It’s not common for Geekomancers to find ready-made paradigms to work with. But, fellow Geekomancer Rune S. Emmerson has already created and self-published a book on using Clow Cards from the Card Captor Sakura manga and anime. He has it available for a small donation, and has a discord server for Clow practitioners to talk to each other about that subject. 

I should note that magical practitioners are not limited to picking only one paradigm in their lives. There are no Magic Police that are going to break into your house and arrest you for ‘cheating’ on one paradigm and wanting more than one. 

Also, if you are trying to avoid Shadow Work with a cute-looking paradigm, this is not the paradigm for you. The Clow Cards will come for your ass, emotionally and psychologically. 

Paradigm

The base paradigm of Rune’s Clow Sorcery system is that the practitioner must quest for each of the Clow Cards before the Sorcerer can use each of the card’s powers for their own motivations. Each Sorcerer has a number of tools they use only for their magic, much like Sakura’s wand / necklace. 

Each Sorcerer also has a magic circle. Rune’s system delves into the symbolism imbedded within the manga and anime. At times, the discord can get very energetic regarding new symbolic lore. Three of the biggest symbols within the Clow system are the Sun, the Moon, and the Star. These can be seen a lot within Card Captor Sakura, as well as the sequel Clear Card Saga. These symbols are also more or less consistent across many of CLAMP’s other works. However, Clow Sorcerers are not limited to only these symbols. Rune also goes into discussion of the Void in his book. 

Multiple Sorcerers on the discord use additional symbols that are important to them in their magic circles. 

Each Sorcerer begins with a single card—called ‘the Servant.’ In the case of Sakura in the manga and anime, this was ‘The Windy.’ It was the single remaining card that she had at the beginning of the story before she captured any other cards. There is no set type of ‘Quest’ each card requires. Some can be thematically related, but there is a spread created by one of the discord members to help the Sorcerer suss out the details. Since I am still early in my process, I don’t have enough Clow Cards to use them for this divination. I typically use some of my other oracle cards in their place.

Student of the Clow may be using a different system. But, they are another resource for Clow Card related Paradigms.

Clow Quest : The Lock

I began trying out this system right before moving—and then the big Covid lockdown in 2019 hit before I unpacked my things. In the process I moved, began graduate school, and 4 years passed. Recently, I began looking at the system once more and started once again in this Paradigm. One very interesting thing I noted was that my previous magic circle no longer felt ‘correct.’ I had changed a lot as a person in those four or five years and I had to re-do my magic circle. That was step 1. Then I needed to create a new ‘wand’ equivalent that matched that new circle. Lots of work before I could get back to the meat of things!

My Servant card was The Cloud. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. There isn’t a lot of solid lore about the nature of the Sorcerer in relation to their Servant. Some have said that the Servant is something the Sorcerer lacks, but others report that the Servant much mirrors their own nature. 

The first card I quested for was ‘The Lock.’ This, more than anything else, taught me that I needed to put a lot of work into Divination in general. Otherwise my quest was going to be seriously stymied. I didn’t trust my intuition to discern whether or not I had ‘captured’ each card. 

Clow Quest: The Song

This is my current quest—and boy has this one been a doozy. The quest for the Song is very much about addressing cycles and patterns that have not changed, but are currently not serving me very well. 

Yes, this is the Clow coming for my ass and forcing me to do Shadow Work.