I’m releasing this module as a free sample of the full lecture and practicum course,
“Tarot, Occultism, and Modern Witchcraft,” which is offered through the Tarot Readers
Academy.
Links to enroll in the course provided in the description box.
For context, you’ll see the full course syllabus on the screen.
Prior to this module, we will have already covered definitions and considerations for
exoteric psychology-based tarot approaches versus exoteric psychic- or occult-based tarot
approaches.
You would also have a tarot reading spread in-progress laid out in front of you, as we
make our way through Practicum #1.
We then take a hiatus from the practicum for this further discussion on mechanics.
When it comes to interpreting the tarot through an occult lens, applying esoteric knowledge
to the cards, there can be a chicken or the egg conundrum.
So for example, here you’ve got the card for Key 20: Judgement, in the Tarot de Marseille,
which pre-dates the Golden Dawn.
And then how The Golden Dawn interprets this card through its Qabalistic framework.
The angel in the card is Israfil, who in Islamic occult lore is known as The Burning One.
He is the angel who sounds the trumpet on Judgement Day, or the Day of Resurrection.
Israfil is significant in Qabalism as practiced by the Golden Dawn.
Take Aleister Crowley’s Liber Israfel sub figura LXIV, for instance.
Fun side note there, by the way, there are 64 hexagrams in the I Ching, which symbolizes
the aeon, or conceived powers emanating from a Supreme Being, the full functional operations
of the Universe.
Kind of reminds you of the name of Crowley’s card for Key 20?
Aeon?
The purpose of Crowley’s Liber Israfel is to invoke Tahuti, the Lord of Wisdom and Utterance,
Lord of the Gates of the Universe.
There is an association here made between the archangel Israfel, angel of Judgement,
and Tahuti, who is described as having an ibis head and skin of emerald, and nemmes–
that’s the Egyptian headdress, as the night sky blue.
Now check out the illustration for Key 20 in the Thoth Deck, The Aeon, which by the
way elementally, Crowley associates with Fire, as Israfel is the archangel known as The Burning
One.
So.
Circling back to the distinction between exoteric psychological readings of the cards and esoteric
psychic readings, when there is a presumption of worlds we cannot experience through our
five physical senses, such as interpreting the appearance of Key 20 in a tarot reading
as Archangel Israfel revealing himself before you to reveal a divine message, or using the
Keys of the Tarot in magical ritual, that, I would say, is departing far from the realm
of the exoteric and psychological.
Crowley’s Liber Israfel, for instance, is the script to a ceremonial magic ritual that
happens to be numbered and subdivided into parts 0 to 21, or 22 total keys.
With the lines prior to each number invoking an imagery of the Key number following it.
For instance, let’s take what’s on the screen.
The script preceding Line 17, or Line 16, could be construed as making reference to
The Star card.
“I make open the gate of Bliss.
I descend from the Palace of the Stars.
O children of the Earth…” and then that last portion of the line…” gather together
in the Hall of Darkness…”
ooh what does that sound like?
Maybe Key 18?
I’d also like to ask you to study The Moon card in the Thoth deck closer, while reading
through the lines of Liber Israfel, what he formally called Liber Anubis.
For those knowledgeable in Egyptian mythology, notice the pattern emerging in the imagery
on Key 18?
Then we examine the recitations preceding Line 19, Words against the Son of Night, Voice
of Tahuti in the Universe in the Presence of the Eternal.
Formulas of Knowledge.
Becoming Visible of Matter.
Breaking Forth the Light.
Manifesting Key 19: The Sun.
Now, I’m showing the cards from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck since that’s most likely the deck those
of you watching right now are going to be familiar with.
Of course, studying Liber Israfel through Crowley’s deck will reveal more cogently
what he’s trying to do here that I’m presenting to you as occult tarot.
“Speech in the Silence.
Words against the Son of Night.”
I see that in the invisible or transparent outlines of the twelve zodiac signs around
the periphery of the card.
The Voice of Tahuti in the Universe… if you recall Key 20: The Aeon.
Now let’s use some digital manipulation to superimpose the two cards.
Look at the screen and remember The Sun card.
The art style of the zodiac signs are the same as the center figure outline of Tahuti,
the Presence of the Eternal, the Wisdom of Breath, and we see emanating from the heart
the focal point of The Sun card.
Root of Vibration.
Shaking of the Invisible.
Rolling Asunder the Darkness from the previous card, The Moon, becoming Visible of Matter.
And so on and so on, breaking Forth of the Light.
So, if we are examining the surface of the tarot card, reading through a psychology-based
framework, let’s just revisit Key 20, a card classically associated with indicating
an epiphany, or rebirth, a reckoning.
It suggests an accounting for things received or done, a time of appraisal, about now having
to account for your actions.
You’d then apply that through an analytical process to connect these themes to a point
in your life path, and then self-examine the correlation.
If you read with reversals, perhaps Judgement reversed triggers thought down a path of considering
debts you still have left unpaid, obligations left unfulfilled, or past mistakes that are
now finally catching up to you.
An occult reading of Key 20 is about puncturing through the veil and entering unseen realms,
to see what is behind the physical manifestation.
In Key 20, everything we said earlier through a psychological framework is manifested behind
the veil as, perhaps, Tahuti, also known as the god Thoth.
Yeah.
We pronounce the god “tote” and yet Crowley’s tarot deck “thoth.”
Who knows.
Thoth is the Egyptian god of the moon, a lunar deity, god of wisdom and magic.
In Greek mythology, Thoth was identified with Hermes.
Hermes Trismegistus (meaning Hermes in Trinity form) symbolizes the syncretism of Hermes
and Thoth, and is a grounding emblem in Hermetic philosophy.
We’ll get more into occult tarot and Hermetic philosophy later in Module 3 when we talk
history, and then in Module 4 when we address Hermetic principles in the tarot head-on.
Back to interpreting Key 20 in a tarot reading through an esoteric lens.
Now, we’re going to get into the practical mechanics of psychic reaching beyond that
veil in a later module, but for now, start thinking about it this way.
You are reaching behind and beyond what you see on the card as if the card has layers,
and you need to access a hidden layer beneath what’s there.
That, I would say, describes occult methodologies of tarot, to a degree.
So when Judgment, Key 20 comes up, you’re going to ask yourself, what can you hear that’s
behind the silence?
If the illustration on the card of that angel is but a shell, what spirit, what entity has
come in and entered the card, embodying that shell?
Who now appears before you through the shell of that angel drawing?
By the way, occult tarot is not all intuition.
It’s analytical, too, yes, yes it is.
It hinges on the breadth, depth, and scope of your esoteric knowledge.
Connect many different schools of esoteric thought and draw correspondences.
Reach.
Reach beyond.
Then exercise creativity and ingenuity to trigger your psychic senses to reveal the
message beneath.
If you’re a novice or just need a bit of help, an 18-page packet of correspondences
is provided among your course materials.
Correspondences, albeit analytical and can feel quite mechanical, IS all about reaching
behind and beyond.
That’s how we’re defining esoteric tarot.
It’s feeling, sensing, intuiting Spirit.
It’s invoking or evoking Inanna through The Star.
A kitsune fox spirit in The Moon.
Or the deva Surya in The Sun.
A witch or shaman is someone who can reach behind, sense what is beyond the limitations
of our five physical senses and access the other side.
If you have no idea what I’m doing there on the screen, that’s the Chinese character
for witch or shaman.
Mastery over the exoteric applications of the tarot, well, that’s just studying the
cards from, maybe, I don’t know, if you so please, Holistic Tarot.
But if I have anything to say about it.
If you care to consider my opinion at all, then here’s what I say.
Without mastery over the exoteric, without dedicated effort at mechanical, analytical
study, you will never reach the depths of your own potential at psychic reading.
Analytical study of tarot is the technology, the equipment, the gear that you need to truly
deep dive down to the darkest depths of your own connection to the Aeon.
We’re now turning our attention back to the tarot spread you should still have laid
out in front of you, for Practicum 1.
Remember: There’s still that fourth card to tackle.
Now we’re going to walk through one method of using the tarot in modern witchcraft.