AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently posted on the subject of creating a unique, hand-made tarot deck for independent study and practice, noting that someone (like me) who has accumulated several decades of esoteric experience with traditional decks probably won't benefit much from doing so. But that does not mean one shouldn't try to "personalize" the chosen … Continue reading Personalizing the Tarot
Tarot Theory
The Crucible of Desire: Mars and Venus on the Cube of Space
"Mars goes out and gets what Venus wants." - Attributed to astrologer Isabel Hickey AUTHOR'S NOTE: One of my favorite ways to translate tarot cards into a compelling narrative is to apply their planetary energies across the board, whether they are assigned through direct correspondence or extrapolated from sign rulership. Here I'm going just a … Continue reading The Crucible of Desire: Mars and Venus on the Cube of Space
“The Great Tuning-Fork” Self-Realization Spread
"You will be calibrating the tuning-fork of your personal consciousness to the great turning-fork of universal consciousness." - Lon Milo DuQuette in Tarot Architect. AUTHOR'S NOTE: These are deep waters, and as the ancient nautical cartographers used to warn, "Here be dragons!" One of the most effective ways I've found to understand complex esoteric subjects … Continue reading “The Great Tuning-Fork” Self-Realization Spread
“Hits, Runs, Walks, Errors and Outs” – A Baseball-Themed Situational Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As a take-away from my recent post on the Aces, I decided to create a situational-awareness spread designed around the baseball motif I used in that essay. I was an avid baseball player until my late 30s and I'm still a fan, so I'm very familiar with the mechanics of the game and … Continue reading “Hits, Runs, Walks, Errors and Outs” – A Baseball-Themed Situational Spread
The Aces: A Point to Ponder
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was going to sub-title this essay "The Importance of Fixity," but you will get that message as you read through it and examine the graphic. Conventional wisdom in the esoteric tarot community is that the Ace represents the creative and formative catalyst or "spark" behind the intent to manifest shown by the … Continue reading The Aces: A Point to Ponder
Thoughts on the Cube of Space and the Cardinal Directions
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been ramping up my study of the esoteric "Cube of Space" while reading Lon Milo DuQuette's Tarot Architect. It's a conceptual model that I've never fully appreciated nor had any practical use for, but that is about to change. In doing so I compared DuQuette's illustration to that of Robert Wang in … Continue reading Thoughts on the Cube of Space and the Cardinal Directions
Interrupting the Continuum: An Alternate Approach to Pulling Tarot Cards
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The shuffle-and-cut sequence is a time-honored preliminary to pulling tarot cards for a reading, but there is another technique used by some practitioners that draws the required number of cards from a full-deck "fan" spread out in front of the querent. Here I'm pushing that idea to its logical conclusion. When a new … Continue reading Interrupting the Continuum: An Alternate Approach to Pulling Tarot Cards
Honoring the Cards in Theory and Practice
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As part of the "homework" assigned to readers of his book, Tarot Architect, Lon Milo DuQuette advises them to "kiss" each of the cards as a curious but charming ritual blessing before laying it on the table. This is just a little too "precious" for my own intellectual sensibilities so I won't do … Continue reading Honoring the Cards in Theory and Practice
A Mini-Lesson in Card Counting-and-Pairing
AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I first encountered the concepts of "counting round" and "mirroring" in the Lenormand Grand Tableau, I noticed a strong similarity between those 18th-Century cartomantic practices and the "counting-and-pairing" steps of the "Opening of the Key" (OotK) method for working with the tarot that was developed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden … Continue reading A Mini-Lesson in Card Counting-and-Pairing
The Trans-Saturnian Planets and the Thoth Minor Arcana
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A while ago I pegged the three modern planets of astrology - Uranus, Neptune and Pluto - to the Chaldean wheel of correspondences used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn to align the Minor Arcana of the tarot with the 36 decanates (or "decans") of the zodiac. In doing this, I … Continue reading The Trans-Saturnian Planets and the Thoth Minor Arcana
