Having passed the "century" mark in self-designed tarot spread creation and presently working on my second hundred, I've been thinking (when am I not?) of what it takes to develop a truly informative and compelling layout that avoids being tiresomely trite. The most common formula in use today is to take five card positions, which seems to be the … Continue reading Spread Technician: The Artist-Philosopher-Engineer at Play
Tarot Opinion
Hard and Soft, Red and Black
During my intermittent involvement with the Tarot de Marseille (I'm still waiting for that "one book to rule them all"), I've come across the opinion that Batons and Swords are the "hard" suits, while Cups and Coins are "soft." There is some logic to this: both wooden batons (also called staves) and edged metal blades … Continue reading Hard and Soft, Red and Black
Cardboard, Ink and Magic
The forum conversations used to go something like this: Question: Do tarot cards have "personalities?" Answer: Nope, they're just tools made of cardboard and ink. The human qualities they seem to exhibit are those we project onto them. The formal word for it is "anthropomorphizing" but, put more simply, it's a type of animism with roots in … Continue reading Cardboard, Ink and Magic
“A Minute Passed” – The Problem of Prediction
There is an old comedy sketch by Monty Python's Eric Idle that neatly lampoons the slippery art of predicting future circumstances and events. Although the subject of Idle's monologue is anticipatory sexual tension and not divination, the notion of waiting in vain for something to happen is all too familiar. "A minute passed. Then another. Then, another … Continue reading “A Minute Passed” – The Problem of Prediction
Tarot de Marseille: Built for Comfort, Not for Speed
"Some folk rip and roar, some folk b'lieve in signs But if you want me, you got to take your time Because I'm built for comfort, I ain't built for speed" Built for Comfort (Willie Dixon/Howling Wolf) There is something (well, actually 40 "somethings") about the Tarot de Marseill that eludes a facile approach to … Continue reading Tarot de Marseille: Built for Comfort, Not for Speed
Natura Abhorret Vacuum: The Fool and the Aces
This post started out as a riff on the postulate "horror vacui" attributed to Aristotle and later restated by Francois Rabelais as "Nature abhors a vacuum," and was going to be a cautionary tale about filling blog space with miscellaneous "stuff" when nothing new presents itself to the blogger's scrutiny (in this case, me and … Continue reading Natura Abhorret Vacuum: The Fool and the Aces
The Fool and Me
It never occurred to me that this 1974 hard-rock song from Robin Trower's Bridge of Sighs album, co-written and sung by the late, great James Dewar, most likely had its roots in the tarot; the timing was certainly right for a veiled New Age allusion. With lyrics that seem to play off the Fool's heedless … Continue reading The Fool and Me
In the Beginning . . .
. . . there was the Word, and the Word was Good. Most of us began our tarot journey with books. The more "senior" among us probably found our way to Eden Gray's The Tarot Revealed first, followed by Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot. I surmise that it's a rare person who picks up the … Continue reading In the Beginning . . .
The Small Pond
When I started this blog in July of 2017, I was recovering from the shock of the imminent demise of the Aeclectic Tarot forum and hoping to find (or create) another active venue for discussion of the more esoteric side of tarot and divination in general. A few upstart forums rushed in to fill the … Continue reading The Small Pond
Jodo’s Hermit: Walk this Way
I've been slowly and patiently working my way through Alejandro Jodorowsky's Tarot de Marseille book, The Way of Tarot (a full analysis of which will have to wait for another time, assuming I get to the end of it). I came to it prepared to be disappointed, convinced by previous reviews that it veers too … Continue reading Jodo’s Hermit: Walk this Way
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 