About Me
My name is James Rioux and I've been working with the Tarot since the fall of 1998, off and on. Due to university and then my job, I haven't been very heavily involved with the Tarot since about 2001 or so, but hopefully I'll be easing my way back into the Tarot community before too long.
This page will outline a bit of my Tarot background and experience; a more personal bio is available elsewhere on this website.
My first exposure to the Tarot was via The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery, a computer horror/mystery game from 1996. At some point in the game, one of the main characters gets a Tarot card reading, and I became intrigued. I had a very logical and scientific mindset at the time, and the Tarot did not seem to be something that science could explain. I set out to prove to myself that, while it could be useful in a fictional game, the Tarot would not really work in any kind of real circumstance.
So I read through Joan Bunning's online course, Learning the Tarot, and not knowing where to actually buy a real Tarot deck, I printed off a set of Rider-Waite images onto a set of business cards. It was the crudest test imaginable, so imagine my surprise when it worked - both accurately and consistently. A few months later I did my first reading for another person (still using the business card) and it turned out the same. Clearly there was more in heaven and in earth than was dreamed of in my philosophy!
As I worked with the Tarot more and more, it continued to provide me with proof that it really does work, in a wide variety of situations. In time my work with the Tarot would lead me to learn more about a variety of subjects that I never would have studied before, like Runes, the I Ching, and the Qabalah. Eventually I found religion again after a long absence from the Catholic church, and when I welcomed God into my Tarot practice it seemed my abilities and passion only increased.
I first encountered the American Tarot Association in the fall of 1999, and was awarded the rank of Certified Tarot Reader based on my studies to date. The following year I became a Certified Professional Tarot Reader, then a Certified Tarot Consultant, and finally in 2001 I Was awarded the rank of Certified Tarot Master, becoming the youngest person in the world to hold that rank. (To my knowledge this is still the case, though I have been out of touch and it's possible that there is now a younger CTM out there.)
Shortly after this, university and work started taking higher priority, and my Tarot practice fell by the wayside. I remained moderately active in the ATA's two free reading networks, and for a while in 2004 I was a Vice-President of the Canadian Tarot Network, but my involvement with the Tarot community was otherwise very limited. But now that I've grown a little older and (hopefully) a little wiser, I think it's time to come back to the Tarot and see what else I've learned - and see what it still has to teach me.