I use cards as a window to actions free of culture, consecration, validation, and approval.

I use cards to tell unusual stories, de-mythologize too, and get to the core of ‘you’ as a construct.

I use cards to re-calibrate businesses too. I design models that put you and your employees in an authentic position, beyond cliché and blah blah.

I’m Camelia

Welcome to my world of Cards and Zen, delivered from Denmark with a Transylvanian touch.

I work with contemplative arts. I love problems, from math to pains in the soul. You have a problem, of any kind? I give you an idea to work with in 30 seconds flat. You go, ‘no shit,’ and that makes my day.

My training is in reading signs and sitting Zen. I teach people to read cards like the Devil, which is to say, I teach people to develop a penetrating vision. If you have clarity, you have no problems. You’re Zen.

I’m interested in language and its oracular power. I use this power to counter academic and mainstream nonsense.

Oracles give us access to the present, which most people don’t live. Oracles give us access to spontaneous knowledge. That beats all other claims.

Cards are like a Zen master’s stick. They whack you over your head, pointing to what attitude is seated in you. Maybe you want to change that.

Philosophy of reading and of teaching

In my 20 years with the university, teaching critical thinking, language awareness, and writing, I would emphasize one point: Merely being direct, and using amplified hyperbolic markers does not equal being coherent.

Same thing in divination: The desired attitude of ‘telling it like it is’ does not automatically render you coherent. Think of the way you amplify certain concepts, or how you understate others. What is the purpose of each?

Answering such a question puts you on a coherent track, not directness, and not non-discerning bluntness.

Reading like the Devil means knowing exactly how the mechanism of desire works and what desire participates in transmitting.

FREE FIRST LECTURE

The Power of the Trumps: A Subtle Burst

A pack of eight lectures, plus transcripts and a live Q&A.

through the eyes of others

• The most recent interviews are: one with Theresa Reed, about my philosophy of reading cards, followed by advice to beginners

• One that I think is a funky one for Little Fox Tarot.

• One with Gordon White for Rune Soup, about growing up in Romania, fortunetelling, and some other weird stuff.

Vlogs

What excites me the most in my work is the possibility to give people an idea to work with. As a consultant, it’s easy to say to people ‘you do this, or ‘you do that’.

Some listen, and some don’t.

But if you give people the experience to think about an idea, then everybody scores.

Sometimes I record such ideas, and share them on my YouTube channel.

I like basic stuff. Stuff that’s obvious, and because it’s obvious only few notice it.

Here’s an example:

My approach to the cards comes from a rigorous Zen and Dzogchen practice.

I practice penetrating the obvious, silent or otherwise. I only say one thing: Get real. My bread and butter is the word.

I pose questions that make others remember what it’s like to be curious and spontaneous.

“Wow. That’s my first thought. This question is a big one, not an easy one, one that makes me feel overwhelmed just by looking at it. One that is confronting right from the start.”

– Pipaluk Weinhold Andersen, Holland, about a session in the Non Reading program.

What I’m good with

Problems. I love problems. The more complex and weird, the better. The more mundane also, the more exciting. Example:

Mathematician: ‘How can I formalize a proof for this theorem?’

Me: ‘Like this’.

Result: The professor formalizes his proof, publishes his finding in a solid journal, and gets invited as a keynote to talk about it at a prestige university.

Job seeker: ‘What does it take for me to score at the upcoming job interview?’

Me: ‘This’.

Result: Job seeker gets the job and sends me a surprise gift.

Mother of three: ‘How can I handle my teenage son?’

Me: ‘Like this.’

Result: Mother gives problem son a specific task and is free of grunts.

I’m good with distinction. Between clarity and conflict. But I use cards to get to the core of a problem.

I could use what some Harvard business professor devises as a model of efficiency for your company, or what a psychology professor prescribes as a cognitive path for your soul, but what interests me is how we move beyond mainstream, self-conscious models that quickly turn into reductive clichés.

Cards are good at demystifying cultural consecrations.

I Teach Questions

How do I combine being a fortuneteller, a storyteller, and a former professor? Some ask.

In these seemingly antagonistic professions I work with questions. Real, nasty, honest, and mighty questions. Questions that are not informed by shame and fear.

I’m fascinated by people’s stories and the questions they are capable of asking. Having an answer to these questions, participating in people’s lives is very rewarding to me. And to them. We serve each other.

I Teach Power

Not the symbolic kind. The real kind. Real power will get you the symbolic power, if that’s what you want, but it will not stop there.

And you know why?

Because real power is about penetration. Penetration that leads to radical acceptance. I come to power from the position of nondual perception, something that hit me in 1984.

I Teach Courage and Boldness

‘Fortune favors the bold,’ the old adage has it. And why?

Because it takes boldness to see the truth and speak it.

It takes courage to say, no and I’m available. It takes courage to show up, and transmit your message unapologetically. It takes boldness to rise above ambivalence and lead.

Aradia Academy

With a pack of cards in my hands, I left the university and opened my own school. I surprise people.

You go, ‘no shit’, and feel the power running right through you, melting down your vulnerability.

The vulnerable story sells, but I want more. The vulnerable story is powerful, but it is not power itself.

I teach real power. That’s what I’m good at. I teach going beyond emotion and the intellect. Beyond language, the language of desire and fears.

Why beyond? Because that’s where clarity resides. Free of conditioning.

Books and Courses

I teach courses that explore human imagination through spiritual practice. Some explore the relation between cards and magic, or cards and Zen.

I wrote eight books and edited as many. Three of my books explore divination practices and the oracular poetics of storytelling with visual text.

Latest course just finished: LENORMAND MASTERCLASS