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"About a year ago, I wrote a post called “Five Goddess Prototypes in the Tarot,” where I talked about five archetypes* commonly associated with the divine feminine and where they can be found in the Major Arcana of the Tarot. Go read that post; I’m pretty damn proud of it. Today, I’m going to do […]
Read more "Five God Prototypes in the Tarot"I love James Bond. I grew up with him. The Bond movies are the only films my parents own, and I’ve seen each of them (yes, even Never Say Never Again, which isn’t canon) so many times I’ve lost count. My family’s Thanksgiving tradition during my childhood was always to get Chinese takeout and watch James Bond […]
Read more "The James Bond Tarot (Part 1)"I’ve written a couple of times before about the devotional work I do with Tarot. One thing I haven’t much discussed, though, is the notion of myth-making as it factors into my personal Tarot practice. Religion involves myth. Before we have theology (and arguably before we have praxis) we have stories, which structure the things […]
Read more "A Tarot Fairy Tale"The High Priestess is such an incredible, powerful card. She is the initiator, the guardian of the threshold, the one before whom we must pass if we are ever to attain higher knowledge. (Wow, I just reread that passage after a couple of days away from this draft. I sure do sound pompous, don’t I? […]
Read more "Who Is the High Priestess’s Consort?"I’m a huge Shakespeare nerd. I always have been. Well, not always, I suppose. I wasn’t born spouting lines from Macbeth. But ever since itty-bitty Jack first read a kids’ version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I have been in love with Shakespeare as an expression of all that is fundamentally human. So today, kids, we’re going to […]
Read more "The Magician, Prospero, and Doctor Faustus"
Jack Chanek 