"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
Golden Dawn
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
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
The Golden Dawn’s “Opening of the Key” – Much Ado About Too Much?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: First a confession: it's been years (make that decades) since I last performed all five "operations" of the Golden Dawn's "Opening of the Key" (OotK) method of divination, which can take hours to complete and yields far more information than any ordinary inquiry requires. This fact alone severely limits its application in professional … Continue reading The Golden Dawn’s “Opening of the Key” – Much Ado About Too Much?
Tension and Release in the Chaldean Counterparts for the Minor Arcana
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm constantly seeking innovative ways to extract more interpretive value from the set of esoteric correspondences devised by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn for the Minor Arcana of the tarot. Here is my latest attempt. In musical composition and performance there is the concept of "tension and release" by which the … Continue reading Tension and Release in the Chaldean Counterparts for the Minor Arcana
“Business and Enterprise” Cards in Lenormand Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the fourth in my series of posts that examine the informal (and highly non-traditional/unofficial/controversial) correlation of the Lenormand cards to the 12 signs and 36 decanates of the astrological zodiac. This time I'm looking at business and enterprise aspects reflected in the sign of Capricorn and its "native" 10th House, in … Continue reading “Business and Enterprise” Cards in Lenormand Reading
The 10 of Cups: “Pushing a String”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sometimes we can tie ourselves up in knots when trying too diligently to impose esoteric symbolism on the tarot cards. I recently came across an opinion that the 10 of Cups - which is associated with Mars in Pisces in the Golden Dawn's system of "Chaldean" astrological correspondences - must refer to the … Continue reading The 10 of Cups: “Pushing a String”
Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Card Meaning in Tarot Spreads
AUTHOR'S NOTE: At its finest, reading the tarot cards is a subtle art full of nuance and inflection that can't be shoehorned into a formula (or a TikTok algorithm). Ostensibly, I'm going to talk about the nominal influence of the cards in a spread, both individually and in combination, but I will also get into … Continue reading Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Card Meaning in Tarot Spreads
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 