AUTHOR'S NOTE: No, this essay isn't about preventing Grandma from being eaten by a grizzly bear; I swear it's divination-related. The relative and the absolute are metaphysical concepts I picked up while re-reading The Kybalion. Those new to the tarot who approach it with an eye toward becoming a diviner are immediately confronted with a … Continue reading The Symbolic Disconnect: Prying the Relative from the Jaws of the Absolute
Tarot Theory
The Diviner as Middleman – Sharing the Burden of Proof
Ted Striker (Robert Hayes): "Surely you can't be serious."Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen): "I am serious . . . and don't call me Shirley."- from the movie Airplane! AUTHOR'S NOTE: After many years away from it, I'm now re-reading The Kybalion, a learned text on esoteric philosophy. In one of the early lessons the author insists … Continue reading The Diviner as Middleman – Sharing the Burden of Proof
A Multi-Path Progression: Occult, Cartomantic and Numerological Number Theory
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been using a combination of Pythagorean and Qabalistic number theory with the minor (or "pip") cards over the entire span of my five-decade tarot journey, but more recently I came across a new model (which is not all that different from my old one) in playing-card divination. I thought it would be … Continue reading A Multi-Path Progression: Occult, Cartomantic and Numerological Number Theory
The “Liberating” Tarot and the “Locksmith’s” Portion
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In Tarot Currents, Paul Hughes-Barlow recently observed that the true aim of tarot reading is not solely the telling of fortunes but rather the delivery of relief from suffering and liberation from a feeling of entrapment. In Paul's words: "The proper use of TARO is not simply to predict events. Its purpose is … Continue reading The “Liberating” Tarot and the “Locksmith’s” Portion
A “User Profile” Spread and Table: Stalking the Wild Sociopath
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In a recent post I explored the subject of "using" and "being used" in a socially-manipulative way. Here I'm making good on two "oh-by-the-way" suggestions I made in that essay. One was to create a spread to examine the social priorities of a target individual (or entity) and the other was to bin … Continue reading A “User Profile” Spread and Table: Stalking the Wild Sociopath
Social Neutrality: Neither “Using” Nor “Being Used”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've long believed that the prototypical "average person" often harbors a private agenda that exemplifies the "social user" stigma of the title. They may not even be aware of their antisocial inclinations, but those close to them certainly are. As a group, social users aspire to either dominate others and thereby gain a … Continue reading Social Neutrality: Neither “Using” Nor “Being Used”
Data-Driven Reality and the “SWAG” Default
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As a teenager in the '60s I read a 1963 science-fiction book by Daniel Galouye titled Simulacron-3 that described a computer-generated city in which the inhabitants "thought" they were conscious beings but were in fact only figments of the programmer's imagination, fictional participants in a market-research simulation (an early take on the ideas … Continue reading Data-Driven Reality and the “SWAG” Default
‘Tis O’er the Hills and Far Away: Clairvoyance as a Hedge Against Cold Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: First a disclosure. Ever since the day I returned to public tarot reading in 2011, I've been a vocal critic of remote divination in general, and especially of that offered by online practitioners in the form of "psychism-with-props" (cartomantic clairvoyance or precognition). But here I'm approaching it a bit differently, beginning in the … Continue reading ‘Tis O’er the Hills and Far Away: Clairvoyance as a Hedge Against Cold Reading
Here’s the Woof, Where’s the Warp?
"Both consciousness and matter exist, but neither arises from the other. They are separate, primitive "substances," like the warp and woof of the fabric of reality,"- from Real Magic by Dean Radin, published in 2018. AUTHOR'S NOTE: Wow! Just wow. I encountered Dean Radin's book just over a month ago in an r/occult sub-reddit thread, … Continue reading Here’s the Woof, Where’s the Warp?
“Predisposition” in Tarot Reading
"Now, what if - as magical lore suggests - intention bypasses the ordinary flow of time, manifesting the goal in the future and thereby causing events unfolding in the present to be pulled toward that goal? This (referring to one of his experiments) suggests that some intentional effects may involve processes that - from a … Continue reading “Predisposition” in Tarot Reading
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 