Larry's Notes: Meditations on the Tarot - The High Priestess

Next in the series of Tarot meditations is the High Priestess. The High Priestess is number two in the series, and a key concept associated with the number two in the book is reflection. In the discussion of the Magician, the essential unity of all things was given as a key concept, and it was implied that the experience was only the first step. The next step is to hold a mirror up to the first. The mirror is you, and the result is called gnosis in the book. This also allows for the experience of love, which inherently requires two parties.

Christ-consciousness allows for this experience of love, which is why the book says it is superior to the Nirvana experience. The book quotes Jesus as saying "All those who came before me are as robbers and thieves," and this is because, according to the book, the prior esoteric philosophies all aimed at the experience of unity, which did not allow for love because there was only the one thing. And that's the problem with non-duality.

On the other hand, if we retain our individuality, we will be able to make this experience part of our daily lives, which allows us to progress further along the path. Christ-consciousness is what I think is meant when Jesus said: "If a man believes in me, then the things that I have done, he will also do, and greater things than these will he do." I think it's better translated as: "If a man believes with me," meaning that he shares the same level of consciousness, but that's for the next installment in the series.

Book Review: Paths of Wisdom

The Mystical Qabalah is the canonical textbook for anyone on the Hermetic Path. Unfortunately, the book isn't very accessible to newbies. To be honest, Paths of Light: A Guide to the Magical Cabala by John Michael Greer, isn't much more accessible, but it's more modern, and could make a nice stepping stone after reading something like The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford: Dilettante's Guide to What You Do and Do Not Need to Know to Become a Qabalist.

As you may expect, the book focuses on the Tree of Life. (If all you know about the Tree of Life is that it was in the Garden of Eden, read The Chicken Qabalah first.) One difference in the treatment of the Tree of Life is the use of the Hebrew letters that spell the name of God associated with each sphere. Each letter is explained in terms of the associated Tarot card, but this isn't a Tarot book, so the associations aren't made explicit. There's also a nice explanation of the Veil of Paroketh, which separates our mundane life from the higher levels of the Tree. The key concept is that the Veil is at least partially composed of our belief systems.

The treatment of the Tree is quite thorough, including even the four color scales and magical images. An instructive exercise for the artistically inclined would be to paint or draw the magical images. The Yeziratic Texts (an obscure description for each of the spheres and paths) are covered, and these can be hard to make sense of, but the book provides good explanations. The Golden Dawn models of the Garden of Eden before and after the fall are also included and explained.

So what's the bottom line? I recommend this book for serious Hermeticists who have read at least one (preferably three or more) books on the subject already. But you still need The Mystical Qabalah.

Larry's Notes: Meditations on the Tarot: The Fool

Continuing my series about the chapters of Meditations on the Tarot, tonight I want to talk about the Fool. Meditations has the Fool as next-to-last in the series, so why is he the second installment in my series? Because he should have been first, but I wasn't really sure about it until I finished reading the book for the second time. And it's not just because the Fool is numbered zero.

To really understand why the Fool should be first, let's look at two literary figures Meditations refers to in its discussion of the fool: Don Quixote and Dr. Faust. I started reading Don Quixote again a couple of months ago, and stopped about halfway through because it was like watching the Detroit Lions play football. Now if Don Quixote's problem is self-deception, Dr. Faust suffered from deception at the hands of the demon he summoned, which really amounts to the same thing.

I apologize in advance because this will sound trite, but these two literary figures are important because they are metaphors for the human condition. We deceive ourselves and have been deceived by others, and deceive them in turn. The road to recovery involves recognizing the deception and stopping it. This brings me to a third literary figure discussed in this chapter of the Meditations: Arjuna from the Bhagavad-Gita. For those of you who don't know the story, it's set in ancient India on a battleground. Arjuna is about to lead his army into battle, but is somewhat reluctant. Krishna, a god who for some reason is acting as Arjuna's chariot driver, explains to Arjuna why he must fight, along with a bunch of other things. My take on the story is this: Arjuna represents the ego, Krishna the higher self, and the assembled soldiers are the components of Arjuna's belief systems. All of the belief system must be slain for Arjuna to be left with his higher self.

So how does this all relate to the Fool? Remember what I said above about deception, and in the prior paragraph about destroying our belief systems. The word "our" is key, because these belief systems are shared. Stepping outside of them will make us appear to be fools to those not on the journey. And that's exactly why being willing to do so must be the first step.

Book Review: Astrology and the Authentic Self

The two most popular systems of calculating house cusps are the Placidus and Koch methods. Both are mathematically rigorous methods, high-tech if you will. (Don't worry if you have know idea what I'm talking about. I'll explain about house cusps later.) But what if I told you that there was a more accurate method that was both older and simpler? Would I sound like a reactionary or an old curmudgeon? Well, there is such a method, and it's used in Astrology and the Authentic Self: Integrating Traditional and Modern Astrology to Uncover the Essence of the Birth Chart by Demetra George. This book uses the Whole Sign method, which is a throwback to the Middle Ages and before. But guess what? I've tried it on my own chart, and it works. Some of the planetary placements in my chart make a lot more sense under this system.

Now for those of you who don't know much about astrology, there are twelve houses in an astrological chart, each corresponding to a different area of life. The first house, for example, corresponds to identity and personality; the second house to money, possessions, and things of value, and so forth. The house cusps are the starting points of each house in the Zodiac. The Placidus and Koch systems start with the Ascendant (the point of the Zodiac that's on the Eastern horizon at birth) and the Midheaven (where the sun would be if it were "high noon") and extrapolate the other house cusps by either space or time. The Whole Sign system just uses the Ascendant, assigning the start of the sign it falls in to the first house cusp, the start of the next sign to the second house, and so forth.

At this point, I don't want to talk about the book (it's good, try it) as much as about the implications of the usefulness of the house systems. If a medieval house system works better than the two most currently used systems, what does that say about the usefulness of astrology as practiced today? Shouldn't there be a clear winner among the house systems? Or if valid results can be obtained with any of them, does it really matter at all?

Book Review: The Art of Predictive Astrology

In the past I've shied away from using astrology to make predictions, partly because of the free will thing, and partly because of the Oedipus Effect: the steps taken to prevent a predicted event are often responsible for enabling it. But mostly for the real reason, which is that I didn't know how to do it. The Art of Predictive Astrology: Forecasting Your Life Events by Carol Rushman may solve that problem.

The starting point for prediction is what the book calls "Natal Promise:" potentials as given by the birth chart. If the potential for a certain event is not indicated by the birth chart, it's not going to happen, so there's no point looking for it. There's a whole chapter devoted to determining natal promise, with an interesting formula for the number of possible marriages.

Two major tools used by the book are progressions and transits. Progressions are computed by rolling the birth chart forward by one day per year of real time; transits use the current position of the planets. In both cases, the planet's positions are compared to what's on the birth chart. The theory is that these positions can activate planets, houses and aspects in the natal chart. Also featured in the book are lunations (new moons and full moons) and eclipses.

I'm going to try the techniques given for a few months. I'll let you know how it works out.

Book Review: Tarot for Everyone

Tarot for Everyone by Hajo Banzhaf is a tarot book geared to beginners. In addition to basic tarot theory, the book presents three basic layouts: the Compass, the Blind Spot, and the Oracle of Love. Descriptions are given of the 78 cards, with specific interpretations for the position the card falls in in each of the three layouts. Twelve additional layouts are given in the appendix. One interesting feature of the interpretations is that the upright and reversed meanings seem to be combined, and one or the other is used based on the position of the card in the layout.

I bought the book a few months ago and tried a couple of spreads with mixed results. I was trying the spreads with a new deck, so that might have had some effect. A couple of weeks ago, I picked up the book again and tried the Compass spread. This time, it just worked. To be honest, I'm not sure why. I got similar results with the Oracle of Love and the Blind Spot.

Based on those results, this book deserves mention as another option for beginners. The sheer volume of information that's needed to do effective tarot readings can be intimidating, and anything that helps get results without memorizing hundreds of pages of information shouldn't be overlooked just because it seems to have a superficial approach.

Book Review:1-2-3 Tarot

I've noticed that the tarot and astrology sections of the bookstores I frequent are starting to thin out, with more space devoted to the paranormal, 2012, and "The Secret" type books. I wonder if this is because both tarot and astrology require large investments of time and energy to attain any proficiency. Or maybe everyone is using the free courses available on the internet instead. Anyway, for those of you who still like dead trees, I have an introductory book for you: 1-2-3 Tarot: Answers in an Instant by Donald Tyson.

The book has a simple but effective method of reading the cards. Each card is given possible meanings as either a noun, a verb, or an adverb, and the combinations create sentences. The selling point of the book is that this method makes it possible to do meaningful readings without knowing anything about the cards. This seems to fit in to the American propensity toward instant gratification, but it actually works if taken as a starting point. The book starts with a three-card spread, then moves on to more complex spreads that form multiple sentences. I've done some experimentation with the method as applied to the traditional Celtic Cross spread, and it yields some useful interpretations.

The verdict? If you're a beginner, buy the book, but don't stop there or you'll miss the other advantages that Tarot has to offer. If you've been reading for a while, the book will give you a fresh approach that you'll be able to integrate into your current methods.