AUTHOR'S NOTE: If we are savvy in the self-empowering ways of practical magic, our encounter with a given tarot card in a reading won't invariably deliver a foregone conclusion. We can choose how much of its influence to let into our life and how to engage it. The fundamental energy won't change, just our handling … Continue reading Embracing the Cards as a Matter of Choice
Tarot
The Maverick Cartomant, Part 2: Tarot de Marseille (TdM)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I realize that it's moot to identify as an iconoclast when dealing with a system of divination that - as I was told when I first took up the TdM - has no established or documented tradition of interpretation going back to the era of its origin. (After all, it was primarily a … Continue reading The Maverick Cartomant, Part 2: Tarot de Marseille (TdM)
An Insurrection Panorama
"Pass the dynamite 'cause the fuse is lit"- from Riot in Cell Block #9 by The CoastersAUTHOR'S NOTE: Here I'm using my favorite sociopolitical deck, Brian Williams' PoMo Tarot, to pose the question "What are the prevailing circumstances for invoking the Insurrection Act in Minnesota?" (I decided that national/international politics and world events are still … Continue reading An Insurrection Panorama
Outgrowing “Lego-Block” Tarot: When Rote Memorization Gives Way to Internalized Recall
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The professional tarot community is understandably dismissive of the journeyman reader's reliance on memorized keywords as a shortcut to flesh out the bones of a rudimentary narrative. This is a perfunctory technique that I've called "Lego-Block® divination" in previous essays because it promotes the stacking-up of tailored snippets of language in the hope … Continue reading Outgrowing “Lego-Block” Tarot: When Rote Memorization Gives Way to Internalized Recall
A New Year, A New Agenda
AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's no secret that I've become thoroughly disenchanted with the populist pretensions of the online tarot community, to the point that I've decided to disengage from public conversation and return to private academic pursuits of a more esoteric nature. (I doubt the typical YouTube "talking head" will miss me or even notice.) I … Continue reading A New Year, A New Agenda
Probability Management: Divination as Agent of Destiny
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 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*
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 