Tarot – Page 4 – A Sacred Life

July 27, 2022July 27, 2022

The Delicate Art of Seeing

In addition to my penchant for Shakespeare, I spent a good deal of my youthful free time engaged in the adventures of a certain consulting detective residing at 221B Baker Street. Like the works of the Bard, many of Conan Doyle’s stories have been adapted and revised for film, but it is the written word I first encountered, and still connect with.

Latter day incarnations of the Great Detective portray him as an anti-social know-it-all with no people skills. I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. To my semi-adolescent self, this person was, if not a kindred spirit, at least a similar one. His command of vast regions of abstruse information and the ability to rationally synthesize viable patterns from the mundane was a great inspiration to me. I never saw him as cold, rude, or brutal. But then I also may have been an anti-social know-it-all with no people skills.

Imagine you are playing a group guessing game. I’m not sure how many people would remember charades, though it pops up in modern commercials. Now suppose that you have figured out the clues. You know the answer, but you have to wait there while everyone else makes ridiculous guesses.

Sherlock Holmes lived that 24/7. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill anyone. His choice to turn his faculties toward the solution of crimes is showing wonderful restraint.

Modern interpretations make the same mistake universally, and that is seeing Holmes’ best friend and sidekick as being ill treated by the genius detective. The problem with that is that John Watson is not Holmes’ friend. He’s not even a character. He’s a literary device. His sole purpose is to be a mask over Holmes’ thought so that when the why and how is revealed at the end, it’s a wonderment.

Watson is there to give us a version of the story without all the details and clues and trivial tidbits that Holmes sees as valuable. Or rather his job is to make them seem like trivial tidbits. His job is misdirection.

Conan Doyle didn’t invent Watson. He stole him from Edgar Allen Poe. Poe wrote about a genius detective and his thick friend in the first half of the 19th century. The Parisian sleuth C. Auguste Dupin astounds his unnamed narrator by deducing who committed the murders in the Rue Morgue (which sadly about a street and not a morgue).

Poe only wrote two other stories about the amateur investigator before his passing, but it’s enough to credit him with the creation of the detective story, and why the Mystery Writers of America give out an Edgar instead of an Artie for exceptional work.

It evens out, of course. Agatha Christie stole the same device from Doyle to use for Hercule Poirot. Without the dunderheaded sidekick, the Great Detective can’t appear great. You would see how the sausage is made.

Doyle, I will say, shows us how Holmes does it, if only after poor Watson scratches his head and looks dumbfounded at the clues. He spells it out very well in A Scandal in Bohemia. Watson visiting for the first time in a while since he married and moved out, is told by Holmes that he has gained weight, been out in the rain, hired a lazy servant girl, and has returned to his work as a doctor. Watson’s incredulous response is the usual jaw dropped.

“My dear Holmes” said I, “this is too much. You certainly would have been burned had you lived a few centuries ago.”

Great Detective — Holmes and Watson per illustrator Sidney Paget in the Strand Magazine on their way to decipher the odd goings-on at Baskerville Hall. The pair would be transformed into House and Wilson in the Fox Networks House M.D series. British actor Hugh Laurie gave us the first modern reworking of Holmes as self-absorbed and brutal monomaniac. This take was further refined by Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC series Sherlock and Robert Downey, Jr. in the film versions. Keen observers will notice that the four actors in the last two photos have migrated from Baker Street to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Strange isn’t it?

Holmes then patiently lays out all the little signs that make up the bigger picture. The weight, well he looks heavier, obviously. The servant girl is marked by a cut on the inside of Watson’s boot, made, while scraping off mud; hence the rain. As to his medical practice well he smells of antiseptic, and has dented his hat with the earpiece of a stethoscope. All easily seen and connected dots according to the master.

Watson’s jaw remains dropped. To which Holmes adds:

“You see. You do not observe. The distinction is clear.”

This was a fundamental idea for me. As with any young person who is impressed by a fictional character, I strove to emulate that hero. I endeavored to learn to truly observe.

Humans think they see a lot of things.

Science says that our brains aren’t capable of processing all the visual information our eyes take in, so we fill in the gaps. This is sort of how digital video compression works. A frame shows everything, and the next frame only shows what changes.

Our brain fills in the gaps so that we can function in a visual world without walking off a cliff or driving into a tree because if we had to process all the pixels, we’d never respond in time.

That seems a bit unreal to me, but it’s one of those widely held theories.

We’re really much better at just making things up.

This faculty of imagination would seem to lay at cross-purposes with Holmes’ rationalist approach. But it requires a certain degree of imagination to take all those little bits and pieces and concoct a working theory. Yes, it does have to be strained through the sieve of logic and reality.

“Eliminate the impossible. Whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.”

So the capacity to leap beyond logic and experience a world that cannot be wholly explained rationally can still work in concert with that rational critical world. It’s a matter of knowing when to apply each.

If you’ve gotten to this point and are starting to wonder when I’ll start talking about the usual weird stuff, just hold on. It’s coming.

A reliable and effective use of the mantic arts is based upon knowing when to apply imagination and when to refine that information with critical reasoning.

Pure intuition, while it may have the cachet of a psychic experience, is not always useful in the absence of the reasoned context. I’d like to believe that my “gut instincts” will serve me effectively in every situation, but it has been my experience that it doesn’t. And this is following five decades spent honing that instinct and learning how to listen to it.

Sometimes, you’re wrong.

Ordinarily we filter these kinds of things automatically. We experience an input from the beyond, and assay it’s relative chance of being real and useful. But this process can be improved, and the controlled application cultivated.

You may know that Conan Doyle was deeply involved in the Spiritualist Movement. It is surprising to a lot of people that the creator of a character so attached to reason and logic would hold such a powerful belief in the existence of spirits.

He’s also known for his staunch defense of the photographs known as the Cottingley Faerie Hoax, and continued to persist in the reality of the Bright Folk. Some would suggest that had he applied Holmes’ methods he could have discovered the hoax. It seems obvious he didn’t want to. Belief can override our senses. We see what we think we see.

We may be doubly damned if we’re used to hearing these kinds of revelations from our own “inner voice”. Some of the meditative practices I have been working with lately involve going deep down into one’s own mind, and then bringing up that consciousness to the everyday. My experiences with this have been startling in the results. I have received “signs and portents” relating to what I am studying at a much higher frequency than before.

Or perhaps I am imagining it. Perhaps it is a trick my mind is playing, or rather replaying. My tricksy brain is externalizing the material I am working with to “create” correspondences in the real world. It is possible that because I am engaged in heavy study of the subject matter than I am subconsciously identifying that material in the world around me. As they say, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

But what if it’s both?

What if my brain is projecting the work I am doing through meditation into the world, as a means of improving my perception? In other words, yes, I am seeing signs and portents because my brain is subconsciously engaged in signs and portents. But also, the signs and portents are there, and this process has me noticing them more. It’s really not possible to say objectively if my “heightened powers” are a quirk of neurochemistry or a “real” external phenomena.

And it actually doesn’t matter.

A person with schizophrenia can perceive things that aren’t there. We consider that mental illness in our modern society. In other times and cultures these people were considered touched by the gods, and sacred oracles. And other times and cultures they were considered possessed by demons and burned as witches.

The degree to which our perceived world is a detriment to how we function in society varies from person to person and culture to culture.

Persons on the autism spectrum connect to that “exterior” world very differently than neurotypical people do. Sometimes this can manifest in a preternatural eye for detail, much like the fictional Mr. Holmes. Complex patterns may be observed that are only otherwise discoverable with cutting edge search algorithms. This can be attended by obsessive behaviors, difficulty or inability to communicate emotions properly, and a host of other challenges. These are not the result of impairment, but of a brain that moves differently from idea to idea, linking them in non-standard ways; at least by the “standard” of the general populace.

For a short time Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini were friends. Houdini spent a good deal of time debunking “psychic phenomena” including divination. Houdini had been a stage performer since a young age and had witnessed hundreds of “mind-reading” acts. The trick with mind reading on stage is to start with something general, which is likely to be true for most of the people in the audience. Then you circle in with some details, the letter of a name, a piece of clothing. This is still quite vague, but you start to get a reaction. “My Uncle Henry” someone will shout, and then you keep drawing the circle closer, looking for the mark to give you more clues.

It’s part trick, part observation, and part suggestion. People want to believe, so they’ll let their brains be led, especially if you lead them in a way that can be a kind of hypnosis.

Now if you think this is disingenuous, I invite you to go find an old recording of a TV preacher faith healing in the 1980s. This is exactly the process they are using. ¹ The extent to which someone who is anxious, or depressed, or suffering from a psychosomatic illness being “healed” by such a practice is equivalent to the audience member believing he received a message from his Uncle Henry. But I am extremely skeptical about the lame walking, the blind seeing, and cancer going into spontaneous remission.

To be fair, and openly honest, when I was reading Tarot for clients, I also employed this technique to some extent. I very closely observed the client as I drew cards and performed the interpretation. You can pick up things from body language, vocal tone, etc. that indicate when what you are saying is hitting a nerve. The setting for a reading is almost universally made intimate, and often dramatic, to encourage a receptive mood in the client. It has the added effect of eliminating distractions so that I can concentrate on what I am picking up from them.

Now some people call this a psychic connection, and I am not about to argue that. I personally don’t consider myself any more psychic than Sherlock Holmes. I know his methods and I apply them. When I get a “vibe” from a client it is because I have spent many years honing my perceptions to pick up those cues. And these cues are vital.

A modern incarnation of the Great Detective was the television series House, M.D. An anti-social iconoclastic diagnostician whose genius was such that it mystified all his associates, Greg House flaunted convention at every turn until he was able to ferret out the mystery disease (spoiler alert: it’s not lupus). House had a maxim that was proven out in almost every episode.

“Everybody lies.”

The Tarot client comes to you either skeptical, or timid. They either don’t believe you or they don’t trust you and in either case you will not get the full story from them unless you employ these deep observational skills.

This is not a trick. It’s not a con. It’s a method to get inside the head of the client and really truly help them, which is why they came to you in the first place. If I had an M.D. I could call it psychiatry and charge $150 an hour. But my parents couldn’t afford medical school, so here I am with a deck of cards, and a spooky knack for reading people.

My cards are not mere props, nor is the reading just a fun mask for psychoanalytic counseling. The client and I, in our little purple draped space, are participating in a ritual that is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old.

Ritual is in itself an altered state of consciousness. The roles we both play are not what we are outside the curtain, this event is special, the space sacred, the time suspended. Both reader and client are engaging in a semi-hypnotic symbiosis.

In this state, the interaction of keen observation, willing responsiveness, and the mnemonic and evocative imagery of the cards produce a result that is more than the sum of the parts. The skilled reader will already have a deep understanding of the codified meanings of the cards, but in the moment, they may see something beyond.

This is also the result of heightened observation. For example, a few weeks ago I did an article on the Tower card, and used an example from my set of the Via Tarot. One of the messages is, in general, the fall forecast in the Tower is redeemed in the Star card that follows it.

Now as I was mixing decks for the article (because I have about 50 and I like showing them off) I didn’t immediately notice an artistic conceit in Via’s Tower and Star combination. The temple shown on the Star card (XVII) is the same as the “House of God” (XVI-the Tower in most decks). On XVI, when the tower is falling, all is in chaos, and the wolf is literally at the door, the viewpoint is close. In XVII, the viewpoint is more distant, the perspective relaxed, and overall feeling much light. Yet this is the same building architecturally.

tower-star-via — The Tower and The Star from the Via Tarot. This deck derived from Thelema doctrines and influenced by the Thoth Tarot was produced around 2005 in the UK. As Thoth took inspiration from the modern art movements of the time, Via has several images that remind me of the artist Michael Whelan. Whether that is homage or coincidence I can’t say.

The dome behind the star is a cleansed and renewed version of the House of God in card XVI. If we step back from the central arch of the Tower edifice, we can see that it is a much bigger building, able to accommodate more entrances. The piercing Eye of Omega has become a gentle nourishing afterglow. Isis approaches us, no longer wearing her veil. The Light that burned and broke is now refracted through the stellar heptagram, and cast as the steps of the rainbow she descends.

The 7 points of the Heptagram are the old Chaldean planets, – Sun, Moon, and Mercury through Saturn. The twelve pillars of the temple roof are the Zodiac. The Pentagram in center is the Microcosm and Macrocosm, Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit.

Tarot is a journey through symbols. It’s equivalent to a waking dream. While the images recur, the meaning changes.

So what meaning does that give us? Is this even an intended meaning, or did the artist do it unconsciously? Is my connection a “trick of the mind”? It doesn’t matter if the idea gives me a new avenue to explore when these cards show up in a reading.

I’ve had this deck for the better part of two decades, and I never saw this until I was writing that article. The additional study, contemplation, and multiple exposures to the various cards stimulated a number of new observations.

Some times, even when we observe we do not observe.

And sometimes we take in a massive amount of seemingly trivial data until some trigger causes it all to coalesce into a meaningful pattern. ²

This is aim of the Tarot. It exists to be that one electron spark that starts the lightning strike. But for lightning to strike the conditions must be right. The mind must be receptive, alert, and observant.

The skilled reader will develop a rhythm that achieves these conditions naturally, without stopping to think about “Am I watching their body language?”; “Does this card in this position mean something differently than normal?”; “Am I listening to my intuition?”

For the novice this can be terribly frustrating, and made even moreso by the myriad decks and books on the subject. Even if you have a “talent” for the cards, for reading people, and observing their reactions, getting comfortable with the basic and reverse meanings is a process. It goes beyond just not having to check the book (and sometimes even old hats still have to). It’s about knowing them well enough to see where they sit in context of the a reading. And then once you get that working, you can start to see where they sit in context of your client and how they are responding that day.

It can help to just start with the Major Arcana. If you really go deep into a standard Waite Deck that alone can keep you busy for weeks. Once you’re happy with that, pick a suit and work through them the same way, until you get all 78 more or less.

Don’t expect to recite the full pages of the text. Get it down a to a few sentences at most, so when that card comes up you know immediately what you are dealing with. That’s actually on Pixie Smith’s cards, which is why the deck became so popular, and why it’s the best “starter”.

Don’t worry about esoteric meanings, numerological, astrological, qabbalistic, or alchemical meanings. Just learn that this card means this, and if it’s upside down, it either means the opposite, or that the meaning is lessened.

When you get past that point, you will start to make those connections naturally, and then be able to expand upon them. And then you can go back and find all those other meanings that may or may not have been intended or even connected to the cards.

Or not. If you and your clientele are served well by a basic understanding, don’t you dare feel intimidated by others who claim you should know more to be a “real” Tarot reader.

I have a passion for Tarot, both as art and method. I have spent many years working with it, reading about it, collecting it, and writing about it. At some point in time I am likely to make one or more decks, and possible write a book or two. But you should not look at my example as what is normal or required.

Everyone can benefit from the mental exercises of meditative observation. If you never pick up another card, or have never picked up one, you can still get more out of your life by looking around, paying attention, and trying to puzzle out what meaning it has.

Thank you for coming all the way to the end, here. I know this one was ponderously long, but it is something that needs explanation and example, so I do appreciate your making the effort. Join me next week for another descent into the maelstrom.

July 20, 2022September 26, 2022

Math is Involved

$Einstein Math$

Way back in my early years (between five and seven) as a weird child, I had discovered The Encyclopedia of Ancient and Forbidden Wisdom by Zolar in a dark corner of the family bookcase. I don’t know where it came from or how it got there, and no one else ever acknowledged its existence when I took it to my room.

Within its tattered coverless pages, I gained access to many of the mantic arts, including astrology, tarot, palmistry, phrenology, and a host of others. The one that was of most immediate interest and service, however, was numerology.

The reason is simple. I did not have any tarot cards. There was no Amazon in the early 70s. There was no internet, and the few bookstores that existed in the nearest large town (a two-hour trip away) did not have shelves resplendent with 57 varieties like the B&N does today.

A sampling of sorcerial tomes from the local mass market bookseller. Had I this kind of access in my early teens and twenties my practice would look vastly different now, and I fear, would be less rich and complex. These can’t all be good. That’s just statistics. Sensing a marketable concept, publishing houses, some far outside the usual occult presses, are churning out “magic” titles like they were printing money, and they are.

Sadly some of these books are even written by machine, collected via web search AI and only moderately edited before some “author” is paid for the use of a name. The hundred or so titles in stock in the store are the tip of the iceberg carried online, or available as a digital version.

And among the ones in the store, I didn’t even notice the lone dubious volume on numerology. But, hey, you can learn all about all these secret sacred practices and have matching covers.

If you are starving for a resource that goes beyond packaging, take a spin around archive.org. You can find scanned copies of old magical texts downloadable for free, like the Tetrabiblos of Claudius Ptolemy, Waite’s Pictorial Key to Tarot, The Greek Magical Papyri, The Keys of Solomon, and Paracelsus’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. If you are multi-lingual you can even find Eliphas Levi’s works in the original French, and a number of good texts in German, Latin, and Greek.

I started my own journey with the few mass market omnibus texts available in the 70s and 80s, so there’s no harm in it. Just be aware there’s more to it than that.

Likewise, astrology required an ephemeris and tables of houses and complex calculations which also were not readily obtainable in my current environs.

But numbers, well, those were free. I could work with them in my head while I didn’t sleep at night ( I suffered from terrible insomnia into my 40s) . They were also much more limited in scope than Tarot. Ten digits, 0 through 9. And while it took me a bit to visualize the layout of the 26 English letters against the ten digits, once they were converted, and computed, and got down to a single significant digit, then there were only a few meanings to keep track of.

So between experiments with astral travel (also in the book) I lay awake and reduced names and dates and places down to their essential numeric quantities. And I developed a love for number play that serves me to this day.

I haven’t seen a lot about numerology discussed on the interwebs. It doesn’t have the flash of posting a handful of tarot cards or the hook of warning about Mercury Retrograde.

I gather it may be a bigger thing in Hindu culture, but I must confess that I know very little about the method or the meanings. Perhaps that is something I shall explore.

There’s a Kabbalistic version as well, since Hebrew letters have assigned values, thus words may be read for the numbers and the meaning of the numbers interpreted. This permutations of letters that is part of the Kabbalistic tradition can also be worked with the numbers. I’ve dabbled with this a bit.

Numerology, like all the mantic arts, seeks to reveal something to us about ourselves and our future that is not readily apparent. It does this by taking numbers like dates, and reducing them down to a single digit, or two sets of double digits.

For instance, take July 4, 1776. That’s a 7, for July, plus 4 plus 1 plus 7 plus 7 plus 6. The result is 32. So then we add 3 and 2 to get 5. Five is number associated with this date. Five by the system I learned can be interpreted as conflict, chaos, or instability. This might be readily applied to that date.

But as the day of the month can be seen as a separate thing unto itself, it’s possible to come up with different numbers.

4 plus 7, of course is 11. 11 is one of those special numbers (22) being the other one, that typically are considered “resolved” without adding the last digits (to get simply 2). And the year resolves to 3. Three is considered a stable number because it represents the union of the masculine 1 and the feminine 2 (apologies to folks struggling to find non-binary traditions, this is from thousands of years ago) . Eleven can be seen to be a spiritual number, and two may be read as community or loyalty within a group.

These could also be effectively applied to this date. While I am sure some readers will hold differing views in this regard, the example was to illustrate the method, and not to render a judgment.

In actual practice, however, we have to suppose John Hancock went to Ben Franklin and asked him the best date in July of 1776 to get the Declaration signed. Been would have run the numbers and said that the 2nd should be good, because it resolved to three and spoke of harmony and union. But Hancock said they couldn’t get it back from the printer on time.

So Ben took out his tables again and told him that the next best time to sign it would be August 2, because that equates to a 4, and 4 represents the Four Cornerstones of the Universe and the Foundation of the Temple (any National Treasure fans out there. You know what I’m talking about).

And that’s when it was signed. August 2, 1776. The July 4 date is when the membership voted agreement to the version we now know, which deleted Mr. Jefferson’s more blunt condemnations of the slave trade objected to by the southern colonies. But it was signed in August, and no one has a picnic. According to the almanac it was time to be harvesting instead of picnicking.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that old Ben, and potentially many of his contemporaries, dabbled in the mantic arts. The 17th and 18th Centuries saw us moving from Mesmer to Faraday, and from Ptolemy to Newton, but it was never an immediate and brutal break. Sir Isaac Newton himself was a practicing alchemist, and the period of madness he suffered around 1693 is often attributed to mercury poisoning from his experiments. Yet he invented calculus to prove how the wheels of the universe turned.

Franklin is one of those fascinating polyglots from history that you just know was into something they left out of the books. Put aside all that secret Masonic conspiracy stuff. He was playing with lightning. Gotta love that.

And his inventions are still in use today. Otherwise I couldn’t see what I am typing.

A true figure of the Enlightenment; he was philosopher, scientist, and, I think, magician. Franklin is rumored to have rubbed elbows with Count Cagliastro and the Comte de Saint-Germaine during his numerous European travels. Some of his other buddies were known students of the occult.

Magic, alchemy, and the mantic arts survived into the Enlightenment by transmuting themselves.

Astrologers could accommodate Newton’s Principia Mathematica because it gave far more accurate calculations. Knowing better the true nature and motions of the Heavens, they reasoned, could not but result in a truer reading of their portents.

The concepts of Sacred Geometry were better expressed through the new math, and the analogy tied into the Masonic doctrines. The symbol of the All Seeing Eye atop a pyramid of sacred numerical dimensions adorns the back of the Great Seal of The United States and is familiar to anyone who has seen a dollar bill. Boldly the motto proclaims “By Divine Favor – A New Order for the Ages”.

Looking for ancient occult symbols? You need not go further than the good ol’ greenback.

The back side of the one dollar bill features both sides of the Great Seal, commissioned just after the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776. The final design, however, wasn’t adopted until 1782 (there was a war on, you know.)

Despite what Jerry Bruckheimer would have you believe, the symbols employed are from common heraldic devices of the time, and not the product of a secret Masonic code. Of course, the heraldic symbols have a whole heapin’ lot of occult meaning going back into pagan days. That eagle is Roman, of course, the pyramid Egyptian. Don’t miss the hexagram layout of the 13 stars over the eagle’s head. As above, so below.

Officially, the 13 courses of stones in the pyramid is representative of the 13 Colonies that became the United States. If you look on the opposite side of the Seal, the eagle holds 13 arrows, has 13 stripes on the shield, and there are 13 stars in the circular cloud (a variation on the mandorla of religious art) over it’s head with the motto “From Many One”. The olive branch of piece held opposite the arrows of war has 13 leaves and 13 olives.

You gotta wonder, if 13 is such an unlucky number, how come they were so enamored of it. Surely this was courting disaster. Okay, sure, they were kind of stuck with it, being as they had 13 colonies, but if it’s a bad number, how do you fix it? It’s not like Gandalf could add a hobbit.

Well, one way to do it is to rationalize it as King George’s bad luck. But the numerological way is to get a different number, and you can do that by including the bad number enough times to get a better one. In this case, there are 6 instances of the number 13 on the Great Seal. Six times 13 is 78. Seven and eight add up to 15, and one and five add up to 6. The number 6 can signify harmony and stability, so that’s better than unlucky 13.

Alternatively, we can reduce 13 to one plus three and get 4. The number 4 represents stability, responsibility, structure and effort. It can represent the four elements, four cardinal directions, and by extension tie into the order of the universe. That’s definitely something a New Order for the Ages would be looking to partake of. Of course, there are six instances of 13 so we have to do six times 4, and that comes back to 6 again (24 = 2+4 = 6).

On the other hand, we can take 4 and 6 and get 10, which can be read in many ways. Reduced to 1, it represents unity. That charts. Read as 1 and 0, it contains the generative principle of beginnings and the unlimited potential of the future. It can also be seen as a union indivisible (where have I heard that before…) and finally, 10 being the number that occurs after the first series of single digits, can also represent a new beginning.

Now I am not saying that the founders of the nation, or the committee to design a Great Seal, or anyone in that secret Masonic conspiracy to hide the Templar Treasure, ever did any of these calculations. That does not alter the fact that the calculations can be made, and the meanings inferred, and there being something to it after all.

Numbers are part of the nature of the universe. We can argue about gravity and electromagnetism and strong and weak force and spooky action at a distance and whether or not anything can exceed the speed of light, but we cannot change the absolute fact of number.

Math, Science, and Magic were still very much entangled at the beginning of the 20th century. In the 1927 science fiction epic ***Metropolis***, we find the robotrix/homonculus brought to life using both electrical arcs and the power of the pentagram. Her creator Rotwang speaks of sacrificing his hand to gain the knowledge to bring her to life.

In the long version of the film, we find out the robotrix is created to resurrect Hel, a woman that both Rotwang and the city master loved. But she favored the city master over the eccentric scientist/magician, and died giving birth to the male protagonist in the story. Hel, of course, is also the name of the Norse Goddess of Death.

The process of animating the robotrix gives her the appearance and life force of the human woman Maria. She puts it to immediate use presiding over an orgiastic scene as Babylon riding on the Beast with Seven Heads.

There’s a lot going on with this movie. If you can locate a copy of the restored version (I think it is available through one of the online services) I recommend viewing it with an eye toward the magical symbolism.

If there is a thing we’ve got numbers. If there is a thing, and another thing, we’ve got numbers. If there is nothing at all, we still have numbers. Zero is a number, and even zero is one. There is one nothing if we have nothing (Did you hear that in Count von Count’s voice; because I did?).

Two is always two. It’s two here. It’s two on the dark side of the moon. It’s two on Alpha Centauri and two ten billion years ago. While the symbols and words we use to describe number may change from language to language and era to era, number does not change. Number is a fact of reality. Any reality. All realities.

If you are looking for an anchor in the Waters of Darkness, numbers will be there. It is not for nothing (“one,,,one nothing,,,,”) that numbers play such a significant role in magical practice.

Our use of triangles, circles, squares, pentagrams, hexagrams, and other geometric constructs derive from the power we associate with these numbers, and the symbols we can attach to them.

The pentagram is the Five Elements of Aristotle – Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Quintessence (literally Fifth Substance).

The hexagram is the Star of David, the Seal of Solomon, and a symbolic representation of the Hermetic maxim “As Above, So Below”.

The Hebrew alphabet has 22 characters each with a numeric value. Tracts written in Hebrew can be read as either letters or numbers when seeking hidden messages. And they can be manipulated numerically as well as alphabetically to reveal new secrets. According to Eliphas Levi these 22 letters equate to the 22 cards of the Major Arcana, thus demonstrating that the secret teachings of Kabbala are recorded in the Tarot.

There are 21 numbered cards in the Major Arcana, and one unnumbered card, the Fool, which is regarded in modern decks as zero. The placement of the Fool actually varies, and Levi put him at the point between the Last Judgment (20) and the World (21). If you are using Waite or a deck based on his, you probably have the Fool before the Magus.

In any case, it’s possible to read the 22 cards as representing the meanings of the Hebrew characters assigned to them, as well as in the usual way. For that matter, we can read the Tarot astronomically because planetary and zodiacal connections have been made. ¹And then both these correspondences can be read numerologically. And, of course, there’s the numbers on the cards themselves. Death is XIII, our unlucky 13. The Devil is XV, or 1+5. Here the resultant six is likely connected with the Biblical Number of the Beast 666, from Revelation.

Here’s another little game to explore. The first three cards – Fool, Magus, Priestess, are 0+1+2=3. The next three cards – Empress, Emperor, Heirophant, are 3+4+5=12=1+2 = 3.

The Empress can be seen as the material incarnation of the Priestess principle. The Emperor the earthly Magus, and the Heirophant the structured dogma ascribed to the natural Creation of the Fool. That these numerically equate reinforces this interpretation, as above, so below.

In fact, if you add the numbers on the next three cards, you also get 3. And the three after that. And the three after that. Until you are left with the last card- the World, which is number 21. Two plus one is three.²

Then we have the Minor Arcana, which until Waite, were usually just pips. So there wasn’t an image to evoke a particular meaning. These were done solely by number and quality. The number 5, for example, was seen as instability and conflict. The 5 of Wands, for example, then is a disagreement, potentially in the courts, as the wand may be symbolic of civil or religious authority. A 5 of Pentacles, which represents the home, heart, and wealth, could presage marital difficulties or a loss in the markets. The face cards typically were assigned to people, a child, a young adult, and a mature man and woman, though these are as easily numbered, 11 through 14. This makes the queens bear the burden of unlucky 13. I wonder if there was intentional misogyny there. Taken together the four suits have 56 cards, that reduce to 11.

So the combined deck of 78 cards (which would work out to 6) can be viewed as 11 and 22, the two super numbers of numerology.

When you start seeing numbers, you start seeing numbers everywhere. Not just the direct numerals that are on the mailbox or the clock. You start to notice quantities and sets. You become a kind of Count von Count all on your own. Why are there three pillars on that building? What is the significance of the octagonal base of the columns? Why does the building have a round footprint?³.

Our awareness of numbers in our life is generally very low unless we are performing some function that required counting, math, or reference, like telling time. But number permeates the universe.

Like the so-called “angel numbers” an enhanced observation of the apparently random appearance of numbers in our everyday life can be a source of relevant insight.

Numerology goes past the basic birth number and life number. it includes things like sequences of prime numbers, π and Φ, and fractal as well as sacred geometry. It’s angles and calculus are inherent in every pentagram and magic circle, whether we consciously evoke them or not. We can express through number both time and space, and use number to manipulate them.

If I woke up and saw that it was 2:22 in the morning, I might briefly recognize that this was an Angel number before rolling over to sleep. If it occurs on February 22, I might need to pay more attention. And if it happened this year, that is 2:22 2/22/22, I had better take notice. It was 2:22, on February 22, of 2022. If it was not revealed to you personally, it might just be a fun coincidence, but if something woke you up that morning, it bears further investigation.

Numbers being what they are, this kind of thing can actually lead to compulsive behaviors. Superstitions abound with instances of threes, sevens, and nines. You can become so obsessed with number that you need to have an exact number of items on your plate at lunch or you won’t get on a bus with certain number, or you regard certain dates as being bad luck.

Numerology, like astrology or Tarot, can be taken to the extreme. I have never seen it as an absolute, but I definitely use number in my practice, in my art, and in everyday life. I don’t look askance at going out on Friday the 13th, anymore than I hide out in my house during Mercury Retrograde. But as tools to expand my universe, and a means of listening to that universe, numbers are very handy. And you really can’t escape them.

I hope you have enjoyed this foray into the wild and wacky world of numbers. I have only scratched the surface of the connection numbers have with magic and esoteric thought. We haven’t even mentioned things like the Golden Ratio, magic squares, planetary hours and other complex beliefs around number that fire the mind and open the eyes. I will probably revisit the topic in future articles. In the meantime, I hope you will join me again next week.

Count Von Count is a creation of Sesame Street/The Children’s Television Workshop/Jim Henson.

Metropolis was in the public domain but has since been re-copyrighted by the FW Murnau Foundation.

Images of Albert Einstein were found on the Internet. While the intellectual property probably belongs to his estate or the original photographers, they are fairly ubiquitous.

I am not making a profit on this blog, so I consider the inclusion of these images as fair use. I will remove them if requested by the respective rights holder(s).

July 13, 2022July 22, 2022

You Must Go Alone

Living in the fish eye lens, caught in the camera eye;
I have no heart to lie.
I can’t pretend a stranger is a long awaited friend.
–Limelight by Neal Peart (Lee/Lifeson/Peart)

I’ve always been something of a non-joiner. That’s not to say I don’t form associations, friendships, and work with groups or teams of people for a common goal. But I don’t do it often or easily. I am what is currently called a solitary practitioner.

For my part, being solitary was initially just a fact of life. My own innate weirdness formed a barrier to developing relationships as a child, even inside family. Absent the internet, which we are both lucky enough to be on at this moment, “finding my tribe” was a virtual impossibility. At most I might have developed close relationships with three or four people, and even in that context, some things were just not discussed (and considering what was discussed, that says something very significant about the local community’s stance on things occult).

In later life, and in a wider world, I now choose to keep my light under a bushel, though I am sharing something of it here. Witness the beam that escapes from the door of yon Hermit’s lantern. But like the Hermit, the journey I am on is a personal and lonely one. And so, I will wager, is yours.

Despite parapsychological assertions and perhaps rare glimpses, we cannot live inside each other’s heads. It’s probably a constriction of being tied to these meat bags we walk around in, but on this plane and in this life, we’re more or less in solitary confinement. At least, that’s true for most of the time.

And even if we’re not, our psychological makeup hides things. We bury the dirty secrets. We put a big mask over our fears and vulnerabilities. We cover our outrageous libido, our kink, our fetishes. We reign in the rage and hatred. and derision. We wallow in guilt for all those things we hide, and we hide that we wallow in guilt. And that makes us feel even guiltier.

And then there’s the unconscious. As Samuel L. Jackson would put it, “the shit we don’t know that we don’t know”. The things we keep hidden from our own brains, that haunt us in dreams, that drive a hundred little neuroses, that pile up like a heap of discarded toys in that dark attic of our minds.

So, please, when you make telepathic contact with your closest dearest friend and lover, be sure to let them see all that.

Yeah, I didn’t think so. I am not even sure if we are liberated from the physical if we can unpack all that.

Well we all have a face
That we hide away forever
And we take them out
And show ourselves
When everyone has gone
Some are satin some are steel
Some are silk and some are leather
They’re the faces of the stranger
But we love to try them on
–The Stranger by Billy Joel

The goal of Freudian psychoanalysis was to open up and integrate all the dark secrets of the unconscious mind into a functional and less guilty whole. His star pupil, C. G. Jung, coined the phrase Shadow Work to describe this process, which he felt was more an internal journey than an external therapy.

This phrase seems to drip from almost every witchcraft book and blog these days. And it seems, at least as far as I can determine, that it is being applied in Jung’s context, as an aid to spiritual growth and the healing of the psyche.

And that’s not a bad thing.

But when I hear Shadow Work, I immediately think of dastardly deeds done in the dark. Things that ought not to be done by light of day. “Black” magic, curses, hexes, and other maledictions. But then I have been walking the lonely road a long time, and perhaps that’s tainted my perspective a bit.

For the record I have met my inner demons. We get together for drinks and dinner every now and again. That is, I have not cast out those demons, nor do I live in a world of Love and Light. That does not mean that I have not learned from the experience. And continue to do so. It’s cheaper than therapy. As to whether or not it is more effective, I couldn’t say, but it works for me personally.

Let’s take a look at that Hermit card again. He is standing alone on the mountaintop, his right hand lifts a lantern that glows with the light of a hexagram. But he still holds his staff with the left hand. His head is down and his face is a mask of weariness. Yet he seems poised to step forward and continue his journey. This is not resolution, but resoluteness. The road goes ever on.

Pamela Coleman Smith’s Hermit stands alone on the mountain top. What purpose is there in shining the light? He is above the world and the clouds. Presumably he does not need to see the path ahead because he has reached the summit. Or has he?

Is he carrying the light back down into the world, or is he headed for that next mountain top in the distance?

This card has been my significator in personal readings for many, many years. My earliest instructions on Tarot specified that if a male, one should choose the Magician, and if a female, the High Priestess. This thinking, aside from being difficultly binary, also seems a bit arrogant to me.

Imagine a young inexperienced reader (I was seven when I started) assuming the role of a Magician -a Maker. Presumptive to say the least. Later texts indicated that the appropriate card for the novice would be the Fool, but then, esoterically the Fool is an even more powerful Maker than the Magician (but that’s another show). It was not much longer after that, however, that I started making my own interpretations and associations of the cards, and very frequently the Hermit felt right.

As noted, I am solitary. Check one. I am on a personal journey of discovery. Check two. I have obtained certain knowledge through this experience, a small portion of which may shine out through the crack in my lantern. Check three. If we want to go for four, I actually do have that outfit.

It’s important to understand that the Hermit’s light is limited only because so much of it must be personally experienced, personally known, rather than handed down, written out, or posted on Instagram. Clearly I have no problem writing extensive tracts, and I could go on and on and on about a wide range of subjects, many of them enlightening and helpful. But in the end, you have to walk that road yourself. You have to stand at the crossroads in the middle of the night. And you have to go alone.

Jason Miller in his Consorting with Spirits talks about the Lonely Initiation. While the description is somewhat vague, those who have experienced this can immediately identify what he is talking about. It is a transformative event that forever alters one deep down. One emerges with a changed view of the world, a view that is often more broad and more subtle, than what was held before.

Miller says that this process can occur several times during the course of a lifetime. In fact, given his parameters, the transition from Life into Death can be seen as one of these Lonely Initiations. We all make that journey by ourselves. Even when there are guides, they aren’t having the experience.

So the journey of the Hermit is this exploration of our selves. When one is alone in the Wilderness, who else is there? Maybe there are gods, but maybe not. That’s one of the questions that comes up. Internal contemplation inevitably brings us face to face with whether we can trust external reality.

Descarte’s old solution that since he was not self-created, there must be an external world, doesn’t always hold up. If he were self-created, would he even have that knowledge? He wasn’t present at his creation, only afterward. So awareness of that demiurge is by no means a given.

And if we have self-created, who’s to say that everything else we perceive and respond to as “real” is not also a creation of our own consciousness.

This is the shaky ground on which the Hermit walks. It can lead one down endless rabbit holes of speculation, it can be identity destroying, cause madness, addiction, and even self-destruction. The biographies of many famous and infamous practitioners bear witness to this. Those who are shocked and appalled by the actions of people like Aleister Crowley should consider he may have plumbed too deeply the Waters of Darkness, and the inevitable void in his soul led to his debauchery and depravity.

Diary of a Madman. Aleister Crowley is probably the most popularly known of the lodge magicians of Victorian England though most of what is popularly known is probably wrong.

Viewed through the lens of the 21st century his racism and misogyny are heinous, but he would not have raised an eyebrow among his peers. While it is true that he was addicted to opium and cocaine, the same could be said for a number of his contemporaries. His more or less open bisexuality, and the frankness of his texts on sex magic, caused condemnation and controversy in tightly-laced, largely hypocritical British society. The “wickedest man alive” epithet originates from his taking of male lovers, rather than anything to do with his occult practices.

That said, he did not live a life of moral virtue by any stretch of the imagination. He had multiple sexual encounters with men and women, prostitutes, and probably young boys. His frequent use of drugs as part of his rituals obscures any relevant results he may have achieved. There is little question that the man had a giant ego that he enjoyed having stroked repeatedly. The attentions of the press when he was riding high were welcomed and inflamed by reports of more lurid details. As his personal star waned, the public couldn’t separate the fiction of the Beast from Crowley the Magus. Even today much is reported based on the tabloid sensation of the Victorians.

Crowley should not be viewed with sympathy, but perhaps with sadness. Sybil Leek wrote about him coming to visit their house when she was a young girl, and how the aura of power and insight surrounded him. The fact that he chose to indulge his Beast instead of cultivate that power is indeed sad.

And a warning to all of us who tread the path.

Crowley can be something of an enigma. Many of us today still study his works, despite the criminal actions of his later years. Still others scoff at his public persona of the Beast and claim he was more a charlatan than magician.

His legacy is part of any serious study of the occult and magic. Even modern folkcraft is tinged with some of the Victorian spiritualist awakening, and Crowley is part of that. He is a key figure in the mystery lodge movement of the late 19th century and must be evaluated as much in that context as for his darker nature.

I do not apologize for the man, but I do think I understand him. I have walked some of those paths and stared into the abyss. I have opened the doors that most people will not open, and seen what lies beyond there.

The difference between me and Crowley is that I chose to shut some of those doors instead of walking through them.. Those doors are still there, and I know how to find them. To say otherwise would be self-deception. Self-deception is a path into the darkness.

That’s why people fear the magician and the witch and the sorceror. We keep close company with our Inner Darkness. We needn’t fear what we will find when we journey deep into our mind. We can be a danger to ourselves and others.

That’s why the literature is resplendent with tales of mad magicians being carried off by something unsavory. Abdul Al Hazared (author of the quasi-fictional Necronomicon) is supposed to have been torn to pieces in the town square by unseen forces. Grimoires have as many warnings and cautions as spells.

So it is no surprise that instruction, mentorship, and group practice are an alternative to the lone figure on the mountaintop, struggling to harness the winds. But then I am non-joiner, and that’s because of a few things.

For one, I’m just not willing to surrender my will to the will of the group. The practice of magic is very will-forward, and it tends to attract personalities who are strong-willed, self-possessed, and with very clear intentions. If you get a lot of these kinds of people together in a room, you can, for a period of time, accomplish wonderful things. However, long term the individualism that makes these people capable and powerful can tend to create division and conflict. Witness the splintering of the mystery lodges in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the various “flavors” of witchcraft practice extant today.

Certainly divisive group dynamics is not exclusive to the occult community. Protestantism, after all, was a similar break in the universal Catholic Church, that, once broken, continued to shatter like a mirror hitting the floor. In any situation where charismatic, forceful people are brought together, there is a potential for eventual conflict. I’ve been there and done that, and well, I just don’t find the benefits to be worth the drama. Your mileage may vary.

And there are benefits to being in the coven, lodge, or monastic order. For one, you get to work with others who are going through the same things as you, and be instructed by those who have been through it. A good many of these groups have hierarchical systems that release information only when adepts have attained a certain level. This reduces confusion and protects one against accidents. Akin to this is that the groups usually have some kind of documented tradition that maintains a sense of orthodoxy. Finally, there are things that are open only to members of the group. Together these processes can greatly accelerate the progress of a member toward mastery.

The magical group is symbolized by the Hierophant rather than the Hermit. They are the Keeper of Secrets. The knowledge is there, available, preserved, protected, and disseminated to the faithful/worthy/joiners. You may have access, but you will have to surrender something of your identity in the process.

Well, the same is true for the Hermit, he has surrendered society in search of self. The Hierophant will reduce your self in return for society. Both are valid paths. Some can walk both. Monasticism is a phenomenon that evolved out of structured religion. There is nothing that says an individual is barred from this evolution, or that they can move freely between both poles (or walk casually in the middle for that matter).

If all the books on magic currently in publication were the One True Way, there’d not be all the books on magic.

I personally went looking for the One True Way when I was very young. What had been presented as the One True Way was lacking in certain fundamental ways. In my lifetime, I have found that searching for the One True Way is the flawed premise, that causes all subsequent results to be equally flawed. The journey is the destination.

The Hermit’s lantern contains the same message that the Hierophant has. It does not reside in order or structure, but in experience and experimentation.

This message is “As Above, So Below”,

This is the opening invocation from the Emerald Tablet of the fabled Hermes Trismegistus. This being, a composite of the Greek Hermes and Egyptian Thoth, was worshiped in the Empire of Alexander.

Magical texts of all sorts have been attributed to him over the centuries and the Hermetic doctrines at the root of alchemy and Western ceremonial magic owe a great deal to these early traditions.

The name means Hermes the Thrice Great. The number of the Hermit card is IX – nine, or three times three.

Of course, the Hermit is actually the tenth card, so we have a secret hidden there as well.

The One in ten represents Unity, the First Principle, the Primum Mobile. The Zero represents the Void, the Unformed, the Waters of Darkness which are divided from the dry land to create the World.

As Above, So Below.

To connect “Hermes” to “Hermit” is perhaps a bit of a stretch. The root words are not the same despite the similar sounds.

Consider that Hermes Trismegistus worship originated in Hellenistic Egypt.

The root word that hermit is derived from means “a desert place”. Egypt is a desert place.

The connection is my own, but not arrived at in an unusual manner. There are numerous examples of puns, homophones, and other kinds of word play used to hide information in esoteric writing. The Hierophant resides within the Hermit. As does the Magician.

As Above, So Below.

Thank you for reading to the end. If you found some of the meandering obtuse, well then you actually have gotten the message. It’s the wandering/wondering that’s important. Join me again next week for more confused ramblings.

June 15, 2022June 15, 2022

Not to Fear the Lightning

This week I’m back home and back in my Tarot decks working with the dreaded and feared Tower card.

People seem to have become more apprehensive regarding this card than the Devil or even Death. In modern times, when Death is almost universally presented as “not really death”,¹the Tower now represents the introduction of catastrophe and loss in our lives. Yet this interpretation is a surface reading only.

While the card is dynamic, even chaotic, it need not be cataclysmic. It all depends on one’s perspective. We need to go back beyond Waite and even Eliphas Levi, and look at how this card emerges from history.

I recently added a reproduction of the Visconti-Sforza Tarocchi deck to my collection. This set is the best preserved of the Renaissance cards created in Italy. A large part is kept in the collection of the J. Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, where I purchased my copy.

Magus and Tower - Sforza Deck — The Magus/Juggler/Red Man from the Visconti Sforza deck, contrasted with the Tower card. The painting on the two cards is identifiably the work of different artists, The styling of the figures is a dead giveaway, but more subtly the color palettes are dissimilar and the more lineal structure indicates perhaps a less skilled artisan.

Curiously, though, the background leafing work seems to have been done by the same person, so this argues that a number of blanks were commissioned at one time, in consideration of lost or damaged cards.

One of the many curious things about this deck is that both the Tower and Devil were executed by a different artist, presumably at a later date.

In fact extant versions of either card are missing from many early decks, which has lead some people to speculate that they didn’t form a part of the game until later.

While on the surface this might sound odd, the fact is that multiple Tarocchi decks with greater or fewer numbers of trionfi cards do exist. Variations are regional and potentially socio-political in some cases and some had as many as 40 special cards, and as few as 16.

By the time the cards start being mass produced across the border in France, the game of Tarot has pared down to the extant 22 major arcana that include a Devil and what Waite introduced into modern occultism as the Tower.

But in the Tarot of Marseilles, which Eliphas Levi based his Tarot work upon, this card is called La Maison Dieu – The House of God.

Maison Deiu Marseille - Thoth - Via — A transformation of triumphs – The Tarot de Marseilles, a more or less standardized form that was mass produced from woodcuts or engravings shows rather furry “lightning” blasting the top off the Medieval tower, while figures on the ground may be doing cartwheels.

Crowley’s Thoth deck borrows from Cubism and Abstract movements to display greater chaos and destruction. Yet in the background Lady Freida has added Noah’s dove and the Kundalani Serpent, indicating a spiritual liberation is taking place, despite the yawning hellmouth at the bottom of the image.

The Via Tarot, conceived a little less than two decades ago, but based upon Thelemic ideology, restores the name House of God to this card, It retains the All Seeing Eye from the Thoth deck, and the dove and serpents are reflected, flanking a wolf at the door. The imagery is more ordered than other Tarot depictions, speaking of a transformation through structure.

This is at least a curious appellation for a card connected with destruction and chaos. Or maybe not.

I’ve scoured the webs for historical support for this naming. Most of what comes up is opinion or dogma.

Curiouser still is that with this title, it comes on the heels of the Devil. Surely something called the House of God might be better placed up around card XX – Judgment, with it’s apocalyptic angel calling the dead from their graves.

The World - Sforza-and-Marseille — The Visconti-Sforza version of Card XXI shows the city of Heavenly Jerusalem described in the Revelation of St. John. This can be seen as a “House of God” more logically than Card XVI, and following Judgment Day makes more sense. By the time the cards are being mass produced, however, the Biblical imagery has been replaced by an allegorical “Mother Earth” in a mandorla and the puti have mutated into the four Apostolic animals.

It’s rather ironic that the world of the Visconti-Sforza was Biblical supported by more or less pagan sprites, whereas the Marseille (and most later decks) have a pagan World surrounded by Christian iconography.

Yet neither the image or location make much sense with this title. So perhaps we should delve into possible sources for the image. The most obvious, to my thinking, is the story of the Tower of Babel.

This is one of the “Just So” stories found in the Old Testament book of Genesis, which explains why all the people who were descended from the survivors of the Flood ended up speaking different languages.

After departing the ark and doing a lot of begatting, humanity was more or less a big happy family. So they got together to build a mighty city with a “tower that would reach up to heaven”.

God, not being disposed to uninvited visitors at the time, causes them to all start speaking in tongues. Unable to understand each other, they are forced to abandon the building project and wander off in multiple directions.

The moral of this story is one of humility and submission to a higher will. But what does that have to do with the Tower card?

Well, we can draw a fair parallel to the destruction of this medieval tower, by fire or lightning or some other “heavenly force” as God asserting dominion over all the works of humankind. That’s a very basic tenet of the faith. God is a lot bigger than us, and consequently he will tell us what to do and we’ll like it.

The Visconti-Sforza Tarot were a luxury item. They were commissioned by a wealthy semi-noble merchant family, to wile away the hours that only wealthy semi-noble merchant families could afford. One way of wiling away the hours in the Renaissance was cultivating secular humanism. That is, the stranglehold of the Holy Mother Church on philosophical thought was loosening, thanks to the importation of old Greek and Latin works from the Islamic Empires via the Silk Road and Moorish Spain.

In fact, playing cards most likely came via Islam (potentially adapted from China). The familiar suits of Wands, Cups, Swords, and Coins exist on decks from Northern Africa at this time. There’s not a lot of history of the early games played with these cards, which were all pips. Islamic belief forbids the depiction of people. Since only Allah has the power to create a human being, to show them in art (or even photography) is considered to be mocking the divine.

So it’s likely the face cards were added in Italy. along with the trionfi². This made possible complex games where the special cards counted for points.

I’ve read a version of Tarocchi rules (and my head hurts now) but essentially the different designs on the cards allowed for varying point values, and like bridge, the ones with the most points at the end were the winning team. I don’t understand bridge, either, nor most card games, so if this is grossly misstated, sorry.

Which takes us back to secular humanism. The imagery on the oldest trionfi are an odd mix. We have the Juggler, who later becomes the Magician. But in the Visconti-Sforza he is neither juggling nor being particularly magical.

He does have, on his table, a glass, two coins, a knife, and is resting the bottom of a staff. Hence we characterize these in the modern decks as representative of the four suits. But that fuzzy thing on the end of the table is identified by the Morgan collection as a hat form.

Whilst I can imagine a juggler using the objects of the suits in performance, I cannot fathom what a hat form has to do with juggling or magic…unless, of course, a rabbit is involved. In the Marseilles Tarot it’s become a kit bag or purse, which perhaps makes more sense, and in Pixie Smith’s version, it’s gone entirely.

I think perhaps the images here participate in certain “in-jokes” or metaphors that we don’t fully comprehend in the present world, but that were well understood by the wealthy semi-noble card sharps.

Pope and Papess - Sforza Deck — In the Renaissance version these two were probably paired, but modern decks rename them Hierophant and High Priestess. The split occurred as far back as the Marseille, but they were still called Pope and Popess until Waite. In the Middle Ages this would have been heresy and subject to imprisonment, torture, and potentially death.

Yet these figures depicted in Visconti Sforza show equal rank, as proven by both wearing the triple crown of the Holy Trinity. The Pope is arrayed in guilded finery with velvet lining. The Popess, on the other hand, aside from crown and kid gloves, adopts the habit of a monastic. Some have cast her as a symbol of “Mother Church” but perhaps we can see her plain and poor mantle as emblematic of the inner faith, bereft of worldly adornment. Whilst the Pope raises his right hand in benediction, the Popess clutches a closed book in her left hand.

There’s more going on here than simple parody.

For example, we have both Pope and Popess³, which in Medieval times could have gotten you handed over to the Inquisition.

Not so with secular humanism. You can parody the Church (or rather the church without capitalization). It’s just another part of the human experience, no more divine or sacred than your breakfast or the daily trip to the garderobe. It’s hard to imagine that cheery corpse on the Death card in light of a friendly game of cards, unless the social context is that we’re not taking it at all seriously, After all, we are the wealthy semi-noble merchant families and the rest of the world can just kiss it.

So maybe that Tower card wasn’t missing from the older decks. Maybe it wasn’t there at all. Maybe it got put back in, along with Ye Aulde Divel card, to remind these prideful secular humanists of the error of their ways. There are a number of Tarocchi decks that contain trionfi of the traditional virtues and vices, so there seems to have been some effort by the princes of the church to regain control of their flocks (and the attendant tithes). The Tower of Babel is a pretty good metaphor for “pride goeth before a fall”.

There’s an alternate theory that “House of God” is something of a parody against a corrupt church, much the same as the Popess can be seen as mocking a traditionally patriarchal organization. But I have a problem with that.

The images of the Tower are showing secular buildings. Churches have a very distinctive architectural style, and that isn’t it. These are symbolic of Medieval fortifications, and in some versions one of the falling figures wears a crown. So it does argue for this being more a convention of the church attempting to show the collapse of the secular humanist state.

But what if perhaps this is referring to the Apocalypse of the Revelation of St. John? Perhaps here we have a portrayal of the human world being swept away to make way for the “Heavenly Jerusalem” that will descend upon earth after the sinful are cast down into Hell. Crowley seems to ascribe to this interpretation somewhat. He had Lady Frieda Harris include the Mouth of Dis at the bottom of his card. This is a variation of the opening of the Pit shown in the Medieval Das Buch Belial and copied to many others.

It can be a confusing mess, because regardless of our post modern New Age mentality, we have to reckon with works that came out of rigid Catholic cultures, overlain with Hebrew, Hindu, Taoist, and Buddhist mysticism (perhaps incorrectly) and re-reinterpreted through the lens of Victorian Christianity. It’s not unfair to say that the occultists of the late 19th century were motivated to “discover” ancient hidden traditions whether they were there or not. The field was fiercely competitive, and wide open to the cult of personality.

Despite this, esoteric interpretations almost uniformly ascribe this card to the failure and ultimate removal of old established orders. On an individual level, the Tower describes a trauma so profound that the only way to recover is discarding most of the old preconceptions and rebuilding from scratch.

But like most Tarot, there’s other possible interpretations. The cards never exist in a vacuum. They are always influenced and augmented by the others around them.

The Tower and Tower Reversed - Waite — There’s just not a good way to read this card. Either we are experiencing the destruction from on high, sending us crashing to the ground in flames, or we are falling into a pit of fire and pain.

The only way to escape the doom of the Tower card is to change our place in the narrative. We can either be the Tower, or we can be the Lightning.

We have been trained to view the Tower as though we are the one’s falling from it’s height, or being crushed under the collapse. Waite’s Victorian pessimism sought to insure readers never ran short of ill omens. And bad cards could come up reversed, so in that binary thinking the upside down Tower was a good thing.

But we don’t have to be the victims. That’s part of the last throes of heavy Christian thinking that still informed the occultists of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. In this context the lightning is an external force beyond our control that brings down all that we see as divine retribution for our hubris. It’s the same crime and sentence resulting in the confusion of Babel or Lucifer being cast into the Pit. We should recognize the source of that and move on.

It is possible to see oneself as the active principle initiating profound change. In this scenario, we lead our own transformation, and the transformation of the world around us, rather than being pummeled by the debris of the falling tower. We can choose to be the Lightning.

Depending on how it falls in a reading, the Tower card can speak of manifestation. It can signal that we are changing bad habits and rising above failed choices. As pointed out by H.Byron Ballard on a recent New World Witchery podcast, the Tower is predecesory to the Star. The question is whether we emerge into the Star, or the Star Reversed.

I hope for the Star. If one looks at the Tower Reversed, it’s usual meaning is more compatible with the Star Reversed, a continuation of narrow-mindedness, parsimony, and general self-doubt, brought about by oppression and unjustness. This also applies if we are the dynamic force of Celestial Fire in the Tower. The reversal has that energy trapped at the bottom of a great pit, with darkness all around, and the figures are still falling.

The Star - Waite - Thoth - Via — Another transformation of triumphs. No disrespect to Pamela Coleman Smith, but her celestial cards seem separated from the other major arcana. The trine of the Star, Moon, and Sun feel like they exist as their own microcosm. Of course, they are.

While not perhaps obvious, there is a subtle connection between the Thoth Tower and Star Cards. The lightning bolt that fills the Tower’s background is mirrored in the composition of figure, water and Star. The bright orange tones that dominate the Tower are transmuted here into complimentary blues and purples. The Star is an opposite that emerges serene from the fiery madness of the Tower.

In the Via deck, we also have echoes of the preceding imagery. The rays of light from the All Seeing Eye remain, only as an afterglow, illuminating the double Star in the dome of a newly minted structure, occupied by a single pacific spirit treading the light of the rainbow. The anger has been washed away. Only the rainbow remains to remind us the storm has passed.

Next week I’ll be back with more fresh weirdness after the Solstice (Summer or Winter depending on your latitude). In the meantime, please feel free to read (or re-read) my previous articles on my recent experience in Salem, Massachusetts, and on the effects of Mercury retrograde (which thankfully will be completely over by then). As always, thank you for the taking the time to read this.

May 25, 2022September 26, 2022

There and Back Again

Last week’s article was brought to you by Mercury Retrograde.

That is, I had postponed the live date for it before heading off to New York City on family business, intending to edit, polish, or postpone it again, ere I returned.

But no. That was not going to happen.

Flight delays. Missed appointments. Lost items. All the typical hallmarks of Mercury dancing merrily widdershins whilst we mere mortals can’t remember the word we want to say.

And thus, the pre-scheduled but possibly not final version of last week’s article was auto-posted as pre-scheduled.

My intention then, was to connect to my blog, unpublish the article, and reset it for a time when I had returned home and could contemplate it’s perfection at my leisure.

But drunken Mercury wasn’t done with me yet.

Seems that my new webhost uses a security program that blocks mobile access to WordPress’s backroom, even from the browser.

So being several thousand miles from my laptop, I had to content myself with the fact that the article was live and there was not a thing I could do about it.

Fortunately, the article as it stands is acceptable, and I have decided not to travel back in time and create a retroactive continuity (though Mercury might approve of that just now.).

Scoff ye skeptics. Once upon a time I walked amongst thee. Now, I’m not entirely sure.

If one adheres to any faith in astrology, Mercury Retrograde comes with the territory.

Whilst other planets share this optical phenomenon, the frequency and regularity with which the innermost world makes it’s backward track is viewed with particular dread.

Retrograde motion is an illusion. It’s observance in ancient times, before telescopes and the discovery of the extra-Saturnine planets, was considered an ill omen. But it’s basically the result of a pre-Newtonian understanding of orbital mechanics.

Ancient astrologers considered all the visible planets to be traveling around the earth. In the works of Claudius Ptolemy, the planets and the sun and moon were all pinned to a series of transparent spheres or shells, that moved around our own globe. His Almagest gave calculations for their movements, and was a standard¹ until Newton’s Principia Mathematica corrected planetary order.

The Sun, of course, never goes retrograde. Nor does the Moon, ironically the only body that does orbit the earth. For this reason, and because they were biggest and brightest, they each get to rule their own signs; the zodiac signs of Leo and Cancer respectively.

Leo, beginning with the Summer Solstice, and the hottest of the fire signs, is the natural home of the Sun. Ptolemy in his Tetrabiblos (the astrological companion to the astronomical Almagest) says that the Moon is associated with moisture, so as the next brightest light, she is assigned as ruler of Cancer, the water sign immediately preceding the Solstice.

planetaryrulers — This chart from Cafe Astrology shows the distribution of planetary rulership in the ancient world. The mathematics of Ptolemy’s Almagest made possible the first ephemeris. His Tetrabiblos is believed to be a summary of several earlier texts on astrology he researched at the Library of Alexandria. So these attributions may be as old as the Chaldean or Akkadian cultures, despite their Graeco-Roman names.

And thence all the remaining visible planets are awarded rulership over the zodiac in pairs, since there were only five of them, and there were ten signs left. So little Mercury gets both Gemini and Virgo; Venus rules Taurus and Libra; Mars: Aries and Scorpio; the expansive quality of Jupiter attend Pisces and Sagittarius; and finally cold and dark Saturn is lord over Aquarius and Capricorn.

Modern astrologers ascribe the “new” outer planets and some asteroids as rulers of signs and houses, but I find Ptolemy’s system to work fairly well, at least to gauge the basics.

And it warns us about Mercury. Mercury as ruler of Gemini presents duality and ambiguity. Perfect situation for a planet that can’t seem to make up it’s mind which way it’s going.

About that. Well, Mercury (and any other retrograde planet) isn’t actually moving backward. That would defy the laws of physics. . . Newton’s, not Ptolemy’s.

What’s happening is that all us planets are whizzing round that jolly old sun, at a pretty constant clip. But because of the different sizes of our orbits, every now and then it looks like some of the planets are moving backward, relative to our viewpoint here on little ol’ Earth²

And for naughty little Mercury, this happens about three times a year; more often than any of the other planets. So obviously the ancients took notice, and so do we. This wiggly motion astrologically indicates communication breakdowns that even Led Zeppelin could not have imagined, along with related interruptions in travel, technology, and other best laid plans.

So why do astrologer’s consider retrograde motion to be “bad”? Well, it may be helpful to compare it to the reversed meaning of a Tarot card. In Tarot a card that is drawn upside down is considered reversed, and it’s symbolism may be interpreted as an opposite or reduced version of the standard upright meaning.

thoth dual magician — In the Thoth Tarot, artist Freida Harris envisions the power of the Magus as synonymous with Mercury. This is something of a nod to the mysterious Hermes Trismegistus (the Thrice Great) a possibly fictitious author of many occult books. The god Hermes is the Greek equivalent of Mercury. He is also equivalent of Thoth (Tehuti) in Ancient Egypt, so there’s a bit of magical punnery at work here. This card is from my personal deck, one which has two alternate Magus cards. Ostensibly this was a publisher’s conceit, but much has been made of the symbology and secret intention of its having Three Magi.

thoth magician-hangedman — When the card is reversed, the once powerful and competent Magus now has lost control, and he, along with all his workings, appears to be plunging toward the abyss. The design is reminiscent of the 12th card, that of the Hanged Man. This card usually symbolizes life in constraint, or a delay in action. The Hanged Man, suspended between Heaven and Earth, partakes of neither. His energy is stalled, his intention frustrated. Like the infant Jupiter, he is invisible to the gods. As Mercury travels *unnaturally*, the normal order of things is upside down.

The same general rule applies when Mercury goes wandering. As the Messenger of the Gods, Mercury influences those things that have to do with sending and receiving messages, and in the 21st century, that covers a whole lot.

We have trouble finding the right words, or say things we shouldn’t. We forget to use BCC or forward that private internal memo to the whole office. We drunk text. We can’t access the Wi-Fi. We have no bars on our phones. We forgot we were on speaker. And Chaos ensues.

retrogradde — The *retroshade* of the current Mercurial backward transit. The wiggly spiral is Mercury’s observed direction through the zodiac. This chart represents all of 2022, which begins in the center and ends on the outer rim. The shadow period is defined by outer limits of the backwards S shape. The end of the retrograde casts a shadow backward in time, and the beginning of the retrograde casts the shadow forward.

The red overlay was added in Photoshop, but this graphic was generated by a nifty piece of software called Planetdance. If you’re a Windows User it’s free to download from the link. It has many of the features of professional astrology software. Like any freeware, it’s not always plug and play.

I am by no means a professional astrologer, but I am a professional computer guy, so it works for me. Calculations that would have taken me hours or days in my youth with paper ephemeris, tables of houses, and a slide rule (google that) are now just a few mouse clicks. It does a number of things that I don’t even begin to understand, but I’m learning.

Mercury only runs backward for about three weeks. But astrologers also reckon the “shadow period” which begins at the point in it’s forward orbit adjacent to its backward travel limit; and ends when it’s return to forward motion passes the point where it turned backward. So while the actual retrograde motion is from May 10 to June 3, the shadow period goes from late April until just past the middle of June.

Does Mercury’s little dance actually cause all the problems we associate with it? Or do we just see it as a convenient reason we butt-dialed the ex? As I said, I used to be skeptical, but 2022 is tempting me to reconsider.

Besides, that’s the only explanation I can find for my airline believing that Denver, Colorado is located on the flight path between New York City and Houston, Texas. I have had to travel more than halfway across the country, just to travel back home.

Twice.

Mercury is laughing his ass off.

Thank you for reading this article. I hope it has entertained, and possibly educated. I’ll be back again soon.

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Ms. Renee Watt in pointing me in the right direction (pun intended) on some key astrological questions. She is a published astrologer and podcaster, and a delightful person to share Sun and Moon with.

May 18, 2022July 18, 2022

Since Before You Were Born

I found myself thinking a rather odd thought the other day. I was in conversation with some people about Tarot, and realized, quite to my surprise, that I almost proclaimed: “But I’ve been doing this since before you were born!”

See, I have been working with Tarot since I was seven years old. That means that this year, I have a half century of experience with cartomancy and the use of Tarot symbology.

Fifty. Years.

And it occurred to me that my companions were neither over 50 years old.

That’s a jarring realization.

Don’t get me wrong. I have great respect and have learned a tremendous amount from the people in question, and I am glad to have been taken into their company. But the thought put me down a rabbit hole, regarding my own experience and practice of the mantic arts.

Obviously at seven I was not a master Tarot reader. I had a book that had introduced me to many concepts regarding magic and the occult, and I had the thin book that came with my cards, now lost. But, for everything there is a first time, and for me it was back in the early 70s.

So by the time I reached my teens, I had memorized the standard meanings for the cards, the reversed meanings, and the general layouts, and could do a reading without having to refer to the book.

I had intuited that “reading” meant assessing the entire context of the layout, perhaps not exactly in line with the book interpretations, or even with respect to the traditional significance of a card’s placement. That didn’t come from the books I had, but anyone who has been reading a while will tell you that comes with practice.

My augmentation of the box containing my Dragon Tarot cards. My third oldest deck, a gift from my wife sometime in the early 1990s.

I was on my way to a more personal, and more powerful, relationship with the cards before I was able to drive a car. And that’s likely before any of my friends ever even picked up a deck.

I did stop myself from blurting out “I’ve been doing this since before you were born!”

We all hate hearing that kind of answer. It smacks of arrogance, judgment, and perhaps a little condemnation. It’s right there with “You kids get off my lawn”, and effectively ends any substantive conversation. It presumes an authority that may not exist, purely derived from the passage of time.

All of us have different experiences, and just being older or doing something longer doesn’t automatically connote superior knowledge. But yet we all have either had the urge to proclaim our superior position in the timeline, or we will have that urge.

I stopped reading the cards for people in the mid 2000s for a number of reasons, but I still collect and work with Tarot (and some oracle decks). I use them both as personal divinatory aids and for meditative journeys based on the imagery. And their symbology has influences into my art and craft and magical workings.

However, not being an active reader working with clients means I may be missing out on some insights that happen in that environment. Most experienced readers will tell you that there’s an intuitive, possibly even psychic, process to interpretation, and that certainly is impacted by the presence of the person for whom you are reading. So there is every chance that I can learn something new from my friends who have an active public practice, even if they haven’t been at it as long.

On the other hand, there are potentially things that I have come across because I explore the cards in context of other magical practice, so their elemental, astrological, kabbalistic, and numerological aspects come to the fore. Certainly these can and do have a bearing on reading for other people, although perhaps not as prominently.

It’s not likely to be found in the “little white book” that comes with the deck, at least not in depth. There are so many layers and correspondences that it can take years to find them, and I don’t claim to have found even most of them.

Every time I get a new deck, I rethink and reinvent what I know about Tarot. I collect decks that “speak” to me. That would be the case with most of us who collect them.

There’s a very personal relationship between the Taroist and their cards. In my case the connection is the art. As an artist myself, that is the first touchstone.

Knowing so very well the “standard” Rider-Waite-Smith deck, I am constantly on the lookout for a fresh expression of both the themes and the artwork. Some of my decks are very different and provide completely new images for the traditional meanings. Others take the established symbols and evolve them in new and exciting ways.

tarot collectiion — This was only a portion of the decks I had accumulated in the spring of 2020. I think there may be more than 40 now. It’s hard to say. Some go hiding from time to time.

I can’t connect to a deck if I don’t connect to it’s artwork. My original deck, as I learned from Ms. Via Hedera, is called the Hoi Polloi. While substantially using the standard artwork, it is more brilliantly colored, and the line work simplified. It was my only deck for around fifteen years. Living in the boonies as I was, I honestly didn’t realize there were others.

I was gifted an RWS deck for my 21st birthday. I found the rather drab cards of the “official” deck underwhelming. I very rarely referenced that deck. That said, I have recently become aware that there are some important differences between it and my favored Hoi Polloi.

Likewise, I do not currently own a version of the so-called Marseilles Tarot.

Because I think it’s butt-ugly.

They’re based on wood-cuts made to mass produce decks as the Tarocchi game became popular outside of Italy. (Tarot is the French name of the game).

As the transitional point between Italian decks hand made for merchant princes, and the RWS designed specifically for use as an oracle, it is important, and as I look back on 50 years of working with Tarot, I am obliged to examine it more closely.

It’s easier, of course, to just hold fast to my old way of doing things. It’s easier to think that if I have been doing this since before many of you were born that I have nothing new to learn.

That would be wrong.

Should I reject the restless dreams of youth as novelty and folly, I miss out on the opportunity to grow. Likewise, I immediately erect a wall between myself and that same youth, who will then take everything I say as a criticism or judgment. Any pearls that may fall amongst the dogma and rhetoric are wholly dismissed. This is the road to sterility and stagnation.

One thing the years brings is perspective. And from that perspective we should take confidence in examining the road behind. We may find that there was something we missed the first time through, that only now, with the benefit of years, makes sense. Or we may find that cherished and hotly defended concepts are hollow and faulty, and in need of remediation.

Finally, we may find that we have something to pass on, after all. Because someday that knowledge, be it favorable or false, will pass out of this world, unless it is shared. Never set yourself so far apart that you lack for at least one ear to hear it.

Thank you for reading this. I look forward to our next encounter.

Larry S. Evans II

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