AUTHOR'S NOTE: I decided to come up with a tarot-based approach for selecting the most favorable day(s) to buy weekly lottery tickets as a way to hopefully improve the probability of success. I don't gamble as a rule because, if I have a 50-50 chance of winning at any game of chance, I lose around … Continue reading Lottery-Ticket Tarot for the Win
Tarot Card Meanings
A Valentine’s Day Mini-Tradition
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This post is kind of a "gimme" for my daily blog update since I've been bumping the attached analysis periodically on Valentine's Day since I first presented it in 2018. I have quite a few new followers who may not have seen it. Because love readings are such a large part of the … Continue reading A Valentine’s Day Mini-Tradition
The Thoth Atu or Keys: Major Arcana in Brief
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This essay - the third and final installment of my Thoth "deep dive" series - is by far the most challenging. Crowley's take on the Major Arcana was nuanced and complex, full of syncretic flourishes and just plain ol' mystical ambiguity. But at least his rarefied excursions into occult profundity were a product … Continue reading The Thoth Atu or Keys: Major Arcana in Brief
The Thoth Court Cards: Old and Trusted Friends
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the second post in my three-part initiative to explore the Thoth tarot at a profound level that goes deeper than the card-by-card analysis I've already presented elsewhere in this blog. Here I'm tackling the court cards, for which I've always considered Crowley's compact explanations to be "some of the best out … Continue reading The Thoth Court Cards: Old and Trusted Friends
“Putting A Face To It” – Physical Profiling with the Tarot
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Most of us have felt the quandary expressed in the trope "I know the name but I can't put a face to it." I'm often asked whether the court cards of the tarot can be used to reliably describe the physical characteristics of someone involved in the querent's life. Here is my answer … Continue reading “Putting A Face To It” – Physical Profiling with the Tarot
The Third Principle
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In The Tarot of the Bohemians, Papus covered a minor point that I've explored in much greater detail in my own work over the last few years, although at the time I had no idea I was echoing a nearly 150-year-old numerological concept. He proposed treating the second of two cards in a non-adjacent … Continue reading The Third Principle
Cut the Cord! – Folk Magic and the 3 of Swords
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've written in the past about the opportunity presented by the Waite-Smith (RWS) 3 of Swords to resist wallowing in the apparent misery it depicts and instead actively seek a way to remove the swords from the heart and let it heal. (This is the symbolic function of the nimble and resilient number … Continue reading Cut the Cord! – Folk Magic and the 3 of Swords
The Tarot Cosmology of Papus
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A couple of weeks ago I posted an essay in which I took issue with the Golden Dawn's arrangement of the Kings, Queens and Knights on the Chaldean wheel of the zodiac. Rather than the Queens being Cardinal (a dynamic and enterprising mode), I've always felt that they should be Fixed due to … Continue reading The Tarot Cosmology of Papus
“Midnight Dew and Golden Sunflakes”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In 1962, Canadian folksinger Bonnie Dobson wrote and recorded Morning Dew, an anti-war song in which the "dew" was nuclear fallout. In this essay, the analogous but hardly-as-lethal condensation is the "midnight dew" shed by the Moon in the Tarot de Marseille card of that name. In 1969, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd … Continue reading “Midnight Dew and Golden Sunflakes”
Last Waltz: The Universe and Beyond
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The World card of the tarot (aka "the Universe" in the Thoth and other esoteric decks) prompts endless questions from beginners who are not yet versed in its symbolism. Is it in fact a "good" card that portends success for the seeker because it displays a dancing woman who seems serene and utterly … Continue reading Last Waltz: The Universe and Beyond
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 