Saturn, ruler of Capricorn and the 10th house, symbolizes goals, responsibilities, and limits, so now is the time to reflect on any sources of frustration in your life caused by these things (or a lack of). Now is not the time to start new projects but rather to finish up any Saturn-related business left unattended. Saturn in Libra provides us a time to realize goals by working with others, and perhaps this is what needs to be re-evaluated (again with the “re”).

Pay attention to what house in your chart Saturn stations retrograde in, as that is where you will be most impacted (depending on the house, the focus of your re-assessments could be money, relationships, career, etc.). Use this time to gain insight and grow, making plans for the changes you will make when Saturn goes direct on June 25.

The Leo Full Moon opposes the Sun in Aquarius; we are reminded to check ourselves in the progress we made towards our goals set during the Aquarius New Moon. Have we been doing things to benefit others? Have we infused a little extra light and love into our relationships? Watch out, however, as that fiery Leo energy may have us wanting a pat on the back for our efforts.

They put out a wonderfully strange and complete catalog, in tabloid format, offering everything from the strangest herbs to “Aleister Crowley’s altar” (well, I think it was a night table from the last place he lived and that might have served as an altar). The owners eventually went in separate ways, and Slater kept the store.

It was many years later that I finally met “Horrible Herman,” and I always found him an open and generous gentleman. He actually gave me a copy of the hardbound version of the Simon Necronomicon.

And that was one of the things that Slater and the Magickal Childe were also doing, publishing catalogs, books, and a magazine.

The magazine was named Earth Religion News. It was originally published in the mid-1970s. I don’t know how many issues were published. I have two copies, one a combination of two issues.

I’m only showing the cover of one issue because the other issue has a photo with nude women (gasp!) and I wouldn’t want anyone to get in trouble if they view my blog at work.

The reason I’m taking this walk down memory lane is that Earth Religion News had a motto:

Guard the Mysteries. Reveal them Constantly.

As a young neo-occultist, this motto didn’t make sense to me. The mysteries of Wicca and Witchcraft, and of various magickal orders, were secrets. I understood the first part of the motto. It meant to keep the inner teachings—”The Mysteries”—a secret except to those who were initiated into the group and granted entry into the Mysteries. But it was the second part that was confusing. If you were guarding the Mysteries by keeping them a secret, how could you “reveal them constantly?”

Walk Your Talk

In discussions with friends, I came to the belief that the meaning was that Pagan and ceremonial magick groups had their own sets of ethics that were a reflection of the group’s set of Mysteries. You could reveal the Mysteries constantly by living your beliefs, by doing what people refer to as “walking your talk.” How could outsiders take us seriously if we did not practice our beliefs? Why would the gods and spirits respond to our requests if our actions showed that we did not mean what we said?

As a relatively new entrant to the occult world this made sense. But as I reached out to work with more and more people I discovered that, as with other beliefs and faiths, followers will say one thing but do something different. “Perfect love and perfect trust” often weren’t as perfect—not even close!—as I would have liked.

I know that many people want to work by themselves for just this reason. I know what that’s like. When I was younger I went through a period with an approach to life like this in my personal life. It’s easy to avoid being hurt by not allowing anyone into a position where they can hurt you. My personal motto from that time was taken from a song by Simon and Garfunkle:

I am a rock,
I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

It’s mentally and emotionally very safe. It’s also very lonely.

Many people today get around the loneliness of isolation by communicating with lots of people over the internet. While this has some positive value, it’s not as great as you might think. I discuss the value of meeting with people in person in a previous blog post.

Since the time I’m talking about was B.I. (Before Internet), I didn’t have the same sorts of social media available today. Instead, I had to climb out of isolation by realizing that people are people and they will behave as they will. Instead of making assumptions as to how people will behave and becoming disappointed when people don’t behave that way, I came to accept people as they are and appreciate the time we have together. That is, instead of emotionally depending upon the way I want things to be, I focus on the way things actually are. As one of my teachers used to say:

Learn from the past.
Live in the present.
Create your future.

So I came to a realization that since people are people and don’t necessarily walk their talk, my interpretation of the motto of Earth Religion News was either inaccurate, overly simplistic, or meant something else.

Another Meaning?

There was something about that motto that fascinated me. I looked for other possible meanings and eventually found it…in the movies.

Since the earliest days of movies, filmmakers have been fascinated with the occult. One of the earliest filmmakers, Georges Méliès (see his somewhat fictionalized story in the recent film, Hugo), made films with devils and angels and dragons and other occult or mythical figures. The films all had one thing in common: although they used the trappings of real occultism, they presented a false view of the occult. Badly mumbled evocations and meaningless wand waving don’t do anything…except in the movies.

[The same is true in most novels that involve occultism. One of the reasons I wrote my novel, The Resurrection Murders, was to present a more realistic view of magick and the occult within an exciting story.]

One of the things I’ve taken to saying is that if the occult grimoires worked like they show in the movies, they’d all be impounded and locked up under the Patriot Act!

The words are there, but if they’re not understood, they’ll be useless to the people trying to work with them.

Aha!

That was the “aha!” moment for me. There’s a myth that mystical concepts were saved by putting them into an artistic form used for gambling, The Tarot, so that even if the inner meanings were lost on most people, those who were “in the know” would get the secret. In this way you could constantly reveal the secrets of the occult while guarding their continued existence. Share them with everyone…only the initiated would understand.

This makes great sense to me. Is there any evidence to support this concept? I think so. Aleister Crowley complained that when he was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn he took extreme vows, acknowledging terrible things would happen to him if he ever revealed their secrets. However, the secrets turned out to be astrological symbols and the Hebrew alphabet.

Superficially, I have to agree with Crowley. Hebrew and the astrological symbols, along with elementary Kabalah, simple meditation techniques, etc., were well known at the time. But what I think he missed was the real secret: that these things were used for magick. You needed the initiated interpretation of those things to understand them (an interpretation Crowley came to understand).

Yes, You Can Teach

With the understanding that not only can the Mysteries be revealed, but that we absolutely should reveal them (I take “reveal them constantly” to be an instruction, not an observation), I find teaching and writing on occult topics should be encouraged. The Mysteries should be revealed. The time for secrets is past. Leaders who say they have secrets they’ll only give to people whom they approve of are not real teachers. They are following the age-old tradition of the power-hungry seeking to be or become the heads of cults. Reveal the Mysteries constantly. Keep the inner meanings of the Mysteries for the initiates.

Years ago, Scott Cunningham taught a particular tradition of Wicca called “American Traditionalist.” He publicly taught everything in that system except for one thing: the name of the Deity worshipped in that system. When he initiated me I vowed not to reveal that name, and I take my vows seriously so I won’t reveal it here. I did a web search on the name, however, and discovered that it’s the name of a RPG (role-playing game), a DJ’s remix of songs, and more. Does that honor the Deity? I don’t think so. Can someone work with the Deity, stealing thunder from the tradition? Again, I don’t think so; not unless they follow the teachings and beliefs of the tradition, making them a de facto member of the group (although not an initiated one). If they don’t follow the practices and beliefs, why would the Deity bother to listen?

There are two exceptions I make to this concept of revealing the Mysteries and, by extension, revealing occult secrets. I’ve been “out” of the occult closet for so long that disguising it is meaningless. I’m fortunate that I can afford to be so open. Others have jobs and relationships that might suffer as a result. Therefore, I strongly support the idea that where a group has private meetings they should be kept secret. In conjunction with that, those who choose not to be identified as a member of an occult group should have that choice respected.

We should guard the Mysteries and reveal them constantly. It is, perhaps, the only way to assure their continued existence. This corresponds to what Carl Llewellyn Weschcke once referred to as the “Democratization of Magick.” He has worked to accomplish this on a large scale as the head of Llewellyn Worldwide. I’ve tried to do this on a small scale with my books and various workshops. And although all people may not be able to walk their talk—indeed, we may not be able to do it all the time—we should also reveal the Mysteries by living our lives in accordance with those beliefs.

For example, the 2 of Cups and the 10 of Cups (pictured below, from the Llewellyn Tarot by Anna-Marie Ferguson) both focus on love between two people. In these images, both the couples are embracing. Both have that wonderful “and they lived happily ever after” feeling to them. But they are also different in that one is the beginning of a love relationship and the other is a love that is still fresh but has the quality of longevity.

First, let’s consider the numbering. The 2 indicates a love at the beginning of its cycle. The 10, of course, suggests a culmination.

The focus in the composition also underlines this. In the 2, the couple are the center of attention. The energy (indicated by the winged lion and caduceus) is flowing from above directly to them. In the 10, the couple is off to the side, still prominent, but the energy of their love (nicely represented here by the rainbow) flows from them into the world. The result of the energy flow in the 2 is a blessing and blossoming of the union, shown here by flowers. The result in the 10 is a flowing outward and growth, as shown by the home, children, and river. Their love has expanded and its gift is no longer benefiting them alone, but the outside world as well.

My family experienced a lot of doppelgänger activity when we first moved into the Allen House four years ago. It wasn’t exclusive to our youngest son, who was then five, but it involved him more than other family members. We’d see Jacob go into a bathroom and never come out. We’d see him standing in the upstairs hallway on our way down the stairs, and when we got downstairs seconds later, he would be in the kitchen, eating cereal and watching Sponge Bob Square Pants—oblivious to the fact that a spirit was using his energy to manifest itself and taking on his appearance. A friend of our older son Joshua freaked out one morning because he saw Jacob in the upstairs hallway and in the very same moment he saw another Jacob at the foot of the staircase on the first floor.

I don’t believe any harm has ever come to Jacob as a result of a spirit’s connection to him or use of his energy and physical form, but I have long wondered whether a particular ghost in our house is influencing his sense of humor. Allen Bonner has, for well over half a century, been reputed to haunt my house along with his mother. Allen’s school papers and toys still clutter parts of the attic, his special play area. On a homemade desk he wrote his and the names of two friends, labeling their group “Ye Olde Village Half Wits;” the description is indicative of Allen Bonner’s interest in and inclination toward comedy. In college he wrote a humorous column for the school paper. He loved corny puns and corny jokes: “Somebody said it was raining cats and dogs outside, and sure enough I went out and stepped right in a poodle.” At Baylor University he joined The Nose Brotherhood, an organization that was dedicated to comedy and pranks and that held annual events such as “The State of the Onion Address.”

My wife and I have noticed Jacob’s growing inclination to blurt out in random moments the most random, weird—and corny—jokes. Often, oddly old-fashioned jokes: “Why does a chicken cross the road?” He’ll don a fur cap with shorts, rubber boots, and no shirt. He’ll suddenly launch into impersonations of high-pitched women or obsessively feign a British accent for days at a time. He can be amusing. He can be annoying. The only time it got creepy was when I said, “Jacob, why are you saying these things?” And he responded in a soft voice, “I’m not Jacob.”

Maybe he’ll grow out of his obsession with corny comedy, but until he does, I’m going to keep wondering.

Our thanks to Mark for his guest post! For more from Mark Spencer, read his article “A Growing, Ghostly Intimacy.”

Each one links to the one before and after it, so you can eventually make your way through all 33.

You can start anywhere, so why don’t you start with mine: http://practicaltarotreadings.com/blog

If you run across a broken link, you can go here to find the next link: CLICK

Here are a few of mine:

A Question About Questions

Notes to Yourself

Reversals

What are some of your favorite tarot blog posts (mine, yours, anyones…)?

There was a long line of people waiting to see a movie that was actually named The Wicker Man. Most of the people were dressed in black and wearing silver jewelry.

For me, the movie was spellbinding. It actually had two plots. The superficial plot was of a deeply religious (Christian) British police officer who learned of a missing young girl on a remote island off of Scotland. He goes there to investigate and is confronted with a deeper mystery. People don’t give him sensible answers to his questions. Plus, the local customs are entirely Pagan in nature, and he is so unacquainted with any Pagan thought that he is flummoxed at every turn.

The second plot is that the island, which is famed for its apples (which shouldn’t be able to be grown there), has had an unsuccessful series of harvests, leading the people to need to make the ultimate sacrifice to their Deities in order for the apple crop to become abundant once again.

Poster used to advertise British release of the film in 1973

They do everything possible to get Sgt. Howie to leave. They tell him to go. They offend him with their Paganism. They try to have one of their very open young women seduce him. But he is driven to find the missing girl.

And that is what makes Sgt. Howie, played by Edward Woodward, so darn likable. He’s trying to find a young girl in mortal danger and save her life. It makes people unhappy at his eventual fate and forget his unrelenting Christian evangelical dogmatism.

Over the years since I originally saw the film, The Wicker Man has become a cult favorite. Cinemafantastique magazine called it the “Citizen Kane of horror films.” Pagans all over the world discuss it and argue over its ethics. It was so popular that it earned a remake. That remake was released in 2006 and starred Nicolas Cage. It has become a cult favorite, too, as one of the worst and most unintentionally funny films ever made.

In actuality, I didn’t see the director’s original film. Instead, I saw the “American version.” I now own, thanks to videotape and DVDs, several versions of the film. One of the big losses that most people don’t see is the backstory of Sgt. Howie and how he is so devoutly Christian that he loses his fiancé and has co-workers make fun of him.

Not a Remake

Many of the people involved with the original wanted to do a new version of it, too. And finally, that film (as of this writing) has now received a limited release. Living in a major city, Los Angeles, I was able to take the subway about 20 miles to see the movie last Saturday, the day after its official opening, at the famous, hands-in-cement theater, Graumann’s Chinese. Well, actually it was at the annex next to the main, large, Chinese-styled cinema, but you get the idea. Big theater. It was there I saw The Wicker Tree.

When the movie started, there were only two of us in the theater. After the film started about six more people slipped in. I believe they were associated with the production of the movie and may have included one of the stars. This was a far cry from my experience of the original.

This movie was based on the director’s 2006 novel, Cowboys for Christ. This is said not to be a sequel or remake. Rather it is spiritual companion piece dealing with the same sort of issues. In the movie, a sexy country singer who has become a demure, born-again evangelist (who hates her past—a theme that could have been explored but wasn’t) goes with her fiancé (they have promised to remain virgins until they marry) to a small Scottish town. Their goal, as part of a group called the Cowboys for Christ, is to convert people to, or “remind” people about Jesus.

Like the earlier film, there is a secondary plot unknown to the singer and her fiancé. Here, the leader of the town is also the owner of a nuclear power plant (the company he owns shares the name of a deity invented for the earlier film) and now, after an accident, the people are sterile. There are no children around. (Well, there’s one, but how he got there is unclear.) They hope that their sacrifice will lead to increased fertility.

The director uses techniques he used in the original film. Quick shots of local people. Their somewhat over-the-top enjoyment of both their own Paganism and the evangelization by their visitors. The plot has numerous similarities with the earlier film, and there is even a cameo by Christopher Lee, one of the stars of the first film.

A Hit or a Miss?

Unfortunately, this new film fails to capture the magic of its earlier cousin. There are several major problems with it. In Man, Sgt. Howie was bright, intelligent, dedicated, and trying to save a young girl’s life. In Tree, the two leads are insipidly moronic. The female lead, played by Brittania Nicol, could have been played by Anna Farris, who has made a living out of playing naive and stupid blondes, the archetype presented here. The male lead, played by Henry Garrett, reminds me of the innately stupid but at times clever Jason Stackhouse character, played by Ryan Kwanten, on HBO’s “True Blood” series. They did a take-off (without realizing it—they’re too dumb) from the famed musical, Annie Get Your Gun, repeating lines from Irving Berlin’s “Anything You Can Do” ending with, “Yes you can. Yes you can. Yes you can!” Not only are the characters stupid, they’re trying to say they’re superior due to their religious beliefs. This pomposity makes them extremely unlikeable and expendable, and I found myself anxiously awaiting their demise.

When it comes to the Pagans of the town, there is far less presented here than in Man. Further, in the earlier film, there is no doubt that the leader of the Pagans, Lord Summerisle (played by Lee), was a firm believer in the Pagan traditions. In Tree, the leader of the town, Sir Lachlan Morrison (played by Graham McTavish), doesn’t seem to have any beliefs, saying that the Pagan religion is simply what the people need now. Like Lee in the original, McTavish is handsome and dapper. Unlike Lord Summerisle, his focus is not on his people and their crops, it is about overcoming the local disaster caused by his nuclear power plant. Ultimately, he is also unlikeable.

In the original, I liked everyone, even the pompous Sgt. Howie. In The Wicker Tree the characters are driven not by their religions, but by their own, petty desires. The overblown evangelicals are so much like the ever-present and ubiquitous televangelists that I was quickly tired of them and didn’t care about them. The concepts that enlivened the earlier film were lost, here. The Pagans appeared to be more like the kids of the Children of the Corn movies and I found myself waiting to see what horrible ends awaited the evangelicals, much as some people look forward to new and more outrageous tortures and killings in various slasher and killer cult ultraviolent films.

In Closing

The Wicker Tree is an odd film. It was highly anticipated. It wasn’t a remake or a sequel but it was related to the respected and honored The Wicker Man. Even the titles are similar. How could any film live up to that build-up?

This one doesn’t. Regrettably, it’s not even in the same class. The lack of admirable characters, of selflessness, of inner devotion to faith, make this film feel false, almost like watching Citizen Kane being done on “Robot Chicken.” Instead of a meaty dish we get children of the corniness. It’s not as awful as Nick Cage’s remake of the original. It suffers a worse fate: it’s mediocre at best, boring at worst.

My suggestion: find as complete a version of the original The Wicker Man (The original director’s cut is about 112 minutes long. The American release was 88 minutes long.) and watch it with some friends on a large screen TV. Wait to see The Wicker Tree until it comes out on a TV broadcast and watch it if you’ve nothing better to do.

You Can Read Palms by Richard Webster
Instant Palm Reader by Linda Domin
Palmistry Quick & Easy by Peter Hazel
Palm Reading for Beginners by Richard Webster
and
The Hand from A to Z by Judith Hipskind

There is a good reason for palmistry’s popularity: you don’t need any props. You don’t need cards or runes, tea leaves or crystal balls. All you need is your hands.

But it’s not the Tarot.

For magicians, the Tarot has far more uses than divination. The great occultist, Eliphas Levi, wrote,

So even if you decide never to give a Tarot reading, learning to work with the Tarot is of inestimable value. That’s one of the reasons I include information and techniques for people to begin work with the Tarot early in my book, Modern Magick.

The images on the Tarot cards, especially the Major Arcana, aren’t selected at random. Over hundreds of years they’ve evolved to become archetypal and a part of our psyches. We are each unique people, and different artistic approaches and styles may or may not appeal to our deep minds. So there are many decks available. When choosing a deck, look at pictures of the cards. See which ones appeal to you the most, then go with that deck.

So why Tarot?

Tarot and the Kabalah

There are several approaches that link the Tarot to the Kabalistic Tree of Life. Since most forms of Western magick are directly or indirectly linked to the Kabalah, it is an obvious connection to use the Tarot.

Unfortunately, reality must step in. The Kabalah is thousands of years old while the Tarot is but several hundred years old. Merely because there is a similarity between two things (the number of paths on the Tree of Life and the number of Major Arcana cards, for example) does not mean that they were originally linked. There is no evidence that they started together in ancient Egypt or anywhere else.

But even if two things aren’t directly linked, they can still be used to illustrate principles and increase understanding. The Tarot Major Arcana fits beautifully on the paths of the Tree of Life and, thanks to a lovely coincidence, can be used to help explain the meanings and actions on the Tree. The Tarot may not have begun as a Kabalistic tool, but it has evolved into one. Therefore, the Tarot is good to use in magickal practice.

Image by Morgan Leigh

Tarot and Astral Projection

The kabalah did not appear fully born like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Although some “experts” will deny it, the Kabalah evolved over centuries. Thankfully, in my opinion, it continues to evolve. Things that stagnate tend to die out, and I am glad to say that the Kabalah remains alive, vibrant, and useful to philosophers, theologians, magicians and others.

One of the sources from which the Kabalah evolved was Middle-Eastern shamanism. A technique of shamanism that seems to have developed around the world consists of:

• Altering the consciousness
• Following a path through a cave, hole, door, etc., into another plane or world
• Communicating with entities in that world who provide information, support, power, etc.
• Returning to the physical world
• Return to everyday consciousness

These techniques are hinted at in the Jewish Bible and explained more thoroughly by the late Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in his Meditation and the Bible and Meditation and Kabalah. The ancient version of this technique involved such things as fasting and sitting in positions that changed the blood flow to the head, then going on a “journey.” The modern version, for magicians, involves the Tarot.

The Major Arcana cards are seen as pathways to other worlds. Some Kabalists believe the other worlds are on a very real astral plane while other believe they are parts of our unconscious. But the bottom line is that you can alter your consciousness through ritual or other means, stare at the Tarot, and use a card as a doorway into another realm. This is one of the bases of modern Kabalistic Pathworking.

Doing such work also enhances visualization skills that are so important in magick.

Tarot and Meditation

Of course, Rabbi Kaplan’s books aren’t about the Tarot, they’re about meditation. The ancient Jewish and pre-Jewish mystics didn’t just take mystical journeys, they also meditated. The techniques used are similar to ones used today. Anciently, they may have focused on a Hebrew letter. In today’s worlds with far more colors and imagery reaching us daily, I contend we need more complex images as a point of focus in this form of meditation. The Tarot is perfect for this purpose, and I describe the technique in Modern Magick.

Balance

Israel Regardie has been quoted as saying that before starting a study of magick, or at least early on in the study of magick, a practitioner (or potential practitioner) should go through psychoanalysis. Well, he was a Reichian therapist, so that might be expected! However, in conversations I had with him he told me that his main purpose in stating this was to help people accept the idea that we had both a conscious and an unconscious mind, something that was not always accepted during his earlier days. Later, he continued stressing the value of analysis so that people would not develop an inflated ego as a result of their magickal work.

Today, most people accept that we have both unconscious and conscious minds, although concepts about them may differ. Getting into therapy so we don’t become ego inflated is also a valuable idea, although perhaps a good kick in the pants from a friend could be just as valuable. Besides, traditional Freudian psychoanalysis has lost popularity and most modern psychiatrists are focused on issuing drugs while most modern psychologists are focused on obtaining behavioral change using some form of “cognitive-behavioral therapy.” For these purposes many of these professionals do great work.

But just finding balance in one’s life can be another thing entirely. Developing an understanding of how the universe works and your place in it is a valuable part of spiritual growth, one that most psychiatrists and psychologists avoid.

One solution may be the Tarot.

The archetypal images of the Tarot can literally send messages of balance, peace, and understanding to our unconscious minds. This will eventually “trickle up” into our conscious minds, resulting in feelings of balance and being at peace with the universe. In Modern Magick I describe a technique that simply involves looking at one Major Arcana card of the Tarot for a few minutes each day. It’s not meditation, it’s just looking. The purpose is quite literally to send the Tarot’s imagery to the unconscious and bring you balance and understanding of the nature of the universe. These instructions occur early in the lessons so that, as you progress with the study and practice of magick, you’ll be better mentally equipped to deal with the challenges and benefits of being a magician.

Summation

So the Tarot is good for understanding the Tree of Life, for developing intuition and visualization, for meditation, for shamanic journeying, for balance, and for many more things associated with the study of magick. This makes the Tarot one of the great modern tools of the magician. If you haven’t explored the Tarot in the past, I highly recommend you consider doing so in the future.

That’s why Tarot.

The Fey Tarot

Tarot of the Sweet Twilight

Wheel of the Year Tarot

Dark Angels Tarot