Energy Work

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar and Energy Work I want to talk a little about 'energy work' in relationship with the Kadar cards. When working as a performer I always used the context of energy work to elevate my performances into something more genuinely magical. Now I start from the premise that bio-energy fields are very real. However, I am going to look at this on three levels. The first will be aimed at the magician with no interest in the validity of such claims. The third will be from the perspective of the reader who may already incorporate energy work into what she does as part of a natural process. The second level will lie in the strange twilight zone between these two extremes. It is my hope that the intelligent reader will find something of use in all three levels, regardless of existing 'beliefs'.

1. The Magicians perspective. On the whole magicians tend to lean to the more sceptical end of the spectrum. Fortunately, this is becoming less of the case and certainly my experience of magicians visiting the Moon is that they are not inflexible thinkers and are genuinely using magic to explore ideas without any preconceptions or biases. But for sake of argument, let us start from the perspective of the 'old school' magician who thinks that magic does not exist (strange I know, but common and recently fashionable too!) Magicians will certainly be aware of the concept of suggestion -after all most of magical performance is based on suggestion. Suggesting that the coin has disappeared, that the hat started off devoid of rabbit and Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

that the card selected was freely chosen'. However, in the deceptive case of magic the magician is normally suggesting something that is not true. For such a performer, the suggestion of energy fields may well fall into the category of a false reality being suggested. This is fine, as here we are in the context of entertainment. The magician's aim is not to prove the metaphysical, but to entertain people. So we work from this perspective first.

Performance: The magician divides the pack into two - a pack containing just the Kadar Cabinets; a pack containing the number cards. He lays the court cards out face up - a random and rather chaotic spread - and asks the sitter to hold her hand over the cards and move her hand over each individual card. He suggests that she will feel energy coming from a certain area. She is to keep quiet and keep focused as she does this but to allow her hand to stop moving and nod when she feels something. She does so... What is happening here? First of all the idea that energy is being transmitted from the cards is suggested to her. The magician's words are framing her reality. Thought about logically, this would appear ridiculous - of course inert card does not radiate energy (which I think to be the case!). However, she is in a different context now. She is in the magician's world, not her own. By agreeing to help; she has agreed to an unspoken contract - to play by the magician's rules and to accept his reality. If the magician is competent, he will have an air of authority. He is the expert and master of the world that the audience have stepped into. There is no doubt that what he says is the current reality. He has done this many times before, and he knows the rules of his own universe - he knows that what he says is true - he says the cards radiate energy,

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

because they do! Because of this authority, everyone else has no choice but to 'fall in line'. Secondly, he negates the audiences critical faculty. This critical faculty is located in conscious reasoning. It takes data coming in and assesses it against their previous belief system (what they will call 'reality'). This critical, conscious thinking is largely language based and is expressed in words. So effectively the magician tells the audience to 'shut up'. This dampens down the critical faculty and allows them to accept the new reality that the magician is presenting to them. They cannot argue back, but more importantly, they have their ability to think logically repressed as well. Something else is happening too. Take this from the point of view of the audience member. She is told that she is now in a new realty, one where cards transmit power of some sort. She has been told that she cannot argue against this (as it is not part of the performance / her current reality). But she is in another reality; one of being a performer herself! It is she who is the centre of attention now - it is her performance. Unless the magician is inept or presents himself with too much ego (which, incidentally is the same thing), the audience member will accept the mantle of being the performer herself - in short, she will have a psychological predisposition for the routine to succeed. Let us take the 'worst case scenario' - her hand is hovering over the cards and she feels nothing at all! In this situation, what is she to do? She has been told that she cannot talk. These is no way out for her other than to comply! She will make her hand stop and she will nod, there is no other viable course of action open to her. But we do want her to feel experience something authentic! The magician has told her that she will feel something but he has not alluded to what that 'something' actually is; he has not been specific. In fact quiet the opposite he has said ' I do not know how you will feel this energy, some people feel warmth, some feel a sort of cool breeze, some a tingling some feel something quite different'. What is happening here? Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

First of all he is reinforcing the suggestion- he seems to be more specific (i.e. more convincing) about this suggestion, quite the opposite is true. 'Now he is telling me exactly what I am going to be feeling' the audience member thinks (on some level). He is doing quite the opposite. Furthermore, the magician is allowing for any phenomena to seem relevant. The subject's hand starts to tingle (because she has been holding it out for some time), she imagines her hand getting hotter/cooler/heavier etc. - perhaps it is! Any psychological or physical phenomena that occurs will be written into the script by her. Try this for yourself - I have embedded certain key words into this sentence that will cause a profound change to your body mind connection (I could tell you how in a very convincing way!) - now just close your eyes and relax, concentrate on your non-dominant hand. Do not think about anything else. If you were to do this exercise (it is a pity that you didn't!) before long you would have felt something - this is because our perceptions change all of the time, also our body is constantly throwing up strange, imperceptible sensations. Imperceptible until we focus on them of course. Then they do become part of our conscious awareness. Had I done my job correctly, I would have provided you with a context to put these new perception into; i.e. 'I' had caused them. In our worse case scenario, the audience member actually felt nothing then she complies - as there is no other course of action - but she does not comply on a conscious level. She does not think consciously; 'ok, I had better nod, or we will be here all night!' - she realises subconsciously that she is expected to do something. Therefore when she does nod and sees that her hand has stopped moving she will begin to rewrite the experience to fit it into the context that you have given her. He hand did stop moving, she can feel this. She knows that she did nod. Why did she do these two things? Well, there is only one plausible answer; she must have felt something! This is then how she will remember it. Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

However, this is the ‘worst case scenario’, in most cases the sitter will actually feel something, I can guarantee it. In the end, the remembered result is the same. So the sitter nods The magician clears away the cards that are not immediately under her hand, leaving the ones that are ‘transmitting energy'. 'Can you still feel the energy?' She nods again (in the rare case that she does not, just replace one or two of the discarded cards and simply say 'Good, now we can continue.') All the time you are reinforcing this strange reality that she is by now neck-deep in. 'I think you already know the exact card that is giving off most of the energy, yet I feel that you are not totally sure as there is energy coming off one or more of the other cards too....' She will agree with this, as this is what she is experiencing. However, I want to take a short detour here, to look briefly at another important principle. Let us say that she is not experiencing anything at all. She is still compliant under her oath of silence (you have not told her to speak yet - and if she has, you have put your forefinger to your pursed lips). So she will not say 'Nope, cannot feel anything buddy!' This silence will be understood a different way by the audience. As you are the only person giving verbal information, everyone else will accept that what you are saying is what is happening. This is reinforced by the visual evidence of them seeing her hand stop moving. You then continue by asking her to let her hand stop over the particular card that is giving off the most energy. She does, and you have your selected card.

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

One thing to note here - this is a more powerful way of getting the sitter to chose the most relevant card for the reading. This is because she is not choosing it rationally, she is not choosing the card because she likes the colours or the image, or the face on the character reminds her of someone - at least if she is, she is less conscious of this process. So she is more likely to instinctively choose a card that is more resonant for the reading.

She then selects three cards; one to signify her past, one for her present and one for her possible future. You may employ the same methodology to choose these, or speed things up by letting her shuffle and deal; to let synchronicity choose. Or she may have chosen them herself as per the script in the Kadar book. These cards are now in a row, face down. Now we are in the magician's mind set here and the deceptive fellow has marked the cards! He knows what the cards are ahead of time, but the sitter does not know that he knows. God may slap his wrists later, but for now - he is safe. Now we come to the second use of Energy Work. I will pay no attention to the cards - I will not even look at them at this stage. At this stage I will not know what the marks are. I will ask her to hold her hand out - flat, relaxed and palm downward. I will tell her that I am now 'going to do something strange' and that she will feel something 'quite odd', that it may surprise and even unsettle her at first, but that it is perfectly safe. I will then ask if she is happy for me to continue (i.e. I ask for her compliance to the process. To the subconscious it is almost as if you had said 'Are you happy to play along with this?').

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Again, from the perspective of our sceptical magician, we have suggested a potentially powerful, but unspecified experience. We have aroused the expectation of the unknown in the audience member -she is now ready for the miracle that we will demonstrate. I will them bring my hands up and place one over the top of the back of her hand, the other under her palm, sandwiching her hand - but not touching her - in fact my hands start a good 6 or 7 inches away. I now imagine a sort of invisible balloon surrounding her hand, this is her personal energy field. At this stage, I do not know how big this field is so I will bring my hands in and bounce them back now and then. I am genuinely feeling for this energy field. However, the more sceptical magician can 'fake it' and use this as a piece of theatre. When I feel some sort of faint resistance, this will be accompanied by an intensification of my focus. My hands will be bouncing very slightly on the parameters of this energy field. As I am a sneaky magician, this give me all the time in the word to look at the marks on the cards! The heat is totally off the cards at this point, no one is even aware that they are still there! When I 'feel' the parameters of her energy I will look her directly in the eye and say 'There! you can feel that?' Now, in all the years that I have been performing these ideas, I have never had anyone say ‘no’. The worse reaction is to have someone look back confused. They may well be thinking 'What the hell is he taking about?' but to the audience this looks like curiosity - she is feeling something, she does not know what it is! If this is the case, there is a sort of feedback loop and the audience member herself will be convinced that she is feeling something eventually. I will then use what I know from the markings on the card with the energy work that I am engaged in. Let me explain what I mean. The card on the table is a 3S Spades. The spades are a cold suit, the three is a low energy number. So I may say something like.... 'I am feeling some cold energy here - can you feel this, it is like a very faint cold breeze, or tingle...' Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

If it were a 8 of Hearts I would respond more strongly.... 'Wow, I can feel this one right away! Can you feel that warmth radiating out?' Again I am using my 'authority' and the context of the reality I have created to ensures that she too feels this. Her subconscious talks to her; 'He certainly seems to be picking up something here; a real reaction! What did he say, it was a warm energy....?.. Wait, I can feel it too now! How weird!' Affirmation. Throughout this I will affirm her 'new reality'; 'Strange isn't it?', 'Wow, you can feel that!' I will do this even if I suspect that she is feeling nothing at all, as this will help her to do so. I will now draw her attention back to the cards (by this time I have glimpsed and memorised the markings). 'Can you please hold your hand more over the card, so that we can pick its energy up more clearly?' This of course covers the card from your view. If you are performing competently, the context of the reading is not a ‘magic trick’ - so no one should be suspecting anything anyway. However, it is a little added security - how could you be looking at the back of the card, as her hand is covering it? More importantly, it reinforces the idea that you have no interest in seeing the cards at this stage. Now I will be more specific about the actual meaning of the card - I am interpreting the energy. She has the 3C in the past position. ‘This cold energy we feel here... something happened in the past.. something wilful, cold-hearted. I sense that you feel yourself to be very much the victim of someone else's cruelty in this.‘ (I would then look at 'repairing' this - either by reminding here 'that the good thing about the past is that it is over' - or more effectively, using Mat's idea of balancing the cards. Here, the complementary card - the 7 Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Diamonds - could be the 'energy she takes forward' More on this in another article). She has the 8 of Hearts in her current situation..... 'This warmth I am feeling, this unconditional love, this opening of the heart is happening to you now, am I right?' (of course I am; she has told me!). So we can see how we can use energy work for: ● How the sitter chooses the cards. ● How you 'identify' the cards and their meaning - seemingly not from the cards themselves but from the sitter's energy field. You may be thinking; ‘so why have cards at all?’. Well, for the performer there is the simple mechanic of using the marking to know ahead. Also, the Cards act as a focus for the sitter to arrive at the matter that is the most important to her. The fact that this is chosen instinctively serves to emphasise this 'greater importance'.

The Twilight Zone Let us now look at the next level - the twilight world between magic and genuine reading. When I perform, I have a clear goal in mind. I know what I want to achieve in the reading. As a performer, I am aware that this reading is also a performance. So I am 'flexible' in how I achieve this intended outcome. Therefore, a lot of the time I will use the cards marked. Many readers will see this as a dishonest thing and a 'bad' thing. Professional readers will not, as many will be more than familiar with these techniques! I went through a period of soul searching myself over this. However, let us consider one simple fact here - if you have given an effective reading, then the method by which you achieved this reading Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

is of no consequence to the sitter. Let us look at another simple fact; if you are using successful techniques, it will lead to successful outcomes. What I mean is at the end of the day, the reading will have more meaning for the sitter and will be a more powerful and helpful experience. I have two aims when performing Kadar - the first is to give the audience an interesting experience (for me this includes and experience that challenges their pre-constructed or 'given' reality)… But also I want to entertain them. The second aim is that, in some way, I want to help the sitter. I want them to go away from the experience with a sense of hope brought about by seeing their potentials, rather than their problems. I want them to go away from the experience empowered. I have learnt to use any method at my disposal to achieve this. I have no excuses and no regrets. My ultimate aim is to perform without the safety harness, or the training wheels, or the marked cards. But this is not an immediate goal, it is a process towards a future goal. How many readers must there be out there giving blind and unhelpful readings? How many are there out there who give up because they are not getting results and come to the conclusion that they just are not intuitive enough? How many fail both themselves and their clients because they do not realize that the development of intuition is a process? One day I will leave the marked cards at home - for now they will occasionally accompany me on the road to this ultimate goal, and ensure in the meantime that I do not give inaccurate/damaging readings that could adversely affect my clients. I consider that I find myself in an interesting place. I am not so assured that the adventure has ended, and each reading is a new discovery. I may perform the above routine as the magician would and be aware of the techniques I have presented above. However, there is one big difference. I do believe in what I am saying. Therefore when I am asking the sitter to feel the energy from the cards - I do believe that she has an operating energy system. I do no think that it is in the cards themselves, these are just symbols that activate and direct her energy. Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

However, I do feel that when she feels this energy, that this energy is real. When I put my hands around hers - I am genuinely feeling for her energy. It is there. It takes very little practice for the complete novice to feel this. What is more, I think that suggestion is the vehicle that will take the sitter to a genuine experience. I may have suggested that she feels this energy, yet when she does, I do not see this as some sort of hypnotic phenomena - I know it to be real. So all of these seemingly devious techniques serve a purpose - to get you to the 'real stuff'. If I cannot do something, I fake doing it - 'fake it 'till you make it!'. For me this is a legitimate tool for getting genuine results. If you are a skeptical Magician, there is simply no need for you to follow me down this path of non-conventional thinking. The techniques in the first stage will yield you the results you want in a performance context - i.e. you will still have had a successful performance and you will still have entertained. This is no bad thing! If on the other hand you see these more practical techniques as not fitting in with your current beliefs, there is no compulsion to use them. Thankfully we are in a world that is diverse and from all the information we have, we have the free will to choose that which is useful to us.

Doing it for real. Finally, let us look at the transition to genuine phenomena. This is something that particularly excites me. Let me go back to the reading I performed for my wife's friend. The cards are laid out on the table. I can see the marks and I know what the cards are. I can do a reading now if I wish and the reading will be accurate and helpful - this will make it genuine and authentic! (to me). However, my performance is theatre too - it is not just about the reading Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

itself, it is about the whole experience. So I ask her to hold her hand up. I feel for her energy - there - I have found it! She feels it too - she is surprised - she is predisposed to the reality of such possibilities, but this is the first time she has actually felt it; she has concrete evidence. It is a powerful moment for her. I forget the first card! - Now what the heck was it? I look down and her hand is obscuring my view. This is not a great time to say - 'do you mind moving your hand, so I can see the back of the card?' Now I really need to 'fake it'. But (if the following makes sense) I fake it by not faking it. I look back a her and concentrate on the energy. It feels warm but not too warm - it is a red suit I conclude. 'I am feeling some warmth... I am thinking that the first suit was a red suit, a heart or a diamond.' So nods, and she nods again when I say Diamond - ok; cheap clue! 'It was a diamond wasn't it... ?' She nods enthusiastically. I am not feeling much energy, so I suggest.... 'It is not a high number...?' Again she nods. I already have enough information to do a reading from this - something to do with her material world - low energy. 'I sense you focus here is on the material world. But the energy is low, you are feeling trapped. Ground down by the day to day stuff. You wish to escape, liberate, be more free, but you do not know how to; so many responsibilities holding you back. ' I have not given any specific details, but already she is emotionally moved and a tear is rolling down her cheek. I already know the solutions to her dilemma resides in the complimentary suit of Clubs i.e. she needs to takes risks, be more impulsive and creative. I will let Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

her make these suggestions herself later. However, let us move on as this is not the subject of this essay. Then I come to her future. Now luckily I do remember this card. The Eight of Hearts. I do feel this warmth in her energy field. 'Your future concerns are around your heart and you emotional life.' Again, there is a very strong emotional response that tells me I am in the right track (of course, due to the mechanics of the system I already know this.) I am abut to tell her that everything is wonderful - 8 is a very high number. Then something strange happens, in the warm energy glow I feel something else. A sort of cold sparkly prickling. If I stick to the meaning of the card, I would not be aware of something important that seems to be revealed by her energy field. I just trust my intuition and come out with what is on my mind. 'I do feel great warmth, a real hope for emotional happiness in the future. But there is something else. Can you feel that cold prickling underneath, it is almost as if the warmth is cocooning it; shielding it in some way, like a blanket.' When I ask her if she feels it too, this is not an attempt at suggestion at this point, it is a genuine question. Again I get a strong response, and almost a feeling that she is surprised that I have found something out. She deliberately chose the 8 of Hearts. It reflected her hopes for an emotionally stable future after an emotionally turbulent past. I am reminded that she chose the Jack of Diamonds for 'her card'. The active/practical principle - the 'get out there and get the job done' sort. 'You think “this is the future I have worked bloody hard for. It is what I have planned for and what I deserve”. Yet there is some unsurety too.... This is a person! A person that you are going to be meeting - you do not really know him but you really hope this this time - he is the guy! Yet you have this cold prickliness underneath, you are trying to cover over it and deny it, but it is there.' Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

I will not break client confidentially by talking too much about the detail here, but I was very accurate. Although, she did not have to tell me! I need to say that I did point out that this cold prickliness came form her, from her past experiences and fear of their repetition in the future with the new lover. It does not come from this other person as it is her energy field I am reading not his. She has had experiences in the past with other people that have hurt her. What remains from these experiences help her now - a sense of perspective and ability to not be totally swept off her feet - an ability to look at things objectively too. This will help her in the new relationship. It does not mean that there should be any fear about this new person, she has not met the guy yet. But when she does, she can do so with both an open heart and a sense of objectivity based upon her past experiences. I wish her well with her emotional future and remind her that there is a lot of positive emotional energy ahead. What was interesting to me about this reading is - by accident (and poor memory) at first, that I was forced into a situation of trusting my intuition. It was like learning to ride a bike. I started out with the stabilizers on, confident that I was going to reach my destination and not bump my head or injure any passers by by falling off. Then one of the stabilizers fell off! Instead of stopping the bike I continued to ride it. Although, in truth, one of the little trainer wheels was still on there, I was riding the bike and feeling some form of exhilaration! What is more important, was my own intuition and my own reading of the energy gave me a deeper level of information - information that I would have missed had I stuck rigidly to the meaning of the cards. For me, this is just the start, an indication of the future experiments using energy work. These are early days, but can I move to a position where the cards are placed face down and I have no idea what they are, then I turn to the energy work to discover what I can with about the cards. I see two possible experiments here. Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

I the first one I conduct it as an experiment. I tell the sitter that I am trying to tell what I can about the cards from just reading the energy systems - I tell her that I have not really tried this before and I am unsure of the results - would she like to try this with me? In the second - I do have a back up, I do know what the cards are, but I only use this as a backup, if my intuition fails or goes off course. In either case, I am resolved to trust my intuition more and integrate energy work more into my Kadar readings.

Conclusion. If I were to explore all of the possible conclusions here - the conclusion would be at least as long as the article itself. Here are the mains observations. ● Energy work linked with the Kadar reading is a fascinating field of exploration. Is it possible to use the cards to focus the sitters attention and thereby her energy system? Can we then intuitively read the card from the impressions that we get from her energy system? ● The experience for the sitter is the important thing. ● How you use the Kadar Cards is up to you. One can use them in a magical/performance setting. Or one can use them in a genuine reading setting. However, one should not dismiss the twilight world in between. ● For the Magician, it opens up a word of possibilities for authentic performance of real magic, but from within the safe confines of a predetermined structure.

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

● For the Reader, perhaps you should not dismiss techniques that you would see as not being genuine if they work. Perhaps you should see them as a means to an end, or the stabilizers on your bike. One day you will give readings without them. But you are aware that it is a process that you never get to your destination without a journey. ● For everyone else - you are free from preconceptions - lucky you - go for it!

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course

Kadar Cards Advanced Course