Bijou Fortune

Max (he/him) - Spirit Medium

Need advice from the beyond? Here at Bijou Fortune we use Tarot, dice, oracle decks, bibliomancy, and even digital divination tools to connect with spirits on the other side and bring back wisdom and a new perspective for clients like you.For those of you interested in striking out on your own spiritually, we offer consultations on building your own unique spiritual practice in the modern day.

© Max Alderdice. All rights reserved.

Fortunes Told

At Bijou Fortune we reach out to the other side for wisdom using Tarot cards and other fortunetelling methods.✪ What is the Tarot?
✪ Other forms of fortunetellingI offer two pricing schemes: by the number of cards and by the hour.Under the former, I charge $20 for a three-card spread and $30 for a five-card spread, whether the reading is conducted in person or virtually.According to the latter, I charge $50 for half an hour of drawing and interpreting as many cards as you need. Like other readings, I can do these in person in the Seattle area or virtually for clients around the world.I am also available for hire as an entertainer at parties for several tiers of hourly rates depending on services rendered. Please contact me for further details.

Other Fortunetelling methods

In addition to the ubiquitous Tarot, I use numerous other methods to gain insight from the beyond.✪ Lenormand decks are a form of cartomancy (fortunetelling through cards) using a smaller deck of cards than the 78-card Tarot. While a Tarot reading often delves into deep spiritual and emotional matters, the Lenormand deck tends to be more pragmatic and often addresses material concerns best. I have two such decks (the Gilded Lenormand and the Red Hand Lenormand) for these purposes.
✪ Bibliomancy is a form of fortunetelling using random number generation (whether with dice or digitally) to select passages out of a book. Some books (known as bibliomanteia) are made specifically for this purpose, but any book can be used.
✪ Dice with words or pictures on them may be used for fortunetelling that leans on loose associations and gut feelings more than the stricter language of the Tarot. I own a number of dice of both such kinds.
✪ I also make online bots for divinatory purposes; these may generate strings of random emoji or phrases or pictures from a databank.Consultations featuring Lenormand decks are $20 for a five-card spread.Setting up a book of your choice as a bibliomanteion and divining truth from that requires a half-hour session priced at $35.I do not currently tell fortunes from dice alone, but I can use them as clarifiers on a Tarot or Lenormand reading for an extra fee of $10.Contact me beforehand with inquiries about the making of online fortunetelling bots; prices for this service range from $50-$150 depending on the platform chosen and the size of the databank you want constructed.

Spiritual consulting

Are you looking to begin a spiritual practice for yourself, but not sure where to start? Based on my own experiences creating spiritual practices as well as input from and discussion with other practitioners, I offer consulting services on this subject for seekers who are trying to establish a unique and individual approach to their spirituality.My lessons are not rooted in a single school of witchcraft, but rather focused on finding what forms of spirituality and mysticism work for a given individual. You can consider what I teach eclectic witchcraft for beginners. The purpose is to help get you on your feet on your own unique spiritual path. As such, I offer a limited number of sessions to any given client, after which I will encourage them to either branch out on their own or seek mentors or teachers with more specific experience.Unless otherwise stated, all lessons are available online by either text, voice, or video chat, as well as in person in the Seattle area.Each lesson, regardless of subject, is priced on a sliding scale according to need as follows:
✪ $10-15 for the initial workbook download, consisting of information, exercises, questions, and recommended resources for further reading
✪ $60-$75 per hour for a one- or two-hour-long follow-up consultation on your completed work
✪ Up to two further half-hour to one-hour consultations at later dates for $25-$50 per half hourAll lessons are currently works in progress and this is reflected in the pricing.✪ Touching Faith: A Tutorial provides a fledgling mystic with basic information on the components of a regular spiritual practice, exercises for developing the skills necessary to start one successfully, and questions to consider about their individual spiritual needs and desires.
✪ Building a Stairway to Heaven reviews different ideas about the nature and variety of spiritual Powers and guides a new practitioner in search of spiritual answers (and more questions) in forging and maintaining specific connections with their own conception of the divine or otherworldly. Requires completion of the previous lesson and/or equivalent experience from another source as a prerequisite.
✪ Calling All Gods assists a practitioner seeking to communicate more closely with divine and otherworldly Powers in establishing a personal fortune-telling practice that works best for their needs. Requires completion of the previous two lessons and/or equivalent experience from other sources as a prerequisite.

About

Bijou Fortune is the result of a spiritual journey that started in 2016, when I began a meditative ritual practice that, over the course of a year's work, would reveal to me the divine power of the life, work, and legacy of late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. Although I had been reading Tarot as a hobby since the late '90s, this experience opened my eyes to the importance of ancestor worship and hero cult throughout human religious history and gave me the chance to establish, then hone, my skills as a spirit medium and fortuneteller.In late 2021 I began reading Tarot professionally at a local gay bar; many times since then, I have seen firsthand the effect of the advice given by those who have passed on to the other side and the other spirits who linger there. I have seen the spirits' broad, timeless perspective cut through needless anxieties and confusion time and time again. And I have seen the emotional effect of connecting with the spirits charge and uplift my clients, many of whom have in the past taken great spiritual damage from mainstream Western society's frequently toxic approach to religion and mysticism, again and again.Bijou Fortune was formed to take that work to the next level. Here I offer not just Tarot readings and other forms of fortunetelling, but simple lessons to help beginners find their own unique forms of spiritual connection.

Disclaimer

"The imagination. That's our out."
JOHN GUARE, Six Degrees of Separation (1990)

Services rendered by Bijou Fortune are for entertainment purposes only. They are not a replacement for consulting licensed professionals for medical, legal, or financial advice.

Contact

If you're interested in booking my services for a personal fortunetelling session or entertainment at a party, please contact me either by email or using this form.

Thank you

Thank you for reaching out to me! I will respond to your message as soon as I am able. Meanwhile...May you be blessed by the spirits of rock'n'roll!

A Tarot Primer

The modern Tarot has its origins in gaming card decks produced in Renaissance Italy as propaganda for wealthy and powerful noble families. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, occultists began to transform this combination of casual game and political tool into a source of occult insight for anyone who wanted to learn it. Since then, countless decks of all different styles have been produced for this purpose, and now anyone can find a deck that suits them.The 78 cards of a standard modern Tarot deck each have their own meaning and associated symbolism, but like any language, its interpretation changes depending on context. Unique messages emerge every time one reads the cards.Each Tarot deck is divided into 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. What follows is a brief summary of their meanings.

major arcana

a numbered set of 22 individual cards commonly understood to depict a spiritual journey and its associated events and archetypes

  • 0: THE FOOL -- beginnings, new journeys; the querent as journeyer, especially spiritual journeyer; the number zero and all it entails: the blank slate, the cipher, the one outside the system

  • 1: THE MAGICIAN -- personal power; the active principle; manifesting one’s will; making things happen

  • 2: THE HIGH PRIESTESS -- the power of the unconscious; prophecy; inner secrets; unique personal spiritual paths

  • 3: THE EMPRESS -- motherhood and maternal figures; nurturing yourself and others; emotional maturity

  • 4: THE EMPEROR -- fatherhood and paternal figures; authority, the rule of law; being in control of yourself or others

  • 5: THE HIEROPHANT -- conventional religious structures; religious education and spiritual learning; someone who reveals spiritual truths

  • 6: THE LOVERS -- relationships, especially (but not always) romantic; choices (especially with regards to other people), the crossroads on the path of life

  • 7: THE CHARIOT -- drive, self-discipline, controlled power; the concept of “riding” and all it entails

  • 8: STRENGTH -- inner strength and resolve

  • 9: THE HERMIT -- wisdom gained through solitude; observing others without connecting; searching for the truth

  • 10: THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE -- the vicissitudes of fortune, the cycle of fate; major life events, especially though not always those outside of your control

  • 11: JUSTICE -- seeing and evaluating clearly; facing the truth and its consequences; the name and all it implies

  • 12: THE HANGED MAN -- letting go, release; spiritual ordeals; seeing things from a new and different perspective; personal sacrifice leading to wisdom

  • 13: DEATH -- endings; major change

  • 14: TEMPERANCE -- emotional balance, inner calm; moderation; all that the name implies

  • 15: THE DEVIL -- the material world and its restraints; the problems of the flesh; addictions and other things that chain us down; hedonism

  • 16: THE TOWER -- catastrophe, especially one that has become more and more inevitable as events have progressed and now must happen to clear the way for the new; the collapse of a (metaphorical) corrupt and rotten structure

  • 17: THE STAR -- hope; recovery after disaster; high aspirations and lofty dreams

  • 18: THE MOON -- the weirdness of the collective unconscious; dreams, illusions; the alien, the strange, and the unknown

  • 19: THE SUN -- joy, triumph, positivity; truth and light

  • 20: JUDGMENT -- the reckoning to which your path has led you; "this is it, the big moment”; big choices, big consequences

  • 21: THE WORLD -- completion; a happy ending

minor arcana

four suits each containing ten numbered cards depicting situations and four court cards depicting people

  • Numbered cards: root meanings

  • Ace -- beginnings; all the potential within a given suit

  • Two -- a union of differing forces

  • Three -- family or community; a merging of disparate forces

  • Four -- a pause in your journey; a foundation for what is to come

  • Five -- conflict and instability; a low point at the halfway mark of your journey

  • Six -- balance and harmony

  • Seven -- inward retreat; inner strength

  • Eight -- change; forward motion

  • Nine -- plenty; a great deal of whatever the suit represents

  • Ten -- culmination; the end each suit leads to if followed

  • Court cards: root meanings

  • Page (sometimes Valet or Princess): a youthful person, or someone learning; messages, a messenger; someone with the potential of the suit in them

  • Knight (sometimes Prince): someone who carries the suit’s qualities out into the world; activity, motion, riding

  • Queen: a powerful woman or feminine figure in the querent’s life; one who has mastered and embodies the qualities of the suit

  • King: a powerful man or masculine figure in the querent’s life; one who has mastered and acts out the qualities of the suit

  • The suit of Swords: matters of the mind; reason, intellect, noble ideals…but also conflict, pain, aggression; can be seen as “attacking” the inherent meaning of a number; the element of air

  • Ace of Swords: new ideas, thoughts, principles; the potential of thought and intellect; truth, cutting through lies

  • Two of Swords: a difficult decision; a dilemma; making a choice without all the facts

  • Three of Swords: heartbreak, betrayal; pain caused by denying your own heart

  • Four of Swords: pause, inward retreat; rest or sleep

  • Five of Swords: conflict; acting out of self-interest; openly dishonorable actions

  • Six of Swords: a journey; moving towards the future

  • Seven of Swords: running away from something; retreat; theft or other hidden crimes or dishonorable actions

  • Eight of Swords: confinement, imprisonment

  • Nine of Swords: your inner fears; a terrifying situation; facing your fears

  • Ten of Swords: utter despair, a nadir in life; ruin brought on by one’s own actions; being trapped in despair

  • Page of Swords: learning to communicate; receiving messages; finding your truths

  • Knight of Swords: clear communication; active intellectual efforts; carrying truth out into the world

  • Queen of Swords: someone who knows and is satisfied with their beliefs; being in tune with your inner truths

  • King of Swords: mastery over truth and communication; clear rules and expressions of authority

  • The suit of Cups: matters of the heart; emotion, passion, intuition; relationships; the human aspect of a situation; the element of water

  • Ace of Cups: emotional beginnings; opening your heart

  • Two of Cups: new romance or passion; the fun of romance; flirtation; love and kisses; raw emotional chemistry

  • Three of Cups: a loving group or celebration; harmony in a group; supportive community

  • Four of Cups: quiet introspection; going inwards and focusing on one's own feelings and needs

  • Five of Cups: loss, grief, tearful situations; moving on from grief and loss

  • Six of Cups: happy memories, nostalgia; finding your comfort zone

  • Seven of Cups: having many options available to you; daydreaming, distractions, diversions

  • Eight of Cups: moving on; walking away from something; letting go of attachments and going with the flow

  • Nine of Cups: happiness, contentment, lots of love

  • Ten of Cups: achieving your dreams; family; lasting happiness

  • Page of Cups: a beginner when it comes to emotions and relationships; messages from your heart

  • Knight of Cups: outwardly expressing your emotions; a romantic type of person; wearing your heart on your sleeve

  • Queen of Cups: someone in tune with their emotions; being emotionally stable and balanced

  • King of Cups: someone who has mastered their heart and how to act on its demands; emotional authority

  • The suit of Wands: matters of power; action, creativity, sexuality; the active principle; life force in general; the element of fire

  • Ace of Wands: raw creativity, passion, sexuality; a new project; acting on impulse or out of passion

  • Two of Wands: making plans and putting them into action

  • Three of Wands: forward motion; expansion; progress in a project, especially a collaboration

  • Four of Wands: a celebration; having made something worth celebrating; having laid solid foundations

  • Five of Wands: disagreement, conflict; competition, striving

  • Six of Wands: triumph; public success or victory

  • Seven of Wands: aggressive defiance; conviction; standing up to overwhelming odds

  • Eight of Wands: rapid action; things happening all at once; "think and act fast!"

  • Nine of Wands: endurance; making the last and most difficult step in a long journey or project

  • Ten of Wands: an immense, overwhelming amount of work; a great burden

  • Page of Wands: someone young and passionate; learning about one's talents; messages about what drives you

  • Knight of Wands: expressing your desires; investing passionate effort in a work; a passionate, energetic person

  • Queen of Wands: someone who knows what they want and need; nurturing and being in tune with your inner fire

  • King of Wands: someone who has mastered their passions and talents; successfully exerting personal power

  • The suit of Pentacles: matters of this world; money, material goods and success; hard, productive work; anything physical or concrete; the element of earth

  • Ace of Pentacles: material beginnings; a new business endeavor or project

  • Two of Pentacles: balancing priorities, juggling tasks; achieving a state of balance so you can grow and change

  • Three of Pentacles: teamwork, collaboration

  • Four of Pentacles: greed, possessiveness; clinging to what you have

  • Five of Pentacles: poverty, need; lack of resources where you expect to find them

  • Six of Pentacles: generosity; giving and sharing; fair exchange of resources and effort

  • Seven of Pentacles: evaluation and assessment; considering the harvest from past actions; a change in direction

  • Eight of Pentacles: hard work; increasing skills; "git gud!" in video game parlance

  • Nine of Pentacles: wealth; ample resources; having plenty of what you need

  • Ten of Pentacles: legacy; family; inheritance

  • Page of Pentacles: a beginner in one's career; listening to the messages the world sends you

  • Knight of Pentacles: a hard worker; putting forth effort on external projects

  • Queen of Pentacles: one who has found their place in the world and is comfortable with it; a stable person

  • King of Pentacles: mastering one's career or physical resources; one who is in charge of something concrete

reverses

Most (but not all) Tarot readers do not only read the cards with their primary meanings, but also take into account whether a given card was turned upside down (or reversed) during the process of shuffling.A reversed card's meaning changes in unpredictable ways. Sometimes it becomes the opposite of what it normally means; other times it simply takes a twist.Some examples:

  • A reversed Fool may tell the querent that they've been on this path before and should know from experience what to do.

  • When the Star is reversed, it may mean, "Ground yourself in reality instead of getting lost in the clouds."

  • The Eight of Swords reversed usually means breaking free from some kind of trap or confinement.

  • The Four of Cups reversed often says, "Get out of your own head and communicate with others."

  • A reversed Six of Wands can speak of either a recent public failure the querent is dwelling on, or a need to seek private personal victories instead of public affirmation.

  • When a Knight shows up reversed, it often means that the querent is expending too much energy on external projects in that suit's sphere and needs to redirect their efforts inwards.

  • If any King is reversed, it may signify that the querent is not in control of what's happening in that part of their life.

Terms of Service

Due to the potential issues with customer service and ethics when it comes to fortunetelling and spiritual consulting, I require that my clients read and abide by my terms of service.

General rules

  1. Payment must be rendered prior to any service. Tipping afterwards is always appreciated but never required.

  2. A refund of 80% of your payment may be issued at my discretion if I conclude that my fortunetelling methods are not working for you, or if the spiritual problem you wish to consult on ends up being one I can't help with.

  3. Specific answers or results are not guaranteed.

  4. I reserve the right to refuse clients for any reason; in such cases I may, if possible, suggest alternative sources of guidance that I feel would be more appropriate.

Tarot & other fortunetelling

  1. When paying for my services, you agree that we will use the methods described on this site, and not any other styles of Tarot reading or fortunetelling with which you may be familiar.

  2. The cards say what the spirits believe you need to hear, so answers to specific questions are not guaranteed.

  3. It is to be understood that my fortunetelling services are not intended to provide a clear picture of an unalterable future, but rather a helpful mirror onto the present.

Spiritual consulting

  1. My consulting services are based in an eclectic approach to mysticism and spirituality. I cannot train or initiate you in any specific school or lineage of witchcraft.

  2. I do not offer guidance on spiritual matters for an indefinite time period. Once a client has established a beginner's practice, I encourage them to seek out teachers and mentors with more specific and detailed wisdom.

Spirit mediumship

  1. When contacting the spirits of the dead, it should be understood that death changes an individual, and making such contact is not equivalent to talking to a living person in our world.

  2. You may ask to use the cards (or any of my other fortunetelling methods) to try to contact deceased friends, relatives, and certain kinds of celebrities, but I cannot guarantee any specific response.

  3. You may request that the cards contact deceased celebrities who were known as creative or pop culture icons; I will not attempt to contact deceased political figures.

  4. When reaching out to dead celebrities, I will not pass on questions about their personal life; their intent is to help you from the beyond, not talk about who they were in their previous life.

  5. I will accept payment in exchange for contacting spirits of deceased friends and relatives (as well as celebrities I do not personally honor and work with) between one and three times for any given client, at my discretion. After that, I request that you instead purchase my consulting services to learn how to establish a sustainable spiritual practice involving such contact yourself. I will not accept the task of being someone's conduit to spirits of the dead in exchange for money indefinitely for ethical reasons.

  6. This reader makes no claims to exclusive access to the spirit world and its noncorporeal inhabitants, previously human and otherwise. I encourage all clients to take my spirit medium messages as simply one possible perspective out of many and to explore their own connections to the other side instead of relying on fortunetelling by others.