I've been reading Barbara Walker's excellent 1984 book, The Secrets of the Tarot: Origins, History and Symbolism, and have been gaining some valuable insights and inspiration from her brief essays on the Minor Arcana. In it she applies the Thoth title of "Cruelty" to the 9 of Swords while discussing it mainly in terms of … Continue reading “The Wall Was Too High” – A 9 of Swords Comparison
Esoteric Tarot
The “Left Brain/Right Brain” Split-Decision Spread
AUTHOR"S NOTE: I will follow this up shortly with an example reading showing how it is to be used. To help resolve the endless debate (or perhaps to generate more debate) on whether an allusive, intuitive approach to reading the cards or a literal, logical one is most informative, I decided to create a spread … Continue reading The “Left Brain/Right Brain” Split-Decision Spread
The “Three of a Perfect Pair*” Tarot Card Selection Method
I'm always looking for novel ways to pull cards for a tarot reading. Here I've adopted and also adapted the "card pairing" method of the Golden Dawn as used in the First Operation of the "Opening of the Key." First, I shuffled the deck and pulled a single card to show the "Heart of the … Continue reading The “Three of a Perfect Pair*” Tarot Card Selection Method
“Warring Archetypes”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As my thinking on the Major Arcana continues to evolve, I occasionally experience an epiphany during my online tarot conversations. I was explaining my opinions about the most effective uses for the cards on the r/tarot forum, and was asked a question that sent me down an unexplored path. Having worked with tarot … Continue reading “Warring Archetypes”
Cosmic “Drop-Outs”*
*Alternate Titles: "Yet Another Screed on 'How Tarot Works' or 'The Things You Come Up With at 4:00 AM" Taking their cue from advances in astrophysics, science fiction writers at one time loved to talk about the "space-time continuum," mainly as a backdrop for their noodling over ideas like "curved space" and "worm-holes" as a … Continue reading Cosmic “Drop-Outs”*
The “Old Moon” and Divination
In her generally excellent (but now slightly dated) 1984 book The Secrets of the Tarot: Origins, History and Symbolism, Barbara Walker describes the colors of the Hindu Gunas as white, red and black, and also relates those colors to the three primary faces of the Moon goddess: waxing New Moon is white; effulgent Full Moon … Continue reading The “Old Moon” and Divination
Patience Is Not A Virtue (When Persistence Won’t Do)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: At the risk of "beating a dead horse," I'm going to present a few more thoughts on my uneasy, rather tepid rapport with the (Rider) Waite-Smith (RWS) Tarot and my much more robust appreciation of Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot. I come down somewhere in the middle on "pip" decks like the Tarot de … Continue reading Patience Is Not A Virtue (When Persistence Won’t Do)
The “Mercury Reversed” Retrograde Period Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I split this spread off from yesterday's post for better visibility, saying three times "I promise not to repeat myself . . ." As discussed at length in my previous essay, I don't buy the popular notion that Mercury going retrograde as part of the evolving "sky pattern" is automatically a harbinger of … Continue reading The “Mercury Reversed” Retrograde Period Spread
RWS in the Cross-Hairs: A Critique
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not enamored of the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) tarot deck. I think it comes in a distant second to the Thoth Tarot's "masterful/magical/mystical/ mythical/metaphorical mojo;" after all, how could it compete with Aleister Crowley's enormous erudition and Frieda Harris's brilliant rendering. Don't hate me, but I'm afraid it's true. I do use it in … Continue reading RWS in the Cross-Hairs: A Critique
“Inner Navigation” with the Thoth Tarot
The purpose of this essay is to inquire "At what point does (or should) a serious tarot scholar become a diviner?" The best answer to that comes from Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth, at the beginning of Appendix A, "The Behaviour of the Tarot: Its Use in the Art of Divination," which I will quote … Continue reading “Inner Navigation” with the Thoth Tarot
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 