AUTHOR'S NOTE: Since the beginning of the 1970s when I first encountered the Hermetic Qabalah and its offshoot, the occult tarot, I've known that the high-water-mark of achievement with the latter is considered to be the hand-drawn creation of a personal deck. The goal is to embark on a metaphysical odyssey by getting inside one's … Continue reading Personal Deck Creation: Another Instance of “Why Bother?”
Esoteric Tarot
The Aces: A Point to Ponder
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
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
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 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
Entering the Zone
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A question frequently asked of professional tarot readers in the online community is "How do you psychically prepare and protect yourself before and during a reading? By some form of 'clearing' like meditation? Invocation? Prayer? Candles, incense and crystals?" The answers typically run the gamut of all of these with the addition of … Continue reading Entering the Zone
The Golden Dawn’s “Opening of the Key” – Much Ado About Too Much?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: First a confession: it's been years (make that decades) since I last performed all five "operations" of the Golden Dawn's "Opening of the Key" (OotK) method of divination, which can take hours to complete and yields far more information than any ordinary inquiry requires. This fact alone severely limits its application in professional … Continue reading The Golden Dawn’s “Opening of the Key” – Much Ado About Too Much?
Pursuing the “Imaginative Turn of Phrase” – An Astrological View
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In his essay on the Knight of Swords in Tarot Master Class, Paul Fenton-Smith observed that this "quick-minded" Knight "is keen to practice an imaginative turn of phrase." This once again brought to mind my own predilection for nailing the "well-chosen metaphor" in my writing on divination. (Full Disclosure: I'm a Thoth Knight-of-Cups … Continue reading Pursuing the “Imaginative Turn of Phrase” – An Astrological View
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 