AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is an approach to personality profiling that uses a "prepared" deck split into trump, court and pip card sub-packs. The design employs three layers of significance: the outer rectangle of four "pip" cards displays a tableau of daily experience in four elemental attitudes or postures; the middle diamond of four court cards … Continue reading “Who Am I Right Now?” – A Three-Part Personality Profile
Trumps
The “Glorified Pip Cards” of the Thoth Tarot
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Today I'm embarking on my promised "deep dive" into the Thoth tarot, beginning with the Minor Arcana. Note, however, that I'm not going to present an exhaustive card-by-card analysis of divinatory content; I've already done that in my posted "Tarot 101" course material, which is primarily Thoth-based, and in a more general way … Continue reading The “Glorified Pip Cards” of the Thoth Tarot
The Third Principle
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In The Tarot of the Bohemians, Papus covered a minor point that I've explored in much greater detail in my own work over the last few years, although at the time I had no idea I was echoing a nearly 150-year-old numerological concept. He proposed treating the second of two cards in a non-adjacent … Continue reading The Third Principle
The Tarot Cosmology of Papus
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A couple of weeks ago I posted an essay in which I took issue with the Golden Dawn's arrangement of the Kings, Queens and Knights on the Chaldean wheel of the zodiac. Rather than the Queens being Cardinal (a dynamic and enterprising mode), I've always felt that they should be Fixed due to … Continue reading The Tarot Cosmology of Papus
“Midnight Dew and Golden Sunflakes”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In 1962, Canadian folksinger Bonnie Dobson wrote and recorded Morning Dew, an anti-war song in which the "dew" was nuclear fallout. In this essay, the analogous but hardly-as-lethal condensation is the "midnight dew" shed by the Moon in the Tarot de Marseille card of that name. In 1969, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd … Continue reading “Midnight Dew and Golden Sunflakes”
Scattered Elements
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I just came across a radical departure from the typical "Fool's Journey" motif for the Major Arcana that I find intriguing since it relies on the hierarchy of elements shown in the four "magical implements" of the Magician. This led me to a related topic: whether the cards pulled for a spread can … Continue reading Scattered Elements
Last Waltz: The Universe and Beyond
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The World card of the tarot (aka "the Universe" in the Thoth and other esoteric decks) prompts endless questions from beginners who are not yet versed in its symbolism. Is it in fact a "good" card that portends success for the seeker because it displays a dancing woman who seems serene and utterly … Continue reading Last Waltz: The Universe and Beyond
The Lover and the Devil: Trump-Card Bookends
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been playing around with the 7x3 array of trump cards (minus the Fool because zero adds nothing to this exercise) by running out the numerological expressions for each row and column. I used both Theosophical reduction (adding together the digits of any sum larger than 21) and "casting out nines" (subtracting increments … Continue reading The Lover and the Devil: Trump-Card Bookends
2024 Celtic Wheel of the Year Layout
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For the next solar cycle, I chose not to pull random cards to represent the Celtic year, but rather to use the tarot trump cards associated with the eight Celtic holidays and the four zodiacal ingress dates for the Sun, thus creating a universal layout with slightly more irregular sequencing than the typical … Continue reading 2024 Celtic Wheel of the Year Layout
The High Priestess and Fidelity
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The High Priestess is above all a paragon of fidelity. Sallie Nichols describes her archetypal mission, in part, as "obedience to true spirit," but here I will attempt to ground that observation in more mundane terms. When the High Priestess appears in a reading, it suggests the need to root out any irregularity … Continue reading The High Priestess and Fidelity
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 