Esoteric Tarot

I'm not a trained academic, in the post-industrial, Western sense of the term. I just want to get that out of the way. But I've been studying Tarot for over 50 years, and started at a time - the early 70s - when there weren't that many books out on the subject. But those books that were available were awesome. Even the crazier ones still get quoted a lot, as they were part of what had become several established traditions concerning Esoteric Tarot that all continue to this day. This is the first post of many, so I'll try to keep it as simple as I can (not my strong point). It is impossible to begin this without making some broad generalizations that can get pi…

I've been memorizing the Decan system. Who's in? Come on! It's not that hard 🙂 Image Courtesy of http://www.tarot.org.il/

Info and Practice Exercises for Astrology & Tarot I'm copying the posts I added to the forum's mentorship section for a student who wanted to study astrology and tarot specifically, in case it's helpful to anyone, or in case you spot ways I can improve my info or approach. This is specific to the Golden Dawn tradition, decks like the Waite-Smith (RWS) and Thoth. It should also apply well to decks inspired by those, though how obvious that is will depend on symbols the artist chose to include or remove. This (fantastic) student was reading with the RWS, so I mainly reference that, but if you read with the Thoth, you won't have to ad…

Hi everyone, I'm engrossed in a detailed read of Wang's Qabalistic Tarot at the moment, at the recommendation of the good folks of this forum (thank you!), and am totally digging it. I found a mention in today's study of the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom by Paul Foster Case, and thought I'd take a look, as it looked interesting. However, there seem to be several "versions" of texts purporting to be this book out there. One is either edited, published, or even (re?)written by a certain Wade Colman, and is a new edition available on Amazon, etc, for 15 dollars / euros or so. There there's at least one version with is a PDF scan of a 1919 text by Paul …

Lets go a little into this practice. This was used a lot in G.D. one way or another. The idea here is very connected to something called Astral Projection back then, that falls into the larger idea of "Out of Body Experiences". Its states when we are aware of ourselves, that doesn't carry the idea of physical body along. People go through that by itself, often in very intense moments of their life, without training most people usually remember a few of those through their life, yet if we go deeply enough into studies and researches on that we can see a lot of people do it very often, they just think its a dream(or also often that they were awake) after and there are good…

(Warning: purple prose!) This is a thread for trying to make sense of some of the things in the PKT. It's a beginner book, but it's peppered with cryptic jabberwocky. I always just took from it what I needed to read the cards and skipped over the rest. But it's best to be sure... I was reading over the PKT and came across a bit that I always skipped because it never made sense to me: "that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified" - what in the blue hell is he talking about? What desires does anyone have that are "not in Nature"? Even religious impulses are part of nature, that stuff is hardwired into us. Different isolated populations always …

Does anyone use Gematria with Tarot reading? I found Gematria in the first half of the book 777 by Crowley, and I found more books explaining how to use Gematria. It sounds like it is related to Kabbala, but I am not sure if it is for Tarot reading, or if it would be useful topic to learn for more depth readings with Tarot.

I've been reading/watching info about magickal correspondences, and how Kabbalah is kind of obsessed with them, as well as Agrippa etc. I was wondering if tarot "works" b/c of these correspondences being a fundamental feature of reality, or is it more that something is talking through the deck to you?

While looking into the importance of Red & White in the Greenwood Tarot I've fallen down a bit of an Alchemy rabbit hole. Or more accurately - enthusiastically dived in head first and indiscriminately read random bits here and there while wildly googling. I'm hoping someone can point me in the direction of a book or online resource, because I'm bewildered by the options right now. I'm looking at Place's "The Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism", is that a good place to start?

I just wanted to get a feel from the community if there are people here who would be interested in discussing conventional Qabalistic Tarot. I don't mind kickstarting these discussions off, using Robert Wang's book and my own studies as a foundation. While I don't work with the conventional (Kircher) Tree of Life glyph in my personal practice any more, I feel like learning it is the best place for students of Qabalistic Tarot to start. But I wanted to make sure this would be a topic of interest to at least 2-3 other people before launching.

Good Evening I’ve been using the Rider-Waite Deck for a few months now and have recently become enamoured with the teachings of Qabalah. I want to set up an intimate, educational, and philosophical study group for mature beginners ( 30 plus club ) via Google hang outs on a weekly basis ( GMT ) who also share an interest in learning the Hermetic Qabalah in conjunction with the Tarot decks produced by the members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 1. The Golden Dawn Tarot 2. The Rider-Waite Deck 3. Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot 4. The hermetic Tarot deck I’ve just purchased “The Chicken Qabalah “o…

I came across an introduction written by A. E. Waite to the book titled "General Book of the Tarot," (1930) by A. E. Thierens. Thierens was a student of Waite, hence the introduction. I call your attention to this excerpt: "Meanwhile Dr. Thierens has approximated more than anyone else towards a valid interpretation of Tarot Trump Major No. XII, being the Hanged Man. From Court de Gebelin to Papus and Stanislas de Guaita, not excluding Oswald Wirth himself, all published exoteric meanings are utterly remote from the true significance of this most pregnant symbol. In my Pictorial Key to the Tarot and in the Little Key which accompanies Miss Pamela Colman Smith's comple…

So I don't reverse cards in the shuffle, but I do use elemental dignities to determine whether a card is well- or ill-dignified. If a card is flanked by two cards of an opposing suit or element, then that card may end up being functionally reversed, in which case I actually turn it upside down in the spread and read it as such. The precise meaning depends on the nature of the flanking cards forcing the ill-dignification. Let's say I have the Three of Swords, the Lord of Sorrow. If it's flanked, say, by the Nine and Ten of Pentacles (Material Gain and Wealth respectively), that's Earth flanking Air, so the Three of Swords is flipped. Then, because the Nine and…

Last night just as I was drifting off to sleep, my brain decided to gift me with the new names for the court cards that I've been groping towards over the past two weeks. My impetus has been the correspondences between the court cards on the one hand and the Tetragrammaton and the Four Realms on the other. I've been working from the Golden Dawn / Thoth reorganisation of the court card hierarchy, to whit: 1. The KNIGHT is the fiery Yod in Atziluth, the Realm of Emanation. 2. The QUEEN is the watery Heh in Briah, the Realm of Creation. 3. The KING is the airy Vau in Yetzirah, the Realm of Formation. 4. The PAGE is the earthy Heh in …

Hi everyone, So this is just a bit of idle speculation. 🙂 I was doing my daily reading this morning (7-card horseshoe "Counsel Spread") and the Hierophant turned out in the Present position #1. I'm using the Radiant Wise Spirit, so basically a nattily coloured RWS deck. Anyway, as I focussed on the card, I was really struck by how important the number three is to almost everything there. Three figures, triple crown, three horizontals on the cross-staff, three crosses on the tabard, three Vaus, two columns plus the Middle Pillar, and so on. All that, and the fact that the Hierophant is essentially the male counterpart of the High Priestess, with contrasting sy…

Hi everyone! I've been scouting around for a good, readable, single volume book which discusses what the Golden Dawn "did" to the Tarot, and why. In particular, I'm looking for it to cover the following subjects: - the reasons behind the Strength / Justice switch - the reasons behind the Court Cards change - why A E Waite produced a tarot which included some, but not all, of the GD innovations, and his reasons for doing so. - bonus points for a general overview of the Golden Dawn, its history, and Waite's and Crowley's break-offs I already know the rough outlines of answers to the above questions, so please no need to try to answer …

Hi everyone, Sarah here, new to the forums and still finding my way round! Apologies if this topic has been discussed before - I haven't yet found where! I'm doing a lot of work on the court cards at the moment, and have got hung up on their associations with the four qabbalistic olam / worlds. Up until recently, I always accepted the traditional attributions without question. However, I was recently reading Isabel Radow Kliegman's "Tarot and the Tree of Life", where she proposes a completely different set of attributions which seem nevertheless to make great sense. I was wondering if you had any guidance, advice, or explanations to help me grok this differenc…

I have seen some variation but the below resonates with me...The 10 nodes and chakras: Crown - Crown Chakra Wisdom - Third Eye Understanding - Third Eye Mercy - Throat Strength- Throat Beauty - Heart Victory - Solar Plexus Splendor - Solar Plexus 'Foundation' - Sacral Kingdom 'Healing' - Root Air/Swords - communication - throat chakra Water/Cups - feelings - heart chakra Fire/Wands - personal power - Solar/Sacral Earth/Pentacles - material/grounding - Root My personal integration of Majors and Elements: Fire: Emperor, Strength, Wheel, Temperance, Tower, Sun Ear…

I’m hoping that some of you might be able to help me find a particular reference. I have been looking into W. B. Yeats, particularly his esoteric work, including the Tarot. I could swear I read somewhere that he coined the phrase “the seventy-eight degrees of wisdom”, which we know better as the title of Rachel Pollack’s book. I have been looking through my papers to find the reference again, particularly an essay by Kathleen Raine where I thought I’d read it, but alas it’s not there. I have tried googling it, also to no avail. Perhaps I’m misremembering this after all, but maybe we have Yeats aficionados here who might help clear this up one way or the other? Thank you i…

If you haven't seen it, there's a site I've referred to often that uses the hermetic Tree of Life as the visual index to the deck. Instead of starting with a card, you start with the Tree, and clicking on part of it will show you the corresponding cards and Golden Dawn color scales. (All explanatory text is by Crowley, regardless of which version you select, but if that's not your interest, it's worth a look for the rest.) Tree correspondences there from Crowley and the Golden Dawn: Thoth version RWS version Site also has Tree correspondences according to Court de Gébelin, Eliphas Levi and Frater Achad. (For these the TdM majors and RWS minors come up. I do…

@Natural Mystic Guide said in response to question whether astrology was in traditional Jewish Kabbalah <<I am too ignorant to be able to answer that question. I do look forward to understanding it better in the future. Studying Jewish astrology is on my list. Jewish astrology is a strong and well developed branch of Jewish knowledge. At one time it was required study for every Rabbi. The other question that I look forward to answering is what correlation is there between Jewish astrology and other well established branches of astrology. Since both Kabbalah and astrology were flourishing at the same time it seem that there must have been overlaps.>>…

I realize that there are different groupings within the realm of tarot (& cartomancy) but can people direct me to lists and/or biographies of the "important" or major figures? This can be authors, deck designers, modern historians who study them , etc. Most of this info was copy-pasted from wikipedia entries ... "Etteilla", the pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Alliette (1 March 1738 – 12 December 1791) Gérard Anaclet Vincent Encausse (July 13, 1865 – 25 October 1916), whose esoteric pseudonym was Papus Éliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant (8 February 1810 – 31 May 1875) Paul Foster Case (October 3, 1884 – March 2, 19…

There are a number of very good Thelemic Tarots which have come out in recent years -- perhaps from the turn of the century, which would be appropriate. One deck that is popular and already well covered in the TT&M forums is M.Meleen's Tabula Mundi Tarot, as well as her previous effort the Rosetta Tarot. To what extent the Pharos Tarot is Thelemic, I do not know. However there are also the Via Tarot, Lon DuQuette's Tarot of Ceremonial Magick, the Liber T Tarot, and others. Many old (e.g., the Gareth Knight Tarot, later Golden Dawn decks) and new (e.g., the Dark Sun Tarot, the H. P. Lovecraft Tarot) Tarots incorporate Thelemic or other symbolic elements described by Cr…

A confession. I've had a copy of Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett's book, A History of the Occult Tarot, on my bookshelf for over 20 years now. And while I have dipped into it a couple of times, I've never read it cover to cover. I hate buying books and leaving them unread, particularly when they are expensive hardbacks, but for one reason or another I have neglected this book for two decades now. It's not that I find the subject matter boring or uninteresting. Quite the opposite actually. But every time I've contemplated reading this book I've found something else more worthy of my time. I think part of my reluctance to read this book is based on a fear of re-treading o…

I see that there are people here who may be very receptive to this. At the outset, I would like to avoid "doctrinal" arguments with Golden Dawn or A.'.A.'. purists. You guys are well represented! 🤓 As Lon DuQuette once said, in this exact context, "grownups can have chocolate and vanilla!" I would just like the opportunity to share some things I've worked out over the years. About myself, briefly: I got into Tarot, Runes, & Wicca long before I got into traditional Judaism. It was indeed the Tarot that led me to Qabalah. I was just fortunate to have an opportunity to learn Qabalah from the original Rabbinical sources. As I've told many people, going to Rab…