JohnsTarot

What does meditation look like in everyday life? In this episode of John’s Tarot, I share how a simple practice helps me find clarity, feel centered, and respond more calmly to life’s challenges. We explore visualization, guided meditation, stillness, mantra, and yoga, along with the “monkey mind”—the chatter that can keep us caught in worries and repetitive thoughts. I share an experience with ch...

In this episode of John’s Tarot, I sit down with Tony, a 22-year-old podcaster from the Czech Republic whose story is about persistence, communication, and refusing to let early difficulties determine what comes next. Tony was born prematurely and faced developmental and learning challenges growing up, including difficulties with reading, writing, mathematics, and speech. He talks openly about str...

Between 1948 and 1950, pilots and other witnesses reported brilliant green fireballs over New Mexico, near some of America’s most sensitive atomic installations. Were they unusual meteors, secret technology, or something else? In this historical mystery, we revisit the sightings, the Cold War fears surrounding them, and Project Twinkle’s attempt to turn eyewitness accounts into measurable evidence...

Prayer does not have to belong to one religion—and it does not have to be complicated. In this episode of John’s Tarot, John shares how a simple daily prayer practice became an important part of his spiritual life and 37 years of sobriety. He reflects on learning to pray through Buddhism, why kneeling helps quiet his ego, and the difference between asking for magical outcomes and asking for direct...

From Prison to Purpose: The Transformation of James Terrence Johnson James Terrence Johnson is not a celebrity or famous author. He is an ordinary man who has traveled an extraordinary road—from incarceration and addiction to sobriety, responsibility, spiritual growth, and service to others. In this conversation, James speaks openly about entering prison as a young man, discovering Kabbalah, numer...

In November 1872, the Mary Celeste left New York carrying Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife Sarah, their young daughter Sophia, and seven crewmen. Weeks later, the ship was discovered drifting in the Atlantic—damaged but still seaworthy, with its lifeboat missing and every person aboard gone. What would persuade an experienced captain to abandon a ship that ultimately survived? In this episode of...

In 2010, after visiting Machu Picchu, I traveled deep into the Peruvian Amazon and was given an unexpected opportunity to participate in a traditional Ayahuasca ceremony. The ceremonial outpost was isolated in the jungle and accessible only by boat. When the boat departed, I remained behind with my guide, Don Onorato, and four additional shamans. I had no idea how overwhelming—or meaningful—the co...

In this episode of John’s Tarot, John speaks with international peace activist, award-winning author, and psychic channel Barbara With. Barbara shares how her journey began with songwriting and spontaneous automatic writing, eventually developing into more than 38 years of intuitive work. She discusses communicating with the Party of Twelve—a group of well-known figures she says are working from t...

On June 30, 1908, something exploded above the remote Siberian wilderness with extraordinary force. The Tunguska event flattened a vast expanse of forest, produced seismic activity detected far beyond the region, and illuminated skies thousands of miles away—yet it left no conventional impact crater. In this episode, John explores the eyewitness accounts, the delayed scientific expeditions, and th...

What do we do when life offers no guarantees? In this episode of John’s Tarot, John reflects on “sitting with uncertainty,” beginning with Chapter 15 of the Tao Te Ching and its image of allowing muddy water to settle until clarity gradually appears. Through experiences from early sobriety, nursing school, professional licensing, working in the ICU during the COVID-19 pandemic, and building John’s...

What does it take to begin again at 50? In this episode of John’s Tarot, John speaks with author and podcaster Pamela Topjian about her remarkable journey through childhood trauma, two abusive marriages, depression, anxiety, and a life-changing emotional breakdown. Pamela describes purchasing a one-way bus ticket and moving halfway across the country at age 50. Although distance alone could not he...

I used some new production techniques on the video version, it would be worth a look on the website. In July 1952, unidentified objects appeared over Washington, D.C.—not only in eyewitness accounts, but on multiple radar systems. Air-traffic controllers tracked unusual targets near restricted areas surrounding the Capitol and White House. Pilots reported mysterious lights, and Air Force intercept...

What happens when an archetype becomes more than something we observe—and we begin participating in its pattern? In this episode of John’s Tarot, I explore the idea of the archetypal field: a psychologically and symbolically charged environment organized around a recurring human pattern. Although “archetypal field” is not a precise term used by Carl Jung, it offers a model for experiences in which...

Where did Tarot come from—and how did a Renaissance card game become a powerful language of symbolism, divination, psychology, and spiritual reflection? In this episode of John’s Tarot, we trace the history of Tarot from the hand-painted Visconti-Sforza decks of 15th-century Italy through Hermetic philosophy, Kabbalah, Éliphas Lévi, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. We then explore how Ar...

Some people touch our lives without ever meeting us. Their words, teachings, and systems reach across decades—or even thousands of years—and help us see ourselves and the world differently. In this episode of John’s Tarot, I reflect on the people and traditions that helped transform my life: Nichiren Daishonin and Buddhism, the ancient wisdom of the I Ching, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob’s program of re...

The Resolute Desk is more than a piece of presidential furniture. It is the surviving legacy of a ship that became trapped in Arctic ice, was abandoned by its crew, recovered by strangers, returned home, dismantled, and ultimately transformed into an enduring symbol of resilience. In this episode of John’s Tarot, we follow the remarkable history of HMS Resolute—from the search for Sir John Frankli...

What is the Tao—and what can an ancient Chinese text teach us about navigating life today? In this episode of John’s Tarot, we step away from Tarot for a little while and explore one of the books that has had a significant influence on the way I understand life: the Tao Te Ching. Traditionally attributed to the mysterious sage Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching has survived for more than two thousand years...

In this episode of John’s Tarot, we take a deeper journey into the relationship between the Kabbalah, the Tree of Life, and Tarot. Rather than approaching the Tree of Life simply as an ancient mystical diagram, we explore it from the bottom upward—from Malkuth, the world of ordinary human experience, toward Kether and greater consciousness. Along the way, the Tree begins to reveal itself as someth...

What is the Kabbalah—and why does the Tree of Life appear so often in modern Tarot? In this episode of JohnsTarot, I take a practical introduction to the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life. I’m not a Kabbalist; I’m a dabbler. My interest is in understanding enough of this ancient symbolic system to see how it became connected with Western esoteric thought and, eventually, the Tarot. We’ll explore the t...

In this final episode of Recovery and Transformation, I look back at a journey that was never deliberately planned as a journey of transformation. Much of it was driven by necessity. Life presented problems, circumstances demanded change, and I had to find ways forward. Across this larger seven-episode series, a progression gradually emerges: “I cannot see.” → “I can see.” → “What am I becoming?”...

What happens when recovery begins to move beyond survival? In Episode 2 of my Transformation Series, I explore the middle stage of transformation—the period when life becomes less about simply maintaining a new structure and more about asking a deeper question: Who am I becoming? I share my own experience of moving through this period of recovery and transformation. Although my life had changed, t...

What happens after addiction? Is recovery simply learning how not to drink or use—or can it become something deeper? In this first episode of Recovery Transformation, I explore the difference between managed recovery and personal transformation through my own experience. For me, sobriety required more than behavior modification. It meant building an entirely new structure for living: working, atte...

During my years working as an ICU nurse, I've watched the substances people use change—and I've also encountered patterns that deeply concern me. In this final episode of Faces of Addiction, I discuss my personal clinical observations involving kratom, polysubstance use, prolonged critical illness, and patients who were extraordinarily difficult to wean from sedation and mechanical ventilation. I...

Faces of Addiction — Episode 3: The Consequences of Addiction | Professional Experiences in the ICU ⚠️ Viewer Advisory: This episode contains frank and graphic discussions of the medical consequences of alcoholism and addiction, including critical illness and death. Some viewers may find these descriptions disturbing. What is the real price of addiction? When I was actively drinking, I understood...

How does addiction take hold of someone's life? In this second episode of the Faces of Addiction series, I share my personal journey into alcoholism and addiction—not as a "drunkalog," but as a reflection on how addiction gradually narrowed my world, distorted my judgment, and consumed my life. Growing up in an alcoholic family, I unknowingly became part of a multi-generational pattern. What began...