My understanding from numerous on-line conversations with European tarot enthusiasts is that many of them use only the 22 trump cards in divination. I've tried this approach but it seems a bit too much like reading a text message that is all capital letters and exclamation marks (like a Donald Trump tweet). There can be … Continue reading The Grand Illusion
Tarot Opinion
“Celestial Seeping”
As I work my way through The Discarded Image, an examination of Medieval cosmology by C.S. Lewis, I encountered an observation that seems to support my long-standing assumption - not my own idea but one I read somewhere - that the Hermetic Qabalah is to a large extent grounded in the Neo-Platonism that was grafted … Continue reading “Celestial Seeping”
To Inform or Inspire?
Ever since the day last year when I was chided (gently) for my "fancy writing," I've striven to sharpen, refine and carefully prune my overly verbose descriptive style (of course, I'm not always successful because, as you can plainly see, I adore adjectives, semicolons and parentheses). In doing so, I sometimes find myself skewered by … Continue reading To Inform or Inspire?
A Baleful Thing?
Upon the recommendation of a fellow on-line "Tarot History" member, I've begun reading The Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis, a study of Medieval literature and its iconography. At the very beginning of the Introduction I encountered a passage that stopped me in my tracks. He was talking about how, when we come upon "hard places" … Continue reading A Baleful Thing?
A Step Beyond
In the last few months I've read three tarot books that have caused me to move beyond my aversion to drawing additional "clarifier" cards during my readings, although in a very specific and limited way. This situation arises due to the facing (also known as "gaze," "regard," "gesture" or "posture") of the figures on the … Continue reading A Step Beyond
Hand Jive*
(*For those unfamiliar with it, the hand jive was a dance from the 1950s involving "a complicated pattern of hand moves." It brings to mind some of the elaborate manual maneuvers we make in preparing a tarot deck for a reading.) Last night I was reading Paul Huson's Mystical Origins of the Tarot and reached … Continue reading Hand Jive*
“Read ‘Em and Weep”
If your experience is similar to mine, you've most likely encountered reading situations where the cards drawn are so wildly at variance with the context of the question that you're hard-pressed to meet your professional obligation of giving your sitters something meaningful to work with. As you strive to salvage your credibility, it can seem … Continue reading “Read ‘Em and Weep”
Predicting the Future: Prescience or Self-Projection?
There is a strong sentiment among experienced diviners that "fortune-telling" of the flatly predictive variety - while it is not exactly denounced - is an impractical and unreliable pursuit, for a couple of reasons: 1) the future is a moving target and can change regularly based on intervening circumstances not always of our own making … Continue reading Predicting the Future: Prescience or Self-Projection?
The Man Behind the Curtain
In The Wizard of Oz, Frank Morgan as the Wizard thundered at Dorothy and her companions, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" If memory serves (it's been a few years since I read the book), in his "master class" material Paul Fenton-Smith mentions that he treats a reversed card in a tarot … Continue reading The Man Behind the Curtain
The Devil’s Due
A very long time ago when I first began working with the Thoth deck, I encountered the idea that the Devil card brings enormous physical energy and creativity to the subject of a reading (even if Crowley did inevitably characterize it as procreative or at any rate sexual). This seemed like a more useful take … Continue reading The Devil’s Due
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 