The Forest of Life

This week we will be focusing our attention on the number Ten . Ten represents the full manifestation, or display, of the world .  The Tree of Life is the architecture of the Qabalistic Tarot - so this spread can be viewed as a fundamental register of how our energy is integrated with this system of working with Tarot. In other words, it is about the health of our “nodes and channels” as they are developed by meditation and practice within the model. This spread pattern is “

This week we will be focusing our attention on the number Nine . Nine represents foundations - deep, integral structures that support and enable our growth - when they are properly constructed. A destiny is a type of foundation. We will be using a nine-card spread to lay a foundation for a major project - and give ourselves several options on how to approach it. This can even be a general “life-journey” spread. Any large, long range arc of development that has a beginning, a

This week we will be focusing our attention on the number Eight . Eight represents circulation within closed systems, circuitry, waterworks, intelligence, cleverness, language, the bridling of the passions, and the arts of magic and alchemy. Accordingly, this spread pattern is alchemical in nature. Throwing it will instigate a movement towards integration of 8 key life energies: Illumination , Communication , Individuation , Wealth , Grit , Adventure , Family , and Lear

This week we will be focusing our attention on the number seven . Seven represents Passion, intensity, and abundance. This spread pattern is similar in appearance to the six card cross pattern (which I wrote about last week) although it differs in concept. The method is ideal for reading environments where the clients don’t really know what their question is. Its refined form was developed while I was reading in a bar - Employees Only - where it was necessary to determine wha

Every week in the Forest of Life, focus on a different Tarot theme. Using that theme, we explore a different spread pattern. This week we are focusing our attention on the number Six. Six represents harmony and resonance. This spread pattern  appears in the center of the very popular “celtic-cross spread”. It explores a situation or person and that situation or person’s past-present-future, as well as the conscious and unconscious influences that are in play. This is the idea

This week we are focusing our attention on the number five . Five represents a breaking of stasis and the engagement of evolutionary stresses. Fives are “hormetic”, meaning that they are the kind of good hardship that if you apply yourself to them carefully, will make you much stronger. Without the fives in the deck, we would languish and become corrupt. Fives are the key to breaking out of static cycles, and achieving something new. The Key Question, then, is “how do I achie

This week we are focusing our attention on the number four . Four represents a stabilization - as in four directions, or four legs of a table. While there are an enormous amount of 4-card spreads possible, here is one that I find instructive. I call it “State of the Aces.” You are encouraged to come up with other four-card spread ideas and share them with me, if you like! How do you throw this spread? ( Featured is The Hermetic Deck by Godfrey Dowson Godfrey ) Step 1 : Cull t

This week we are focusing our attention on the number three . Three represents a formal state of affairs- It triangulates three meanings to pinpoint the nature of situation. Three-card spreads are incredibly versatile. Here we will look at two applications:  “past, present & future” spreads, and “pros, cons, & compromises” spreads. You are encouraged to come up with other three-card spread ideas and share them with me, if you like! Past, Present, Future This spread pattern is

Two represents motion - it puts two meanings into tension and results in a new energy - a “becoming” that results from the combination. The spread for the number two is the two-card crossroads . Two-card crosses are excellent for shining light on a basic situation without going into too much detail. It’s good to frame the question as a request for comment on that situation. For instance: “Tarot, please comment on the party I’ve been invited to this evening," or “Tarot, please

This week we are focusing our attention on the number one . One represents a dimensionless point of purity - and reminds us of the Aces. The spread for the number one is that most basic - yet most essential of all Tarot spreads, the single-card draw . Single card draws are excellent for daily contemplative work, and are good to draw first thing in the morning since they set the theme for the day. They shouldn’t be read as predictions so much as messages to contemplate. Daily

Laughter is the true medicine.

The Fool and the World are the ultimate dyad of the Tarot. They in a way, represent the most fundamental level of the entire system. In its essence, the Tarot speaks of encounters of consciousness - the fool - with eternity - the world. That is all it is. Of course there are many varieties of encounter - as the other trumps will attest - but this is at the core of each and every one. The world and the fool are the tacit companions of every card, every reading, every situation

"Recognize this: orality is a mode of transmission in intimate contact with the world. It draws its meaning from the sensible. Literacy, on the contrary, draws its meaning from an increasing depth of distance from the world. It builds off of text, building off of text, building off of text. But text stops at the threshold of the sensible. The modeling of ideas and idea networks as hollows (Tzimtzummim) lends itself to the generation of deeper and deeper spaces, all of which p

Crowley's fool is Dionysus - god of primordial revelry. It is of interest that the Fool carries a sack containing all the symbols of the Tarot on coins, all jumbled up. This is due to the fact that the beginner - the child - already has all the wisdom inherently within them - but it cannot be deployed, it has not yet been made available. The Tarot is thus no more than a map of classes and categories operating in a certain organization, which activates those latent potentials

"Here, then, is a possibility: the “forms,” or general definitions of Plato are not above the world but are spaces, hollows, gaps in immanence’s continuous flesh, caused by a semantic incision. They are borings-through the Ain Soph, and also tunnels for it, because what is caused to happen is that pure difference is differentiated from itself by the application of the tautology as if a spotlight shone upon the stream. Pure difference Tzimtzums from itself, opening up number-a

Openness opens its openings like a porous skin to absorb eternity. The opaque shells of name and form fall away into the vast air that is the breath of forever. The Fool's freshness lasts, in each instant, for only as long as awareness remains unsullied at the furthest Horizon of experience. The blessed Fool is innocence The cursed Fool is ignorance. Do not tarry in folly. The way opens, the path is shown. Be aware of the helpers - they may seem as innocuous as the little whi

On Friday, the time of the Fool arrived. The Fool is the path of openness, of innocence, and of the emptiness of the child. At the same time, its a path of surprise, of potential, and of Grace. There are holy fools and damned fools and the difference appears to be the ability to learn. Those who would use folly as a cover for designs of any kind will be destroyed by it. Folly cannot be contrived - yet it is the natural condition of the human soul. Do not make it the goal - bu

The Magus speaks, and it creates worlds. Truth is a black fire hidden within a tongue of rainbows. The ape and the magus are necessary dance partners. Crowley wrote 'the word of wisdom weaves the web of lies - weds irreducible infinities'.

The significance of the magician's pairing with the Judgement lies in the manner in which the former's voice creates worlds through vibration. In effect, the power of the utterance to open up an entire domain of potentiality is a trumpet sounding that awakens the dead from their graves. If the magician represents the House, then the Judgement represents that House's Hearth. It is what gives life, warmth, and fire to it. Find in yourself the voice of fire.

Of all the magically significant cultural objects that are hidden in plain sight, one of the most potent is the ubiquitous magic cube puzzle. Did you know that the 26 facings can be assigned to the alphabet in a magical way? If you want to learn this cool technique, I teach it in my course on Metamagic Scrying with @perseusarcaneacademy   Check here: https://courses.perseusarcaneacademy.com/b/metamagick