Book Review

Twist Your Fate:

Manifest Success with Astrology & Tarot

by Theresa Reed

Publisher: Weiser Books

272 pages

Release Date: August 1, 2022

 

 

 

 

I kid you not, this book – Twist Your Fate: Manifest Success with Astrology & Tarot by Theresa Reed, and published by Weiser Books – has sat on my desk for at least four months. I did start reading it back before – gee, was it Samhain? – I honestly do not remember. I marked a few pages that I wanted to scan and life got away from me – I had to take care of a few health issues that I had put off because of COVID and then my first grandchild was born two days after Thanksgiving Day and then there was the holidays and then I went down to see my sweet little granddaughter – my son is in the Army, so it’s not like I’m able to be with my immediate family the way I want to be. So this book – and a few others – have been sitting on my desk – because, good Goddess – when you have a darling granddaughter to visit, you let everything else go. And I was knitting a blanket for her – knitting in all kinds of good charms and spells as I sat all those hours. Like a good grandma witch does.

But even grandmothers and witches have other work to do and I came home to a pile of books to read and review and I picked up this book – Twist Your Fate: Manifest Success with Astrology & Tarot – and started reading it again, from the beginning – and totally fell in love with it. This is one of the best books about astrology and tarot I have ever read. I know its focus is on the business and work world, but believe me, you can use its knowledge on any part of your life.

Of course, I checked out the author of the book, Theresa Reed. Her website is here ~~~>
https://www.thetarotlady.com/ When you go there, you’ll be given another link to subscribe to her newsletter, which of course I did and then you’ll get a link to a PDF document, “The Power of Tarot”, which is twenty-eight pages of common sense tarot talk – if you keep a tarot notebook, like I do, you might want to print this out and put it in your notebook to refer to, because it’s really good stuff! Even if you’ve been reading the cards for over thirty years like I have. You can never have too much knowledge.

The first part of the book is about astrology and if you know nothing about astrology, don’t worry, Reed explains everything you need to know in plain and simple terms – much better than almost any other book I’ve ever read. She includes great charts and anyone who has ever read any of my reviews here at Pagan Pages knows that I love charts. Also – this book is a workbook. Hopefully you have your astrological information before you start reading this book but if you don’t, you will want to get it before you are beyond page 35. If you don’t know an astrologer, or there are none in your hometown, there are astrology apps you can purchase for your laptop or smartphone or you can go to a website like Astro.com at http://www.astro.com for a chart of your birth date.

This first chart I am sure you have seen before. It’s the basic astrological wheel of the twelve houses.

So Reed then takes this astrological wheel of the houses and translates it into the business world as such:

I think this is so cool! I wish I had known about this back when I was running my own business – any one of them – and was working to create my own brand – not that I called it that in those days – but I definitely had a public image! As an older woman who is technically retired but still freelance writes, I can still use this astrological wheel to my benefit. I’m sure that you can too, regardless of your age or where you are in your career path.

The next chart is one you fill in yourself. This is important, because you will refer back to this again and again as you continue to read Twist Your Fate. Unlike most astrology books, which focus merely on which signs your planets are residing in, Reed also wants us to note the houses they are in. This is important information!

So then you fill in this blank astrological wheel, for future reference:

After you do all this prep work, you are ready to read the rest of the book and learn not only about yourself but what jobs are the best for you, your ideal career path, what kinds of people you might want to hire (if you’re a boss), what kinds of bosses to watch out for (if you’re an employee), and all kinds of other great stuff that I wish I had known way back in the day!

After talking about the signs, the elements, whether they are cardinal, fixed or mutable, Reed talks about the “rulership” of the signs. Again, she provides a fabulous chart:

I’m not going to explain all that business about “detriment” and “exaltation” and “fall”, since she does it so much better than I ever could, but it’s wicked interesting! I got the feeling that she didn’t quite agree with all of this – “I didn’t make up the rules,” Reed insists and again, “I didn’t make the rules!” (Reed, 32,33). But it is interesting!

I had a good time reading about myself within the confines of my astrological chart – I did learn some new things about myself, which really says something – I have been studying my own astrological chart since I first had one drawn up when I was twenty-four years old. The most recent one I had done was two years ago. What I focused on – using Twist Your Fate as a guide – was the influence of the houses on my working life, especially my current writing career. There’s a lot of tweaking that needs to be done but I may still be a success, even at my advanced age.

I’m really skimming through what Part One covers, since it covers so very much. But if I don’t, I’ll never get to Part Two, which is called “Tarot – Your New Business Cards”. Instead of giving general meanings for the cards, Reed shares her “favorite biz or career interpretation”, which I found quite innovative (Reed, 144). I have always gone to the Tarot for help with my romantic life – I never really asked the cards for help with my career – unless it had to do with interpersonal relationships on the job.

Reed goes through every single card in the 78-card Rider-Waite deck, interpreting them for the business world. They are some of the best interpretations I have ever read, anywhere. I’m telling you all right now – this section of the book is going to be one of my go-to Tarot references from now on – in fact, this entire book is going to be one of my favorite go-to divinatory references! Everything I read seemed so spot on.

Naturally, Reed includes a few Tarot spreads but guess what? There’s no Celtic Cross among them! This must be a first. I really like this 3-Card Spread:

The situation: shows the energy around the question.
What you need to know: indicates the blind spots around the situation
Advice: how you can get the most out your situation.

I’ve always liked 3-card spreads and this one gets to the issues immediately (it also works with Lenormand cards).

The third and final part is about using your intuition. Reed writes, “… astrology creates the map; Tarot shows you the detours”, a statement I absolutely love. But she continues, “…there is one more crucial element – your intuition.” (Reed, 223). She states that she has never ignored her “feeling” about a situation or a person, even if she didn’t have the facts to back it up. I love her story about how she became a Tarot reader – by taking her cards to the bar in which she worked. What a great idea! She gives the reader ideas on how to develop your intuition and the basics of intuition. Also – what to do when your intuition is “dead wrong” (Reed, 231).

Part Four is called “Twist Your Fate” and it’s all about using your astrological chart and your Tarot information to find out what you need to know – are you going to get the job you want? What are the weaknesses you present? What are your strengths? And so on – determining how to “twist your fate” so that you can use your strengths to mitigate your weaknesses and so be a success.

I don’t want to end this review without mentioning the “Recommended Reading” list on page 247. Many of these books I have read – in fact, I own several of them! The ones I haven’t read yet are going on my list of books-to-look-for – either at the library or at my favorite bookseller.

Even though Twist Your Fate: Manifest Success with Astrology & Tarot by Theresa Reed focuses on the business world, your career and the jobs you are seeking, the information and knowledge between its covers can be used in almost any aspect of your life. After all – even if we are not working in a traditional work setting, or we are taking time off from our career due to family issues or any other reason, or we are retired, we will always have to deal with business issues and there will always be interpersonal relationships in any setting we find ourselves. This book will definitely help you navigate the seas of the divinatory world so that you are a success in all your endeavors.

 

Twist Your Fate: Manifest Success with Astrology & Tarot on Amazon

 

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About the Author:

Polly MacDavid lives in Buffalo, New York at the moment but that could easily change, since she is a gypsy at heart. Like a gypsy, she is attracted to the divinatory arts, as well as camp fires and dancing barefoot. She has three cats who all help her with her magic.

Her philosophy about religion and magic is that it must be thoroughly based in science and logic. She is Dianic Wiccan but she gets along with a few of the masculine deities. She loves to cook and she is a Bills fan.

She blogs at silverapplequeen.wordpress.com. She writes about general life, politics and poetry. She is writing a novel about sex, drugs and recovery.