The Key to understanding the Tarot is a formula which is a similar to Isis bringing together different parts of her husband Osiris and then magically forging them into one energy. Each card has to be seen as a combination of symbols, which are drawn together much like a mathematical formula. The key to a card can be written like this: Formula: Number + Hebrew Name + Colours + Astrological Associations + Archetypal Symbolism + Specific Symbolism = the Key. In a divination you have to add the context of the question to this formula. Once you have done that you have to allow all these things to speak to your unconscious mind. This is the nature of intuition. It is not based
Look on my works, ye mighty âŚ
âYet since the wise should know all that is to come, it is right that you should not be ignorant of something else. A time will come when it appears that the Egyptians have worshipped God with pure mind and sincere devotion in vain. All their holy worship will turn out to be without effect and will bear no fruit. For the gods will withdraw from earth to heaven and Egypt will be deserted. The land which used to be the seat of religion will be abandoned by the gods and become void of their presence. Asclepius It pisses me off having to defend the Golden Dawn/Order system given that I moved on from that and the Cabbalah thing a few years
Red moon â Rubeus as a lunar eclipse
The secret behind Rubeus might be that it is supposed to represent a full moon lunar eclipse and its redness comes from the moon's colour in its fully eclipsed state. Rubeus is a little problematic when it comes to meanings as it is considered completely bad while the astrological meaning of Mars in Gemini is comparatively benign. In addition, the mansions of the moon that Rubeus is attributed are the sixth and seventh. The sixth is about couples, love, and friendship but with a dark duality about destruction and revenge. The seventh is a mansion for wishes and particularly business success. It does have a Martian side and was believed to âmake things happen.â So with all this it is possible to
Mansions of the Moon and Geomancy meanings
Sam Block has written an interesting article about the roots of the Geomantic symbols being connected to the mansions of the moon and comes up with some compelling evidence. For those who do not know about the mansions of the moon, they are the journey that the moon takes through the zodiac. At various points the moonâs energy is influenced by the stars and reflected to the earth. If Sam is correct, and he seems to be, then those forces are expressed on earth as the geomantic symbols. Take Acquisitio which is attributed to Jupiter in Aries. It is connected to the mansion of the moon called Alnath (The Butting). Alnath was good for medicine, beginning a journey, purchasing livestock, creating discord and
Magical roadmaps
I write for IT magazines, and we talk a lot about roadmaps. These are the plans that companies have for their product launches. Most of the time they are good, but very often products drop off the roadmaps. Intel recently changed its legendary Tock-Tick road map because it had production difficulties. While these changes are a little embarrassing, not one cares that much. They move on with the next Roadmap. If you look at the many magical and religious systems out there, they have a lot of similarities to roadmaps; the only difference is that people get very precious about them. In my life, I have followed lots of different roadmaps. Some of them have been dead ends, and others had taken
More notes on Geomancy
Last night during a troubled sleep I realised that Geomancy was not mathematically binary in that a dot was not one and a line was not zero. This becomes important when looking at elemental theory applied to Geomancy. Modern Geomancers tend to see a dot as representing an elemental power switched on (One) while a line as an element switched on. However binary mathematics requires the use of zero as a decimal place holder. So one plus two would equal 10 while in geomancy it would have the same value a line (or two dots). Â Olcam would say that 1+2=3 (is an odd number and therefore 1) is a more logical way to create a geomancy reading. Christopher Cattan (Geomancy 1591)talks about
The Golden Dawnâs LVX formula
The LVX formula (or analysis of the Keyword) is a key part of the Golden Dawn system of magic. It âcalls down the lightâ into a working and animates thought-forms, symbols and geometric shapes. Â Over the years it has been proven to work, but there are some intellectual holes in the process which make somethings redundant and others clumsy or wrong. So letâs look at the formula (I am ignoring the signs and gestures shown left) because they are not relevant to my argument: INRI Yod, Nun, Resh, Yod The sign of Osiris Slain L â the Sign of Mourning Isis V â the sign of Typhon and Apophis X- the sign of Osiris risen L.V.X Lux, the light of the cross! Virgo, Isis, Mighty Mother Scorpio, Apophis Destroyer Sol
Astrology and geomantic figures Â
For the last few months, I have been having nagging doubts about the way I have been interpreting some geomancy symbols. It has been nice to use the traditional black and white methods with absolute meanings, but the issue was that some of my readings were subtly off. Some of this is due to the assessment of elemental action in each of the symbols. Populus has all its elemental attributions switched off so it is entirely passive and via has them all switched on and is so is entirely active.  What sparked off my train of thought was a chart which strongly perfected and had a comparatively positive court (which should have meant âyesâ) could only be read as ânoâ because
The Magic of tearing down statues
The recent attention to the pulling down of statues of those whose history has fallen short of modern expectations has a long magical tradition. In Ancient Times statues had a magical function. They were supposed to represent either Gods or Heroes looking down on society and protecting it. Sometimes they were used as a focal point for a god at a particular site. In other times a statue was erected to a dead human âheroâ to appease them. In Egypt, the Hermetica (and repeated by Iamblicus) statues were used by magicians to communicate directly with the dead or Gods. They were doorways between the worlds, and the statues could speak. But statues were often destroyed or buried because they were not doing their
Testing spirits
One of the central issues about contacting spirits, either ritually, channeling, scrying or through inner plane chats is a fear that they might be lying. Much time has been wasted by magicians listening to what they believe is their âcontactâ or âan angel,â getting duff information and acting on it. Iamblichus mentions spirits who seek to trick the magician into following them by pretending to be much more important than they are. Much of the problem is based on a lack of knowledge of how spirits work. The assumption often is that the gods and spirits are âlike mighty humansâ and approached in the same way. However, Gods and spirits are not humans -- they are spiritual forces which have a consciousness