The past year was a good one for this blog. I've now reached over 100 daily visitors on a fairly regular basis, something I never expected to see, and I've added a respectable number of new followers. I'm also now being published in the monthly online AstroLogic magazine, with both horary astrology and tarot articles … Continue reading A 2022 Recap: Another Milestone Passed
General Tarot
“Transformation Bias”
I've been thinking about the phrase "confirmation bias" as it applies to tarot reading. It strikes me as a fancy psychological term for "projection:" we see only what we expect (or want) to see in a reading and ignore anything that doesn't agree with our preconceptions. This observation brought me to the subject of this … Continue reading “Transformation Bias”
“Charging” the Reader and the Reading
In The Way of Tarot, Alejandro Jodorowsky floats the idea of "charging" the Major Arcana cards with personal significance instead of relying on the memorization of traditional keywords, in effect turning them into talismans imbued with the power of our own subjective vision. The implication is that conventional teaching methods based on the tarot literature … Continue reading “Charging” the Reader and the Reading
A Matter of “Reach”
I'm constantly chiding my wife over the perfectly reasonable assumption that talking to someone is best performed face-to-face, not by shouting from two rooms away and expecting to be understood. (On the other hand, getting up and trotting over to her desk every five minutes is great exercise!) As I see it, this premise also … Continue reading A Matter of “Reach”
“AI” Graphics: Art for Art’s Sake?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Warning!!! Curmudgeon alert! Computer-generated "AI" artwork is a thing right now that has caused considerable buzz in the online tarot community. We might well ask (along with Barry Mann back in 1961) "Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?" I would argue that the creative "bomp" is being hijacked … Continue reading “AI” Graphics: Art for Art’s Sake?
“Don’t Break Your Head”
"Think about this but don't break your head, have fun."- Jean-Baptiste Alliette, Etteilla or the Only Way to Draw the Cards The above quote comes from "Etteilla's" meticulous coverage of the diverse combinations and correspondences that exist between the cards of the tarot (or in his case, those of the "Grand Etteilla" deck). So far … Continue reading “Don’t Break Your Head”
“Gravity Wells” in Tarot Reading
Subtitle: "Crunchy in the Middle" As an avid reader of science fiction in the mid-60s, I was around when the idea of "black holes" in interstellar space first entered the public consciousness; the premise is that their gravity field is so intense that not even light can escape, and they suck in all nearby matter. … Continue reading “Gravity Wells” in Tarot Reading
“Voodoo Metaphysics” or “Too Fine a Point?”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many years ago, when President Ronald Reagan was floating his "trickle-down" theory of economic prosperity, his ideas were dismissed as "voodoo economics." Here (although it's not my main point) I'm proposing that the way we read the tarot cards can sometimes resemble "voodoo metaphysics." I won't go so far as to equate tarot … Continue reading “Voodoo Metaphysics” or “Too Fine a Point?”
“Symbol-Sense Disambiguation”
Those who spend any time googling will have seen the term "disambiguation" in the search results. Its full definition is "word-sense disambiguation" or "text disambiguation," and it describes "the act of interpreting an author's intended use of a word that has multiple meanings or spellings." In a recent essay I touched on the idea that … Continue reading “Symbol-Sense Disambiguation”
Reversal As “Reconciliation”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm only one-third of the way through The Grand Etteilla and I have enough useful ideas for at least another half-dozen brief essays. Here is one that originated from the interpretation of the reversed 3 of Clubs (Wands) as "Reconciliation." (By the way, I learned a new word for reversal: "posterity," which in … Continue reading Reversal As “Reconciliation”
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 