“Hey, Rock, watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat!” The modern tarot Magician began life as “le Bateleur,” a clever, street-wise conjurer skilled at juggling and ingenious sleight-of-hand diversions or, alternatively, a cunning mountebank, charlatan or trickster. The only thing “occult” about him was what he chose to keep hidden from the gaze … Continue reading Jiggery-Pokery
Month: November 2017
The Fool Abides
When is a Fool not an utter fool? When he's given a mission, obviously, regardless of his readiness to undertake it. In the annals of tarot's "creation myth," the Fool was a stereotype of the medieval court jester, a madman in motley and bells. I sometimes wonder how many of those historical fools had a … Continue reading The Fool Abides
Structured Chart-Reading
Back when I was first learning natal astrology (around "5 B.C." or five years before the first Sinclair and Kaypro personal computers hit the street), students were encouraged to look at the main themes in a chart first before getting sucked into the details. Economical and effective chart synthesis was the "Holy Grail" of the … Continue reading Structured Chart-Reading
A Candle in the Darkness
I've always thought that hermits and remote caves go together like bread-and-butter, pretzels-and-beer or salt-and-pepper; the sequestered hermit covets outer solitude to stimulate his inner vision. So what's this guy doing out of his hole and on a mountain-top in the middle of the night? The answer would seem to be "aspiring;" he stands at … Continue reading A Candle in the Darkness
A Lenormand Grand Tableau Layout Map
If you're like me, you have yet to memorize all 36 of the Grand Tableau house position titles to the point that you don't need a cheat-sheet, even after using the GT for several years. The obvious solution is to buy a pre-printed GT spread cloth, and I tried to do that. But that won't … Continue reading A Lenormand Grand Tableau Layout Map
Astrology Takes a Detour
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention first that I've been what is known as a "psychological" astrologer since the term gained popularity in the early 1970s. British astrologer Alan Leo - often called "the father of modern astrology" - was the first practitioner of what he called "the science of tendencies" rather … Continue reading Astrology Takes a Detour
“Who’s the Boss?”
I once had a 95-pound German Shepard who fully understood the authoritarian zeal of the Emperor. He was big and strong enough to have ripped my throat out, so every informal training session included a demonstration of my "alpha male" superiority. He loved to mock-fight, so I used to don a pair of heavy work … Continue reading “Who’s the Boss?”
Extreme Makeover: Imperatrix to Earth Mother
The esoteric revisionism of the 18th and 19th Centuries produced many imaginative additions to the existing lexicon of divinatory keywords for the tarot trump cards, which was previously anemic at best. What was once a simple court jester - and mad at that - became a "wise Fool" with a mission, what began as an … Continue reading Extreme Makeover: Imperatrix to Earth Mother
A 1980 Cold-Case Reading
I recently came across a news report about an investigation by local police and FBI agents into a 37-year-old New Hampshire (USA) missing-person "cold case." http://www.wmur.com/article/officials-search-for-evidence-related-to-1980-missing-person-case/13521816 I have a spread designed for missing-person divination and decided to apply it to this case. Here is the layout: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kz9ay5wf44526er/Train%20to%20Nowhere%20Spread.pdf?dl=0 The spread has thirteen positions modeled after a … Continue reading A 1980 Cold-Case Reading
Leaving the Crossroads: A Chariot to Go
In reading Roberts Place's volume, The Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination, I encountered his association of Plato's threefold subdivision of the human soul with the septenary (3x7) arrangement of the tarot trumps (the Fool is set apart as a “wild card”). Plato's unevolved “soul of appetite” corresponds to the seven-card series from the Magician to … Continue reading Leaving the Crossroads: A Chariot to Go
