While not always discussed, Tarot and music share an inextricable link. We suspect there is some inherent quality to this, and also some conscious effort to ensure its symbols stay steeped in the imagery and lexicon of this tool. It also seems to us that it is no coincidence that many occultists throughout history have demonstrated this connection. You don’t have to look far to observe the crossover between an aptitude in music and an interest in magick, and we could debate the reasons for this, however the link remains. Notably, the following musicians have incorporated the occult, tarot and related symbolism into their work: Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Tool, Andrew W. K. , Rush, The Beatles, Ab-Soul, Erykah Badu and so on. It’s not uncommon either to observe occult imagery in modern music videos, though, we’re not sure if that is a result of the artist having a genuine interest in this field or a capitalization on the mystery of it all.

I just finished re-reading The Kybalion. It’s one of these things you can return to time and time again and with each visit, get something new from it. For this particular rendezvous, I thought it would be interesting to explore it with tarot in mind. For those who have read The Kybalion, you’ve no doubt noted parallels between the 7 laws and certain tarot cards, particularly those belonging the the Major Arcana.

For myself, this exercise is a way of further cementing these concepts; a kind of out-loud study blog. Of course, I also hope this exploration will be useful for others, whether you’re familiar with The Kybalion or not.

Some cards in tarot are more palatable than others. We’ve already explored Judgment and The Hierophant through this lens, and today we’re tackling another unsettling, off putting and sometimes difficult to make sense of Major Arcana - The Devil.

We know the Major Arcana cards often represent the bigger concepts in life; the energy that transcends the day-to-day. These greater topics often touch on spirituality, self-development, growth of consciousness, the nature of reality, and so on. Because of this, tarot can be an excellent tool not just for divination but also for exploration. Although, by that same token, sometimes in readings, we can be thrown when we draw a Major as it isn’t always easy to see how it fits into our daily lives.

While reading 36 Secrets by T Susan Chang back in the Spring, I was struck by the chapter dealing with the 7 of Swords. In it she uses the term “the divided mind”, and that is a concept I’ve been mulling over ever since; both as it relates to the card as well as how it shows up in my own life.

First of all, what exactly is a divided mind? Essentially, it is a common occurrence where one holds two opposing values/ideals/thoughts simultaneously. For example, and this came up for me very recently, we may love social media and the way in which it allows us to share and connect, but on the other hand, we despise the underbelly; the manipulation, impossible algorithm, questionable content, etc.

In Tarot, there are inevitably cards that challenge us more than others. These cards often do so either because they are misunderstood, triggering on some level, are visually offputting, or have some negative attribution(s) applied to them.

Last month, after taking a poll online, we wrote a post Challenging The Hierophant. In that piece, we explored some of the conceptions surrounding the card, what is known of its origin, and then offered ways to integrate and make peace with its energy. Following that, we asked what other cards were difficult to make sense of, and Judgement came out on top.

What do The Star, Death, The Hierophant, and Strength have in common?

Hint 1: The Wheel of Fortune
Hint 2: The World
Hint 3: Astrology!

We know there is emphasis placed in both The Wheel and The World on the 4 fixed signs of the zodiac. They are Aquarius, Scorpio, Taurus and Leo and they can be seen in the 4 corners of each of those cards. Respectively, they are ruled by one of the 4 elements - Air, Water, Earth and Fire, and as well, they represent the 4 tarot cards listed above (The Star, Death, The Hierophant and Strength).

When it comes to my personal practice, I, like many others in the tarot community, have long overlooked the court cards and focused most of my study and attention on the Major and Minor Arcana. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main reason, I’m ashamed to admit, is that I’ve never found them to be quite as interesting as the latter two. (Is this just me? Let us know how you feel below.) But is this really a fair assessment, or is there more to our courtly cohorts than meets the eye? Over the past couple of days, I’ve begun my own little investigation to find out. I started off by asking myself a few simple questions:

There are certain cards that repel us more than others - maybe because we don’t like their message in relation to the question we’ve asked, or because we don’t quite grasp the concepts they represent, or they just seem too “out there” - not at all relatable to everyday life.

The other day we opened up a poll asking others what card challenged them most, giving 4 options to choose from, as follows: Judgement, The Hierophant, The Tower, and The Hanged Man. I can’t say I was surprised that The Hierophant rose above the rest, even if it wasn’t by any huge margin. But what specifically about The Hierophant put it in top place? Why do we find this particular archetype so difficult, and what can be done to reconcile this?

It was almost one month to this day that we shared our last entry in this series, highlighting the High Priestess as a Guardian to the Water Gate. In that post, we speculated that The High Priestess contained keys to a path that, if followed, would lead to unlocking hidden faculties and a greater sense of awareness. Today, we will continue with that exploration, diving straight through the gates of The Emperor into the land of Fire. Of course, if you’re feeling a bit lost, you may want to go back and read the full introductory post. Now is also a good time to remind readers that these are just ideas and in no way are we making any definitive claims. This is just one way of many to understand tarot and we hope others find it interesting and resonant.

There are a million different ways to slice and dice a tarot card. You can observe the direction the figures face, the clothes they are wearing, the landscape, the weather, the numerological meaning, or the astrological association. Many of these facets we know are intended in the design of the card and some, we can’t be so sure, but for whatever sticks out to the reader in the moment of reading - surely there is significance, whether originally intended or not.

For those who have been keeping up with the work we’ve been doing around here, you’ll be familiar with our Musickal Meditation series, now available on YouTube. This set of meditations is designed to get you in touch with each of the 22 Major Arcana - as a way to connect, integrate and ritualize those archetypes. However, now that we’re a few in we thought it would be interesting, for further study, to add a short list of Qabalistic correspondences to each. We feel that this will offer the practitioner a chance to explore each card in a number of additional ways as listed below:

• It allows us to observe the interrelationship between the cards, the elements, the signs, the planets, and other important esoteric symbols and concepts, so we can absorb and integrate their properties as we construct our own personal image of the Tree of Life in our psyche.

• Each individual piece of information provides a window into the deeper meanings of the cards, and can thus be used as an aid for meditation or contemplation along with its corresponding musickal composition.

• The Hebrew letters in particular can either be visualized or used as mantras. (We have included phonetic pronunciation guides beside each letter name to eliminate any guesswork.)

I remember when I first began really noticing synchronicities. It was, like it is for many, through repeated numbers showing up for me every day, in all manner of ways.

Through the years, the type of synchronicity I receive and the frequency at which I receive them has evolved. Along with that too, with much contemplation on the subject, has my relationship with them. Do I have all the answers? Never will I ever (on anything), but this is what I’ve come to realize for myself where these little signposts are concerned.

Last month we introduced a new series where we opened up an exploration of the pillared cards in tarot (The Waite/Smith deck specifically). In that post, we set the stage for what we envision will be a 5-part journey through each of the following Major Arcana - The High Priestess, The Emperor, The Hierophant, and Justice. The purpose of these posts is to create the supposition that each of these cards is a gateway to greater degrees of consciousness, demonstrated through 4 separate plotlines that also intersect. Along those lines, we are asking the following - what might these 4 entrances veil? What other cards connect to their plotline? And what can be learned by approaching them in this way? While you can read the full introductory post, we will provide a brief recap before we jump through our first gate guarded by The High Priestess. This is a good time to remind readers that these are just ideas and in no way are we making any definitive claims. This is just one way of many to understand tarot and we hope others find it interesting and resonant.

At the end of April, Tim and I started a new series called 78 Connections, which I’ve been sharing on Instagram and saving to a dedicated page in this space ever since. It’s essentially an exercise that takes two cards and attempts to find as many connections between them as possible. Most of those links are of a visual nature, but inevitably we end up exploring numerical, astrological, and qabalistic similarities as well.

On the surface, this all appears rather simple and straightforward and I’m not sure that the value is immediately obvious. But what I can say is that this practice of comparing and contrasting scenes has been one of the most interesting, eye-opening, and integrative methods I’ve so far found to squeeze as much information as I can from the cards. It’s a general principle that follows us daily; if we want to really know something, to truly define it, we will benefit from examining it next to something else.

However, that wasn’t the expected outcome when this activity was born. This all began while trying to work through something that was irritating me. Inevitably if you spend enough time online, and around social media, you’re going to be exposed to a world of thought that clashes with your own. Without getting too specific, I will say that it touches a nerve when I see people putting an unnecessarily negative slant on something without having a basic understanding of its history. This is especially the case when it devolves into declarations around who can and can’t read tarot, which decks should or shouldn’t be worked with, or otherwise making dictations based on presumptions. Dogmatic attitudes, opinions presented as absolute facts, don’t settle comfortably with me regardless of the topic. But I realize that’s none of my business and partly my problem. I also don’t need to confront misinformation directly. But, what I can do is sit longer and look harder at this tool that has done so much for me and, I’m assuming if you’re here, for you as well. In doing this, I’m either going to see what they’re seeing too or reinforce what I already hold to be true, and as far as I’m concerned, either is a fair outcome.

The pillared cards in tarot are among the most fascinating. They act as gateways or portals to elsewhere...but where do they lead? What lies beyond their veil? In what way should we approach them? And how may we be granted access?

When we first decided we would write about the pillared cards in tarot, we did so with the intention of producing one article with our speculations and explorations. But we've realized that there is more to say than can be contained in a single post and so this will be at least a 5 part series, starting with this one, an introduction to the whole scheme.

What are the pillared cards in tarot? Simply put, they are the Major Arcana cards which feature a central figure sitting between 2 pillars. There are 3 which are obvious - The High Priestess, The Hierophant, and Justice. But examining these 3 cards, the set feels incomplete. A reliable structure, after all, is typically defined by its 4 posts. As well, we have only 3 of the 4 elements represented, so it stands to reason we’re missing a fourth. The elements so far accounted for are water, earth, and air - so, where’s the fire?

This is the fourth edition of our series “Reading In The Flow: Cards in Combination”. If you’re new to the series (can be found via Resources), “Reading In The Flow” is a term I use to describe taking a bird’s eye view of a spread in order to observe all the ways in which the cards interact.

Similar to the last combination, I will be working with my partner Tim to break down the possibilities within a set of 3 cards. We will explore elemental distribution, note-worthy observations, how the cards Qabalistically correlate, and what the message may be with all things considered.

The three cards we’ll be using for today’s exercise came about through “random” shuffle. They are the 7 of Swords, 5 of Cups, and The Hierophant. I have arranged them sequentially in a horizontal manner and have not ascribed a question or positional meanings. This is a general reading where the cards are meant to be read in tandem.

Similar to the last time, I am asking readers to take a step back and observe the landscape at large. Consider what is similar about the cards, what is different, how they interact, what the figures are posturing, the colours, repeated imagery or anything else that stands out! There are no right or wrongs in this approach. Bring in any elements you personally work with (numbers, astrology etc.) whether I’ve mentioned them or not. This isn’t about guessing what I’m going to see, it’s about expanding your own unique vision. So, take a look at the image below, and using the prompts above, note what you observe!

I’m adding to my existing “Reading In The Flow” series to include what I consider to be other subtle influences potentially impacting a card’s meaning. In the Cards in Combination portion of the series, we’ve been reading cards in tandem to come up with possible interpretations. Here, I’ll be covering connecting themes in the deck to provide additional layers through which to view your draws. Today, we’ll be observing the relationship between time and direction. Central figures in the cards can provide many clues as to the card’s underlying influence, just by observing the way in which they face. While this isn’t conclusive, or totally comprehensive, one easy way to understand this influence is to think about things along the lines of time tenses. There are other ways to contemplate directions, but for the purpose of this post we’re going to keep it simple and focused just on the following - past, present and future.

It may help to go through your deck (I’m specifically working with and referencing the Rider Waite Smith for this post) and begin by separating the obvious ones out. You can place the ones which feature a figure clearly facing left in one pile, a figure clearing looking straight on in another pile, and a figure clearing facing right in a third pile. There are some cards which will be more ambiguous (5 of Wands, 6 of Pentacles, 3 of Cups etc.) and for those, you can just set them aside for later discussion. For now, let’s focus on just three possibilities and see what we may discover.

I have never, in all my years of reading tarot, been a daily drawer. To me, it felt too burdensome to commit to, but another part of me just disliked the idea of starting the day off with some kind of definition. It’s all fun and games when you’re pulling The Sun, but for a morning to begin with The Tower just felt like a bunch of unnecessary anxiety.

I realize there are lots of ways to approach the daily draw that could have circumvented these concerns, but I also hadn’t been inspired to seek alternatives. That is until I finished T. Susan Chang’s 36 Secrets at the beginning of April. While the book is intended to illuminate the decan associations in tarot, it included many of her own daily card reflections and this got my wheels turning. Maybe I didn’t have to make this so personal. Maybe instead of approaching daily pulls as a “what can I expect today?” I would be better suited to approach them as a “what card am I bound to learn more about today?”. In this way, the teaching can take any form! Maybe it’s a stray thought, a conversation I overhear, a movie I watch, something in the news. And of course, it could also be something more direct, but it doesn’t HAVE to be and that’s an important distinction. So essentially, when I’m doing these draws now it’s like this: Don’t tell me something about me - tell me something about YOU!

This is the third edition of our series “Reading In The Flow: Cards in Combination”. If you missed the first two posts (can be found via Resources), “Reading In The Flow” is a term I use to describe taking a bird’s eye view of a spread in order to observe all the ways in which the cards interact.

Similar to the last combination, I will be working with my partner Tim to break down the possibilities within a set of 3 cards. We will explore elemental distribution, note-worthy observations, how the cards Qabalistically correlate, and what the message may be with all things considered.

The three cards we’ll be using for today’s exercise came about through “random” shuffle. They are The Emperor, the 8 of Cups, and the 2 of Cups (again!). I have arranged them sequentially in a horizontal manner and have not ascribed a question or positional meanings. This is a general reading where the cards are meant to be read in tandem.

Similar to the last time, I am asking readers to take a step back and observe the landscape at large. Consider what is similar about the cards, what is different, how they interact, what the figures are posturing, the colours, repeated imagery or anything else that stands out! There are no right or wrongs about this approach. Bring in any elements you personally work with (numbers, astrology etc.) whether I’ve mentioned them or not. This isn’t about guessing what I’m going to see, it’s about expanding your own unique vision. So, take a look at the image below, and using the prompts above, note what you observe!