AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have a few less-meaty essays in my backlog of pending posts. This is one, and I will publish the others over the next couple of days. A fellow member of the r/occult sub-reddit community recently asked a particularly vexing question: "What do you people even do with occult knowledge?" This individual was … Continue reading Occult Knowledge: What’s the Use?
Esoteric Tarot
Mental Gender, the Tree of Life and the Tarot Trumps
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In presenting the seventh "Great Hermetic Principle" of Gender (as an active/passive mental polarity rather than a biological duality), The Kybalion describes the masculine principle as the domain of the Will, which is dynamic and energizing, and its feminine counterpart as uncommonly responsive and generative in that it welcomes the motivating impulse of … Continue reading Mental Gender, the Tree of Life and the Tarot Trumps
The Symbolic Disconnect: Prying the Relative from the Jaws of the Absolute
AUTHOR'S NOTE: No, this essay isn't about stopping a grizzly bear from eating Grandma; 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 wealth of … Continue reading The Symbolic Disconnect: Prying the Relative from the Jaws of the Absolute
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
All or Nothing: Suit Distribution* as a Key Factor in Divination
*The techniques described below can also be applied to the elemental attributes of the Major Arcana by either direct association or astrological correspondence. AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently commented on an r/tarot sub-reddit post about a spread that was "all Pentacles." This brought up the question of preponderance or absence of an energy (or energies) in … Continue reading All or Nothing: Suit Distribution* as a Key Factor in Divination
Prepping the Celtic Cross for Elemental Dignities
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Before I begin, I should mention that my personal version of the venerable Celtic Cross (CC) spread is based on Eden Gray's model from her 1960 book, The Tarot Revealed, and not on A.E. Waite's Christian-inflected design from The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Gray made a couple of significant changes that alter … Continue reading Prepping the Celtic Cross for Elemental Dignities
The Emperor’s Deputies: Kings as “14” and “4”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As promised, here is the second iteration of the court cards as numerological counterparts to the trump cards according to "transcendence" of the second digit in their numeration, this time covering the Kings (Thoth Knights). "Transcendence" is Jame's Ricklef's word for Alejandro Jodorowsky's "decimal equivalency" that is also used by James Wanless in … Continue reading The Emperor’s Deputies: Kings as “14” and “4”
The Suit of Pentacles: “Plan the Work and Work the Plan”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been following the drama surrounding the proposed White House ballroom. Statements made by the administration that the court only prohibited ground-breaking and that planning would still proceed reminded me of my current thinking on the tarot suit of Pentacles (aka Coins and Disks). A few years ago I developed a set of … Continue reading The Suit of Pentacles: “Plan the Work and Work the Plan”
Divination: A Step Away from Ceremonial Magic
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As a longtime student and practitioner of the esoteric arts, I progressed through several years of close contact with ceremonial magic back in the 1980s. This was a natural outgrowth of my investigation of the Hermetic Qabalah and the literature of its chief proponents that began in 1971, particularly addressing the contributions of … Continue reading Divination: A Step Away from Ceremonial Magic
Sitting with Ourself: A Thoth Perspective
"If I had the chance, I'd ask the world to danceAnd I'd be dancing with myself"- from Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I began reading Joe Monteleone's Tarot Mysticism: The Psycho-Spiritual Technology of the Thoth Tarot, I came upon his premise that one of the three primary uses for the tarot … Continue reading Sitting with Ourself: A Thoth Perspective
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 