AUTHOR'S NOTE: The High Priestess, the second "numbered" trump card of the tarot, is typically regarded as a guardian of secrets both cosmic and mundane. When she appears in a reading, something about the matter is not yet known, and perhaps the querent isn't prepared to receive the revelation or is being kept in the … Continue reading The Gatekeepers of Tarot: The Priestess and Her Posse
major-arcana
Strength and the Sun: Solar Traveling Companions
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Golden Dawn's astrological correspondences for the tarot cards often reveal interesting parallels and tangents between the Major Arcana. Here is one example. Both the Sun and Strength (originally titled "Fortitude" and later called "Lust" by Aleister Crowley) are associated with the potent solar light that radiates with uniform intensity throughout the firmament, … Continue reading Strength and the Sun: Solar Traveling Companions
“Downsizing” the Major Arcana in Mundane Tarot Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: All too often, the random appearance of a trump card in a tarot reading about a commonplace subject feels like a giant rock has been tossed into the middle of a placid pond when a drop of rain or two would have been sufficient to stir the water to a depth that churns … Continue reading “Downsizing” the Major Arcana in Mundane Tarot Reading
The Astrological Trumps and the Sephiroth: A Creative Rethinking
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although I've studied and worked with the pattern for over fifty years, I've never found much practical (i.e. divinatory) use for the assignment of the tarot's Major Arcana to the paths of the Qabalistic Tree of Life outside of astral pathworking (at which I'm not particularly adept). The alignment of the ten sephiroth … Continue reading The Astrological Trumps and the Sephiroth: A Creative Rethinking
Natural Alignment: Separating the Cow from the Hamburger
AUTHOR'S NOTE: My opinion of Ethan Indigo Smith's imagination and sense of humor went up a notch while reading (in The Tao of Thoth) his discussion of the archaic Egyptian word "neter" (meaning vital energy or life-force), which he relates to the equivalent term "chi" in the Tao. He describes this organic animating principle as … Continue reading Natural Alignment: Separating the Cow from the Hamburger
Mastery of Circumstances: The Triangular Pyramid Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In "The Problem of the Fourth" (Part Five of A Psychological Approach to the Trinity), Carl Gustav Jung observed "There are three, but where is the fourth?" There are numerous tarot spreads that use a tripartite motif: past/present/ future; action/reaction/resolution; thesis/antithesis/synthesis; if/then/else; etc. But here I'm projecting that planar model into three dimensions … Continue reading Mastery of Circumstances: The Triangular Pyramid Spread
“A Spiritual Death”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: One of the most difficult challenges in professional tarot reading is grappling with the presence of the Death card in a spread when an anxious client is waiting expectantly for a constructive explanation. There is an inevitable fixation on its gloomy portent and our own mortality even when nothing of the sort is … Continue reading “A Spiritual Death”
Aspiring to Perfection: Mining a Metaphor
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As part of my exploration of esoteric syncretism, here I'm paraphrasing a quote from Benebell Wen's I Ching, The Oracle: A Practical Guide to the Book of Changes to make it more relevant to tarot reading. The quote relates to invoking the "Mysterious Lady of the Nine Heavens" as a metaphor to aid … Continue reading Aspiring to Perfection: Mining a Metaphor
Creation and Destruction: The Tarot Trumps and Taoist Alchemy
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the next installment in my series of essays on syncretism between the European tarot and Chinese esoteric tradition. In I Ching, the Oracle: A Practical Guide to the Book of Changes, Benebell Wen presents two diagrams, the Cycle of Creation ("To support and fortify") and the Cycle of Destruction ("To defeat … Continue reading Creation and Destruction: The Tarot Trumps and Taoist Alchemy
The Square in the Circle: The I Ching Mandala and the Tarot Trumps
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I continue my exploration of the syncretism between the tarot and the I Ching, I encountered this I Ching mandala in Benebell Wen's book, I Ching. the Oracle: A Practical Guide to the Book of Changes. The discussion involved a square of eight trigrams within a circle of 64 hexagrams, and since … Continue reading The Square in the Circle: The I Ching Mandala and the Tarot Trumps
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 