or wands and you're doing it that's not how it should work. That's pull you away into very dangerous things. You have to realize that to go back to that Bob Dylan, you got to serve somebody, decide who you're going to serve and you'll serve it with the tarot. And it's the same, anything you can think of, for example you become a priest or something like that, or a nun and you've got a certain power over people and unfortunately a lot of priests, a lot of psychics, a lot of things they use that power in a negative way. And that's very damaging to you. It'll bring you down it's wrong. And of course it's out there nowadays, inside the church that happened and stuff like that and you're closer to, being tempted when you engage this kind of work and believe me that the temptation is real. We're human beings, lead us not into temptation. That's a key part of that. Thy will be done. Not your will. But you have to be strong enough and encourage, in your faith and believe in those words very powerfully and let your ego in there to use it in a positive matter. And unfortunately it has that bad rep and justifiably there are people who abuse that psychic power and all of us all of us to generalize we don't even realize how powerful we are. Like again, when you flip the bird at somebody and really hate them and with that hateful energy it's not good for you. It's not good for the other person. It's not good for the universe.

PMD: 1:00:49

You're outsourcing your power.

MM: 1:00:52

Yeah. Yeah. And those people who in the church who have abused it and people with the tarot have abused it they've introduced a very negative thing to something that is fundamentally wonderful. If my book turns people into how wonderful this is and how it engages like the positive side of life and not to curse somebody, not to send bad energy out to the universe, but to good energy and to be receptive to good energy from the tarot from the five pointed star, get the protection of all that. I'm happy. I'm thrilled if that's what happens they, lose the fear of the tarot and engage with the love and kindness and beauty of the universe what is the greatness of it? We're meant to be part of something. We're meant to be part of a bigger thing. And we're meant to help each other forward. We're a gift to each other, and lose the ego, open yourself to the mystic power of the universe. It's a loving and kind universe. There's a reason for everything. Our lives are very short, but our spirits are forever. If my book helps you in that way forward to realize that it helps your relationship with the higher powers, in that loving, kind generous selfless way I'm very pleased. Unfortunately you do read a lot of metaphysical books that again they're making you believe that somehow you are bringing money to you, whatever it might be or eliminating, and no matter what that's never true. Anyway, does that make sense?

PMD: 1:02:24

You're highlighting a very important point here. Because you're looking at the ethics. of, being a reader

MM: 1:02:30

Yes, and in any kind of psychic work, but either you're leading a congregation or, whether you're reading cards at a farmer's market.

PMD: 1:02:38

As we've seen, there are many instances of violations

MM: 1:02:43

or teaching a classroom, teaching, having a family, there's certainly teachers who abuse their power. You put somebody in power, give them power. It's very dangerous for your soul.

PMD: 1:02:54

Power and glory mustn't be the main thrust service must be the main thrust and there's a very fine line between manipulation and facilitation, right? And that's where the responsibility and the ethical guidelines that one has whereby you are facilitating an environment where something very clean and pure can come through for that person that they can take almost like a multivitamin, which is very small, but what it can maintain is very large.

MM: 1:03:32

Yes.

PMD: 1:03:33

As distinct from manipulation, whereby you're trying to position your ego on the throne of hubris, it's really important to understand that there is that fine line where it's very easy to slip into abuse and violation unless you have ethical guidelines, standards, principles, and foundations that align you to those universal laws and to the responsibility and accountability that one has oneself. For listeners who may be intrigued by Tarot and other divinatory arts, where would you recommend they begin their exploration? can you share any resources or practices that could serve as a starting point for those interested in delving deeper into these mystical realms.

MM: 1:04:30

Okay. Very good question. Yeah. I would say buy my book because that's what that's all about, but there's lots of sources out there that deal with it. Just start reading and trust your intuition. Trust, that your life matters. Engage in truth and honesty and keep developing your relationship with a loving and kind universe. And travel onward realize that whatever it is that may be troubling you, has a purpose and a reason, and you're a human being, you're free. We don't want a life of leisure and endless comfort. You wouldn't be happy, like as a cow in a fat pasture and that you realize that life is very short, regardless of how good it is or how bad it is. It's really short in the grand scheme of things. And take it day by day and be open to those moments of wonder and mystery and learning that'll happen as you engage with the tarot. You start engaging with it, learn more. Each day you learn more. You never know it all and realize maybe the greatest gift of all, to being open to this mystery of life. Remember life is a mystery to be lived, not to be solved and live it joyfully, happily realize that you belong, that your life matters. There's a purpose to what's happening to you and make the most of each moment Engage. Don't sit back. Engage in being you and, realize people, this, you fail life. You don't let it get you down. You knock it down, get back up again. Carry on.

PMD: 1:06:09

There's a lot of speculation and falsehood that's accrued like barnacles around the pure diamond of what I see is the tarot's essence.

MM: 1:06:20

Yeah. So be careful of that. Yeah.

PMD: 1:06:22

In terms of shattering the misconceptions and fanciful revisionism that have clouded its true face and purpose in terms of separating the chaff from the wheat or the esoteric truths from the exoteric fantasies woven by the profane, what then is captured in the tarot's symbolic language of image and allegory? Do you think these visions are encoded maps of the cosmos and psyche and hieroglyphs of the unseen realms?

MM: 1:06:57

Absolutely said.That's your goal and realize that it's infinite. They say a picture is worth a thousand words with the tarot picture is worth a hundred thousand sometimes, and you've got to see it look at it from that perspective. That it's not a magic recipe. It's not to get all your desires. It's to help you. It's there to teach you about your humanity and transform you into something better than you are right now. Not something worse.

PMD: 1:07:27

What tempering wisdom must one embody to safely wield the Tarot's mythopoetic power as a force for enlightenment as distinct from delusion. Can you share with us some of the virtues and responsibilities? I know you've spoken to it in short.

MM: 1:07:51

Again if the tarot should humble you not aggrandize your ego, it should tell you how little we know as human beings and how infinite the universe really is and how complex our humanity is and if you keep that attitude and an open mind that you don't know it all and you never will, and even divination is never 100 percent. That's an important lesson to. Only God is 100%, let's say, it's tendencies. More accurate. You are the better, of course, but realize that it will never be a hundred percent accurate. I like Michael J. Fox, he said, I do, I strive for excellence I don't strive for perfection. Perfection belongs to God, and that one way to put it, said, I guess too. So that'll be a first fundamental step so that you stay on the right hand path, not the left hand path of using it for negative purposes. Realize it's going to help your life forward. It's not going to, it's going to make you a better person, a smarter person. Wiser person. And a more loving and kind person.

PMD: 1:09:01

That's well said.

MM: 1:09:02

Not a evil vindictive person looking for vendetta. and using it for negative energy levels and trying to put curses or hexes on somebody like that.

PMD: 1:09:14

Where can people find you? Where can they buy your book? And thirdly, do you have any parting words?

MM: 1:09:22

You can go to my website universepsychic. com. There's a hyphen between there, or look up Marv Machura. Over the internet with my music, I guess more than psychic powers, but that's there. It's there too, and you can visit my web YouTube channel, I should say, on YouTube, and I have all my videos there, a lot of metaphysical teaching videos too, and a lot of music videos. So you get to know me there and you can always contact me. I'll always answer my emails and now that I've introduced Calendly. You can go to my site and book online reading with me and from anywhere around the world, we can meet up nowadays through the magic that is the internet and we can engage in the tarot reading or a psychic conversation. Please do so if you're interested in engaging with me. it's an honor and a privilege for me to help you forward. So don't feel that you're putting me on at all. It's what I love to do and I encourage you to do it.

PMD: 1:10:18

Do you have any parting words at all?

MM: 1:10:22

Life is good. Life is good. You'll get through make the most of the moments that is your life. It's the miracle and magic that is real. It's not created. It's in you. As Dolly Parton said, the magic's inside you there ain't no crystal ball.

PMD: 1:10:39

To move on to the soul spotlight segment of the show, I'm going to ask you a question and answer it in any way that resonates with you. And the question I have for you is, what song or piece of music resonates with your soul on a deep level and why?

MM: 1:10:58

Country roads, John Denver. One of the most beautiful words in the English language is home. Take me home, country roads. Almost heaven. It's not about West Virginia. And if you look at the details of songs, just simple everyday things that bring us joy. And that's what counts. It's not the big stuff. It's the supper. It's the home. Those moments of wonder, hearing a radio hearing a voice and realizing that those are fleeting things, but they do bring us home and do what you can to build a beautiful home and a beautiful world for yourself. If you're happy going to work and you're happy coming home, you're rich and that's where you should be focusing your life.

PMD: 1:11:38

I want to thank you so much, Marv. I want to extend a heartfelt thank you for gracing us with your presence and sharing your profound insights and wisdom and your gift for illuminating the mysteries of the tarot and spirituality and guiding others on their paths of self discovery. For me is truly remarkable and your words have resonated deeply with me and hopefully for the audience and I trust this inspires them to explore the depths of their own souls and cultivate a greater connection with the universe as they see it. And the wisdom you've shared today will, I have no doubt, will continue to ripple out, touching the lives of many and spreading light and positivity in the world. So I'm immensely grateful for your presence on the Transcendent Minds podcast and for the invaluable contributions you make to the spiritual community. Your unique perspective and compassionate guidance serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration for all who encounter your work. So thank you so much for your generosity in sharing your gifts with the world and I really look forward to continuing to learn from and be inspired by you in the future.

MM: 1:13:01

Wow. so much, Peter. It's a privilege and an honor to meet to be you're a very beautiful spirit and your gifts are very much appreciated. I'm sure you've got a great future ahead of you. Travel on.