Category Archives: Tarot

astrology, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Geomancy, I Ching / Yi Jing, Playing Cards, Tarot, Uncategorized, Vera Sibilla

The Ethical Limits of Prediction, Between Girly-Pops and Caring For Others

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I had a quick but interesting exchange of emails with a reader of this blog, and they asked me my perspective on the ethical side of prediction. One of the questions was if I share the belief that we shouldn’t answer questions that don’t directly relate to the querent and their actions, especially if they involve reading other people’s mind (e.g., “Is he thinking about his ex?”)

The Three Types of Diviners

First off we must recognize that, nowadays, there are many diviners who do not even think that prediction is possible. Then there’s those who think it’s possible but not desirable. And then there’s those who think it’s both possible and perfectly legitimate. If you know me, you can guess which camp I belong to.

The one thing almost all diviners of almost all strands can agree on is that divination should leave the querent with more information than before the reading took place. It is the nature of the information that is controversial. Many (most, perhaps) contemporary diviners believe the information should be of a mystical/ethical nature and should guide the querent’s action rather than foretelling future events or things the querent has no control over, such as other people’s thoughts beliefs, which is seen as prying. The idea is that to do otherwise is to disempower the querent by putting the center of power outside of them.

To which I say: We are not discrete atoms living each in its own self-made, self-referential reality, no matter what the manifesting girly-pops on Tiktok say. The center of power is not within us, at least not in the sense that most people think.1 We exist enmeshed in an infinitely complex chain of actions and reactions, and our degree of control over them is objectively limited.

We seek to steer our life through the chaos of existence by levereging the information we have, including our knowledge of what (we think) other people’s beliefs and motivations are. In so far as divination gives us information and knowledge, it helps us increase the degree of control we have on our life (though this control can never be absolute). As such, it is perfectly legitimate to want to know what other people think.

The idea that we can only tell the querent what to do as a discrete, atomized individual is faulty for a variety of reasons. As said, the first reason is that we are not atoms. Only first world people with first world problems can seriously believe such postmodern crap (try to go to a starving child in a war zone and tell him he just needs to manifest harder). In reality, how other people think and act has very much to do with how the querent will or can behave, and so the querent’s expectation of being told such information is understandable.

The Two Should’s

The second important reason is that the idea itself that there is an objective cosmic measure of how we should act which the diviner must relay to the querent is silly. How people should act is between them and their god, and diviners are well advised to stay out of it instead of trying to play the role of ruler-wielding metaphysical pep-talkers (whenever you find someone who acts like this, run! Those who can live their life, do. Those who can’t, become life coaches.)

The word “should” has two different meanings: technical (“you should take the bus now if you want to get there on time”) and moral (“you should think about those less fortunate than you”). In the first sense, divination has some use, but only in the sense that the diviner, after assessing the situation as it emerges from the cards or chart, and taking what the querent hopes to achieve into consideration, gives them advice (I’ve talked about this here). In this sense, knowing what someone else thinks can be valuable (“he is not thinking about you and he won’t for the foreseeable future. Maybe you should start thinking about putting yourself back on the market”).

From a moral standpoint, divination’s use is very limited and it can become a dangerous tool of delusion or deceit. Example: “Should I have an abortion?” there is absolutely no way of answering that question. Some quick research online will show that there are all kinds of stances on abortion, ranging from believing it should never be had even if it means the woman will lose her life to believing it’s a moral duty of every woman to have one to stick it to the system, with a variety of more moderate solutions in between.

Since there is no consensus, such question essentially translates to “what is your stance on abortion?” Why you should regulate your life based on the personal moral beliefs of someone shuffling pretty cards on the internet is a question the answer to which is probably found somewhere in California.

“But isn’t divination a form of communion with the divine? Shouldn’t the divine know what’s right?”

Divination is most definitely a form of communion with the divine, but the idea that God has any kind of moral preference is, as far as I am concerned, questionable. People tend to patch their idea of God together from their moral and political prejudices. Somehow the God of the reactionary is always a hillbilly and the God of the revolutionary is always a hippy.

Divination lets us partake of a small share knowledge that one would usually get only if he were God, but this knowledge is very practical and is a tight condensation of that which happens, has happened or will happen in real life: Dante, in describing God, imagines it almost as a compressed version of all that happens in the created world, apprehended in the single blink of an eye.

The above doesn’t mean that it is always wise to answer any question the querent puts to us. “Is he thinking about someone else?” can be two very different questions depending on whether it is being asked by a person looking for closure or by a crazed monomaniac bombarding the diviner with the same query over and over. That divination tends to attract a less conservative clientele is not an earth-shattering revelation, so we do need to exert caution in choosing the questions we are comfortable answering.

Caring For Others

My one guiding principle is that divination implies care for another human being. But what does ‘care’ mean here? Does it mean caring for their ‘evolution’?

Well, no. First off, I think it is very questionable that the concept of evolution should be applied to spirituality. It is generally brought up to make pseudospiritual gibberish sound scientific–it’s a trend that dates back to the XIX century–yet those who use it end up employing a concept of evolution that is more Lamarckian (the giraffe stretches its neck to reach the leaf, thus evolving) than Darwinian (the giraffe born with the shorter neck simply starves, thus ridding the gene pool of its inadequacy, and can do nothing about it), and therefore completely unscientific.

Secondly, again, who am I to tell the querent what the next step in their evolution is supposed to be, especially since there is no consensus on objective standards? Divination can point out shortcomings in the querent’s behavior, but not in a moralistic sense. The cards, for instance, can say, “he left you because you tend to spread your legs more than a ballet dancer” but that’s a mere explanation of the causality behind an objective situation: Y derives from X. The cards are no bead-clutching confessor and I don’t aspire to be one either.

For me caring for another human being means seeing them in their struggle to reach their goals and offering them a bit of additional information that they are at liberty of using or leaving. The main question I ask myself when asked to do a spread is: am I offering information? In the example above of “Is he thinking about someone else?” the person looking for closure is asking for information, while the monomaniac isn’t. It is that simple.

I will certainly talk more about the issue in the future, but I think so far the main point is that divination is a tool for intelligence-gathering. As long as it offers intelligence it is a form of communion with the divine. If it doesn’t, it reinforces destructive trends and is best avoided, but this depends less on the question and more on the querent’s attitude.

MQS

  1. From a philosophical standpoint I can accept the idea that the ultimate reality resides wholly within me, but if we accept this, then it is present just as much inside everything else, including in the people and situations that make my life miserable. ↩︎
Card Meanings, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Tarot

Tarot Encyclopedia – The Three of Wands

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(Note: this is a collection of the meanings attributed to the cards by some occultists in the past centuries. It does not reflect my own study or opinion of the cards. It is only meant as a quick comparative reference as I develop my own take.)

The Three of Wands from the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) tarot deck

Paul Foster Case (and Ann Davies)

In Tarot divination the key ideas related to the Three of Wands are: mental energy, leadership, ambition, determination. It is a card related to the realization of hopes and of success after struggle.
Well-Dignified: it stands for courage, persistence, pride and nobility.
Ill-Dignified: it represents conceit, arrogance, insolence.
Keyword: Established strength.
(From the Oracle of Tarot course)

A. E. Waite

A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff’s edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them. Divinatory Meanings: He symbolizes established strength, enterprise, effort, trade, commerce, discovery; those are his ships, bearing his merchandise, which are sailing over the sea. The card also signifies able co-operation in business, as if the successful merchant prince were looking from his side towards yours with a view to help you. Reversed: The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.
(From The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)

A beautifully essential AI-generated illustration for the Three of Wands

Aleister Crowley

The Three of Wands is […] the Lord of Virtue. The idea of will and dominion has become interpreted in Character.

[…]

This card refers to Binah in the suit of Fire, and so represents the establishment of primeval Energy. The Will has been transmitted to the Mother, who conceives, prepares, and gives birth to, its manifestation.

It refers to the Sun in Aries, the Sign in which he is exalted.

The meaning is harmonious, for this is the beginning of Spring. For this reason one sees the wand taking the form of the Lotus in blossom. The Sun has enkindled the Great Mother.

In the Yi King, Sol in Aries is represented by the 11th hexagram, Thai; its meaning is identical with the above description.
(From The Book of Thoth)

Golden Dawn’s Book T

A WHITE Radiating Angelic Hand, as before, issuing from clouds and grasping three wands in the centre (two crossed, the third upright). Flames issue from the point of junction. Above and below are the symbols Sun and Aries.
Established force, strength, realization of hope. Completion of labour. Success after struggle. Pride, nobility, wealth, power, conceit. Rude self-assumption and insolence. Generosity, obstinacy, etc.
Binah of HB:Y (Pride, arrogance, self-assertion).
Herein rule the Angels HB:HHShYH and HB:a’aMMYH.

Etteilla

Enterprise
Upright. This card, as far as the medicine of the spirit is concerned, means, in its natural position: Enterprise, Undertake, Begin. – Usurp, Seize. – Boldness, Temerity, Fierceness. – Imprudence, Undertaking, Bold, – Committed, Embarrassed. Bewildered. – Paralyzed, Effort, Experiment, Attempt.
Reversed. Interruption of misfortune, torment, sorrow or toil. – End, Cessation, Interruption, Pause, Rest, Influence, Intermediary, Intermittence.

MQS

A collection of meanings for the Three of Wands
Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Everyday Oracle, Fortune-telling, Occultism and Esoterism, Playing Cards, Sibilla della Zingara, Tarot, Uncategorized, Vera Sibilla

Folklore of Italian Cartomancy

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Cartomancy has a rich tradition in Italy. It was believed until some years ago that cartomancy had been brought to Italy by Napoleon, but then some cartomantic meanings dating back to before the Napoleonic period were discovered, as well as even some scattered early modern literary references to tarot as a tool for fortune-telling in Italy.

Cartomancy (i.e., divination by cards) has always been a Folk tradition, as opposed to Astrology, which required an advanced knowledge of math. Therefore, the practice of cartomancy was always mingled with odd traditions, beliefs and superstitions. Here I gather a couple of folk anecdotes that were passed down to me and that I later discovered to be widespread. I don’t share these as rules (they aren’t) but only as interesting bits of trivia.

The Cards Must Have Been Used to Play Games

The cards were always originally used as game counters (including tarot). No esoteric woowoo. When I first started learning to read playing cards, my teacher told me to get a deck that was “giocato e bestemmiato“. This literally means, a deck that has been played with (giocato) and that players have used swearwords and profanities over while playing (bestemmiato).

This may sound curious, but it is a widespread belief among Italian fortune-tellers. I don’t have a definitive explanation for why this is so, but I do have a theory: the Church has always condemned card games as tools of the devil, because they caused people to gamble away their money (which they ought to give to the Church) and it tarnished their soul because it caused them to use swearwords and profanities.

When fortune-telling evolved out of card games, it was of course equally condemned as witchcraft and devil-worship, as it was believed that the devil moved the cards to form the messages. Therefore, some card readers must have believed that the cards that some people had used to play while using profanities had already acquired some kind of demonic connection with hell that made them work better (note that profanities are an important part of some strands of Italian witchcraft).

A more angelic variation of this belief is that the cards must have been used either by a virgin or by children, due to their purity.

Although I don’t think the cards have anything to do with demons, I must confess I always use used decks, simply because they feel better when I touch them.

The Little Spirit In The Cards

There is a widespread belief among old-time fortune-tellers that the cards work because they are inhabited by a little spirit or sprite that moves them through the reader’s hand (traditional folk beliefs in Italy, as well as around the world, tend to have animistic undertones.) Not only this, but it is believed that, in each deck, one particular card is home to the little spirit. For instance, in some Italian playing decks the spirit is said to inhabit the Ace of Swords, where a little angel is depicted.

In the regular playing deck, it is said that the spirit inhabits either the Ace of Hearts or the Ace of Clubs, depending on the tradition. My teacher also seemed to believe that, in the Sibilla deck, the spirit resides in the Peacock card, probably due to its esoteric connection.

Needless to say, it is widely believed that if the card inhabited by the spirit is lost or destroyed this is a portent of bad luck.

Passing Down The Meanings

In many Italian traditions it is said that the meanings of the cards must be passed down excusively either on Christmas Eve or in the week preceding Easter. The same holds true for many magic formulas. But don’t worry, the cards work regardless of when you learned to use them.

Knocking On The Deck

Possibly a consequence of the belief in the little spirit in the cards, many fortune-tellers have the habit of knocking on the deck before dealing out the spread as a way to respectfully ask the cards to speak the truth. I have preserved this habit from my teacher: I always knock three times (some even say seven) before dealing out the cards. It’s not that I think the cards wouldn’t answer anyway. It is just a tip of the hat to my tradition.

Paying For Consultations

There are, as usual, two contradictory schools. One says that readings must absolutely be free. The other, more common, is that readings must absolutely be paid to avoid incurring bad luck. This latter belief probably comes from the fact that cartomancy was a popular way for women to make some money, especially in the countryside, and this often led them to become both respected and feared.

Honestly, it was much more common for the old cartomancers to be paid not with money but in different ways: a chicken, a jar of preserve, a pie, some free repairwork. Cartomancers of old became integrated members of the community by offering their advice in exchange for other people’s goods and services.

Clearly, doing free readings is not really problematic from an esoteric standpoint. I’ve been giving free readings my whole life and I’m still alive. I’ll probably soon start offering paid reading from this site and I don’t think this will interfere much with my fate.

The Ace of Hearts

As in many systems of cartomancy with playing cards, in Italian cartomancy the Ace of Hearts is the house. There are many traditions connected to it. One of these traditions is that some fortune-tellers will have the Ace of Hearts blessed by a priest (if the priest is against such practices, then the Ace of Hearts is simply slipped under something else that the priest will bless) and then put somewhere in the home for protection. Usually this somewhere is next to the entrance door.

Leg-crossing

This isn’t exclusively Italian, but still interesting. Some fortune-tellers believe the querent should never cross their legs during the reading. While I don’t really believe this, the interesting thing is that in some countries, during the Middle Ages, judges were encouraged to cross their legs when ruling so as to avoid external interference. Fortune-tellers clearly want the querent to be energetically open, and so encourage the opposite.

MQS

Card Meanings, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Tarot

Tarot Encyclopedia – The Two of Pentacles or Coins

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(Note: this is a collection of the meanings attributed to the cards by some occultists in the past centuries. It does not reflect my own study or opinion of the cards. It is only meant as a quick comparative reference as I develop my own take.)

The Two of Pentacles / Coins from the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) tarot deck

Paul Foster Case (and Ann Davies)

The time period is the first decanate of Capricorn, December 22 to December 31, under the rulership of Saturn. Meanings:
Well-Dignified: harmony in the midst of change; alternation of gain and loss; change of occupation; travel in quest of wealth; ups and downs of fortune; a visit to friends.
Ill-Dignified: intimates discontent; foolishness in the management of resources; restricted condition of material affairs due to bad management; the Querent is probably too talkative and too suspicious. He is kind, but inconsistent, and should avoid arguments.
Keyword: Fluctuation
(From the Oracle of Tarot course)

A. E. Waite

A young man, in the act of dancing, has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number 8 reversed. Divinatory Meanings: On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connexions, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment. Reversed: Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, letters of exchange.
(From The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)

Aleister Crowley

The Two of Pentacles was of old time called the Lord of Harmonious Change. Now, more simply, Change; and here the doctrine must be stated a little more clearly. This suit being of Earth, there is a connection with the Princesses, and therefore with the final Heh of Tetragrammaton. Earth is the throne of Spirit; having got to the bottom, one immediately comes out again at the top. Hence, the card manifests the symbolism of the serpent of the endless band.

[…]

The number Two, Chokmah, here rules in the suit pertaining to Earth. It shows the type of Energy appropriate to Two, in its most fixed form. According to the doctrine that Change is the support of stability, the card is called Change.

Its celestial rulers are Jupiter and Capricornus; and these symbols are most inharmonious, so that in practical matters the good fortune of Jupiter is very limited. Their influence on the card is not great. Yet, Jupiter being himself the Wheel (Atu X), he emphasizes that idea.

The card represents two Pantacles, one above the other; they are the Chinese symbols of the Yang and Yin duplicated as in the Hsiang. One wheel is dextro- and the other laevo-rotatory. They thus represent the harmonious interplay of the Four Elements in constant movement. One may in fact consider the card as the picture of the complete manifested Universe, in respect of its dynamics.

About them is entwined a green Serpent (see Liber 65, chapter iii, verses 17-20). His tail is in his mouth. He forms the figure Eight, the symbol of the Infinite, the equation 0=2.
(From The Book of Thoth)

Nice AI-generated illustration for the Two of Pentacles or Coins

Golden Dawn’s Book T

TWO wheels, disks or pentacles, similar to that of the Ace. They are united by a green-and-gold serpent, bound about them like a figure of 8. It holds its tail in its mouth. A White Radiant Angelic Hand holds the centre of the whole. No roses enter into this card. Above and below are the symbols of Jupiter and Capricorn. It is a revolving symbol.

The harmony of change, alternation of gain and loss; weakness and strength; everchanging occupation; wandering, discontented with any fixed condition of things; now elated, then melancholy; industrious, yet unreliable; fortunate through prudence of management, yet sometimes unaccountably foolish; alternatively talkative and suspicious. Kind, yet wavering and inconsistent. Fortunate in journeying. Argumentative.
Chokmah of HB:H (Pleasant change, visit to friends).
Herein the Angels HB:LKBAL and HB:VShRYH have rule.

Etteilla

Embarrassment
Upright. This card, as far as the medicine of the spirit is concerned, means, in its natural position: Awkwardness, Obstacle, Commitment, Obstruction, Setback. – Disturbance, Bother, Emotion, Mess, Confusion, Difficulty, Impediment, Tangle, Obscurity. – Agitation, Restlessness, Perplexity, Concern.
Reversed. Ticket, Piece of Writing, Writing, Text, Literature, Doctrine, Erudition, Work, Book, Production, Composition. – Dispatch, Epistle, Missive. – Written character. – Literal Meaning. – Alphabet, Elements, Principles. – Promissory note.

MQS

astrology, Cartomancy, Creativity, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Geomancy, I Ching / Yi Jing, Occultism and Esoterism, Philosophy, Playing Cards, Spirituality and Psychology, Tarot, Vera Sibilla

Fantasy in Divination: A Double-Edged Sword

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I’m currently still doing readings in exchange for recommendations for when I  decide to start offering readings from this site. After a short reading with a querent we began chatting about the process of divination, and he asked me if fantasy is required to interpret the cards. I thought this was a really great question. I’m taking fantasy as a synonym with imagination, that is, the ability to conjure up images in one’s mind.

First off, we need to distinguish fantasy/imagination from (true) intuition. True intuition is relatively rare and it does not originate from the limited structure of the personality. It is, for all intents and purposes, otherworldly. Before being appropriated by boss babes on TikTok, intuition was rightfully considered a gift of the gods. It is hard to obtain and even harder to train, although the practice of divination, as it leads to the divine, does allow for the development of intuition.

Fantasy or imagination is mostly the product of neurons bouncing together, and it is at least in good part under our control (though whether imagination is also merely a personal power is up for debate. Many occultists think it isn’t, and I agree.)

Imagination plays a large role in modern magic, and, it could be argued, in the magic of all times (though with different implications and within different frameworks), but I’ll leave this discussion for another time. The point is that imagination is one among the many legitimate sources of understanding that we have at our disposal, including in the occult world.

Ordinarily, if someone asked me what’s the one thing that is required in order to become a diviner, I would answer that they need to understand the vocabulary, grammar and syntax of what is essentially a divine language.

Yet, in philosophy of language, and even more in philosophy of science, there is a concept called underdetermination. In its most frequent use, the principle of underdetermination states that, given a number of facts, there exist more than one theory that can explain those facts and account for them. How we then choose the most appropriate theory has sparked a debate that largely goes on to this day between scientists, philosophers, psychologists and anthropologists.

Something similar happens with divination: given a spread of cards, or a chart, it is often the case that more than one explanation might appear plausible at first. True, the more cards we string together, the fewer the possible interpretations are, just as a single word out of context might mean many things, but the more words there are, the more we understand the sentence.

But take a sentence like “we saw her duck“. Was she avoiding a bullet or does she live on a farm? This is a form of underdetermination, because the possible mental images evoked by the sentence cannot be reduced to the sentence itself.

Probably if we had a perfect understanding of the language of divination we would get unambiguous results, but we don’t. We must therefore use logic and context to weed out the less likely predictions, yet even so we might be left with more than one possible image of the future in mind. The word image here is key.

Can we predict a future we cannot imagine? That is, can we predict a future (or reveal a past) that we cannot put in the form of a picture or series of pictures? If one asks me: would you be able to understand a sentence you’ve never heard before? The answer is: if I know the language, yes. We hear sentences we’ve never heard before everyday and we rarely have problems. But going back to “we saw her duck”, if I didn’t know that duck can also be a verb, I would interpret the sentence univocally, as I wouldn’t be able to create a mental image corresponding to the interpretation of “duck” as verb instead of noun.

In real world languages the ambiguity is often removed by clear context. But in divination context is not always clear, meaning it is harder to exclude possible interpretations, and we need to be capable of creating mental images of all the most likely interpretations of an oracle before choosing which one is the most likely.

We need to be able to extrapolate the many possible meanings a spread can have before submitting them to inquiry. The ability to construct mental images or scenes from the divination tool we are using is consequently incredibly important. In other words, yes, imagination is key in divination.

But the imagination I am talking about is not the unbridled imagination that so many mistake for intuition, and which usually leads either to error or to unverifiable predictions. Imagination is the ability to create possible images derived from our (limited) understanding of the medium we are using, so that we can then see which one is more likely to be accurate by finding testimonies in the spread or by asking the querent.

Like all other occult arts, divination therefore requires the cooperation of both sides of the brain (to which we may add the importance of bodily grounding, but that’s a matter for another post).

MQS

Card Meanings, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Tarot

Tarot Encyclopedia – The Two of Swords

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(Note: this is a collection of the meanings attributed to the cards by some occultists in the past centuries. It does not reflect my own study or opinion of the cards. It is only meant as a quick comparative reference as I develop my own take.)

The Two of Swords from the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) tarot deck

Paul Foster Case (and Ann Davies)

The time period is the first decanate of Libra from September 23 to October 2, under the rulership of Venus.
Well-Dignified: contradictory characteristics in the same nature; strength through suffering; pleasure after pain; delay in the realization of objectives. This card sometimes indicates a period of uncertainty, during which the Querent, though he has a sense of adequate power, does not know just what to do with it. It also indicates justice, unselfishness and the restoration of peace.
Ill-Dignified: falsehood; sorrow; injury from another who really means well to the Querent, or injury by the Querent to another whom he wishes to help; always a symbol of tension, of want of tact, and suggests force held in abeyance, awaiting some announcement or revelation that will make decision possible.
Keyword: Indecision.
(From the Oracle of Tarot course)

A. E. Waite

A hoodwinked female figure balances two swords upon her shoulders. Divinatory Meanings: Conformity and the equipoise which it suggests, courage, friendship, concord in a state of arms; another reading gives tenderness, affection, intimacy. The suggestion of harmony and other favourable readings must be considered in a qualified manner, as Swords generally are not symbolical of beneficent forces in human affairs. Reversed: Imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty.
(From The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)

Aleister Crowley

The Two of Swords was formerly called the Lord of Peace Restored; but this word “restored” is incorrect, because there has been no disturbance. The Lord of Peace is therefore a better title: but it needs thinking hard to work this out, since the Sword is so intensely active. It may be helpful to study the Essay on Silence (p. 120) for a parallel: the Negative Form of the Positive Idea. See also the Essay on Chastity (Little Essays toward Truth, pp. 70-74) which concludes: Sir Knights, be vigilant: watch by your arms and renew your oath; for that day is of sinister augury and deadly charged with danger which ye fill not to overflowing with gay deeds and bold of masterful, of manful Chastity.

Witness also Catullus: domi maneas paresque nobis Novem continuas futationes. Nor does he misunderstand the gesture of Harpocrates; Silence and Chastity are isomers.
It is all one case of the general proposition that the sum of the infinite Energy of the Universe is Zero.

[…]

This card is ruled by Chokmah in the Element of Air. This suit, governing all intellectual manifestations, is always complicated and disordered. It is subject to change as is no other suit. It represents a general shaking-up, resulting from the conflict of Fire and Water in their marriage; and proceeds, when Earth appears, to crystallization. But the purity and exaltation of Chokmah are such that this card manifests the very best idea possible to the suit. The energy abides above the onslaught of disruption. This comparative calm is emphasized by the celestial attribution: the Moon in Libra.

The Moon is change, but Nature is peaceful; moreover, Libra represents balance; between them, they regulate the energy of the Swords.

In the card appear two swords crossed; they are united by a blue rose with five petals. This rose represents the influence of the Mother, whose harmonizing influence compounds the latent antagonism native to the suit. The Rose emits white rays, producing a geometrical pattern that emphasizes the equilibrium of the symbol.
(From The Book of Thoth)

An ominous AI-generated illustration for the Two of Swords

Golden Dawn’s Book T

Two crossed swords, like the air dagger of a Zelator Adeptus Minor, each held by a White Radiant Angelic Hand. Upon the point where the two cross is a rose of five petals, emitting white rays. At the top and bottom of the card are two small daggers, supporting respectively the symbol {Crescent moon with horns upward} thus, and Libra representing the Decanate.
Contradictory characters in the same nature, strength through suffering; pleasure after pain. Sacrifice and trouble, yet strength arising therefrom, symbolized by the position of the rose, as though the pain itself had brought forth beauty. Arrangement, peace restored; truce; truth and untruth; sorrow and sympathy. Aid to the weak; arrangement; justice, unselfishness; also a tendency to repetition of affronts on being pardoned; injury when meaning well; given to petitions; also a want of tact, and asking question of little moment; talkative.
Chokmah of Vau. Quarrel made up, yet still some tension in relations: actions, sometimes selfish, sometimes unselfish.
Herein rule the Great Angels HB:YZLAL and HB:MNHAL.

Etteilla

Friendship
Upright. This card, as far as the medicine of the spirit is concerned, means, in its natural position: Friendship, Attachment, Affection, Tenderness, Benevolence, Relationship, Identity, Intimacy, Convenience, Correspondence, Interest, Conformity, Sympathy, Affinity, Attraction.
Reversed. Falsehood, Falsehood, Lying, Imposture, Duplicity, Bad faith, Overbearingness, Dissimulation, Cunning, Deceit, Superficial, Superficiality, Surface.

MQS

astrology, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Geomancy, I Ching / Yi Jing, Occultism and Esoterism, Philosophy, Playing Cards, Spirituality and Psychology, Tarot, Vera Sibilla

Do You Need To Believe In It For It To Work?

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One of the questions that occupy way too many people in the esoteric community is whether divination or even magic require the person to believe in it in order for it to work. If you’ve ever watched the movie The Skeleton Key, you’ll know that this concept has seeped into the collective consciousness enough for it to find its way into mainstream products (I will not spoil the movie here, since it is actually a fun watch, but it depends heavily on its twist).

If you open most premodern books on magic, you’ll be stunned to discover that their content bears very little resemblance to the post-Golden Dawn landscape. This, by the way, is neither good nor bad. Things change. But we need to be aware of the change to avoid being unconsciously ruled by it. One clear difference is that the magician’s will1 or his imagining/manifesting faculties are barely taken into consideration in older sources, at least outwardly.

This is not to say that there aren’t sources that encourage the practitioner to be of firm mind and clear intent (after all, you’d want your doctor to focus, too, even though their focus is not what make their science work), but even those old sources do not consider, generally speaking, the magician’s mind to be the cause of the change. Broadly speaking, when dealing with sources that date back to before the invention of modern psychoanalysis and psychology, we must be extremely careful when interpreting their concept of mind, soul, psyche, etc.

An example will suffice. In his De Vita, Neoplatonic Renaissance philosopher and magus Marsilio Ficino encourages us, among other things, to “think solar thoughts”, or jovial, or venusian, depending on the aim. Similar remarks are found, in various form, in many old sources. A contemporary practitioner might be tempted to interpret Ficino’s invitation as saying that we must envision solar things in order for them to manifest. But neither the language nor the substance of this interpretation belong to his worldview.

Ficino’s view of the cosmos is essentially the same as Agrippa’s and that of many other premodern magi: we are surrounded by chains of sympathy and antipathy between universal powers (typified by the planets). When we think “solar thoughts” we are doing essentially nothing except stepping inside a current of power that has its own metaphysical reality regardless of our attitude toward it. This is because in Renaissance naturalism, the mind is essentially like the body, i.e., a part of the cosmos, and a movement of the mind is like a movement of the body, and just like the body can create a talisman or a concoction, so can the mind shape images that allow it to shower in certain currents of universal power.

Thus, the invitation to think certain thoughts found in Ficino (and others) is not a precursor to manifestation, attraction and other modern concepts, but a natural consequence of the old view of the mind and the world.

On the other hand, from a postmodern standpoint, reality is for us to create at will. Yes, I am exaggerating, but not too much. Therefore, there is the widespread idea, or at least the widespread implication, that what happens happens because we believe in it.

Let us leave magic alone for now and concentrate on divination. Does divination work because we believe in it? Well, no. Certainly divination doesn’t require the querent to believe in it in order for it to work. In fact, it is my belief that, considering how many frauds there are in this field, a querent should be borderline psychotic to blindly believe in divination without a healthy dose of scepticism.

What about diviners? Do they need to believe in divination in order for it to work? That’s complicated, in my view. On the surface of it I would argue that, again, no, we don’t need to believe in divination for it to work. Divination systems work because they have their own internal consistency. The most obvious is Natal Astrology, which presents us with an objective set of symbols that have nothing to do with the manipulation of counters on the part of the diviner.

On the other hand, we need to allow for the fact that divination is not a mechanic set of behaviors, especially with the overwhelming majority of divination systems that do require manipulation (cartomancy, geomancy, dice, etc.) As I often repeat on this blog, divination is and remains something extraordinary. The honest desire for an answer, or at least for a picture of the future, tends to guarantee a crisp and clear answer. This is because the honest desire for an answer allows us to honestly connect with the symbols in a way that makes them fall in the appropriate order.

The querent doesn’t need to be honest in his or her desire, unless they are also the diviner. But if the diviner does not have at least a degree of confidence in what he or she is doing, then the question they put to the system is not the surface question (e.g., “Does X love Y?”) but “Do you really work?” which is an impossible question for the system to answer (if the answer is no, then the system does work).

Even then, I would be cautious in overexaggerating the importance of the diviner’s attitude. As I believe I have mentioned, one of the ways my teacher trained me was by asking me to discover secrets about her past. Clearly, the exercise was not meant to discover something new that might benefit my querent or me, but rather to build my confidence and skill. Yet it worked, and it worked well. Maybe the diviner doesn’t need to believe in divination (I know I am always skeptical until proven right), but they do need to at least be open to the idea that this is a legitimate way of receiving information, just enough to enter into the system rather than operating it from the outside as a scientist would manipulate a bunch of molecules.

My general belief at this point is that the esoteric arts do not require our consent in order to work, but they are also not the product of the mechanistic application of abstract principles. It is indeed a fine balance.

MQS

  1. Let’s leave aside the fact that the concept of Will found in modern magic is actually more complex than what it appears to be on the surface ↩︎
Card Meanings, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Tarot

Tarot Encyclopedia – The Two of Cups

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(Note: this is a collection of the meanings attributed to the cards by some occultists in the past centuries. It does not reflect my own study or opinion of the cards. It is only meant as a quick comparative reference as I develop my own take.)

The Two of Cups from the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) tarot deck

Paul Foster Case (and Ann Davies)

The Two of Cups, astrologically, is assigned to the first decanate of Cancer, ruled by the Moon, time period June 22 to July 1.
The specific divinatory ideas associated with this Key are:
Well Dignified: reciprocity, reflection; gain and benefit through parents;
favors from the opposite sex; changes of residence.
Ill Dignified: reverses and losses through parents or the opposite sex; unfortunate changes of residence; fluctuations of mood; unwise decisions.
Keyword: Response to environment.
(From the Oracle of Tarot course)

A. E. Waite

A youth and maiden are pledging one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion’s head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card. Some curious emblematical meanings are attached to it, but they do not concern us in this place. Divinatory Meanings: Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and–as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination–that desire which is not in Nature, but by which Nature is sanctified.
(From The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)

Aleister Crowley

The Two always represents the Word and the Will. It is the first manifestation. Therefore, in the suit of Water, it must refer to Love, which recovers unity from dividuality by mutual annihilation.

The card also refers to Venus in Cancer. Cancer is, more than any other, the receptive Sign; it is the House of the Moon, and in that Sign Jupiter is exalted. These are, superficially, the three most friendly of the planets.

The hieroglyph of the card represents two cups in the foreground, overflowing upon a calm sea. They are fed with lucent water from a lotus floating upon the sea, from which rises another lotus around whose stem are entwined twin dolphins. The symbolism of the dolphin is very complicated, and must be studied in books of reference; but the general idea is that of the “Royal Art”. The dolphin is peculiarly sacred to Alchemy.

The number Two referring to Will, this card might really be renamed the Lord of Love under Will, for that is its full and true meaning. It shows the harmony of the male and the female: interpreted in the largest sense. It is perfect and placid harmony, radiating an intensity of joy and ecstasy.

Of necessity, the realization of the idea in the Four (as the suit develops) will gradually diminish the purity of its perfection.
(From the Book of Thoth)

A somewhat mundane AI-generated illustration for the Two of Cups

Golden Dawn’s Book T

A WHITE Radiant Hand, issuant from the lower part of the card from a cloud, holds lotuses. A lotus flower rises above water, which occupies the lower part of the card rising above the hand. From this flower rises a stem, terminating near the top of the card in another lotus, from which flows a sparkling white water, as from a fountain. Crossed on the stem just beneath are two dolphins, Argent and Or, on to which the water falls, and from which it pours in full streams, like jets of gold and silver, into two cups; which in their turn overflow, flooding the lower part of the card. Venus and Cancer above and below.

Harmony of masculine and feminine united. Harmony, pleasure, mirth, subtlety:
but if ill dignified — folly, dissipation, waste, silly actions.
Chokmah of HB:H (Marriage, love, pleasure).
Therein rule the Angels HB:AVa’aAL and HB:ChBVYH.

Etteilla

Love
Upright. This card, as far as the medicine of the spirit is concerned, means, in its natural position: Love, Passion, Inclination, Sympathy, Attraction, Propensity, Friendship, Benevolence, Affection, Attachment, Taste, Bonding, Galantry, Attraction, Affinity.
Reversed. Desire, Augury [= Aspiration], Vow, Will, Want, Cupidity, Concupiscence, Jealousy, Passion, Illusion, Appetite.

MQS

Card Meanings, Cartomancy, Divination, Divination Master Post, Fortune-telling, Tarot

Tarot Encyclopedia – The Two of Wands

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(Note: this is a collection of the meanings attributed to the cards by some occultists in the past centuries. It does not reflect my own study or opinion of the cards. It is only meant as a quick comparative reference as I develop my own take.)

The Two of Wands from the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) Tarot deck

Paul Foster Case (and Ann Davies)

In Tarot divination the Two of Wands has these key meanings:
Well Dignified: it shows force, enterprise, boldness, resolution, some
combativeness, much originality.
lll Dignified: it signifies restlessness, fierceness, shamelessness, inordinate ambition, turbulence, obstinancy, revenge. A card of enthusiasm, but of strong self-interest.
Keyword: Dominion
(From the Oracle of Tarot course)

A. E. Waite

A tall man looks from a battlemented roof over sea and shore; he holds a globe in his right hand, while a staff in his left rests on the battlement; another is fixed in a ring. The Rose and Cross and Lily should be noticed on the left side. Divinatory Meanings: Between the alternative readings there is no marriage possible; on the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence; on the other, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification. The design gives one suggestion; here is a lord overlooking his dominion and alternately contemplating a globe; it looks like the malady, the mortification, the sadness of Alexander amidst the grandeur of this world’s wealth. Reversed: Surprise, wonder, enchantment, emotion, trouble, fear.
(From The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)

Aleister Crowley

The Two of Wands is called the Lord of Dominion, and represents the energy of fire; fire in its best and highest form.

[…]

This card, pertaining to Chokmah in the suit of Fire, represents the Will in its most exalted form. It is an ideal Will, independent of any given object.

“For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.” AL. 1. 44.

The background of this card shows the power of the planet Mars in his own sign Aries, the first of the Signs. It there represents Energy initiating a Current of Force.

The pictorial representation is two Dorjes crossed. The Dorje is the Tibetan symbol of the thunderbolt, the emblem of celestial Power, but more in its destructive than its creative form.

More, that is, in its earlier rather than its later form. For destruction may be regarded as the first step in the creative process. The virgin ovum must be broken in order to fertilize it. Fear and repulsion are therefore the primary reaction to the assault. Then, with understanding of the complete plan, willing surrender rejoices to co-operate. Six flames issue from the centre. This indicates the influence of the Sun, who is exalted in Aries. This is the creative Will.

Mars in Aries is the attribution of the Geomantic Figure Puer. The meaning of these figures is to be studied in the Handbook of that science: “The Equinox” Vol. I, No.2. Remember that the Geomantic Intelligences (see Liber 777 Cols. XLIX and CLXXVIII) are all primarily Gnomes.
(From the Book of Thoth)

Weirdly religious AI-generated illustration of the Two of Wands

Golden Dawn’s Book T

A WHITE Radiating Angelic hand, issuing from clouds, and grasping two crossed wands. Flames issue from the point of junction. On two small wands above and below, with flames of five issuing therefrom, are the symbols of Mars and Aries for the Decan.
Strength, domination, harmony of rule and of justice. Boldness, courage,
fierceness, shamelessness, revenge, resolution, generous, proud, sensitive, ambitious, refined, restless, turbulent, sagacious withal, yet unforgiving and obstinate.
Chokmah of HB:Y (Influence over others, authority, power, dominion).
Therein the Angels HB:VHVAL and HB:DNYAL bear rule.

Etteilla

Sadness
Upright. This card, as far as the medicine of the spirit is concerned, signifies, in its natural position: Sadness, Misery, Melancholy, Affliction, Sorrow, Desolation, Mortification, Mood, Discontent, Vapors, Gloomy Ideas. – Bitterness, Anger, Spite.
Reversed. Surprise, Enchantment, Shock, Upset, Unexpected event, Unexpected fact, Excitement, Fear, Fright, Terror. – Consternation, Stunning, Domination, Abduction, Alarm. – Marvel, Phenomenon, Miracle.

MQS

astrology, Divination, Divination Master Post, Enneagram, Geomancy, I Ching / Yi Jing, Occultism and Esoterism, Personal Journal, Philosophy, Spirituality and Psychology, Tarot

The Astro-Killer and the Need for Reason in Occultism

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Danielle Johnson‘s posts on social media were like those of most popular astrology influencers: cheap mystical drivel devoid of any serious study and insight, constantly hyping up the next big astrological nothing-burger. I’ve known enough people like her in my life to know that this kind of fraudster is the worst exactly because they tend to buy the crap they peddle. Like many cult leaders, they become pleasantly accustomed to the smell of their own farts.

I am not going to examine her tragedy as a whole. You can look it up yourself if you want. Suffice to say that she ended her boyfriend’s and child’s lives, as well as her own. All because of an eclipse she thought was “the epitome of spiritual warfare” where people needed “to pick a side” in the upcoming apocalypse.

For sure there is enough going wrong in the world at present that new millenarian movements pop up from all religious and political directions. Furthermore, it is not unlikely that Johnson suffered from some kind of mental condition.

But there is more to this type of behavior. No one who seriously studies history can believe there was ever a golden age where nothing went wrong, nor there ever will be. These are the dangers of utopianism as opposed to pragmatism: in the name of something that was or will be, the utopian believer feels justified in trampling over others, either rationally (like the left-wing and right-wing dictators of yore) or psychotically.

But, again, there is more. There is a widespread malaise in the “spiritual” milieu at present, in spite of its ever growing popularity on social media. This malaise is the culmination of a historical process of decoupling of reason and spirituality. I have already touched upon this issue elsewhere.

Since official science embraced meterialism in the late XVIII century, those who believe there is more to life have found themselves without an intellectual foundation for their beliefs, and have therefore become prone to accepting any delusion as fact. This is relatively unprecedented in the history of humanity. Not that knowledge and spirituality have otherwise always enjoyed a frictionless relationship, but there had never been so stark and unanimous a rejection of the spiritual in the scientific community.

How the spiritual community tried to cope with this abandonment is paradigmatic. If you read many XVIII and early XIX century occultists, you will often find desperate attempts at fitting their ideas into the tight dress of the new scientific language. Spiritualism and vitalism, which is how occultism survived until around the 1960s are, in many ways, the evil twins of scientific materialism: they are groundless irrationalism masquerading as legitimate scientific concepts (electromagnetism, mesmerism, ‘energy’, etc.)

Yet, for all their attempts at sounding scientific, these authors have never managed to convince anyone who wasn’t already convinced. Furthermore, their attempts at proving, for instance, that this or that scientific discovery is foreshadowed in this or that spiritual doctrine made them look like asses when said discoveries were later disproved and replaced with better scientific theories–because, and this is something many occultists failed to understand, science in the modern sense ceased dealing with the eternally true in favor of ever-improving approximations of what’s likely to be the case. This is what makes modern science effective, but also what ‘spiritual seekers’ desperate for answers don’t want to hear.

Then along rolled the New Age, and the already washed-out spiritual movement started supplementing its diet with saccarine platitudes and politically correct, ill-digested mish-mashes of doctrines coming from all over the world washed down with copious drafts of unproved psychology. Any attempt at using reason became futile, or even frowned upon as a non-enlightened stance. And this is where we are now.

The medieval and Renaissance magus was as much an occultist and diviner as he was a doctor, a scientist, a philosopher, a political strategist, a war counsellor and many, many more things. In Ancient Greece, many great magi were also great philosophers and scientists (Empedocles and Pythagoras come to mind). Apparently, the contemporary spiritual guru just needs a couple of self-help concepts with a spirituar flair and he is qualitifed to tell people they need to “pick a side in the upcoming apocalypse”.

So, what is the solution? I do not know. I do not believe I have one, especially not at the collective level. All I know is that irrationalism is not the blood that sustains spirituality. it is merely the electric shock that makes its corpse convulse and appear to be alive. I also know that the future of occultism, magic and spirituality lies with few individuals who are capable of using their head rather than with desperate masses of unhinged spiritual seekers (“unhinged” because their life hinges on nothing) who let any “astrology influencer” peddle cheap illusions to them.

MQS