6 Reasons to Work with Kipper
Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Siolo Thompson and Thomas Witholt, author and artist of the new Searborn Kipper.
Are you ready to work with an oracle of everyday life that will have you diving deep into your psyche one minute and scanning the far horizon for future events the next? If so, you want to try Kipper, a system of divination from 19th-century Germany that uses 36 cards to understand present influences and future probabilities. Kipper is a direct system, which makes it powerful for clear insights. And the new Searborn Kipper takes the edge off that directness with playful and modern appeal.
Reason 1: Kipper is easy to learn. If you’ve never heard of kipper, we wouldn’t be surprised—it’s not as popular (yet) as other forms of cartomancy. But Kipper is incredibly straightforward with cards that have obvious application to your life and that don’t require memorizing abstract concepts to get the point across. Sure, you might remember that the Clover in Lenormand means a little bit of money or good luck, but you might not. A card like Kipper’s Unexpected Treasure is easy for a beginner to understand, and it still has rich meaning and openness that a more experienced reader can see in context.
Reason 2: An unfamiliar system lets your intuition shine. When you’re learning a new system of divination, it’s great to come in with a beginner’s mind. There’s so much magic and potential that your intuition sees just by enjoying the cards. A history of strict methodology can sometimes squash that brilliant freshness. With the ease of understanding the Kipper cards, you won’t constantly be searching for the guidebook to understand a card, and you won’t need to study it for years to find confidence in playing the deck. That ease and confidence are great when you’re listening for intuitive guidance. Yes, there are plenty of techniques and methods you can use to read Kipper, but you don’t have to. You can just read the cards.
Reason 3: Kipper shows the unfolding drama of everyday life. Kipper cards tell a story about what’s coming up in your life. With Kipper, you see the interaction of cards, a current of causes and effects that help you make the most of the potential in front of you. As with other divination systems, it gives you a glimpse of the possible future, but it specializes in flow. The cards create a scene or a story as people, places, and experiences come together to paint a clear picture. And because of the sequential and causal nature of the cards, you get to see not just opportunities and problems, but also the sources or influences around those opportunities and problems.
Reason 4: Everybody’s business is your business. While you may (or may not!) have certain ethical guidelines about reading into other people, Kipper is designed to show you how key players will be flowing in and out of your life. It’s a way of seeing how other people may or may not be involved without losing sight of what you can control: your own life. Kipper includes cards that represent important people in your life, and your readings will show you where they’re creating waves that could give you a little assistance or might crash into your own intentions. If they’re not involved, you’ll see them at the edges of your reading, but if they are, Kipper will spill the tea.
Reason 5: Kipper shows you your life. The directness and everyday nature of Kipper cards speaks to your everyday experience, and with the Searborn Kipper, you’re bound to find yourself represented in lovely underwater form. The Searborn Kipper was designed to be inclusive with updated titles to remove unnecessarily gendered references and extra significator cards to represent you and your primary partner (in love, business, underwater basket-weaving club, or whatever the concern of your reading). And the artwork lovingly captures a range of faces and bodies that will invite you to see yourself in this beautiful underwater world.
Reason 6: You can foretell the future, reflect on the present, or gain confidence for your day. There is a current to time, and you’re on it with Kipper, which makes it great for unambiguous future-oriented readings. But that forward momentum doesn’t mean that you can’t also use Kipper cards for exploring the present moment and what may be influencing how the present is playing out. This may include the past, but Kipper helps you focus on how the past is affecting the present, not something you are powerless to change. And in the Searborn Kipper, we’ve helped you connect with the cards in the present. The guidebook includes reflective questions for journaling or deeper understanding of the cards and how their concepts may be relevant, as well as affirmations to help you bring in the energy of the cards in an affirming way, even the tough ones!
However you want to use the deck, there’s an easy point of entry—a tidal, pool if you will—and a seamless way to deepen the experience whenever you’re ready. And trust us that you don’t have to stay in the shallow end for long. We’ve lost count of the number of people who have said that they tried a grand tableau of all 36 cards for the first time with Kipper after only a month or two. For whatever reason, it’s just so much less intimidating than other systems.
And if you’re ready to try Kipper for yourself, we hope you find the waters of the Searborn Kipper to be warm and welcoming. We do.
Our thanks to Siolo and Thomas for their guest post! For more from Siolo Thompson and Thomas Witholt, read their article, “Meeting the Seaborn Kipper.”
