Deborah Winterbourne LLB, LLM, BSc, MA, MSc.
Hello! My name is Debbie Winterbourne. I founded The London School of Tarot in April 2008 in order to follow my passion and connection with the cards.
My Tarot journey started when I was about fifteen years old. I became fascinated with the images and magical beauty of the Tarot and was given my first Tarot deck by my father. I wanted to know about what each of these beautiful images meant so I started studying the definitions of all the cards - it took me a few years to grasp an understanding of each card.
In 1984 I went off to university to study law and for the next fifteen years practised as a lawyer mainly in human rights law. Tarot remained in the background of my life and I continued to do readings for friends and family.
In 2000 I felt a calling to change my life direction. I was offered an opportunity to study and research into lucid dreaming in California. I left my legal career and moved abroad. Dreaming is another of my passions, and whilst researching in this area, my love of Tarot also resurfaced and I began to think about how I could make Tarot more at the forefront of my life.
In 2001 I returned to the UK and set up a Tarot stall in Portobello Market in London. Within a few weeks there were queues of people waiting to have their cards read. It was the middle of winter, rainy and cold! The Tarot cards blew all around the market place but I had a great experience and learnt a lot. I particuarly began to understand that in reading Tarot you need to be very centred and grounded. With many clients waiting for readings, I was seeing clients back to back and my energy soon became depleted. I learnt to slow down and take time between readings to bring myself back to a grounded place.
I spent some time as a resident Tarot reader in a local restaurant and at the same time signed up to be a reader on a psychic telephone line. My experience with the telephone line was a wake-up call. Unfortunately the owners of the service did not care much for the readers or the clients: in fact I was told to try to string the calls out so the poor clients would have to pay more money to get their answers. I immediately resigned.
After these experiences I started seeing private clients at my home in South East London. I solidified my Tarot skills by learning with a good teacher. Then in 2003 I was ready to start teaching Tarot myself. I applied to my local adult community college and set up a three part Tarot course of ten weeks per course - beginners, intermediate and advanced. I was lucky that my employer at the college loved the Tarot and even enrolled on the classes herself. Without her there would have been too much opposition to the idea of Tarot courses in a mainstream college and I would never have got started.
I taught Tarot at this college for four years and met many interesting and wonderful people, many of whom I am still in touch with and who attend Masterclasses at Quantum House. I also studied for and obtained various degrees: one in Psychology, another in Mysticism and Religious Experience at the University of Kent (this is an amazing life-changing course which I totally recommend to everyone who is interested in further study into spirituality and religion). Six years ago I also started studying in Gestalt psychotherapy which has been an excellent source to further understand human nature. I qualified as a psychotherapist and obtained an MSc in Gestalt psychotherapy in 2009.
My other passion is teaching and training in The Art of Dreaming (check out my website at www.theacademyofdreams.com where you can also see a video of me talking about my life!)
I chose the Two of Wands to represent my journey as I have such a thirst for knowledge and greater understanding of the meaning of life.
In April 2008 I founded the London School of Tarot and opened a training venue at Quantum House, Euston, London NW1.