I’m a fan of the Dungeons & Dragons (and occasionally other TTRPG) show Dimension 20, which airs on CollegeHumor’s streaming service Dropout. In this season, the players are a group of cognitive functions belonging to the mind of a scientist named Elias Hodge—his impulsiveness, his curiosity, his conscience, and so on. Over the course of […]
Read more "The Eights of the Tarot: What We Do When We’re Threatened"In my previous post, I talked about using the Major Arcana as the basis for establishing a numerology unique to the Tarot deck (and, more specifically, to the Tarot de Marseille). Setting aside the Fool and the World, we’re left with two ten-card runs: The Acrobat (I) through the Wheel of Fortune (X) and Strength […]
Read more "A Year of Tarot de Marseille: The Aces"There are plenty of ways to draw connections between the cards of the Major Arcana. You can do it through numerology, through astrology, through the septenaries or visual cues in their symbolism. One of the simplest ways to find the connections between the cards, though, is simply to fold the sequence of the Major Arcana […]
Read more "Pairing the Major Arcana, Forward and Backward"There are two quotes echoing in my head right now. The first is from the Gospel of Luke. I’m not Christian, but this post is going to go to some Christian places, so brace yourselves in advance. I promise, there’s a reason for it: Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for […]
Read more "The Strength Card and Radical Love"Welcome to Part 2 of my James Bond Tarot series, where I match up one James Bond movie to each of the cards of the Major Arcana in the Tarot. If you missed Part 1, which ran from Casino Royale as the Fool to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as the Lovers, feel free to go check it […]
Read more "The James Bond Tarot (Part 2)"Patricia Monaghan, one of the most badass scholars of women’s spirituality in the modern age, had a really cool talk she used to deliver about taxonomizing goddesses. I never actually got to see this talk (for lo, I am but young), nor have I been able to find any published writings where she rehashes its […]
Read more "Five Goddess Prototypes in the Tarot"I made a Tarot card! No, I am not in the process of designing a whole deck. That’s nowhere on my radar. But I did draw (draw as in “produce by making lines or marks”, not as in “select randomly from a deck”) the Strength card this morning. Scroll down if you want to skip […]
Read more "Gay Pride and the Strength Card (And Coloring!)"I miss Tarot. That’s a bit of a weird thing to say, considering that I’m a Tarot reader and a regular Tarot blogger. I have more Tarot decks than any reasonable person should (yet still, I covet more). It’s not like I have a dearth of Tarot in my life. But this summer, my Tarot […]
Read more "Rediscovering Tarot"Walking home today from the undisclosed location in New York City where I spend most of my days, I passed a woman from Amnesty International who was very intent on stopping passers-by to discuss human rights. I smiled, avoided eye contact, and waved her off with a polite “not today” before I continued my walk […]
Read more "The Cardinal Virtues, Value, and Justice"(Catch Part 1 here.) There’s a piece of Roman literature called The Golden Ass, which is in many ways a prefigurement of the modern novel. The narrative follows the protagonist, a young Roman noble named Lucius, as he meddles with a witch and is transformed into an ass (and his subsequent misadventures as he tries to […]
Read more "Strength and the Star, Part 2: Eros and Psyche"
Jack Chanek 