Nonreading
The next cohort will form on February 15, 2024.
Three years of non-desire
Nonreading is a 3-three-year program divided into 5 modules of learning and wisdom.
17 months of course work in the first module, 2 months of project work in the second module, and 16 months of training the technical, cultural, and discussant aspects of divination.
Nonreading is a course in deconstructing the language of desire. If you experience not being clear in the head, it’s because of desire. You desire to be someone other than you are, you desire to transform, to have better sex, better looks, more money, more gods you can speak to and rely on. In the chain of desire desiring desire, there’s no space for clarity. This is a logical fact.
Nonreading is designed as an entirely original program, insofar as it combines cartomancy and nonduality in order to explore the art of acceptance through the experience of grace, abundance, relaxation, and easy-going. These four states go against any form of desire by default.
Nonreading is a play in how we become aware of the traps of displacement, the aim being the following: We don’t fall for the promise of having our inner god, goddess, drama queen, shadow, or the unconscious fix whatever the conscious self ‘needs’ fixing. We don’t use these concepts as a displacement device. Structuralism is powerful and we all live by virtue of transacting with binary oppositions: rich/poor, beautiful/ugly, enlightened/ignorant. Just think of how many spiritual traditions and cognitive psychology schools promise to displace the second term with the first: ‘Come ye, to get rich, beautiful, and smart’. Yeah, right…
We draw on the traditions of Zen, Dzogchen, Advaita Vedanta, and nonduality à la Bodhidharma, Nagarjuna, Hui Neng, Huang Po, Tsongkhapa, and Nisargadatta.
We don’t just explore in a traditional way what these great masters have figured out about desire. We use cards, language deconstruction, magic, Solomonic magic, and fortunetelling tantra to explore the workings of desire against refashionings of the self and self-empowerment projects.
We use cartomancy to dislodge our habitual patterns of thinking, and we reflect further on how we achieve perfect balance through radical acceptance. Basically what we want is to achieve six impossible things before breakfast, to paraphrase Lewis Carroll’s Queen. Not just belive them – as we don’t dig belief here – but achieve them.
Five modules
The Nonreading program consists of 5 modules over three years.
It’s subscription based ($130 per month) and waitlisted. Contact me for available slots.
The first part focuses on lessons and assignments geared towards achieving perfect clarity.
If you have clarity, you have everything: You can make correct decisions, you can solve problems, and when you solve problems, you have peace of mind.
What it is
Modules 1-2
A pack of 32 lessons delivered bi-monthly in written form on a personalized blog platform designed for a coven (11 people plus me and the Devil). For a peek into the lessons visit the curriculum page.
Assignments. You do the assignments – post them on the blog – and you receive individual feedback for each contribution.
Work with awareness and cards. The lessons take you on a strong path of self-reflection.
Work with sustained vigilance. Shit can possess us, and we’ll make that very clear.
Work with cultivating 4 diamonds: balance, power, diplomacy, and inspiration.
Work with rituals (of creating clay bodies, opening the heart with cards, Solomonic magic, and more).
A graduate project that you craft under supervision that consolidates your understanding of the Nonreading material and demonstrates your skills in creative, magical, didactic and academic undertakings using the principles developed in NonReading (see the description below).
Modules 3-5
Advanced work with the technical aspect of reading cards.
Advanced work with the cultural aspect of cartomancy in a spiritual context.
Table ronde. Group work.
You have the possibility to hop off the wagon anytime, if you decide that brain equilibristics and the Nonreading type of self-inquiry is not for you – though students tend to go all the way.
What it isn’t
Traditional psychotherapy – we are not interested in how your parents fucked you up.
Encouraging you to ‘love yourself’ – we kill the notion of the self, so how can we talk about loving an illusion?
Limiting to standard models – cards create our models, not cognitive psychology or industrialized spirituality.
A saving plan. Nonreading doesn’t ‘save’ you. Nonreading creates a possibility for you to see what’s what; your ‘self’ doesn’t need saving. What it needs is to solidly accept impermanence as the perennial state.
The graduate project
Module 1 finishes with a graduate project, module 2.
There are 4 categories of ideas that you can work within and across. Each contains a number of project proposals.
Creative
Magical
Didactic
Academic
Creative (3 project proposals)
Create your personal grimoire of cards and magic practices and/or nondualist rituals for life with magic.
Make your own deck: Major arcana, full 78, or even a Lenormand type. Create designs for the cards, their backs, and consider types of card stock.
Create illustrations for a set of rituals in connection with 3-4 lessons from the NonReading sequence. This can be in the form of individual images (drawings, paintings, photographs, mixed media) or a form of ‘comic strip’…
Magical (3 project proposals)
Devise a ritual for initiation into a nondualist practice, using ideas from the NonReading sequence, involving cards and other types of texts (cut-ups). The project would consist of such an object or objects, and an instruction manual for their use.
Create and document an altar, dedicated to a root-guru and/or guardian or helping spirits you want to draw on in your continued practice. This can be a modification of and documentation of your current altar. The project would consist of images or videos of the altar itself, plus an account for its creation and use.
Create a sigil, amulet or talisman that will contain and focus the energy you have encountered in the NonReading program. Harness that energy for days when you need it so you can draw on it at will. The project would consist of the object itself, documentation of its making, and a manual or ritual/mantra to accompany its use.
Didactic (3 project proposals)
Create a teaching sequence for use in one of Aradia Academy’s introductory courses in Marseilles Tarot, Lenormand or Playing cards. This should be a series of slides with examples of ways of reading and/or favorite layouts of cards, and may also include a recorded speak-through of these slides. This will be included in a future course as a guest appearance by a Graduate of AA. Q&A session should also be anticipated.
Write a chapter or several of a journal or blog-type log documenting your learning process. The text should be targeted towards a beginner in the arts of cards and magic, and be a form of textbook/teaching material for future AA students.
Create and present a new layout or spread for use in practical card reading at cafés or fairs, or in a private consultation setting. Describe its features and benefits.
Academic (2 project proposals)
Analyze your learning process in the NonReading program. What were the most effective elements that furthered your learning the most, the fastest, the profoundest? What resistances did you have to overcome, and where were they rooted?
Draft an essay for publication in a volume on academic fortunetelling. What would you contribute to such a field, and how? What are the sets of preconceptions that academics have of divination and fortunetelling, and how would you address the skepticism of such an audience? One might also consider questions, such as: Does divination work? If yes, how and why does it work? If no, why do people keep practicing these arts?
Project work development over 2 months
Stage 1
Presentation of your choice of topic above.
You can combine the ideas across (this is in written form on the blog; writing your ideas helps you clarify your goals).
Feedback.
Stage 2
Live session with me to discuss how you go about it. Are there any challenges or limitations you meet? What can we do about them?
Follow up feedback.
Stage 3
Crafting the project.
Final feedback.
Stage 4
Hand in of project.
Graduation: Celebratory congratulations, a handsome diploma, and a magical gift too, courtesy of Aradia Academy.
Trio con brio
After graduation in the NonReading program, there’s the possibility to study further:
Module 1: The technical flair in cartomancy (6 months)
You get to work with the cards of your choice as you please, though we follow a structure (Marseille, Lenormand, Playing cards).
The technical module focuses entirely on consolidating the idea of immediately producing a narrative based on what you see. No philosophy and no tricks. Just working with the cards for the sake of working with the cards.
Module 2: The cultural flair of cartomancy (6 months)
Here we work with the cards following different divination traditions, history, and the cross between nonduality and Western esoteric mystical and wisdom currents.
We’ll also look at ‘art cards’ and other cultural cartomantic manifestations than the classical.
Module 3: The table ronde (6 months)
Here we work with reading cards and sacred texts in a group setting, where several voices and participants come together.
This is the ultimate cartomancy salon.
A story in conversation
Debi Ann Scott to Veronica Chamberlain, talking to each other about what they get out of their Nonreadings:
DEBI ANN: “I’m just so grateful I found her and that she accepted to mentor me in her Nonreadings. It’s the best present I could ever receive. If I died tomorrow, I would feel complete. I will just be the best I can be where I’m at and as I keep learning.”
VERONICA: “How can I explain the lessons from Camelia? I’m in the chair, I must pay attention, I’m captured by all the info she generously shares, she pulls me back from straying, makes me use my brain, calls on my shit, explains it all in detail, and she makes the cards this lively dance. Camelia teaches how to see the language, the story, art, colours, magic, movement, and words emerge from the cards.”
Other voices:
ANN LALLY: “I am amazed at how subtle this transformation has been. It has happened without any effort on my part. Perhaps just the sheer impact of your lessons combined with the cards has catapulted me to a state of satori.”
PIPALUK WEINHOLD ANDERSEN: “Wow. That’s my first thought. This question is a big one, not an easy one, one that makes me feel overwhelmed just by looking at it. One that is confronting right from the start. I like it. a lot.”
DAVID LANE: “Dance has become a source of deep and ineffable joy for me this year. But I would never have made the move from passive fan to active participant without the work we did together in your NonReading program last year.”