After having my tarot book The System of Symbols published in Italy by Spazio Interiore as IL Sistema Dei Simboli, I was interviewed by Mariavittoria Spina of OltreConfine. She has very kindly let me run the interview so that my English speaking audience can enjoy it too.
In this interview you’ll learn how I came to be a tarot reader, more about my life as a psychic, and some of my insights into tarot.
Mariavittoria Spina
A QUEEN OF COINS ON HER WAY TO TAROT
Interview with Toni Allen
By Mariavittoria Spina
Fond of art and photography, Toni Allen is a British astrologer and Tarot reader, internationally known. An expert in Bach Flower Remedies, symbolism, and Vedic numerology, Allen is a natural born psychic medium who has been working as a teacher and lecturer for several schools of Astrology and Tarology for nearly thirty years. Her extraordinary ability in interpreting Tarot meanings, and the originality of her readings, have made her known throughout Europe. As a teacher, she encourages her students to develop a personal approach based on practice, while giving spiritual insights and practical advice, revealing how the 78 Arcana can be seen as symbolic reflections of life and universe.
Toni Allen’s first book, The System of Symbols (translated into Italian as Il sistema dei simboli), is an effective manual for divination, presenting new and inspiring ways of looking at Tarot on the basis of their essential meaning related to numerology and ancient symbolism, despite the many different pictorial representations of the same Cards. Her book offers greater insights to the controversial interpretation of Minor Cards, presenting further advice to experts as well as very practical user-friendly guidelines to beginners.
How did you know about Tarot and Tarot reading?
I first came across Tarot back in the late ‘70’s when I was at college studying photography. My room-mate used Tarot and was always sitting across the room asking the cards questions and then getting excited by the answers. I hadn’t a clue what she was going on about at first. You’ll love to know that she was half Italian. She went home to Italy during the holidays and would come back with amazing stories about a Tarot reader she and her mother regularly visited high up in the mountains. As time went by we would start to see the Italian Tarot reader’s predictions come true and be awe struck at how somebody could possibly know these things that hadn’t happened yet.
My friend would also sometimes sit down and draw the cards; but at the time it was something she had an interest in, and because I naturally experienced many psychic phenomena it wasn’t something I wanted to become involved with.
*****
Note: this text is a translation adapted from the original interview appeared on N. 13 of the Italian publication OltreConfine (OltreConfine. Speciale Tarocchi, Edizioni Spazio Interiore, 2014, pp. 36-47).
REFERENCES
About the original interview see OltreConfine N.13: http://www.oltre-confine.com/ultimo-numero.php
About the Italian publisher Spazio Interiore see: http://www.spaziointeriore.com/
About the Italian translator and interviewer see: http://www.progettovajra.net/
