AUTHOR'S NOTE: The current social antipathy toward "binary thinking" is a puzzler for the life-long student of occult number theory. Just because some college professor or Hollywood influencer decided that "binary is bad" in terms of self-identity doesn't make it a functionally sound or rational premise. We might have asked the last scion of the … Continue reading Creative Potential and “Two-ness”
Practical Mysticism
2024 Celtic Wheel of the Year Layout
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For the next solar cycle, I chose not to pull random cards to represent the Celtic year, but rather to use the tarot trump cards associated with the eight Celtic holidays and the four zodiacal ingress dates for the Sun, thus creating a universal layout with slightly more irregular sequencing than the typical … Continue reading 2024 Celtic Wheel of the Year Layout
Rebirth of the Sun: A Solstice Meditation
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For those of us who are more attuned to the mystical significance of the Winter Solstice than to that of Christmas, I can think of nothing better to read on that occasion than this clever piece of poetic appropriation from the work of Clement Clarke Moore.* It doesn't take a doctorate in theology, … Continue reading Rebirth of the Sun: A Solstice Meditation
A Tarot Reckoning: Descent into Impressionism
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Lately I've been spending some time on the r/seculartarot sub-reddit, and after viewing numerous posts I've concluded that they categorically reject any kind of unstructured approach to the tarot (as one might suppose from the title of the sub). I find myself wondering "If you stifle creative inspiration, imagination and ingenuity in tarot … Continue reading A Tarot Reckoning: Descent into Impressionism
“Owning the Mystery” – Personal vs. Collective Tarot
AUTHOR'S NOTE: While reading about Carl Gustav Jung's process of individuation as it applies to the Major Arcana of the tarot, I came across this intriguing quote: "To own a mystery gives stature, conveys uniqueness, and assures that one will not be submerged in the mass. Mystery is essential to the experience of oneself as … Continue reading “Owning the Mystery” – Personal vs. Collective Tarot
Something Borrowed, Something New
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In reading about the mythological history of the stars and their constellations, I came across the supposition that, in primitive cultures, the concept of a personal "guiding star" predated by millennia that of an individual "guardian angel." Everyone was aligned with a dominant stellar (or more likely planetary) force that governed their destiny … Continue reading Something Borrowed, Something New
If I Were a Tree . . .
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Funny how our ears will deceive us when we're not paying close attention or when we have no immediate frame of reference. For many years I thought Eric Clapton was singing "I'll be your four-letter man" in his song Forever Man (and I came up with more than a few vulgar expressions for … Continue reading If I Were a Tree . . .
Pop Metaphysics and the “Spirit Guide Mentality”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Following up on my previous post about "scrying in the spirit vision," I have a few more critical observations to share about the "spirit guide mentality." I'm not sure where the notion of spirit guides first cropped up in the practice of Western occultism. Although it apparently made its earliest appearance in the … Continue reading Pop Metaphysics and the “Spirit Guide Mentality”
A Man of Certainty (or “I’ll Know It When I See It”)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This essay follows the same line-of-thought as my previous post on “mystical rationalism.” Not too long ago I read an editorial piece that presented the results of a survey in which it was reported that 37% of the adult population of the United States refers to itself as "spiritual but not religious." The … Continue reading A Man of Certainty (or “I’ll Know It When I See It”)
“Death Becomes Him” – Thoughts on Mystical Rationalism
AUTHOR'S NOTE: You may remember the old Bruce Willis-Meryl Streep-Goldie Hawn film Death Becomes Her. I'm paraphrasing the title to support my introductory premise but there is no intended plot connection. In the occult tarot lexicon, the Death card corresponds to the enigmatic and remorseless Water sign Scorpio. In a previous essay I mentioned that, … Continue reading “Death Becomes Him” – Thoughts on Mystical Rationalism
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 