I haven't had a good rant in a while and this topic has come 'round again with a vengeance. As I cruise the Facebook tarot pages I keep encountering the same old tired myths related to the tarot, usually brought up by neophytes who haven't been told any different. Not all of these folkloric superstitions … Continue reading The Myths of Tarot: Sacred Cows and Tin Gods
Spirituality
The “Hedge Mystic”
In a recent post I characterized myself as a "garden-variety mystic" in that I don't identify as a "psychic" (much less an all-seeing one) or a "sensitive" in my professional pursuits (nor as an "empath" either, but that's a subject for a different post), I just "read the cards." Today I hit upon the even … Continue reading The “Hedge Mystic”
Other Worlds
I have to admit that I'm not much of an astral traveler or "scryer." Of course, I do have an intellectual understanding of parallel-universe theories, bilocation and the "illusion of time," as well as more than a little experience with Astral Plane phenomena, but trying to approach the latter from a disciplined rather than totally … Continue reading Other Worlds
Jodo’s New-Age “Art” Films
Before he became a tarot star (of sorts), Alejandro Jodorowsky was a maker of exquisitely (or excruciatingly) surrealistic experimental films. I was 24 in 1972 when I first saw El Topo at a midnight drive-in theater screening in Connecticut, and it left a lasting impression (or stain?) on me. A couple of years ago, I … Continue reading Jodo’s New-Age “Art” Films
An Astro-Tarot Meditation Aid
Aleister Crowley said that the ideal way to become intimately acquainted with the Major Arcana of the tarot as "living beings" is meditation (although divination is the most practical way for the uninitiated). In his book The Druidry Handbook, John Michael Greer observed that the noisy Western mental machinery is not amenable to the Eastern … Continue reading An Astro-Tarot Meditation Aid
“Mirror of the Soul” Karmic Message Spread
The Pythagoreans held that Number is sacred and embodies the root of all Existence; the measure of anything whatsoever can be taken in its ten formative principals, which ascend from an embryonic origin in the Monad or Point (1) to mature perfection in the Decad (10). (Note that this isn't the mathematical perception of Pythagoreanism … Continue reading “Mirror of the Soul” Karmic Message Spread
Invoking or Evoking? A Case for Spirits
As I often say, I'm "devoutly nonreligious" in every orthodox sense but I do believe a persistent, non-human (or superhuman) primal intelligence, and maybe even a subordinate hierarchy of lesser spirits, inhabits the subtler realms of existence, and that we can communicate with it (or them) if we actively develop the sensitivity. (Before I get … Continue reading Invoking or Evoking? A Case for Spirits
So Mote It Be
My head is crammed with allusions this morning. The title refers to the Masonic, Rosicrucian and Neo-pagan benediction at the end of a ritual or prayer, where "mote" means "may" or "might." I'm thinking that "it might happen" is often the best we as diviners can muster when trying to fathom the likelihood of projected … Continue reading So Mote It Be
The “Hamlet Defense”
In my previously constrained magical life, which persisted for many years after we moved to rural New Hampshire in 1979 and our early attempts to start astrology and Qabala groups came to nothing, I never encountered scoffers and skeptics. Eventually, my only public exposure in the esoteric field was to the like-minded people at the local … Continue reading The “Hamlet Defense”
A “Spiritual Release” Example Reading
This was an interesting exercise because I have been on an esoteric spiritual journey for over four decades, and count myself among the 37% of Americans who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious." I used the Radiant RWS for this reading. All images copyright U.S. Games Systems, Inc, Stamford, CT Card #1 - "What I Know" (The Footing): … Continue reading A “Spiritual Release” Example Reading
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 