AUTHOR'S NOTE: In the "magical practices" section of her book, Tarot Correspondences: Ancient Secrets for Everyday Readers, T. Susan Chang offers "probability enhancement" as one definition of practical magic. It involves creative visualization (a more assertive type of creative imagination) in the form of a consciously-scripted aim to manifest what we want for the future. … Continue reading Probability Management: Divination as Agent of Destiny
Esoteric Tarot
Esoteric Correspondences “In the Trenches”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been inspired by something I just read in T. Susan Chang's Tarot Correspondences: Ancient Secrets for Everyday Readers to revisit a subject I covered a few years ago in my essay "Correspondences: How Much is Too Much?" (linked below). Her section on "putting it all together" provides useful techniques by which the … Continue reading Esoteric Correspondences “In the Trenches”
Dynamic Tension: “Secret Paths” on the Tree of Life
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm currently reading T. Susan Chang's Tarot Correspondences: Ancient Secrets for Everyday Readers, and I'm at the point where she talks about the indirect connections between sephiroth on the Hermetic Tree of Life that aren't joined by established "paths" along with their associated trump cards. In baseball terminology, we could say that she … Continue reading Dynamic Tension: “Secret Paths” on the Tree of Life
Recasting Saturn: The Devil, the World and the Hermit
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is the next installment in my series of follow-up essays examining the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's astrological notation for the Major Arcana of the tarot. The planet Saturn has traditionally shared equal billing with the element of Earth as the corresponding symbol for the World (Thoth Universe) card, which has … Continue reading Recasting Saturn: The Devil, the World and the Hermit
Swapping Correspondences for the Empress and the Lovers*
*Empress = Taurus (the most fertile of signs) and the Lovers = Venus (the Goddess of Love) In an earlier post (linked below), I explored "rethinking" the Golden Dawn's astrological assignments for the Major Arcana based on my five decades of practice with the esoteric tarot and astrology. This is the third in my series … Continue reading Swapping Correspondences for the Empress and the Lovers*
Online Tarot: Fishing for Meaning But Catching Only Noise
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is another installment in my long-running "beating-a-dead-horse" criticism of online tarot as my impatience with its superficiality continues to simmer. I've reached a new low in my opinion of the self-indulgent shallowness exhibited by so much of what I see going on, and have retreated to my hermitage to contemplate it. I … Continue reading Online Tarot: Fishing for Meaning But Catching Only Noise
“I Want My MTV” (Metaphysical Tarot Values)*
*Riffing on the song Money for Nothing by Dire Straits AUTHOR'S NOTE: In Liber T, the Order's tarot curriculum, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn assigned esoteric correspondences to all 78 cards of the deck, ranging from astrological associations to Qabalistic notation to scraps from the Medieval grimoire,The Picatrix. In routine practice, these sometimes-forced … Continue reading “I Want My MTV” (Metaphysical Tarot Values)*
Affinity or Dignity? – Elemental Compatibility in Tarot Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In its Liber T tarot curriculum, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn presented elaborate and prescriptive rules for the analysis of elemental associations between cards of different suits in a tarot reading, an interpretive technique known as "Elemental Dignity." The classical premise was that Fire and Air are "friendly" to one another, … Continue reading Affinity or Dignity? – Elemental Compatibility in Tarot Reading
Zodiacal Segmenting of the Court Cards
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've written about this subject before, but I've just been reading T. Susan Chang's very precise description of it in her book, Tarot Correspondences: Ancient Secrets for Everyday Readers, that brought me back to my own assumptions. In the Golden Dawn's Chaldean model of zodiacal associations for the tarot, all of the court … Continue reading Zodiacal Segmenting of the Court Cards
The Delusion of Perfection
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hate to say it, but far too many of the tarot readers I encounter online are convinced they've attained the pinnacle of tarot mastery and make sage pronouncements based on that assumption, when it's clear to this seasoned observer that they're still finding their way and may in fact be going in … Continue reading The Delusion of Perfection
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 