AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was going to sub-title this essay "The Importance of Fixity," but you will get that message as you read through it and examine the graphic. Conventional wisdom in the esoteric tarot community is that the Ace represents the creative and formative catalyst or "spark" behind the intent to manifest shown by the … Continue reading The Aces: A Point to Ponder
Author: parsifalswheeldivination
Thoughts on the Cube of Space and the Cardinal Directions
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been ramping up my study of the esoteric "Cube of Space" while reading Lon Milo DuQuette's Tarot Architect. It's a conceptual model that I've never fully appreciated nor had any practical use for, but that is about to change. In doing so I compared DuQuette's illustration to that of Robert Wang in … Continue reading Thoughts on the Cube of Space and the Cardinal Directions
Interrupting the Continuum: An Alternate Approach to Pulling Tarot Cards
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The shuffle-and-cut sequence is a time-honored preliminary to pulling tarot cards for a reading, but there is another technique used by some practitioners that draws the required number of cards from a full-deck "fan" spread out in front of the querent. Here I'm pushing that idea to its logical conclusion. When a new … Continue reading Interrupting the Continuum: An Alternate Approach to Pulling Tarot Cards
Honoring the Cards in Theory and Practice
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As part of the "homework" assigned to readers of his book, Tarot Architect, Lon Milo DuQuette advises them to "kiss" each of the cards as a curious but charming ritual blessing before laying it on the table. This is just a little too "precious" for my own intellectual sensibilities so I won't do … Continue reading Honoring the Cards in Theory and Practice
A Mini-Lesson in Card Counting-and-Pairing
AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I first encountered the concepts of "counting round" and "mirroring" in the Lenormand Grand Tableau, I noticed a strong similarity between those 18th-Century cartomantic practices and the "counting-and-pairing" steps of the "Opening of the Key" (OotK) method for working with the tarot that was developed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden … Continue reading A Mini-Lesson in Card Counting-and-Pairing
Qabalistic Saturn: A Step Down and a Step Up
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As a life-long student of the Hermetic Qabalah, I confess to being immensely entertained by Lon Milo DuQuette's Tarot Architect and its iconoclastic treatment of the planetary mythology underlying the Hebrew Tree of Life. Of particular interest is his handling of Saturn. I'll paraphrase my quote about Pluto in a previous essay by … Continue reading Qabalistic Saturn: A Step Down and a Step Up
The Trans-Saturnian Planets and the Thoth Minor Arcana
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A while ago I pegged the three modern planets of astrology - Uranus, Neptune and Pluto - to the Chaldean wheel of correspondences used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn to align the Minor Arcana of the tarot with the 36 decanates (or "decans") of the zodiac. In doing this, I … Continue reading The Trans-Saturnian Planets and the Thoth Minor Arcana
The Meditative Mind
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Not long ago my wife of 46 years told me "You could be a hermit," an observation with which I concur because I live mostly in my head. She's still here so I guess she has made her peace with it. Although I'm devoutly non-religious (my favorite oxymoron), I'm constantly pondering spiritual matters … Continue reading The Meditative Mind
The Astrological Trumps and the Sephiroth: A Creative Rethinking
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although I've studied and worked with the pattern for over fifty years, I've never found much practical (i.e. divinatory) use for the assignment of the tarot's Major Arcana to the paths of the Qabalistic Tree of Life outside of astral pathworking (at which I'm not particularly adept). The alignment of the ten sephiroth … Continue reading The Astrological Trumps and the Sephiroth: A Creative Rethinking
Fact-Checking Fables: Truth, Fiction or “Spin” – An Exploratory Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Whenever I see a post that purports to fact-check some controversial occurrence, I immediately become suspicious that the supposedly impartial investigator has a private agenda that is being served by facts specifically "groomed" to support the objective, a hunch that is usually borne out by the demonstrated bias of the platform on which … Continue reading Fact-Checking Fables: Truth, Fiction or “Spin” – An Exploratory Spread
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 