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Community Server Control PanelHappy Sowen-Samhain for those of you who don't speak Gaelic. I'm glad you made it!
This blog is about how to use Major Trumps, also known as the Major Arcana in Tarot readings.
A lot has been written about the Fool's Journey, which is really what the Major Trumps
are all about. But this blog is about their meanings in readings. As we write this,
we gaze upon the Lady Bridgit in all Her fullness, mystery, glory, and beauty. The Lady Bridgit
is my patroness, for nearly fifty of my 59 years. Tonight is October 31st, 2009
as we gaze upon Her in all Her fullness.

The Fool is the most powerful of the 22 Major Arcana. As Teiweth haas previously mentioned,
the rest of the 22 trumps represent his cosmic journey from relative influence to cosmic
awareness. The Fool, from a Pagan point of view can be seen as a wandering Druid, shaman
(please squeeze the shaman) or a wandering Bard. To illustrate the power of the Fool,
Teiweth asks us to consider that the Fool is the only Trump to make it into today's
deck of standard playing cards as the Joker. Teiweth knows this because before
she started reading Tarot nearly 40 years ago, she had trained herself to read
standard playing cards. The Fool is Path 11, which goes from Kether to
Chokhmah. Reading the Tarot was then just a hop, skip, and a jump
from that. The Fool has several attributes and correspondences. He represents
the Hebrew character Aleph which means "life's breath", the planet Uranus (watch out for
those Klingons!) and Air. The element of Air represents communications, networking,
travel and business, the machinations of the mind. It represents all things mental
in the most positive sense of the word. Mabon for the Celts as he is dreamed. For
the Norse Odin as a wanderer. For the Cthulhu mythos Alhazred the mad arab.
Myrrdin as the mad man of the forest. Tuan, because he witnesses the invasions.
Hercules because of his journeys.

Next we have the Magician, the first of the Trumps to have an actual number.
It is otherwise known as Le Jongleur, the Juggler. It is also known as the
Druid, Shaman, and the Changer. He occupies Path 12, from Kether to Binah.
The Magician is a transformer (no not the toys that change from cars to
robots and back again). The Magician is a conduit from what is above the
the heavens above and the earth below. He stands between these two worlds,
and illustrates the millennia-old axiom "as above, so below". Here are the
correspondences and attributes of the Magician: he represents the planet
Mercury, who rules many of the correspondences listed for the Fool, above.
Mercury rules two signs: Gemini and Virgo. One takes place just before
spring ends and summer begins, the other just as summer is ending,
and autumn begins.The Hebrew letter Beth is ruled by this card. Beth
means "house', so it's about getting your house in order. This is the 2nd
most powerful card in the Trumps, and when it comes up in a reading, it
means that the Querent is a person has control over all the elements of
a situation. It represents magickal power. It represents the conduit
between the two worlds. Going along with this concept, as the Shaman,
he stands between the two worlds. The Magus is often an androgenous figure.
In many tribes, the Shaman is a natural hermaphrodite. He's also the psychopomp.
As the juggler, he is often a master showman. The deities are; for the
Celts: Lugh the master craftsman, who is good at everything. Elderloch
Egyptian deity is Thoth or Tehuti. Thoth is his Greek name. Greek: Hermes
Trismegistis or Hermes the Thrice Great. Or just HermesFor the Romans Mercury (doh!)
For the Norse, the AllFather Odin, who is the god of shamanism, and magick.As
trickster, Loki and the Native American trickster extraordinaire Coyote.
Of course, one modern trickster deity is Murphy, as in Murphy's Law. Teiweth
likes to pair him with Eris as Her consort. Abramelin and Myrrdin.
The Magician as Alchemist. He has his work table and on this table he has the
four tools of his trade as alchemist: the staff or wand for fire, the blade for
air, the cup or chalice for water, and the pentacle, disk or coin for earth.
Carven into the side of the side of the work table, is a red eagle, the symbol of
Scorpio and Mars, one of Scorpio's rulers. The red eagle is also alchemical
code for the red powder, which is both the red powder which is used to turn base
metals into gold, and a 9th degree code word for menses. There is also
the white lion, which is not on the Magus' work table but it is the 9th degree
secret code word for semen. The red eagle is also two headed, which is also the
symbol of the FreeMasonic Scottish rite, which is one of the bodies that comes
after a man becomes a Master Mason. At least a man can be a Pagan in the
Scottish Rite, which he can't be in the York Rite, where he has to be a Christian.
Oddly enough, for a long time, Jews could join only the York Rite, which they rightly
saw as a conspiracy to forcibly convert them to Christianity. Happily, this is
no longer so. A Jewish Mason is now accepted into the Scottish Rite. I hope you
realize that this is by no means an exhaustive study of the Magus. One could write
an entire book just on the Magus alone. We're really just scratching the surface.
The power of the Magician is both infinite and eternal. It is infinite because
the card shows an infinity lemiscate above the Magus' head. Three dimensionally
it is a Mobius strip, which is one surface that goes on forever. The power is
shown to be eternal because of the ouroboros; the serpent biting its own tail
around his waist as a belt. The red in his rode is for passion, the white for
purity. He also has a headband, which marks the space between the worlds, as above
so below, the physical world and the metaphysical world. It seems as though
we are having repeat symbolism here. There is the classic image of as above
so below which means what is above equals what is below. Macrocosm equals
microcosm. There are also roses and lilies above, and roses and lilies below.
The Magician can also be called the Grand Communicator. Communication is one
of the hallmarks of the Magician's ruler Mercury or Hermes, to use his Greek name.
The lilies point to another of Mercury/Hermes' gigs, that of psychopomp from the
land of the living (the red roses) to the land of the dead (the white lilies).

The High Priestess is Gimel or camel in the Hebrew alphabet. She symbolizes
the Moon, secrets, the Greater mysteries, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
The title is the High Priestess, in other decks she can be called the Priestess,
the Cosmic Virgin, who can never be penetrated. She is the Keeper of Torah,
which is the ancient wisdom. The High Priestess' robe, blue, flows like a river
into the main river that flows into the next card, the Empress, which we will
discuss in the next installment of this series of blogs. This reminds Teiweth
of two classes of women, one in the ancient Minoan civilization going up into
the time of Pericles, of Athens and Sparta. The women of which I speak are
the Pythonesses or the Pythia, who pronounced the Oracle. There were various
places or omphalos, where volcanic gases seeped up from the earth's mantle,
and caused the Pythoness to be thrown into an ecstasy of intoxication, in
which she would utter strange sounds, a kind of glossolalia, if you will,
which would be interpreted into some kind of cogent form of oracle by the
priests, later of Apollo. Originally the oracle was interpreted by
priestesses of Gaea the earth Goddess, but the male God Apollo took
over these shrines. A similar effect could also be reached bt chewing
on bay laurel leaves. The Pythonesses had to be virgins for two reasons:
1. the gases or juices from the laurel leaves would be harmful to the feutus
if the Pythoness were pregnant, and 2. If she were making love with
someone, her concentration would be off, since she would be distracted
by thought of him instead of what she was supposed to be doing. This
presupposes that the Pythonesses were hetero. Nothing is said about
how she might be distracted if she were in love with another woman.
Teiweth has studied the Pythoness in depth because she believes that
one of her past lives was spent as a Pythoness, which ended with the
explosion and collapse into the sea of the island of Thera, which is
now Santorini. The second class of sacred virgin was the Vestal
Virgins of ancient Rome. Here their whole duty was to keep lit
the sacred flame of Vesta, from which all the hearth fires of
Rome were lit. They had to focus on that flame, never allowing
it to extinguish, for surely calamity would befall that great city,
should the flame ever go out. There are similarities with the keepers of
the sacred flame of Bridgit, my patroness. I am not certain whether the
keepers of Brigid's sacred flame had to be virgins and celibate or not.
Certainly when the nuns were keeping the flame of St. Brgid alive they
were celibate, and so impenetrable. When Teiweth's friend Barbara and
roommate were putting together the Witchaven Society, she called herself
the Pythoness. She expressed this by pronouncing oracles, in the
shape of Tarot readings. Later she would acquire a snake, a female
Columbian red-tailed boa, which, when it was small, she would wear in her
hair, and it would aid her in doing Tarot readings, and other mantic arts.
Mantic arts is another name for divination. Unfortunately, the snake
grew to be far larger than she could handle. Teiweth still wants to
acquire another snake, this time one that will stay small such as a
ball python, or a corn snake. Her 3rd ex-hubby says that the brain of the
snake, which is only the reptile stem, melds sympathetically with her
reptile stem, or medulla oblongata, the seat of ritual behavior, of which
divination is one example, and this pulls more lore out of her subconscious
thus helping her to do a better reading. Gimel, the camel ship of the desert,
conserves its life giving waters. As gimel the high priestess reserves her
life giving waters within her hump. As the Moon, she only rules 1 sign,
Cancer, ironically enough my sign. The early Trumps are much more
powerful than the later ones. 0-10 are primary, 11-21 are secondary.
Basically the High Priestess embraces the power of the Moon, and
becomes one with it. The High Priestess doesn't become nonvirginal until
she becomes the Emress, at which point she is the Mother. Diana was considered
to be a virginal huntress. Brigit is considered not just as the Sun goddess, but also
the Monn Goddess. She is considered to be virginal until She is full, at which point she is
pregnant, the virginal goddess strong in herself, giving birth to herself.
The previous sentence was not created by me. Teiweth got it from somewhere,
and would really love to give that author credit, but she doesnded the library worker't remember where
she got it. If it sounds familiar to any of you, and you know where it comes from,
please email either Teiweth or me. She will give you five free minutes.

This ends our informational section, the first in a series of blogs on the Trumps
or Major Arcana, and how they are used in a reading. The preceeding will also be used
in my forthcoming book: Tarot for Pagans. This is called writing a book by committee.
and now for something completely different, more news than is fit to print.
Well, it's official: Isaac Bonewits has cancer. It's squamous carcinoma lesions
on the surface of the colon. So if you are visualizing a healing for him,
that's what to visualize. Teiweth is writing this, I'm dictating it. A strange thing
happened to Stephen while we were at the Colonial Heights Library at Stockton and 21st.
I had ordered a book; research for my book. Stephen had just handed the library
worker his card. He was about to give her 30 cents for his outstanding fines, when he noticed
that his wallet was gone. Someone had walked off with it while the library clerk was standing
right there, the security guard was just 2 steps away, and it had been right at his right elbow.
No one saw or heard anything. Nor was there anything in the trash cans. There is nothing
in that billfold of any value to anyone but him. His identity is not worth stealing.
As for his Medi-Cal card, he isn't on anything that would get anyone high. You'd have to be
pretty low to steal his Medi-Cal card. If you want a clairvoyant call Astro-Wing. Her number is
3323. Teiweth is a pseudo-clairvoyant. This means that she can get scenes, and faces, but no specific
names either of faces or places. Astro Wing is a true clairvoyant.
She can get those names and dates for you.


We are all saddened by the passing of Ted Andrews over into the Otherworld the Saturday belore last.
May he find peace and fulfillment in the arms of the Earth Mother, or whichever deities
he may have revered. Soupy Sales also passed on, recently. He was a very special part
of the TV lives of those of us born before 1965. I remember his face being caressed by the
"paws" of his two huge "dogs", one of whom was named either Fang or White Fang. Maybe
some of you who are old farts or geezers can remember his dogs' names. Maybe they're in the
Wikipedia. All I know is, I remember them from my warped childhood. Teiweth and I
want to meet more Pagans on Keen. Please comment on our blogs, and let us know who
and where you are.

In the next blog next week, we will be discussing the Empress, the Emperor, and the
Hierophant. Stay cool, and stay in school. You do realize that the earth plane is
an advanced finishing school for souls. This is according to our friend Richard ("Rufus")
Cathcart. You'll be hearing more about him in future blogs.
Peace! Peace! Peace! Stephen 6580 AD (Archdruid)