AUTHOR'S NOTE: This one has been in the queue for a while, but my recent essay on the Wheel of Fortune was a perfect lead-in to finally publishing it. The following quote from Aleister Crowley got me thinking about an intriguing way to harmonize the interaction of any two cards in a tarot deck. I'm … Continue reading “Destruction of Illusion” – A Crowleyan Exercise
Tarot Theory
Detachment, the Master Key to Objectivity
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've yet to meet a tarot beginner who hasn't agonized over whether an emotionally unsteady state of mind will improperly bias the outcome when reading for themselves.* This can certainly happen (for example, in stressful romantic situations), but it doesn't have to. For the record, divination with the cards is an emotive storytelling … Continue reading Detachment, the Master Key to Objectivity
Circular Thinking and the “Simultaneity of All Opposites”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Wheel of Fortune is a card that is passed over lightly by many tarot writers, and by most readers who think they know exactly what it means: some kind of change that can go either way, favorable or unfavorable. The reading then moves on to the next card in the spread to … Continue reading Circular Thinking and the “Simultaneity of All Opposites”
“The Kid-Glove Treatment:” A Soft Approach to Reversals
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This meditation on reversed cards joins more than a dozen other unconventional approaches I've already examined in past essays, while revisiting some of my earlier observations. (See my two "compendiums" [compendia?] of earlier posts on the subject elsewhere in this blog.) "Kid gloves" were made from the exceptionally supple hides of baby goats … Continue reading “The Kid-Glove Treatment:” A Soft Approach to Reversals
Further Thoughts on the “Trump-Card Diamond”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Following up on my previous comments about inscribing an equilateral diamond (essentially a "tipped square") within the circumference of a circle, I decided to do just that with the double-triangle arrangement of trump cards from my earlier essay. Refer to the photograph below. (I did something similar with the pip and court cards … Continue reading Further Thoughts on the “Trump-Card Diamond”
Numerological Oddities
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently encountered a mathematical term that is new to me (not something that happens every day), although the concept isn't: that of numerical aliquots, as in "the sum of the aliquot parts of an integer." I came across this in a discussion of the number Six as being an "aliquot sum" in … Continue reading Numerological Oddities
The Hierophant, the Archetypal “Five” and the Maelstrom
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I credit Edgar Allan Poe with educating me about the maelstrom: it is the "Mother of All Whirlpools" that will relentlessly suck down any seafaring vessel careless enough to wander into its embrace, kind of like an oceanic "black hole." Here I'm drawing unflattering parallels to religious fundamentalism and its purveyors, although that … Continue reading The Hierophant, the Archetypal “Five” and the Maelstrom
Affirmation Bias and “Participation Mystique”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently came across an extremely useful concept in Sallie Nichols' Tarot and the Archetypal Journey, that of "participation mystique." The premise is that, until they can begin to fashion words into coherent ideas that define their individuality, infants have no sense of personal ego and instead reside in a limitless, amorphous ocean … Continue reading Affirmation Bias and “Participation Mystique”
“Finding the Path” – Opening A Spirit Contact Channel
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I occasionally encounter questions about ways to contact the spirits of the departed and other disembodied entities using the tarot cards. Through my esoteric studies and practice over the last fifty years I've become familiar with the principles of "astral pathworking" using the Major Arcana, but that is a more disciplined - and … Continue reading “Finding the Path” – Opening A Spirit Contact Channel
Higher Octaves: The Outer Planet Conundrum
AUTHOR'S NOTE: While reading Aleister Crowley's Eight Lectures on Yoga, I came across his brief analysis of the ten planets of astrology, the seven "classical" orbs of the ancients and (at least in part) the three modern planets. Back in the 1970s, esoteric astrologers considered Uranus, Neptune and Pluto to represent the "higher octaves" of … Continue reading Higher Octaves: The Outer Planet Conundrum
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 