There is something slightly dismal about the opening and closing stanzas of the famous Lewis Carroll nonsense poem that reminds me of some of the more unsettling cards of the Thoth deck (must be those flimsy, miserable, shabby-looking birds described by Humpty Dumpty). I took on the interesting challenge of finding correlations between the cards and the rest … Continue reading The Jabberwocky and the Thoth Tarot
Tarot Miscellany
Annabel Lee in the Cards
I can't get enough of this project, and Edgar Allan Poe has me by the throat! His somber poem Annabel Lee overflows with vivid imagery that is well-served by the cards of the tarot. Once again, I'm using both "small" cards and trumps in the visual narrative, and this time a court card sneaks in as … Continue reading Annabel Lee in the Cards
The Raven and the Dark “Pip” Cards
There is a dark current running through the Minor Arcana (or scenic "pip") cards of the Waite-Smith deck that finds its most eloquent expression in the suits of Cups and Swords. I was encouraged by my daughter-in-law to examine Edgar Allan Poe's gloomy, elegiac poem The Raven for inclusion in my "poetry-as-trumps" project, and in doing so I couldn't … Continue reading The Raven and the Dark “Pip” Cards
The Highwayman and the Major Arcana
I don't know precisely why it should be so (although I have a hunch that is rooted in psychology), but somber poems seem to lend themselves really well to my project of interpreting classic poetry in terms of the tarot trump cards. Here is a vivid example, The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. The wind was … Continue reading The Highwayman and the Major Arcana
Swinburn and the Major Arcana
Now I'm really going to have to work! This brilliant piece of mystical poetry, extracted from Algernon Charles Swinburn's epic verse drama, Atalanta at Calydon, is rife with possibilities for metaphorical correspondences to the cards of the Major Arcana. I was able to bring all 22 trumps to bear here; not all of them are a … Continue reading Swinburn and the Major Arcana
The End of the World and the Major Arcana
This brief poem by Archibald MacLeish is also a candidate for "tarotization." It looks like a five-card trump sequence. Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot The armless ambidextrian was lighting A match between his great and second toe This suggests the dexterous skill of the Magician. Call it "sleight-of-toe." And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting … Continue reading The End of the World and the Major Arcana
A Miscellany of Cards
I have quite a few divination decks that I never use for any purpose other than admiring them as works of art. In order to become more familiar with them over time, I decided to perform an exercise here. On a periodic basis, I will randomly choose one of my decks and draw a card … Continue reading A Miscellany of Cards
The Ideal Study Group
Esoteric study groups of the face-to-face kind are mercurial beasts. Interest tends to wax and wane, and attendance is anything but consistent as members occasionally choose to deal with more mundane matters on meeting day. When I lived in the Hartford, CT area in the '70s, there were numerous opportunities to meet regularly with kindred … Continue reading The Ideal Study Group
Cypher This!
The so-called "Cypher Manuscripts" that formed the foundation of the graduated curriculum of esoteric studies established by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn have a fascinating history (or pseudo-history, depending on whom you believe) in their own right, They consist of 60 folios hand-written in English (and in the case of the diagrams, crudely … Continue reading Cypher This!
WYSIWYG or “WYSINWYG?”
Back in the '80s, computer geeks were always talking about programming code that let a developer (and eventually a user) see the end product of their work on the monitor screen while they were in the middle of creating it. These editors were known by the acronym "WYSIWYG" ("What you see is what you get"), … Continue reading WYSIWYG or “WYSINWYG?”
