AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I was employed as a Purchasing Manager for a utility power-plant, the Maintenance team used to say that there was no wizardry involved in keeping the facility's operating equipment running smoothly as long as they had the right parts and the right skills. This attitude led to the adage "Parts is parts" … Continue reading “Parts is Parts” – Finding Unity in Multiplicity
tarot-reading
Tarot Reading for Businesses: A Conceptual Overview
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Not long ago a new acquaintance, upon hearing that I read tarot cards, asked whether I do readings for business-related questions. I responded that I have yet to do so in a professional capacity but I certainly could, and I have in fact created quite a few experimental spreads for just that purpose. … Continue reading Tarot Reading for Businesses: A Conceptual Overview
Full-Immersion Tarot Reading: Engaging the Five Senses
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently encountered the idea that, when we set out to do a tarot reading, we should crank up our creative imagination by holding in our mind's eye and contemplating the notion that we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell the object of our divination. (You'll notice that the "sixth sense" of … Continue reading Full-Immersion Tarot Reading: Engaging the Five Senses
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
The Case for Esoteric Syncretism
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In The Book of Thoth, Aleister Crowley went to great lengths (15 pages) to relate a number of primitive cultural rites to his understanding of the Fool, with much of his inspiration coming from Sir James George Frazer's anthropological tome, The Golden Bough. This conceptual melding is known as syncretism, and as one … Continue reading The Case for Esoteric Syncretism
“Canceling” Effects in Tarot Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In Chinese cosmology there is a premise that certain forms of qi (life-force) subdue and diminish other types, subordinating their influence. I'm intrigued by the idea that something similar could be going on in tarot divination. It's a well-established concept that certain cards in a tarot spread will dominate the reading and push … Continue reading “Canceling” Effects in Tarot Reading
Connecting the Dots: An I Ching/ Oracle Card/Tarot Card Triplet
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A few of years ago I came across a table of correspondences created by a couple of Russians that links the 64 I Ching hexagrams to the 78 tarot cards in a way that nobody else has done. Their website has been taken down, so I was fortunate to have saved a copy … Continue reading Connecting the Dots: An I Ching/ Oracle Card/Tarot Card Triplet
“Scrying Into” the Tarot Cards: An Alternative to Intuition
AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Scrying in the spirit vision" is an occult practice involving out-of-body exploration (or, if you prefer, "astral travel") that is more focused and directed than the spontaneous act of intuitive discernment commonly used in divination. (Classically, one visualizes and enters the "body of light," projecting it onto the Astral Plane and moving about … Continue reading “Scrying Into” the Tarot Cards: An Alternative to Intuition
“Liberating” The Tarot Reading
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In his fictionalized biography of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Irving Stone put words in the sculptor's mouth to the effect that, in order to carve a statue of a horse from a block of marble, all he had to do was "remove everything that isn't horse." He was in effect freeing his vision from its … Continue reading “Liberating” The Tarot Reading
Trumps and Trigrams: A Syncretic Exercise
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In my recent essay (linked below) on syncretism between Western astrology and the I Ching, I correlated the twelve Ptolemaic signs of the zodiac with the eight I Ching trigrams and, via synthesis between consecutive signs, with twelve of the 64 hexagrams. In doing so I resorted to a good deal of inspiration, … Continue reading Trumps and Trigrams: A Syncretic Exercise
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 