Raven has long been known as the magical bird—the one who carries our messages and our prayers to spirit. Raven has been called a shape-shifter, and his message to you today is one of change—expect the unexpected, but know that Raven is flying close and will help you transform life’s challenges into life’s greatest blessings.
The Eastern Dragon derives its symbolism from eons of rich, Asian culture. The Eastern Dragon is a revered creature who brings good fortune and power to those under its influence. It influences situations by supplying courage, nobility and perseverance. The Eastern Dragon is the most Yang of creatures in Chinese mythology, and represents the male character at its strongest and best.
As a daily card, The Eastern Dragon foretells a period of abundant prosperity. This is a time when your goals can not only be attained but surpassed. If you use your energy wisely, your courage with discretion, and refuse to give up your ambitions will be satisfied.
Witches Rune for the Day
The Blank Rune
Meaning: This is a rune of difficulty and negative influences will rule your life for a time, but as all difficulties are a learning experience it will lead to improved personal perspective and progress on your life’s path. Always consult the surrounding runes with this stone. If it lies with a positive stone, it indicates that the pain of this experience will lead to a beneficial change in circumstances
The Emperor is blessed with the skills to successfully lead others. He can turn chaos into order and provide structure to that which is unbound. He is quick of mind and confident in his power and right to rule, and does so in a just manner. Although stern by nature, he truly is the ultimate father figure. He will provide as needed, teach those with unanswered questions, protect the vulnerable, set and maintain boundaries. His perfect world runs on schedule and is free of any disturbances. What the Emperor must be wary of is setting boundaries and rules where none are needed. If he isn’t careful not to over use his powers he may well become a tyrant.
The Past
Ehwaz
Ehwaz represents movement. You may be closing in on reaching your current goals. Your life may be changing for the better. Harmony with others should come easy for you at this time.
The Present
Berkano
Berkano is the Rune of birth and rebirth. This may symbolize a time when you are capable of great personal growth. Love may be in the air as well.
The Future
Tiwaz
Tiwaz is the Warrior Rune. It represents pure, masculine power and the ability to successfully fight to meet your goals. However, you must be careful that costs of attaining your goals overshadow their values
by Dr. Lewis Keizer
Modern Tarot is not a card game. It is a form of divination. As such, modern Tarot does not originate in medieval Italian card games, although they eventually became mediums through which cartomantic divination was done. Modern Tarot has a much more ancient derivation in the phenomenology of religions, iconography, and in Western esoteric tradition.
Christine Payne-Towler has provided me with most of the motivation and much of the research for this essay. She could have written a much more comprehensive tome, as she is an expert on Tarot iconography and symbology. But she wanted a scholar to look over her materials and lend credence to the esoteric origins of Tarot. I am honored to comply.
Decker, Depaulis, and Dummett make the following statement in Chapter One of A Wicked Pack of Cards:
“(The Tarot pack) . . . is the subject of the most successful propaganda campaign ever launched. . . . An entire false history, and false interpretation, of the Tarot pack was con-cocted by the occultists. . . .” A statement such as this is as false as the misguided histories of Tarot presented by Gebelin, Etteilla, and the other founders of Tarot occultism in Western Europe. There was no conspiracy to misrepresent Tarot–only an attempt to understand and explain it. Eighteenth- century science was at the mercy of its own limitations, just as twentieth-century scholarship will later be recognized to be.
A Wicked Pack of Cards provides us with an excellently researched history of medieval and modern Tarot schools, but it does not attempt to understand and explain its significance. It understands Tarot as part of the history of European games, but it has no appreciation of the origin of modern Tarot in the history and phenomenology of the Western esoteric tradition, or as a sophisticated development of effective divination technique. A Wicked Pack of Cards provides a great deal of information, but the authors do not have a thorough enough background in the Western mystery tradition to properly interpret their information.
This article is intended to refocus academic discussion of Tarot to its significance and meaning within the context of real historical development in the Western esoteric tradition.
When I was a young academic teaching Religious Studies at the University of California in Santa Cruz during the sixties and seventies, I was chagrined at the gullibility of students for naive occultist theories about history, scripture, and emerging new-age fads like Tarot.
Like the authors of A Wicked Pack of Cards, I knew that modern Tarot decks were merely a development of medieval Italian Tarocchi. Tarot was not the secret Urim and Thumim of the Old Testament or the hieratic Egyptian Books of Hermes described by Clement of Alexandria. Yet not only young, impressionable students, but often even intelligent, educated adults wanted to believe that the Tarot was sanctified with hoary antiquity.
As I began to have deeper experience and understanding of Eastern and Western esoteric tradition, however, I found myself using Tarot and other forms of divination to touch more deeply into my own interior life. I began to understand the spiritual phenomenology of dynamic psychism, magic, and theurgy. I found that even some of the most recent decks, like the Alchemical Tarot, were extremely helpful to me. The readings I did for myself and for others clarified the invisible currents and subtle influences associated with important decisions and life crises.
Many times the Tarot has warned me away from pathways that I later realized would have led to disaster, or it has given me confidence to pursue directions that have proven to be true to my purposes in life. At crucial times the Tarot has confronted me with hard advice that I could have never accepted from my closest friends. Again, it has cheered me with encouragement for which there seemed, at the time, no basis’ and yet, it was true. Can all this come from a pack of playing cards? Let us examine the historic esoteric influences associated with the iconography of the Tarot trumps.
The earliest extant trump images date from the fourteenth century, and they include a female Pope. Today we know her as the High Priestess or Isis Veiled. The Popess was a remarkable image to use during an era when Knights Templar, Cathars, and other religious heretics were being tortured and burned in the Inquisition. We know that the Popess and other images fell afoul of the Catholic Church, which successfully suppressed Tarocchi for two centuries, while the game itself was often castigated by Protestant preachers. Why did the image of the Popess exist before the foutreenth century, and why was the Tarot suppressed after this period?
The issue raised by the Popess was theological dualism–the Albigensian heresy–which was the enemy that the Inquisition sought out either among the Cathars of Southern France, the Bogomils of Bulgaria, or other sects like the Patarenes. These were all survivals of a form of early Christian Gnosticism known as Manichaeism. The religion of the martyred saint Manes became anathema after St. Augus tine of Hippo, a Manichaean of the fourth century, converted to Catholicism and became a founding theologian for Roman Catholic theology.
The teachings of the “dualist” sects allowed women to be clergy and to even hold office as a Pope. During the period of European history from which the image of the Popess survives, the Bogomils were loyal to their own mysterious Pope in Bulgaria, who may well have been a woman saint. Many of the heretical communities of the time relied upon prophetesses and female channels of Spirit to guide them, just as the early Montanists had done. In the Visconte-Sforza Tarocchi deck we find a Popess dressed in the habit of the Umiliata Order of the Guglielmites whose female leader, a Bohemian Lombard, died in Milan in 1281. The image in the deck represents Popess Sister Manfreda, who was elected Pope by her sect. She was regarded as an avatar of the Holy Spirit sent to inaugurate the New Age of Spirit prophesied by Joachim of Flora. This Popess was burned at the stake in autumn of A.D. 1300, the year that the New Age ending male domination of religion was supposed to begin. Later the Inquisition started proceedings against Matteo Visconti for his slight involvement with the sect.
In addition to the dualist heretical communities, there was a great proliferation of apocalyptic and new-age theology that had occurred with the advent of the millenial year A.D. 1000. Isolated scholars translated the Latin Bible, and especially the Book of Revelations, into their vernacular languages and read them as ciphers for their own age, which was one of ecclesiastical privilege and corruption. Their insights were privately promulgated, and secret societies formed to spread reform and revolutionary religious ideas.
From seminal movements like those of Joachim Flora, the German mystics in the line of Meister Eckhart, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit, there developed the greatest political ground-swell that was ever to threaten the Roman Catholic hierarchy – Protestantism. It now dominates much of Christianity, but is still theological heresy in Rome.
The early protesting or “protestant” sects were fiercely persecuted by Rome, which lumped them together with Albigensians, keepers of pre-Christian pagan religions, and the Jewish and Islamic infidels.
All of these groups were theologically “dualist” in the perspective of Rome either because they recognized a feminine or Mother aspect of Godhead (Cathars, Jewish Kabbalists, Bogomils) or because they preserved a Gnostic cosmology and anthropology. The Christian dualists were especially targeted because their Christologies were based on the mystic Imitatio Christi, a discipleship aimed at ultimately becoming a Christ. It would have been more to call them “unarians,” because ultimately they viewed humanity as an emanation of God that contained a spark of diety and would eventually return to Godhead, rather than a mere creation of dust doomed ever to be subordinate and inferior.
The Cathars preserved the Merovingian ideal of the Wife of Jesus (Mary Magdelene) and his physical offspring through their concept of Holy Blood, against which the Carolingian revolution had presented the ideal of the Mass and Eucharist as the Holy Blood of Christ. The Eucharistic Sacrament was the priestly means through which the Church maintained authority over the laity. If personal mysticism and spiritualized allegories were to triumph over physical sacraments, the Church would lose its power. That is why later Protestantism renounced Priesthood and sacraments as “Popish” tools of Satan. But the ideal was originally that of the Gnostic heresies, who viewed human love as the Divine Sacrament par excellence and maintained the symbolism of a male and female Christ.
Under circumstances of political suppression and threat of the Inquisition, the wave of revolutionary spirituality that swept over Eastern and Western Europe in the tenth to fifteenth centuries was transmitted in heretical ballads sung by Bogomil troubadors and in other forms of art, imagery, and iconography. Very clearly, part of this trend is preserved in the iconography of the early Tarocchi trumps. The most evident aspect of this iconography is the Female Pope.
Tarot innovator Edgar Waite was the first modern scholar to propose that the trumps were originally a series of images to convey the philosophy of the Albegensians. It is ironic that Waite should make this observation, since he radically altered the images of the Tarot trumps, adhering to the sweeping changes made by the English occultists of the Golden Dawn to the traditional European images. Waite’s altered Tarot images are those most familiar to lay persons, and yet they are many steps removed from the original iconography. Perhaps the best example of the original iconography to survive the Inquisition is the Marseilles deck, which synthesizes alchemical and other imagery with an Egyptian theme that I’ll later address.
An excellent discussion of the influence of heretical religion on the original Tarot trump images is included in a book by Robert V. O’Neill entitled, Tarot Symbolism (Fairway Press, Ohio; ISBN 0-89536-936-2). His chapter on “Heretical Sects and Their Influence on the Tarot” is carefully researched and deserves a wide reading.
Tarocchi Iconography and Hermetic Philosophy Tarot was far more than entertainment during the period from the 1300’s to the 1500’s when the game was suppressed. It appears among the luminaries of the Church as a means for contemplation and deep discussion. Tarocchi cards with trump images corresponding to Hermetic philosophical and cosmological ideals were used by Pope Pius II and Cardinals Bessarion and Cusa in the mid-fifteenth century during a church council in Mantua. The images of Mantegna’s Tarocchi include Iliakos, representing the First Iliaster of Paracelsis and other metaphysicians, the Seven Planets, and other elements of the Hermetic-Platonic Hierarchy of Being. Nicho las of Cusa later wrote concerning a similar card game he had devised:
“This game is played, not in a childish way, but as the Holy Wisdom played it for God at the beginning of the world.”1 The impact of Hermetic philosophy and iconography on the Church of the Counter-Reformation was considerable. There was a time when many of the intellectuals of Europe hoped that Hermetic philosophy would be the means through which Catholic theology could be reformed to meet the challenge of Protestantism, science, and secular thought. There is still a sealed room in the Vatican belonging to the Borgia Pope that is painted with images of Hermes Trismegistus and other occult symbology. Statues and printed images of Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagoras, and other legendary adepts proliferated. Hermetic thought struggled with church theology within the Vatican itself, but was overcome by the forces of conservatism by the middle of the seventeenth century, never to surface again.
However, during the oppression of heretical sects and the evolution of the Reformation, new venues for esoteric and occult thought developed within Protestantism and Catholicism. The Knights Templar had been driven underground, but the Priory of Sion lived on as an elite Catholic secret esoteric society with Grand Masters like Botticelli and Da Vinci, whose art preserves the Hermetic cosmology and ideals. The Rosicrucian and Freemasonic movements of Protestant mysticism produced an esoteric Renaissance based on Hermetic thought and its synthesis with astrology, alchemy, magick, and a Christian version of Jewish Kabbalah that used not only Hebrew, but Greek and Latin alphabets. All this, in turn, was integrated with Greek philosophy and Pythagorean theory.
The scholar Frances Yeats’ book, Giordano Bruno and the HermeticTradition demonstrates the importance of iconography, philosophy, and Hermetic idealism during the period crucial to the development of the Tarot imagery. Alchemists and other practitioners of the esoteric arts transmitted their most profound teachings, such as the evolution of the Sophic Hydrolith or Philosopher’s Stone, by means of iconographical allegories. It would be naive to think that Tarot images were devoid of such interpretation in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, even though they were suppressed.
During the eighteenth century, when the Inquisition was losing its grip on most of Europe, and both Europe and the New World were rushing toward violent democratic revolution, Tarot again surfaced, not merely as an Italian card game, but as a means of divination. It became a focus of interest for occultists who, like French and English Freemasons, wished to sanctify their alternative spirituality with the authority of hoary antiquity.
The earliest historical record we have of playing cards being used for divination is found in a memoire of the year 1765 by Casanova about the beautiful young Russian peasant girl named Zaire. She arranged twenty-five playing cards into a magical square and was able to read in them all the details of his amorous adventures of the previous evening. On the basis of this account, the authors of A wicked Pack of Cards speculate that cartomancy began with Russian peasants in the eighteenth-century. But to assign an origination date to an oral folk tradition, especially when it concerns magic, divination, or herbs and medicines, based upon the date of its first mention in European literature, is unrealistic and quite ignorant of the historical dynamics of oral tradition.
Where did Zaire get her knowledge of cartomancy? Not from books, and certainly not from the French nobility, who in the eighteenth century had just began to discover occultism, divination, and spiritualism and relate it to their previous flirtations with Hermetic science. No, Zaire’s knowledge came from an oral folk transmission totally independent of literacy and with a much greater antiquity than the literary products of Guttenberg’s revolution. The source of Zaire’s knowledge was ultimately Gypsy folk tradition.
The Gypsies were a unique nomadic nation that left India and wandered to Europe by way of Eastern Europe and Bohemia. They were erroneously considered by Europeans, including Russians, to be a survival of the ancient Egyptian people. They were also known as “Bohemians” because their annual traveling routes brought them into Europe by way of Bohemia, the Motherland of many European esoteric traditions.
Gypsies had their own kings and queens, their own initiatic traditions, and they were experts in forms of entertainment, animal training, and divination for wealthy clients. Methods of divination included “reading” various elements like tea leaves and scrying crystal globes, clouds, sand formations in stream beds, or reflections of the full moon on water. They read palms, used other physiognomic techniques, and they developed various psychic arts that were attributed to Rosicrucians, alchemists, and other occultists of Prague and Bohemia.
As interest in the Gypsy (“Egyptian”) arts developed into European spiritualist fads of the eighteen century, as the Hermetic (“Egyptian”) philosophy spread through publications of the Corpus Hermeticum and various alchemical and magical texts purchased by the nobility, and with the popularization of hieratic Egyptian artifacts like the Mensa Isiaca (Tablets of Isis) published by Kircher, all divinatory and esoteric knowledge was attributed to ancient Egypt. Everything from Freemasonry to Mesmerism claimed its roots in the hoary antiquities of Egypt. Gebelin, Etteilla, and the other eighteenth-century European popularizers of cartomancy attributed the Tarot to the ancient Egyptian Books of Thoth, and the trump images to symbolic frescoes on the walls of Egyptian temples used as part of instruction given during priestly initiation.
The iconography of Egyptian Serapian temples were familiar to Italians. The temples had been built in Italy and Asia Minor during the Roman-Hellenistic period, when Egyptian Isis religion was popular throughout the Empire. A Serapian temple had been excavated as early as the tenth century, and Italians often traveled to see it and speculate upon the meaning of its frescoes and hieroglyphics.
During the Italian Renaissance, classical culture was studied and idealized. It is quite possible that Tarocchi images were understood as allegories from the very beginning, since the game itself was a kind of medieval Game of Life with reference to archetypal human conditions. Since the Serapian temples were places of initiation into Isis cult, it is also reasonable to assume that their iconography related to initiatic journey through life. To this extent, it is not impossible that Tarot images, which had a similar purpose in Tarocchi, had some root in Egyptian temple iconography.
But cartomancy, or divination with playing cards, was not an Egyptian invention. There may have been other systems of divination parallel to the throwing of yarrow sticks for the I Ching in the ancient or Roman-Hellenistic world of Egypt, but there is no evidence of anything similar to playing cards. Fortune-telling with playing cards, or cartomancy, was popularized by the Gypsies in medieval Europe after the invention and publication of playing cards. Because the authorities and teachers of cartomancy were Gypsies, divination with Tarot cards was assumed to be “Egyptian.”
The Sanskrit-related language of the Gypsies was called Romany, erroneously related to Roumanian. The Gypsies were considered to be spiritually allied to the heretical and protesting religions of Europe, especially the Bulgarian, Roumanian, and Bohemian villagers whose folk religion preserved Manichaean and Gnostic elements, and whose preoccupations in the eighteenth century included astrology, alchemy, and esoteric speculative Freemasonry. These included the descendants of the Bogomiles, Cathars, and Albigensians, who had become the objects of persecution and attempted genocide by partisans of the Roman Catholic Church, and whose cultures had produced the wandering Troubadors, who sang mystical, heretical songs to the Magdalene and told stories of the Holy Grail.
As a bridge to Eastern mysticism, European heretics had nurtured the European consciousness that would produce the institutions of Chivalry and Courtly Love. In the heyday of the Hermetic Renaissance and amidst the social upheaval of the Protestant Reformation, the mysterious Gypsies emigrated to Europe and wandered in large bands. They brought the ways of Indian mysticism and divination with them, and when they arrived in fifteenth-century Western Europe, the romance of the vanquished European heretical cultures was associated with them. They were welcomed for the entertainment they brought, feared and avoided because of the ferocity of their fighting men and women, and often expelled or forced to move on. They were closely attuned to the animals they brought with them, developing skills in animal communication and training. They traveled in annual migration routes throughout Europe and the Slavic regions, moving South for the winters and North for the summers, providing carnivals or trained animal shows and various kinds of “fortune telling” for a fee. They stayed clear of the regions where the medieval Inquisition held sway, but were often accused of witchcraft.
By the eighteenth century the Inquisition was on the wane. Gypsy lore was much in demand by both the nobles and middle class of Europe. The Gypsies were happy to oblige credulous Europeans with stories of their ancient origins in Egypt. In fact, they called their homeland “Little Egypt.”
Paper making was brought to Europe from the East by Templars and other Crusaders returning from the Holy Land or by Moors in Spain. The earliest paper making centers in Europe were in the South of France and in Lombardy and Tuscany, the areas occupied and controlled by the Albigensians or Cathari. After the massacre of the Cathari at Montsegur in 1244 by operatives of the Pope–perhaps the greatest act of genocide known to history previous to the slaughters of Armenian Chris tians by the Moslems in the twentieth century and Hitler’s Jewish Holocaust in World War II–about four thousand survivors wandered Europe like the Gypsies as troubadors, pedlars, merchants, and journeymen paper makers. The persecuted Albigensian paper makers used a secret, symbolic watermark on their “Lombardy paper” by which means they communicated and kept track of each other in different areas.
Interesting evidence of the esoteric relationship between Gypsies, hidden Albigensians, hidden Knights Templar, and the operative Masons are indicated in manuscripts on guild practices created in the Rosslyn Chapel Manuscript Manufactory of the fifteenth century, which is now in the Scottish National Museum and exhibited in facsimile at Rosslyn Chapel which, as scholars are now finding, memorializes Gypsy, Rosicrucian, Templar, Freemasonic, and other hidden esoteric institutions of the period, all of whom were in contact. The St. Claire royalty of Rosslyn were both protectors of the Gypsies and Grand Masters of the operative Masons!
Given these facts, it is quite reasonable to assume that the first manufacture of tarocchi cards was done by partisans of the persecuted Albegensian tradition who maintained close relations with the Gypsies of India, the exiled Knights Templar, and the Scottish Masonic groups out of which Scottish Rite and other “speculative” forms of Freemasonic cult were emerging. This in itself points strongly to an esoteric origin for the Tarot images from the very beginning of their appearance as playing cards manufactured by guilds of Cathari paper makers who lived in hiding.
Gypsy tradition was Indian, but the traditions associated with the Gypsies in the European mind were directly derivative from Roman-Hellenistic Gnostic and Manichaean spirituality, which the Cathars were still practicing in the thirteenth century. The Roman Catholic polemic against magic and divination that had been successfully and brutally waged against the Greek mystery religions and the Neo-Platonic philosophical schools like that of Hypatia never influenced the Gnostic-Christian religious culture of southern France and Bulgaria. There many of the ancient divinatory practices of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Hellenized world were not only tolerated, but developed and well integrated into daily religious practice.
We must acknowledge that Murray’s theories about the Old Religion of the Witches and its survival in the folk practices of rural Europe have been shown to be unrealistic. Modern Wicca, like modern Tarot, is a recent production with yearnings to an ancient occult history. The European romances about Egyptian Freemasonry, Christian Rosencreuz and the ancient Rosicrucian Brotherhood, or the Theosophical Masters of Tibet were also, in great part, the creations of spiritual imagination. They tell us more about the spirit of their own times than about sacred antiquities.
However, in the case of the Western esoteric tradition and its interaction with Gypsy lore, we do find strong evidence of historical continuity with ancient pagan and mystery traditions. Gypsy traditions were strongly Indo-Iranian, thus extremely compatible with Manichaean and Gnostic culture. In their oral traditions concerning magic, spells, herbs, plants, stones, psychism, and divination, Gypsy communities preserved Eastern folk- magical and divinatory traditions that were essentially and qualitatively different from those preserved in Western Christian monasticism. “There is general agreement among occult authorities that the use of the Tarot was popularized by the wandering bands of Bohemians– gypsies–who made their appearance in the late Middle Ages.” (Doctoral dissertation of Thomas Williams for the University of Alabama, quoted in A Wicked Pack of Cards, Chapter One). Not only “occult authorities,” but most scholars would agree that cartomancy and Tarot-card divination were intro-duced to Europeans by Gypsies.
In late antiquity, the Bohemians transferred and adapted their traditional forms of divination to the newly emerging form made possible by the invention of the printing press– the deck of cards. These more ancient forms of divination were compatible with a deck of cards because: they relied upon a complex set of symbols not unlike Chinese trigrams, Roman dice, Druidic runes, that could be interpreted allegorically they operated by means of randomizing these elements through throwing or casting, as with lots, dice, or yarrow stalks they had numerological associations that could be used to amplify interpretation The symbols of the Gypsies would have been pictographic, although they could have developed into more glyphic representations as did later demotic Egyptian or the Chinese trigrams of the I Ching. They would have been etched, drawn, or painted onto randomizable elements that could be cast or thrown, like runes or dice. The numerical system they used would have been similar to Pythagorean decimal number lore, as it was derived by Pythagoras from Indian Brahmin lore.
Since we can see that the original Tarot trumps were based, for the most part, upon Italian social images arranged in allegorical postures, and that only later were images altered to appear Egyptian or pre-Christian, it is easy to conclude that modern Tarot trump images have no relation to images or allegories that would have been used by the Indo-Iranian Gypsies. However, there are certain original trumps that simply do not have a basis in medieval Christian society, such as the Popess or female Pope (becomes the High Priestess).
Moreover, this image certainly does have a basis in both Indian and Albigensian religion as the Gnostic Sophia, the Magdelen, the female Christ, and the Virgin Goddess. To what extent did the cartomancy of the Gypsies influence even the earliest Tarocchi trumps? Perhaps more than we can know. According to some authorities, the Gypsy migrations began as early as the ninth century and peaked in the fifteenth century.
Although Gypsies must have made many innovations when they began to adapt European playing cards for fortune telling, it is also clear that they were able to find attributions for suits and trumps that were recognizable and correspondent to their own traditions of divination. Thus the fact that the images of the Tarocchi trumps survive in various permutations into modern Tarot decks indicates that they were congruent with Gypsy folklore that served as the basis for divination. Iamblichan Tarot Tradition in the French Occult Revival of the Eighteenth Century The occultist Court de Gebelin theorized in 1781 that the Tarot trump images originated in the initiatic halls of Egyptian temples. His ideas were popularized by Alliette, later known as Etteilla. But these men were not the originators of such speculation. It was already common undertanding in French occult circles, which were essentially Freemasonic.
In the year 1798 there were six to seven hundred Masonic lodges in France containing perhaps 30,000 of the most educated citizens. Unlike modern American Freemasonry, which after WWII became mostly blue collar workers and lost much of its great intellectual patronage, the French lodges were (and still are) subscribed to by university professors and other intellectuals.
Lodges were split between those chartered by nobility and under a Grand Master for life appointed by nobility, and the new democratic form in which Masters were elected for a term. The first form was traditional, and its premise was that the Grand Master was a true adept with all the knowledge and powers of a master. Unfortunately, princes and dukes often chartered unqualified Grand Masters, and the democratic movement in Freemasonry was causing lodges to split into factions. This same movement was attuned to the emerging American colonial revolution and closely tied to its founders. Ben Franklin, for example, was the elected Grand Master of a Lodge in Paris as well as in Philadelphia.
An extreme wing of the democratic Masons were the Fratres Lucis, Brothers of Light. Under the leadership of university free-thinkers, they were active architects of the French Revolution. They used forms of initiation that could result in death, based on their ideas of ancient Egyptian priestly initiation. A document probably translated by the nineteenth century occultist Jean-Baptiste Pitois (Christian) and published recently in English by Weiser entitled, Egyptian Mysteries, is an example of Illuminist initiatio practice in the guidance of Egyptian lore. During one part of the ordeal, in which the candidate must work his way through a dark labyrinth, he finds himself in a lighted chamber with a bed, food, and a beautiful unclad woman. He has vowed not to tarry, but if he does make the wrong choice, he is immediately set upon and killed. At this point in the eighteenth century the Lovers trump of the Tarot is reinterpreted according to the “Egyptian” initiatic ordeal, and we see a man with two women–one on his right who is chaste, and one on his left who is a coquette. Over his head is an angel aiming an arrow at him, to slay him if he makes the wrong moral choice. (I would have been dead in this situation!)
Allegorically, this represents the right-hand and left-hand paths, the Way of Life and the Way of Death of the Old Testament, the good and evil yetzerim of Kabbalah, or the Pythagorean Motion to the Left versus the Motion to the Right of Plato’s Timaeus and the Kore Kosmou of Hermetic-Gnostic tradition. But among the Fratres Lucis, it represented something quite immediate and final. It is not known how many candidates met their doom in this form of Masonic initiation, but given the proclivities of Frenchmen, I am not optimistic. Egyptian lodges were established also by Cagliostro who, according to legend, was initiated by the Grand Master, the Compte de St. Germain, in a Templar ceremony using hundreds of candles. Cagliostro introduced the Egyptian Rites, which paved the way for the later Rites of Memphis and of Mizraim, which competed with the Scottish Rite in nineteenth century America until it was finally banned or abondoned in different jurisdictions. There is now one chartered Lodge of Memphis-Mizraim in New York City that, like all of the later Ultra-Masonic orders, admits both men and women.
The Egyptian paradigm was justified by a medieval document claiming to be part of the body of writings by the NeoPlatonist Iamblichus, whose Manetho is the memoires of an Egyptian priest. The Pseudo-Iamblichan document describes initiatic images used in the hall of neophytes that correspond closely to the Tarot trump images known in the eighteenth century.
This, of course, is the Holy Grail of esoteric Tarot advocates, evidence that the Tarot images derive from ancient and archetypal Egyptian temple images. Currently there are many postings of a document by Michael Poe describing an Italian archeological description of images from a Serapian temple in Italy now under water. The images corresponde exactly to modern trumps, with Veiled Isis taking the position for the Popess or High Priestess, etc. I have been unable to contact Poe, so I contacted the Italian archeological museum in charge of the sunken Temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli and asked for any information, as this is the only Serapian temple in Italy I know that is under water. As of this writing, I have no response. But if Poe’s information is correct, we would have an excellent possible source for the earliest Italian Tarocchi images, devoid of Egyptian dress.
Pseudo-Iamblichus was part of Egyptian Freemason occultism that also revived Pythagorean theory and numerical symbolism as part of their synthesis of Christian Cabbala, usually spelled with a “C” to differentiate it from true Jewish Kabbalah. This in turn was linked to alchemical, astrological, theurgical, and magical departments of the Hermetic arts in the French occult revival.
During this period of intense occult innovation, the Tarot was legitimized among French practitioners as a valid ancient Egyptian divinatory tool. It is not surprising, then, that it is in this period we find Hebrew and magical alphabet attributions made to the trumps. But the Hebrew alphabet, with its twenty-two letters, became the most important system of attributions.
The letters represented the twenty-two Paths connecting the ten Sephiroth. These Paths, then, were associated with each trump image. Some of the Paths were in the Lightning Flash series leading from Malkuth back to Kether, so they were considered to be specifically associated with stages of initiation, while the others represented powers gained and obstacles surmounted at each of these stages.
The authority for the Paths was the Jewish Sephir Yetzirah, the Book of Creation. However, it existed in several redactions and versions, each differing on details. The oldest was the Gra version, but it may not have been accessible to French occultists, who depended upon Latin and French translations. However, the French occultists did have access to the Alexandrian/Hermetic attributions, those of the Renaissance magi and the Fratres Lucis document. With these, they were able to associate the correct Hebrew letter with the Cabbalistic Path number and image in the twenty-two card series.
These attribution were added to the Tarot trumps in eighteenth-century France and spread to Italian, Spanish, and other Continental decks by the nineteenth century. They were part of the general Freemasonic and Ultra-Masonic lodge occultism of all Europe. Tarot and Cabbala: Levi’s Attributions In his book, Eliphas Levi and the French Occult Revival, Christopher MacIntosh says, “Clearly Levi was in possession of no pre-Court de Gebelin material connecting the Cabala (sic. Ut.) and the Tarot. The connection was his invention.”
This is the kind of fiction about Levi that English occultists have promulgated since the days of the Golden Dawn. English Freemasons declared French Freemasonry invalid in the late nineteenth century when the Grand Orient decided to expand their definition of theism to include Buddhist, scientific, and other non-Judeo-Christian concepts of Godhead or Utimate Reality. The bad blood between English and French occultism that divided Gnosticism into English and French ecclesiae, Martinism into English Masonic and French ultra- or non-Masonic schools, and resulted in the contemporary French requirement that anyone who joins a Golden Dawn lodge be demitted from French Masonic lodges, has been clearly evident in English attitudes toward one of the greatest French occultists’ Eliphas Levi.
In his Conspiracy Against the Catholic Religion and Sovereigns, Levi said, “The true initiates who were Etteilla’s contemporaries, the Rosicrucians for example and the Martinists, were in possession of the true Tarot, as a work of Saint-Martin proves, where the divisions are those of the Tarot.”2 Saint-Martin had been a member of the occult lodge established by the adept Martinez de Pasqually in the mid-eighteenth century. He wrote his book divided according to the Tarot trumps before Levi’s era. Later brilliant Martinists like Papus and Oswald Wirth would reaffirm Levi’s assertion that the Tarot was the secret book of the eighteenth century Rosicrucians which existed as, “their criterion, in which they find the prototype of everything that exists by the facility which it offers for analysing, making abstractions, forming a species of intellectual world, and creating all possible things.”3
Levi elaborated on what French occultists had already created perhaps a century before, and what was to become standard in all European Tarot decks of the nineteenth century–the correct attribution of Hebrew Path letters to the Tarot trumps. In this system, the Fool was attributed to Shin and the Magician was attributed to Aleph. The Hebrew letters were properly associated with their meanings as numerals.
Just as Etteilla had popularized Tarot for fortune telling based on Gypsy lore, Levi popularized what must have been secret lodge teaching in which the Tarot cards were used as tools of philosophical divination, probably in assumed likeness to the Book T of the seventeenth- century Rosicrucian Fama.
The founders of the Golden Dawn fabricated German Rosicrucian adepts who had supposedly transmitted profound esoteric and initiatic knowledge to them and given a charter to teach and initiate others. In fact, however, most of what Mather and Westcott had actually received came from a French source–not German adepts–through Kenneth MacKenzie, who received it directly from Eliphas Levi. Few scholars would seriously challenge this assertion.
Mathers was a brilliant creator and synthesizer who spend untold hours at the British Museum reading magical and Kabbalistic texts. He and Westcott, like all English occultists, were Freemasons. The synthesis they created for the Golden Dawn rituals combined Rosicrucian and Christian Cabbalistic doctrine with the kind of layout used on a Masonic floor. The floor and officers represented Sephiroth, and initiation from 0=0 to 5=6 represented the upward ascent from Malkuth to Tiphareth. The initiatic instruction given to each Candidate on the Path from one Sephira to the next higher was allegorized on the Tarot trump associated with the Path number in the Hebrew alphabet. Mathers found that having the Fool in the position of Shin didn’t work for his Masonic floor plan, so he decided to retain its number of Zero, but associate it with Aleph.
To justify this, he and later English occultists claimed one of two things: Levi had given a “blind,” or purposely given a wrong Cabbalistic attribution to test people and make it possible only for adepts to discover the true attributions; or, Levi invented his own attributions and was wrong. After all, he was French, not English. How could he be right? Such were the later claims of dark luminaries like Crowley and even the American Paul Foster Case.
As a result, the Waite deck and all other English decks from that time forward have used the Golden Dawn system of Cabbalistic letter attribution to the Tarot trumps, in spite of the fact that it is blatantly inaccurate. The practice continues because very few modern occultists know how to apply true Kabbalistic principles to Tarot interpretation. Only the European decks like those of Tavaglione use the correct trump attributions, and even Tavaglione presents the Golden Dawn Path attributions rather than those of the Gra. The Tarot has a distinguished history in European esoteric tradition. It is not merely a card game that was adapted for fortune telling by Gypsies, and then sanctified with occultist illusions. It is a valid and powerful tool for divination that has roots in much older occult systems.
Dr. Lewis Keizer was one of the original scholars of the religious studies faculty at the University of California in Santa Cruz in the late sixties specializing in Biblical studies, Roman-Hellenistic religion, and the Nag Hammadi Coptic Gnostic Library. He received his M.Div. from the Episcopal Divinity School and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. His doctoral dissertation, The Eighth Reveals the Ninth: A New Her-metic Initiation Disclosure, has become a standard work in Hermetic studies. He and wife his Willa are presiding bishops of the Home Temple Priesthood and can be contacted through hometemple.org, where a list of his self-published writings and monographs is available. Keizer is also grailmaster of the Temple of the Holy Grail, which can be contacted at hometemple.org/THG.htm. Currently he is co-authoring an esoteric novel with Dr. Eugene Whitworth, author of The Nine Faces of Christ, and serves as academic dean for Great Western University in San Francisco, which specializes in distance-learning B.A. degree completion and graduate degrees with emphasis upon metaphysical subjects and the Western Mystery Tradition.
Lewis has written and taught widely in Western and European initiatic traditions, and he introduced male-female Freemasonry and other French initiatic societies to the U.S. Founder of the Popper-Keizer schools and Keizer Academy for gifted students (hometemple.org/ACADEMY.HTM), he also conducts orchestras and performs as an all-star jazz cornetist at international festivals. He is listed in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in Religion, Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, and many other standard reference biographies.
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This reading focuses on your ambitions and dreams.
The Hanged Man
The Hanged Man is the most enigmatic card of the Tarot. Even Tarot giants like Waite, Crowley and Levi had trouble deciphering The Hanged Man’s true meaning. Generally The Hanged Man is thought to represent the value of surrender and selfless acts. The Hanged Man embodies the notion that sometimes to lose is to win. Unlike the aggressive Chariot, The Hanged Man creates his fate through inaction and accepts his fortune passively, without resistance. He does not struggle to control the path his life takes, but rather allows events to sweep him where they will, even if he is called upon to sacrifice himself. He is so at ease with the Fate the Universe chose for him that even hanging upside down from a tree does not ruffle his inner peace.
When The High Priestess or Strength is among your personal cards, the influence of The Hanged Man may be increased. Having The Magus or Chariot in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Hanged Man.
The Empress
The Empress is “The Earth Mother” of the Tarot. She embodies all that is nurturing, clean and wholesome. Her powers resonate from her drive to create and care for life on a grand scale. She is in tune with Nature’s rhythm and realizes that life’s most pleasurable moments often stem from the simplest things. She is not afraid to enjoy herself–to let loose—to the point of being lavish. Abundance and luxury are important to her. The Empress is completely comfortable with her femininity and her sexuality. She is sensual, earthy, generous, and likes the good life. Still, her driving force is a need to create and nurture, and fulfilling this need overrides everything else.
When The Lover or The Star are among your personal cards, the influence of The Empress may be increased. Having the Emperor or Death in your personal cards may diminish the influence of The Empress.
The Moon represents those forces which remain largely hidden to us. The light of the moon provides some illumination down a path into the unknown, but not enough to brighten the landscape like The Sun, or cut through the dark shadows from which the unexpected may leap. However, The Moon is not without gifts we can use. She spurs our imagination and creativity. She can be a portal to knowledge and experience beyond the realm of our everyday lives. But Her offerings are not available to the feint of heart. To receive what The Moon offers one must have the courage to follow uncharted paths and the intelligence to find truths hidden in a bewildering setting rife with illusion. For those who can make this journey the reward may be finding the key to making their dreams come true.
Aries
You can be feeling especially generous and compassionate today, dear Aries, and finding great benefit and reward in helping others. Use this energy to forgive and heal, to put a difficult problem behind you, or to resolve to let go of a mental burden. You might be in the position to support someone through an open or helpful conversation today. There can also be quite a bit of excitement about a longer-term plan or project, or a group endeavor. A friendship can come into strong focus and you can feel quite inspired about it.
Taurus
This a good day for getting the information you need, for test results, or for resolution to a problem that has been weighing on your mind, dear Taurus. Self-honesty is important now, and there is a pleasingly open atmosphere with friends as well. Conversations can be revealing and especially open and interesting, and this impacts friendships, both platonic and romantic. There can be a sense of liberation from a problem or a past matter. You may be feeling a sense of creative renewal, and in fact, this is a good time to begin anew on a creative level.
Gemini
There is a pleasant openness to the day, dear Gemini, and you can feel that you’re ready to move forward on a matter that may have been holding you back, particularly regarding a friendship or a goal. This can be an excellent time to learn from others and to teach something as well. Business sense is enhanced by your intuition. Focus should be on positive reinforcement today for best results, both personally and professionally. The aim is to put something behind you. Others are putting a little more faith in you than usual, which feels good and motivates you to improve. Even so, you can be holding on to your ideas and going your own way, expecting others to accept you for who you are.
Cancer
The Moon continues to transit your sign all day, dear Cancer, and despite some small feelings of blockage or opposition early today, it’s a strong time for personal influence and for enjoying some well-deserved “me time”. People are sensitive but willing to learn today, and there can be a nice feeling of liberation on a mental level. You are especially open to learning, improving, and growing, and conversations can be gateways to fascinating new information and interests. There can also be a focus on settling problems of the past. It’s a strong time to clear the air.
Leo
This is a strong day for studies, research, and deeper thinking, dear Leo, as you’re going in your own direction and thoroughly enjoying the process. You can come to some important insights now. You can come to a new way of looking at old problems, and conversations can be especially open, particularly on intimate levels. At the very least, you are being honest with yourself, and this can open doors for you. There can be unexpected benefits coming through a faraway connection or partnership. You can be especially inspired by an idea that leads you down a new path or that sets off interesting tangents of thought.
Virgo
You may get the chance to clear up a problem in a close relationship today, dear Virgo. Conversations can be especially open, and you may need to put something from the past behind you now. There is a willing spirit when it comes to learning from and through one another, and the urge to grow and mature through relationship experiences is strong now. Conversations can be revealing, perhaps a little too much so, but ultimately helpful. Be emotionally brave and encourage others to be open and honest. This is also a good time for research, work, and health matters. Problem solving is a theme now, as you’re seeing patterns that you may not typically see.
Libra
This can be an important day for discovering information or solving a problem that clears the path for new beginnings, dear Libra. Seeing patterns comes more easily, which helps you to put the pieces together. Work and health issues can be the focus now. You might come across new ways to heal or to improve your health, or rediscover a solution from the past that is relevant to you in the present. The Moon at the top of your chart puts you in a position to lead or to take charge again today. At the same time, you’re doing quite well on a personal level and coming up with great ideas when you put your head together with someone.
Scorpio
There can be cathartic release today, dear Scorpio, through creative means or an especially open conversation with someone you care about. Communications and thoughts tend to be focused on healing and resolving problems. You may be coming to a new and unique perspective on a matter, but first you need to dig up the past so that you can move forward. Your openness with others helps them to open up as well. People more readily listen to you and give you useful feedback now. Once again today you are feeling freer in self-expression and a little more courageous. You are going your own way when it comes to ideas about how to best approach matters related to romance, fun, entertainment, art, and children.
Sagittarius
There can be some matters to handle from the past that need your attention, dear Sagittarius, and strong energy for resolving a conflict or solving a problem related to your personal life, family, or home is with you now. Others’ openness and willingness to share their feelings can be infectious, and you’re likely to feel especially willing to learn more about the special people in your life. You stand to learn much through the power of conversation and a humble approach. This is also a good time for creative expression. Seeing past patterns can help bring perspective to new projects and endeavors.
Capricorn
This can be another strong day for relating and getting along, dear Capricorn, especially with an open approach to one another. Early day tensions can quickly dissipate. There can be revealing conversations that can act to open your heart. You may be supporting someone through a difficult stretch or offering helpful advice. Your words have healing power these days, and today, this can be made quite obvious to you. There can be an illuminating moment in which puzzle pieces seem to unite and you see a matter more clearly. Problem solving with family, home, and money matters can be in focus and strong.
Aquarius
This is a strong time for creative thinking, dear Aquarius, and for being recognized for your unique perspective and viewpoint. You are attracting interesting people into your life largely due to your interesting point of view and charming way of communicating. You have extra special and valuable advice to give, and you’re feeling very generous. You’re in a flexible and spirited mood and not inclined to take things too personally, although information that surfaces now can be of a sensitive nature. You are ready to come to someone’s defense if need be now. This is a good time for assessing money matters and for making responsible purchases.
Pisces
With Mercury and Chiron coming together in your sign today, dear Pisces, you’re in a good position for expressing or presenting your ideas. This influences sparks especially creative, unique, and helpful ideas. Interactions can be progressive and revealing, although perhaps a little sensitive, as is often the case when we are encouraged to grow. You want to free yourself from ideas and attitudes that have limited you in the past, and you want to distinguish yourself from others and discover what makes you special. People tend to see you for your unique mind right now. You are going your own way! This can also be a good day for thinking outside of the box about financial matters.
You accept little at face value, and are always looking for hidden meanings or deeper knowledge of people and circumstances in your life. You are generally very poised and charming, and have a talent for coming up with money-making ideas and creative marketing projects. Periods of solitude are absolutely essential to your well-being, as quite time is how you refresh yourself. You are self-motivated, perceptive, and versatile.
Famous people born today: Jerry Lewis, Chuck Woolery, Isabelle Huppert, Erik Estrada, Pat Nixon, John Butler Yeats.
Celtic Astrology is NOT just about a particular upcoming Irish holiday … it’s a year-round influence! So what’s your Celtic tree sign? What about your Celtic color, animal … gemstone? Learn all aboutyour Celtic Astrology now!
While Western Astrology centers around the planet Earth, the 13 signs of Celtic Astrology are based on the cycle of the Moon. Long ago, the Celts imagined the universe as a tree with deep roots and neverending branches. Around 1000 B.C. people began to designate a tree for each Moon phase in the lunar calendar.
Each Celtic tree sign has different powers and meanings, along with corresponding spirit animals, a color, gemstone, and a Celtic “ogham” — a symbolic letter of the Celtic alphabet meant to attract luck, protect from harm, and heighten each tree sign’s unique powers.
Look up your birth date on the infographic below to learn about your Celtic sign, and the lucky talismans that come with it.
You are renowned for having a fresh and unusual outlook on life. Your ogham is Beithe, which symbolizes beginnings, change, and fresh opportunities, and is therefore quite useful in times of transition. The animals associated with the Birch tree are the golden eagle and the white stag. Your color is white, and your gemstone is rock crystal (clear quartz).
With the Rowan tree comes excellent taste. Your ogham is Luis, which represents strength in the areas of insight and discernment. The Celts linked the crane and the green dragon to the energy of the Rowan tree. Your color is gray and your gemstone is peridot.
The Ash tree represents escape and peaceful solitude in Celtic Astrology. Your ogham is Nuin, which symbolizes peace and tranquility. The animals associated with the Ash tree are the seal, the seahorse, and the seagull. Your color is green and your gemstone is coral.
Under the sign of the Alder tree, you are famous for your bravado. The Alder tree’s ogham is Fearn, which represents moral and physical courage, and should be invoked when you need to make a bold move in life. The bear, the fox, and the hawk are the animals the Celts associated with the Alder tree. Your color is red and your gemstone is the ruby.
Represented by the Willow tree, you are known for your vivid imagination. Your Celtic ogham is Saille, which embodies the principles of intuition, creativity and artistry to support that imagination. The animals associated with the Willow sign are the adder, the hare and the sea serpent. Your color is yellow and your gemstone is moonstone.
People born under the sign of the Hawthorn tree are patient, thoughtful and hopeful. Your ogham is Huathe, which embodies the principle of restraint, providing you with optimism and keeping you from jumping the gun. The animals associated with the Hawthorn tree are the bee and the owl. Your color is purple and gemstone is topaz.
Represented by the Oak tree, you stand out for your reliability, diligence and emotional strength. Your ogham is Duir, which holds the powers of protection, ideal when you’re about to undertake a difficult project. The wren, the otter, and the white horse are the animals the Celts associated with the Oak tree sign. Your color is black and your gemstone is the diamond.
Under the Holly tree sign, you are celebrated for your physical strength and star power. Your ogham is Tinne, which represents additional strength and brilliance. The Celts associated the cat and the unicorn with the Holly tree. Your color is silver and your gemstone is carnelian.
As a Hazel tree sign, you are prized for your intellect, maturity and perspective. Your ogham is Coll, which represents wisdom, and is therefore strongest when you are feeling tested or when you must put faith in your head over your heart. The crane and the salmon are the animals associated with the Hazel tree sign. Your color is brown and your gemstone is the amethyst.
The sign of the Vine carries an uninhibited nature and the strength of foresight. Your ogham is Muin, which symbolizes the power of prophecy and faraway thinking. The Celts linked the lizard, the hound and the white swan to the energy of the Vine. Your colors are pastels and your gemstone is the emerald.
Represented by the Celtic tree sign Ivy, you are famous for your sheer determination and willpower. Your ogham is Gort, which symbolizes progress and aids in overcoming obstacles that stand in your path. The boar, the butterfly and the goose are the animals associated with the Ivy sign. Your color is blue and your gemstone is opal.
Under the sign of the Reed you are celebrated for your open-minded attitude and worldly sophistication. Your ogham is Ngetal, which symbolizes unity and is especially beneficial when you venture out of your comfort zone. The animals associated with the Reed sign are the hound and the owl. Your color is orange and your gemstone is jasper.
The energy of the Elder sign is wise beyond its years. Your ogham is Ruis, which represents maturity, and is beneficial when you must come to terms with a difficult situation or heal from heavy emotional pain. The Celts linked the badger, the black horse and the raven to the energy of the Elder tree. Your color is gold and your gemstone is jet.
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Aries
This is a strong day for finding your emotional center, dear Aries, and is particularly welcome after recent tension and, at times, overstimulation. A Jupiter-Pluto long-term aspect that first came into influence in October perfects today, and is strong for career and work opportunities. Your motivation to do something truly meaningful through your work or services is very strong now. Pour your energy into redesigning, renovating, and improving the work you do or into your efforts to improve health. You can be thoroughly enjoying your work or daily routines, and this shows in the finished product. You’re also coming across in a more powerful, prestigious, or simply trustworthy manner these days. You could be doing more specialized work, or could find that you’re in especially big demand. Getting your daily schedules, routines, and health programs into shape is a focus, and can contribute to your growth, professionally and personally.
Taurus
An easier, more straightforward flow of energy for communicating and connecting is with you today, dear Taurus. It’s a strong time for reaching out, repairing relationships, and bonding with people you care about. A trend that is with you until June is peaking today, and it’s a strong one for creative discovery. Good energy is with you for expanding your personal horizons through creative endeavors, and romantic relationships for some. You are commanding more attention in a positive way, and you are approaching your life with more confidence and self-assurance. Opportunities to travel, learn, teach, publish, promote, and connect are likely to emerge. There can be important turns of events surrounding romance, children, entertainment, and creative projects. You may be finding more meaning in your projects or hobbies.
Gemini
You’re seeking out a stronger feeling of security and sense of being grounded today, dear Gemini, and you’re attracted to simple, earthy activities as a result. There is more interest in your practical affairs today, although you’re not inclined to want to deal with facts and figures at the moment – intuition and imagination are in focus instead. Opportunities for expanding your family experiences are emerging, with a Jupiter-Pluto influence that has been with you since October and is peaking now. You may be increasing contact and/or strengthening ties with family or close loved ones, and making peace with the past. While there can be some intense emotions in the process, improvement and growth are the end result, and ultimately very satisfying. Long-term financial planning can be successful, or pooling your resources or talents with someone may lead to improvements. Business and home matters can expand or improve, and you’re likely to find more support or backing for what you’re doing. This is an important time for laying down foundations. Some of you could come into financial support or backing for establishing yourself in a career or home.
Cancer
The Moon is in your sign all day, and it harmonizes with Venus and Neptune, dear Cancer. You are more in touch with your emotional needs and clearer about your wants and desires, and today, you’ll find it relatively easy to gain cooperation from others. A Jupiter-Pluto influence that has been with you since October peaks now and points to real rewards in the areas of learning and connecting. There can be a motivating, supportive meeting of minds with a partner. You might be the go-to person for information and know-how. Some of you could meet someone special through the phone, online, at school, or possibly in your own neighborhood. You could find motivation to pursue a dream project. Transportation and communication opportunities can open up. There are wonderful opportunities emerging for friendships as well as personal influence. This trend continues until June, and helps you to feel more empowered through your relationships. This is a strong period for learning, sharing, and relating.
Leo
This can be an important day for healing, dear Leo. With the Moon in the sign just behind yours, you may need some time for yourself in order to regroup or to process recent events. The pipeline to the unconscious is open today with the Moon’s supportive connection with Neptune and Venus in your intimacy sector. You can benefit from behind the scenes work, research, and/or connections with others. Earnings and talents are in focus with Jupiter in your sector of resources in harmony with Pluto, which first came exact in October and does so again now. A project begun last fall may be spreading its wings or could need your attention. You can be especially motivated to produce, build, accumulate, and prove your worth. There could be job offers or you could be making your own job opportunities now, and, for some, there can be significant gifts or bonuses. There is also excellent energy for healing the body and improving health. This is a strong time for improving work and health-related methods as well, particularly until June. Opportunities to heal the body and mind can emerge. Natural talents may be used more fully in the work you do.
Virgo
This is a strong day for repairing and building relationships, dear Virgo, more through gestures than conversation, but good all around. Today, Jupiter in your sign forms a trine with Pluto. This energy first occurred in October and will recur in June and suggests a strong period for personal opportunities and support. New and improved ways of expressing yourself can emerge. You are more confident and focused, and possibly more concerned about power and persuasion as well. While this period is more about you and your personality, romantic expression might also reach new heights. It’s also a good time for furthering, editing, reviewing, and polishing up recent projects. How you carry yourself has been transforming in positive ways since October, and you’re in a position to further enhance your image. This is a good time for picking up or renewing a satisfying hobby.
Libra
You are naturally drawn to practical matters today, dear Libra, finding satisfaction in handling your daily affairs and responsibilities. It’s a good time for being framed particularly well – for others to notice you for the work you do, for example. A Jupiter-Pluto influence that first occurred in October peaks again today (it will perfect again in June), and benefits finances, family and home matters, strategy, improvement, and personal development. You are becoming very comfortable with yourself on the inside, which of course can lead to improvements across the board. There can be more support from family or for family and home affairs. You could also be feeling braver on an emotional level, finding it easier to face your feelings and your past, and this can be empowering. This can be a good time for physical renovations in addition to emotional ones, particularly around the home.
Scorpio
Today is good for feeling freer to express yourself without disclaimers, dear Scorpio. People are more cooperative and less inclined to judge or argue than they have been in recent days. You are seeing the bigger picture and you’re less inclined to narrow in on problem areas. A Jupiter-Pluto influence that first occurred in October perfects again today (it will reach exact again in June). It’s a strong transit for making connections, communicating, building ideas, bonding with others, and sharing. You are also developing a stronger belief in your future and what you have to offer others. You might happily take the lead or become the expert that others turn to. You could be building a following for your ideas or your work. New people coming into your life could inspire you to make important changes and improvements, and you may be inspiring others with your own words these days. For many of you, finances are improving.
Sagittarius
The Moon in your work and health sector all day turns your attention to managing your daily affairs, dear Sagittarius, and there is generally easy energy for getting your things in order. With your ruler, Jupiter, and Pluto coming together in a favorable trine today, you’re likely to be feeling stronger all around. This aspect first formed in October and will perfect for a final time in June. This is a time of increased ambition, whether it’s for the influence, prestige, or simply the satisfaction of a job well done. This is a strong period in your life for employing your natural talents and moving ahead as a result. You are coming across well and attracting respect. Some of you could be transforming and growing relationships with parents or bosses now. You can be making connections with people who are in the position to further your goals. This is generally a good period for money, as you are more resourceful.
Capricorn
Today brings warm, easy energy to your relationships and communications, dear Capricorn. It’s a good time to make a friendly gesture or to otherwise reach out to others. There have been some rather tense days recently for interactions, making today’s cooperative feel especially welcome. Pluto in your sign forms a harmonious aspect with expansive, lucky Jupiter today. This aspect first formed exactly in October, and will perfect for the final time in June, and serves to increase belief in yourself, your beliefs, and your future. This can be an especially optimistic and ambitious period for you. You can find more meaning in your life these days, and this gets you going and motivated. Pay close attention to the conversations you are having now, especially about the future. You may be reaching more people, building a following, teaching or guiding others, and sharing important ideas. Travel and educational opportunities may be part of the picture for some of you. A project may reach a turning point now. Keep in mind that moving outside of your normal bounds and routines improves your opportunities.
Aquarius
This can be a strong day for slowing down and observing what’s going on around you, dear Aquarius. You’re connecting a little more deeply and richly with your inner world now. Your connections with others, and quite possibly yourself, may be deepening and strengthening due to a Jupiter-Pluto connection that first formed in October and that is with you until June. It peaks today and can bring benefits to your emotional world. Ambition to get to the bottom of any emotional issues or problems in your life is strong now, and the results of your inner quest for answers can be very empowering. Becoming more comfortable with your desires and inner motivations can help you across the board. This can be a time for resolving long-standing problems and finding more courage to go after what you want and need. This is a good period for support and counseling, as well as for goal setting and career matters. Support from others tends to be more and more available to you, if you are seeking it.
Pisces
Today’s energies are far easier and natural for you than they have been, dear Pisces, and you’re sure to appreciate the flow. You can be in a playful, light, and creative frame of mind now. People are drawn to you but also seem to step out of your way and let you do your own thing. There is wonderful energy with you in recent months for connecting with friends, a partner, or a special someone, as well as for coming to a better understanding of others. This influence continues until June but is peaking today, so you may be getting a nice taste of its energy now. This is a strong period for promotion, publicity, and for confidence in the future. Relationships can prosper and grow, and mutually beneficial partnerships may be formed. Friendships transform, not always in straightforward, easy ways, but there is real growth and improvement seen.
It might seem as if we’re getting closer to the end of the rainbow, but finding the pot of gold requires focus. The emotional Cancer Moon harmonizes with beautiful Venus and illusory Neptune, blessing us with feelings of abundance. Meanwhile, a flowing trine between strident Jupiter and relentless Pluto amplifies our beliefs. It’s time to make our intentions known, but we must allow for differences of opinions while we work for the good of all.
It may feel as if you don’t have the time to do those things that could bring you the most spiritual and emotional growth. But your concern is based on a faulty illusion because progress originates from very practical places in your life today — like fulfilling your responsibilities at work. Don’t worry about what you might be missing; everything is where it’s supposed to be if you apply yourself to the mundane logistics. Thankfully, exploring the outer galaxies and the inner reaches of your imagination can be done in your sleep.
Your creativity is longing to run wild and free today. Thankfully, the roadblocks that were standing between you and your satisfaction are finally falling to the wayside. Ironically, circumstances are not shifting enough to give you a break from the dramas of ordinary life; it’s more likely that you’re cleverly surfing on a wave of cosmic power now. The world is your oyster; adventure is calling and it’s up to you to answer.
Your inner confidence is on the rise today, especially with your family and friends acting as a source of genuine encouragement. Channel the support you receive to boost your resolve even higher. Everyone goes through periods of doubt, but now it’s time to reclaim your inheritance and put your natural talents to good use. In the meantime, don’t let the opinions of others consume you when you’re following your dreams. Let your faith be bigger than your fear.
You’re certain your conclusions are correct and you’re all set to tell the world your viewpoint exactly as you see it. Although you’re willing to shout your message from the mountaintop today, you’re unsure if you are up for the climb. Something may still be holding you back from fulfilling your appointed destiny. There’s no need to fight the obvious resistance now since it will only feel like shadowboxing. Instead of trying to convince anyone else of your integrity, find a solution within. Wait to share your story until the time is right.
You can make a lot of progress now by taking stock of your resources and managing them to the best of your ability. The good news is you stand to gain both financially and emotionally if you don’t push too hard to be on top. However, you can easily fall victim to unrestrained optimism today, especially related to how you handle your money. Don’t get distracted by an immediate payoff or a shortcut to success. Plot a path for long-term security and things will fall into place piece by piece.
Your expectations are lofty, even if reality has been testing your resolve on every level lately. Don’t quit when things are finally starting to take a turn for the better; make the most of your positive attitude while your mind can transform hardship into great opportunity. This auspicious energy could be most apparent in your love life where relationship difficulties may finally begin to find resolution. Make your intentions as clear as possible and hope for the best.
Invisible helpers seem to be watching your back today. You may assume that it’s just good luck, but you could actually have spirit guides or guardian angels who are looking out for your best interests. Although your analytical mind won’t let you entertain the possibility of supernatural friends, your subconscious mind is now the source of guidance that will get you out of a difficult situation. No matter what you believe, trust your instincts and never apologize for honoring your intuition.
You can feel your idealism slowly making its return today. Even if you’ve been through a crisis of confidence, there is good reason to be more optimistic in your outlook now. However, do your best to avoid manipulating others, even if you think you’re being kind to someone else while also helping yourself. You might inadvertently create sticky webs when you are motivated by ulterior motives. Keep it clean and don’t attempt to control the actions of anyone else. Have faith in the universe and maintain your integrity at all costs.
This could be the time of your life if you were simply in it for the payoff. However, you know it’s not only about fame and fortune because your soul craves meaning and passion. Nevertheless, it is still prudent to reevaluate your current career path if you look at it from a lifetime perspective. Ask the important questions: Are you making the most of your skills and talents? Are you happy or is there something else you would rather be doing? Don’t postpone your soul’s journey; embrace the future and take a small step in your new direction.
You might not be out of the woods yet, but jolly old Jupiter is flying around you like a hummingbird returning to the feeder. Sure, there still may be some tricky situations to handle, but they need not define your life. The most crucial thing to understand is the effort you exert now will have lasting impact. Reflect over the past few months prior to projecting forward. Don’t sit and wait for something magical to happen; moving confidently toward your ideal future plays a large role in creating it.
It might seem as if something precious is being taken from you now, but believe it or not, things will still likely work out for the best. You are being offered an important opportunity, although what the gift is may not become apparent until you’ve made enough room in your life for it to manifest. Your hard work in the present moment can pay off in the future. Don’t waste energy worrying about what isn’t working today. Sometimes you must first let go in order for something better to come along. When one door closes, another opens.
It’s time to rush to the rescue where your friends are concerned. In addition, help is also on the way to you, even if you don’t think you need it. The good news is that you can actually do amazingly well if others appear with just what you need. However, you must first get past your initial resistance to outside interference. There is cosmic magic working on your behalf now. Don’t hold back; your current actions determine your future.
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Summary:
You’ll start the week with an “ouch” day for sure! But things will get better by week’s end…
Mercury square Saturn suggests blocks in all communication endeavors, while Venus square Mars brings the harsh message that you won’t be getting what you want in love either. Press on!
Things get slightly better on Tuesday, when Mercury is sextile Pluto but also opposite Jupiter. You’ll have the grit and determination to push forward in vital communications-related matters, but be careful not to talk so much that you forget to listen. Keep at least one idea under wraps.
On Wednesday, Jupiter and Pluto are in perfect trine, making this an empowering and potentially lucky day for all. Direct this cosmic powerhouse of a connection in a way that will ensure you have something to show for all of your efforts.
On Sunday, the Sun enters Aries and Venus is conjunct Neptune. Ambition rules the day, but you’ll certainly make time for romance!
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The Karmic Tools Weekly Forecast covers the current planetary transits which affect people in different ways and to various degrees of intensity. Take notice when it is a Personal planet (Sun / Moon / Mercury / Venus / Mars) interacting with a Social (Jupiter/Saturn) or Collective planet (Uranus / Neptune/Pluto). And pay extremely close attention when it is a Social planet interacting with a Collective planet because that means something *big* is brewing that will move large groups of people along their evolutionary paths. Tuning in to the energy and rhythm of the planets can serve as a useful *guide* as you move along your Individual Path. It also helps to understand your place within the context of the larger Social & Collective Story. Below, you will find out how these energies tend to manifest, as well as guidance and direction.
*NOTE* There are some days when there are NO CONTACTS (besides the Moon), please note that there are no missing entries, we just list the actual Activations of each week + the day they happen.
3/14 ~ Mercury (communication/expression) ~square~ Saturn (limits/reality):
This energy is good for deep thinking rather than negotiating with others as it is more of a solitary energy making communications with others a little harder than usual. You may feel like people don’t understand what you’re trying to convey or that you’re coming across more negative than positive. This is not a good energy for business negotiations unless every detail is very clear to all involved. This energy makes you most critical of your Self, but it could trickle over onto others as well. Beware of a tendency toward apathy, pessimism and/or depression, that’s Saturn & Mercury, which makes it more mental than literal. Try to stay focused on all the blessings that you do have and all that you have accomplished instead of what’s still on the list of things to do (in life). This energy is not intended to make you feel bad about all the things left yet to do, but encourage you to begin the necessary steps and be okay with small measures of progress for now. This energy just makes you focus on the practical side of manifesting. Clear the mental & emotional debris, and begin to lay a new, clean, solid foundation beneath your goals and strategize about the details of bringing it to fruition.
3/14 ~ Venus (values & priorities) ~square~ Mars (desire & passion):
This is our Inner Feminine & Masculine pushing out of comfort zone and into new territory. It’s time to recalibrate how you give & receive, as well as how you BE versus DO. It helps to know the Signs + Elements to consciously choose how to work with it. In this case (3.14.2016), Venus is in Pisces and Mars is in Sag, so we are mirroring the big boys on a personal level too! This is a gift! While Neptune/Chiron in Pisces square off with Saturn in Sag, we are all growing & going to experience completely new levels of healing & truth. That means we also have to get it together within ourselves and our relationships. Anytime Venus & Mars interact, the energy has to do with your relationships, both personal & professional, private & public. Squares create the necessary tension to catalyze action. As an individual, it is time to grow, change and integrate your own Venus (values & priorities) with your own Mars (desires & passion), however, on another level it activates sexual energy as that too is the energy of creation. Pisces & Sag is Water & Fire and again, we have the forces of creation, and all around our faith & imagination. What can you create with your own Imagination & Faith? How are you currently pregnant with possibilities?
3/15 ~ Mercury (communication) ~sextile~ Pluto (transformation):
This energy provokes the need to delve deeper into the ideas or information being presented at this time, whether personal or professional. You will want to dig deeper, ask the hard questions and gather insights that are deeper and more profound than usual. In your professional/public life, you may find yourself doing better due-diligence and in your personal/private life, you may find yourself digging a little deeper into your own mental patterns & personal history (that has led to ‘now’). As you make these connections and begin to grasp these new insights, they will gain traction and you will become more grounded in your own Truth. We all get excited about those kind of ah-ha moments, and you may find yourself wanting to share them with others who may or may not be ready to hear such deep Truths or have the conscious awareness to even process them, so use some discernment around who and when you share these new-found insights.
3/15 ~ Mercury (thinking) ~oppose~ Jupiter (learning):
Any opposition requires us to work with two distinct energies and get them to work together for the good of all involved. It is also a MidPoint which allows you that 180* view from the other side of your starting point (roughly 6-months ago). Mercury & Jupiter are working out the push-pull within you between your Mind & Consciousness, between your Thinking & Beliefs, between your Thoughts & Imagination, between the Tedious Details and the Grand Vision. Because of all this, it would be tremendously beneficial to play amongst a group of like-hearted souls with varying points of view, mavericks who following their intuition as well as humble healers who also buck status quo by following their intuitive knowing within, something we all have the capacity for. This is great for what I call *Jam Sessions*, when my colleagues & I get together to discuss our ideas & insights about our professional goals, something like that is a great use of this energy: plan, strategize, discuss with others, get input and feedback, bounce ideas around and be open and receptive to others’ points of view (they may think of something you didn’t). Make sure it is a Circle, where all opinions are valued even if not shared. This is a good one for learning something new and looking at things from another angle, completely.
3/16 ~ Jupiter (Truth/Story) ~trine~ Pluto (Transformation): (2 of 3: 3.16.2016 & 6.26.2016)
This is part of a potent 12-year *process* (Jupiter Cycle) as it relates to Pluto’s purifying and rebirthing abilities. This Activation can assist you with a lot of the *Energy* Work you’ve done over the last 3-4 years in terms of “clearing debris” and making *meaning* out of your experiences. This is a delicious opportunity to take your *Truth/Story* to the next level in a way that both expands your world, as well as those whose lives you touch along the way. It is primarily Social and Collective, but if you have the Signs involved activated in your own chart, that’s when it gets *Personal* and you can use the extra *JuJu* to transform your life. The primary caveat that comes with this is to deeply and honestly scrutinize your *Motivations* for wanting to improve/change your life. This is a time when you should be focused on that which serves you and benefits others, in clean, positive ways. If you are being manipulative, sneaky or underhanded in any of your doings, even if you profit immediately, you will eventually *pay* the cost on the back end. It’s time to think *Higher* and/or *Bigger*, not the time to be petty, small or narrow-minded. If you operate from a place of integrity, you can make leaps and bounds of progress in terms of expanding your world, personal Story and positive influence on life. This combo also greatly supports cleaning up past mistakes, advancing your career, increasing your resources and overall course-corrections can run rather smoothly (due to the Trine aspect) however, naturally, consciousness and genuine effort will also be required but the work is well worth the ultimate reward when these two *dance* in the ethers.
The Moon today is in a Waxing Gibbous phase. This phase is when the moon is more than 50% illuminated but not yet a Full Moon. The phase lasts round 7 days with the moon becoming more illuminated each day until the Full Moon. During a Waxing Gibbous the moon will rise in the east in mid-afternoon and will be high in the eastern sky at sunset. The moon is then visible though most of the night sky setting a few hour before sunrise. The word Gibbous first appeared in the 14th century and has it’s roots in the Latin word “gibbosus” meaning humpbacked.
To the Romans, this day was called Dies Mercurii, or “Mercury’s day” Mercury was a popular character in the Roman pantheon. A messenger of the gods, he presided over commerce, trade, and anything that required skill or dexterity. The Celts also worshiped Mercury and eventually equated him with the Norse god Odin (some spelling variations on this name include Wotan, Wodin, and Wodan). In Norse mythologies, Odin, like Mercury, is associated with poetry and music. Interestingly enough, both Odin and Mercury were regarded as psychopomps, or the leaders of souls, in their individual mythologies.
Odin, one of the main gods in Norse mythology, was constantly seeking wisdom. He traveled the world in disguise as a one-eyed man with a long gray beard, wearing an old, beat-up hat and carrying a staff or a spear (which brings to my mind images of Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings). In the Old English language, this day of Mercury evolved into Wodnes daeg, “Woden’s day,” or Wednesday.
Wednesday carries all of the planetary and magickal energies and associations of the witty and nimble god Mercury himself. Some of these mercurial traits included good communication skills, cleverness, intelligence, creativity, business sense, writing, artistic talent, trickiness, and thievery. And don’t forget all of those wise and enigmatic qualities associated with the Norse god Odin/Wodin, not to mention the goddess Athena’s contributions of music, the arts, handmade crafts, and writing. Wednesdays afford excellent opportunities for seeking wisdom, changing your circumstances, and improving your skills, be they in trade and commerce, music and art, or in communication and writing.
Book of Witchery: Spells, Charms & Correspondences for Every Day of the Week
Ellen Dugan
Witches Of The Craft® 
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