So, I’m reading The Law is for All, and I thought this paragraph was very interesting:

“Each individual must be left free to follow his own path! America is peculiarly insane on these points; her people are desperately anxious to make the Sinhalese wear furs, and the Tibetans vote, and the whole world chew gum, utterly dense to the fact that most other nations, especially the French and British, regard “American institutions” as the lowest savagery, and forgetful or ignorant of the circumstances that the original brand of American freedom—which really was Freedom—contained the precept to leave other people severely alone, and thus assured the possibility of expansion on his own lines to every man.”

Doesn’t look to me like we’ve come very far in the 60+ years since that was written.

(although everyone really should chew gum)

I just read What is Occultism?, a series of essays by Dion Fortune originally published as Sane Occultism. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but am still chewing on this passage, towards the end of the book:

“American occultism will never come into its own until it ceases to import its systems from Europe and India, but goes back along the line of its own tradition, picking up the aboriginal contacts, and daring to bend them to its own evolutionary purposes … Egypt has no message for the United States.”

I’m not sure if I agree with that, or not. Maybe I should be reading about Mayan mysticism, but you know… I’ve always shied away from that because it seems so foreign. And, isn’t that counter to at least part of the point made here? Hmmm….

I was thumbing through Living the Qabalistic Tarot ~ Applying an Ancient Oracle to the Challenges of Modern Life this morning, and saw a quote something like:

Basic physics tells us that anything hung in the manner of the Hanged Man will swing back and forth like a pendulum until it is perfectly centered.

I have to paraphrase because I don’t have the book with me. But I thought that was a neat thing to say about the hanged man.

Another idea from the same book: Last night a group of us got together and did a numerological mapping from important dates down to major arcana cards, and then we meditated on the card to see what might pop out at us. Most of us picked a deck that we haven’t used much, so that we wouldn’t get bogged down with meanings we’ve learned to spit out as a reflex. The results were interesting, I think.

I go back and forth about how much faith I put in numerology, but I have to admit that the patterns you can uncover are interesting. Like, if you take the day I started dating my ex-wife, and the day we split up, they both reduce to Card 8: Strength (or, alternately, Card 8: Justice, depending on the deck you use). It can be interesting to meditate on how the card relates to both events.

Another interesting pair we found last night: July 4, 1776 (US Independence Day) and September 11, 2001 (World Trade Center Attacks) both reduce to Card 5, the Hierophant.

You get the idea!

If you want to do the reduction for a date of your own, you just add up the numbers in the date, then add up the digits. If you get a number higher than 22, just add up the digits again to further reduce it. For instance, today is 8/14/2008. 8 + 14 + 2008 = 2030. Add up the digits 2 + 0 + 3 + 0 to get 5: the Hierophant.

I had a 15%-off coupon, so I went on a little shopping spree at Half Price Books last night! I picked up The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites & Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order, and I was hoping to find The Tree of Life: An Illustrated Study in Magic, by the same author, since I had noticed it there before. But, I didn’t see it last night. I also would have gladly picked up a copy of 777 And Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley, but I didn’t see it either! Oh well.. I did grab a copy of Tarot Talismans: Invoke the Angels of the Tarot. All of this is primarily to further my study of tarot as a metaphysical/magical device, rather than a simple divination tool.

So, not the best luck in books, but not bad. I also got three oracle decks:

• Gypsy Fortunes: Use the Magic of Romany Cards to Foretell the Future. These are clearly a close cousin to my Lenormand deck. Fun! Also, the book gives simple tarot correspondences, and I was just telling someone yesterday that I want to do a serious Tarot-to-Lenormand mapping. More on that in another post!
• Cartouche Cards. I’m very excited to learn more about these egyptian-themed cards! And when I do, I’ll either love them or hate them… don’t know which, yet. The artwork is primitive, which usually does not appeal to me.
• The Well Worn Path deck. Sadly, I got the cards but not the book in this set. But, from what I can tell, they are a pagan/wiccan-themed 40 card oracle… once again with clear connections to tarot and gypsy cards, but with some twists. I may not take any time to try to learn about these, but rather use these cards more intuitively.

I’ve been mostly trying to steer clear of buying more tarot decks, as I find I keep coming back to just one or two decks that resonate with me. So, other than to appreciate the art, more decks don’t really mean much to me. On the other hand, I find learning about various gypsy/oracle systems to be kinda fun… and I think it may make me a better tarot reader in the process.

Anyway, I had a great time, and expanded my deck collection in the process.

BTW I know I said I’d have my notes from my recent Living Tarot talk up here by now… sorry… I’ve just been terribly busy lately. Notes are still coming…