Going for the Gold

I now have a handful of tarot decks with gold-foil highlights and in some cases complete backgrounds. I also have the Golden Lenormand but I'm not including it here, and the Dali Tarot but it only has gold on the upper and lower borders. Kat Black's Golden Tarot and Eric Dunne's Illuminati Tarot didn't make …

Garbage In, Garbage Out

This is likely to be a controversial subject. There is an old tenet from computer science that goes: "Garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) is the concept that flawed, or nonsense input data produces nonsense output or 'garbage.' The principle also applies more generally to all analysis and logic, in that arguments are unsound if their …

The Virtue of Simplicity

As time goes on I find myself drawn more and more to working with only the 56 Minor Arcana cards in divination. Granted, the 22 Major Arcana are where most of the philosophical "meat" lies in the tarot, but very few of my readings rise to that level of metaphysical complexity and intensity. Most of …

TURN OFF THE CAPS! (Majors-Only Tarot Reading)

It seems to be popular in Europe to read with only the 22 trump cards and leave the pip and court cards aside. This is surely a pre-20th-Century form of cartomancy that antedates the lofty assumptions of Jungian thought and its psychological archetypes. I'm not familiar enough with Joseph Campbell to say so conclusively, but …

Spiritual Realism and Fuzzy Logic

In keeping with my life-long aversion to the "father-knows-best" model of authoritarian determinism, I tend to avoid "isms" of any kind. But in contemplating my approach to spiritual matters in general, I was casting around for a definition that does the same thing for me that "scientific materialism" does for the pure rationalist. I consider …

The “Boss from Hell” – A Riff on Mastery

I've never been satisfied with the accepted notion that the 3 of Pentacles represents the "master craftsman" while the 8 of Pentacles shows an "apprentice." The number Three appears early in the numerical sequence and is therefore relatively undeveloped; in the suit of Earth it portrays a golden opportunity to "learn the ropes" but not …

A Force Too Short (or Is It Too Long?)

Another curious phrase used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn describes the 8 of Swords as the "Lord of Shortened Force." To me, "shortened" implies too little of something, but in Liber T Macgregor Mathers had this to say: “Too much force applied to small things." I just can't see it in that …

“Thinking Man’s Tarot”

If you listen carefully, you might hear John Wayne saying "Those're fightin' words, pilgrim!" But I'm not attacking anyone here; consider this an op-ed with a curmudgeonly observation or two (or six). Take it as you will. It goes without saying that I'm generally at odds with those who believe tarot reading  thrives only on …

“Pleasure with Pain for Leaven:” Blended Satisfaction

I've often pondered what Macgregor Mathers intended by the description "blended pleasure" as a pejorative for the emotional state shown in the 4 of Cups. I had to stop and think "Blended with what, and to what end?" The purpose of blending two things is usually to improve the quality of one or both of …

Think Once, Then Stop Thinking

There seems to be endless online debate over the proper methodology for laying out the cards. It ranges from "Just do it!" with no planned sequence to carefully orchestrating the pull for maximum coherence. To those who profess to using no prescribed technique, I would ask "Not even self-prescribed?" I would argue that "no method" …