Academic Support

Your success is our mission. Whether you’re navigating course materials, looking for study partners, or preparing for certification, we’re here to support your journey every step of the way.

Table of Contents

Student Learning Support

How to access course materials and navigate the platform

The academyofdivination.com website is set up to be easy to navigate, in the hopes that you will never need to read these instructions, and if you ever find you have suggestions that will make your time here easier or more enjoyable, we sincerely hope that you will drop us a note at admin@academyofdivination.com. But in the meantime . . .

The external portion of this site has information about both generalities and specifics of the academy, but also links to help and resources you may find valuable, including our museum of tarot. Additionally, links to various free lessons, both in video and audio format can be found in the footer. We also have workshops and even affordable personalized mentorship if you want an accelerated path of learning directly from experts.

You can log in to the academy and then access your lessons, forums, chat, calendar, and other features of the community. The forums offer you a chance to express your thoughts, research findings, and questions in depth in addition to the workshops and office hours. Here you will find a place to practice the games and exercises at your leisure with other members of the community, find study buddies, and get into more practice groups. Think of this as a table slow-paced ongoing communications center. For faster interaction and more immediate concerns, try the chat (when people are feeling like chatting) or use the messaging system or even email.

Your dashboard has links to most everything you will need on a daily basis. This is the first page you see when you log in, and it is designed to help you get where you want to go—fast. Additional links will allow you to dig deeper into more specific areas when you need to find something specific. Please use the header and footer menus to help you find any of a vast number of resources quickly and easily.

And of course you can always message or email us, come to office hours or workshops, or ask in group if you get lost, stuck, or bored.

Study schedule recommendations and time management tips

All of our courses are designed to let you progress at a relaxed pace that is not so slow that you will be in school forever, but to give you lots of hands-on time with your cards or charts, time to read the textbooks, watch the videos, even take in some of the audio lessons if you like and still make it to practice groups and workshops.

The key to becoming a truly great tarot reader or astrologer is actual time spent practicing. Proper study is imperative, and the quality of the educational material you ingest is the single-most deciding factor in the measure of how thoroughly and quickly you master the metaphysical arts, but hands-on time is where theory meets the real world and becomes a usable skill.

Try to watch the videos available to you first and early in your “week” (whatever day you “start” each week’s instruction). Alternately you can find the practice groups that work best for your schedule and make sure you watch your weekly selection of video lessons a few days before your group(s) so that your mind can process what you have ingested. Give it a few days of rumination and practice so that you are not the kid in class who came unprepared. Read the relevant section in the book(s) that matches what you learn in the videos, and if you ever get behind, relax, breathe, and catch up as you can.

These lessons were designed to let you fluctuate if necessary to adjust for your schedule — but treat this like you would community college, vocational school, or university. You don’t have lifetime access to these lessons just like you don’t spend the rest of your life at university. Your job is to enjoy learning, practice a lot, and gain the skills necessary to far exceed any other tarotistas or modern astrologers — and impress people, so don’t fall behind. Take your studies as seriously as you would if you were paying 50-75k for your education. Your income potential is no less than any standard college education can afford you.

Understanding course progression and prerequisites

These courses progress quickly but thoroughly, and build on the basics of what has come before. No matter how new you are or how many years you have been reading cards or casting charts, we will make you better. It is not the material presented that makes beginners great and transforms already seasoned readers into world-class professionals. It is how carefully you take notes, how deeply you ruminate, and how much you actually pay attention and try things you experience. Anyone can scoff at the lessons of any educational system and end up no better for it, but the beauty of a proper education is its ability to reveal hidden lessons and layers of extra meaning to every student who is diligently paying attention.

The prerequisites are easy to understand: you need an open mind capable of ingesting information and processing basic logic. You need a standard deck of tarot cards or access to astrological software (although that is not required until halfway through the astrology course, and we show you free programs so that you don’t ever have to spend any money on software if you are on a budget). The white books take you through the basic standards of understanding the course material and are deceptively thorough. They are made to seem basic so that they are less intimidating, but you are learning more than you will in dozens of other random books, and secrets not found anywhere else.

The black books cover more in-depth and advanced studies that take you from journeyman to master. The courses flow smoothly from one stage to another as long as you are paying attention and also practicing regularly. But no one jumps in the deep end without understanding how our system of education works. Without mastering the exercises and practicing them regularly, your cards and charts will be little more than memorized formula. Take your time but keep to the schedule as surely as you would in any college. Nothing is rushed, and there are no harsh exams, but if you follow along the path you will do well.

Help with specific tarot/astrology concepts or techniques

This is exactly why we have a library of freely accessible audio lessons, live workshops, office hours, and personalized help directly with master readers and study guides. You don’t have to run around buying up books or looking online for random people’s opinions on what this or that means. We are here to help, and you can ask your questions via chat, text, forum, email, or simply speaking up. Use your voice however you want, but be an active member of the community and you will find great support whenever you need it.

Practice & Application Help

Finding and joining practice groups

Upon admittance into the academy you will be contacted to join a practice group that is focused on your level of progress. This is not an exact science as we are asking you to minimally contribute to the needs of the moderators who make these groups possible. They do this as a labor of love, not a six-figure salary, so we ask for your patience in finding groups that fit your skill level and schedule. Please be as flexible as you can. Rest assured that community is the backbone of the academy, and has been since 2009 when Dusty formed his first tarot forums specifically to help readers of the white book get together online and practice together. From this were born the idea of live study groups — something no other author was doing anywhere. Over time, we have developed the basic structure and made these groups as convenient to everyone as much as possible. Still, it all comes down to people: they show up or they do not.

We are always looking for people who want to be in study groups to commit to showing up at a certain time every week for an hour or so, and in that sense, evolve into a group host (it’s a super easy position — with extra benefits) so that other students can come join. If you are interested in this please talk to a moderator. They are eager to help you understand how this all works.

How to give and receive constructive feedback

Hopefully it is obvious that politeness and an openness to other people’s opinions greatly aids your feedback being received positively, but we encourage debate and lively conversations, even when people’s views do not synchronize or align. If you can have genuine respect for others’ views but challenge them to explain why they believe a card means this or that, or how one process is better than another you will do well here. There is not room for boorishness or hatred in the New Age community, but surprisingly there is also no room for superstitions, crackpot theories, or unfounded formulas that fall apart when scrutinized with basic scientific principles. It is better to call out (politely if you can) bullshit and wishful thinking than it is to give everyone a participation trophy for showing up and poisoning group dynamics with rancid information. Stay strong, but do try to be fair. In a worst case scenario let us help you find a more intelligent group should all else fail. No one should have to suffer fools lightly. We are all here to master metaphysics and get real-world (tangible) results, not stroke our egos that we are magical unicorns.

Overcoming reading anxiety or confidence issues

Confidence comes from various sources. Practice helps and it is considered the most reliable and safe route. Some people possess confidence naturally, but a careful process of understanding the material and cautious delivery of findings is the surest, fastest, and safest way of establishing a healthy confidence that delivers consistently reliable results. If you follow the exercises and trust the process and your findings you will experience rapid progress in your confidence and skill levels. Don’t waste time worrying about whether you are “right” or not. If you follow the instruction and practice with others you will easily develop an excellent working relationship with your cards that translates into amazing skills in all areas of tarot. The same holds true for astrology by the way. Don’t try to rush ahead thinking you are too smart for the course materials. The point of education isn’t to hold you back or slow you down — it is to fill in the gaps of your knowledge and transform you into an expert. This process may seem slow if you have tried other avenues of learning before, but these are lifelong skills that can net you hundreds of dollars an hour if you master them. Why would you risk that to skip ahead a few weeks?

Developing intuitive vs. memorized reading skills

All of the exercises and games in the tarot courses have been researched and designed over decades of professional experience to mimic the exact steps you will take in readings. These are bite-sized pieces that allow you to practice and develop your individual skills just as if you were properly using the machines at a “psychic gymnasium.” There is no formula that works in divination, and the only thing you will ever need to memorize are the card position meanings of fixed spreads (e.g. “this happens to me, this happens to you” — or — “whatever card shows up here illustrates what happened yesterday, this card position here shows us what is going on right now, and whatever card ends up in this other card position will reveal what will happen as a result.” This is the easiest way to become a truly powerful intuitive. All of the exercises and games work your “psychic muscles” and sharpen your intuitive abilities.

Practice partner etiquette and guidelines

This should be obvious but let’s set a few ground rules. Please be considerate and polite whenever possible, but do not put up with disrespect or abuse. Immediately message a moderator if you experience harassment or are having difficulty with your study buddy or practice group. While we can’t make anyone study with you, we can try to find alternative people to practice with as people are available and interested. Similarly, your efforts to work with other people’s quirks (as long as they are not annoying, disruptive, or harmful to the group dynamic or your study progress) will go a long way in helping us keep our community self-policing, drama-free, and “rule-free” so we can avoid heavy handed measures that just ruin everyone’s fun.

Recording and tracking your reading progress

The term “tarot journal” is a fancy name for a simple notebook. Usually a “tarot journal” will be a bit more fancy, as metaphysical students throughout history have always enjoyed the ambiance created by fun accouterments. Be that as it may, any digital or paper notepad sufficient for taking notes or recording your findings is more than enough to call your “tarot journal” or workbook. Each of the white and black books have been created to write in, so don’t hesitate to record your ideas and research findings by scribbling in the margins. It is not important to keep track of every spread you cast (as you will be casting thousands of them over the years). What is more important is that you track your ideas and experiences. Write notes you will actually come back to years later, not the details of every spread you cast, or you will be sorely disappointed later. We have seen this over decades of experience with students and professionals. Take notes, write ideas, draw doodles. Question everything and jot down your thoughts as answers. It will all come to you over time. These are the thoughts worth keeping.

Assessment & Certification

Certification requirements and pathways

Our certification is the gold-standard in the industry. The same processes used to determine whether you are qualified to work for an agency are the processes, methods, and techniques we use to test whether you are ready to read for paying clients — only we are far more exacting. We are not a diploma mill and we offer no participation awards. We train you well, and when you are ready, we will prepare you for certification, but ultimately you have to do the work. But don’t worry: if you follow the path and pay attention to your study and practice, you will do exceptionally well when tested. Also, you won’t ever be surprised with tests or exams. Certification is voluntary but well-worth the effort.

How to prepare for assessments or evaluations

We have built into our courses techniques and practice sessions for certification so that you will never approach a test or exam unprepared. You won’t have to undergo the scrutiny of others until you are ready and confident. You will possess the skills to pass before we let you attempt. Just do the work and all will be well. But there are no shortcuts because failing miserably at certification means that one has to spend real time examining what went wrong and actually developing the necessary skills, not just preparing for the next test. We don’t like to “fail” anyone, but we have and we will without hesitation if they are not ready. Just don’t skimp on your practice and study, or skip ahead, and you will be fine.

As to retaking certification. Speak to a moderator about that if and when the time comes. This is a highly personal matter and no one needs to know if you passed certification on the first or third time. That is your business, not other people’s. If you do end up having to retake certification you will find the process different your second time around to eliminate any possibility of or accusation of cheating. Certification is about assessing your strengths and skills, not pressuring you — or handing you a free pass when you are not ready for prime time. But this is not something to worry about. Just pay attention in school and work hard learning. Don’t “study for the test.” Study for your client’s best experience.

Community Integration

How to engage in forums and discussions

This is what makes learning tarot and astrology fun. From a technical standpoint it couldn’t be easier. Simply engage with your moderator or admin as they find you practice groups and study buddies. The rest falls into place easily. As to the forums, chat, workshops, or other community events, just show up and look around. Familiarize yourself with the basic moving parts of it all and if there is an “introduce yourself” section you are welcome to post there.

Please note that people are increasingly busy with family and work every day, so you may get “views,” but you may not get a lot of direct responses. Don’t take this personally. It is just how social media and forums work. The introduction sections are really just opportunities for you to get used to posting at your leisure before jumping in to the more interactive areas — but you are not at all required to post an introduction. You can jump in wherever you are comfortable and share your thoughts or react to others. Just try it and you will be fine. Please also understand that people’s posting in the forums is like anything anywhere online. People have lots of time or no time. They come and go, forget there are forums (or Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn etc.) and go for months without posting and then come back and post once or post up a storm. These areas are here for your convenience but you are never “required” to make posts.

Making connections with fellow students

Making connections with other students, guides, and moderators is actually quite easy and we try to make it as stress-free as possible. Post in the forums, participate in the office hours, workshops, and practice groups by sending a text to the group (a simple hello, or posting a question) gets your name out there and lets people know you exist, are friendly, are serious about your studies, and open to communications. Show up a few times (or more — and more is always better) and people get used to seeing you. You can even speak up in groups or office hours. It really depends on your comfort level. But the more engagement opportunities you provide the sooner (and easier) you will make new friends.

Participating in Academy events and workshops

Check the events calendar or ask any moderator whenever you have questions about how to find and get in on social events or group activities. It really is that simple. We will be offering more and more opportunities as we develop more pathways to socialize and engage, so check the schedule regularly, and pay attention to the news and emails we send informing you of opportunities to engage. Remember that all of this is here for you, so take full advantage of what we have to offer and make your education fun and memorable as well as instructionally effective. We have spent decades building a community for you. You are a welcome member and we look forward to engaging with you.