In which I vlog about the Sun / Venus transit which is taking place on June 5th / 6th 2012, and present a Graeco Egyptian Invocation of Aphrodite, which I previously featured on my website.

Golden Dawn – Robert Wang

Golden Dawn Deck – artwork by Robert Wang

The Golden Dawn was my entry into occultism generally, and consequently the Tarot as well. Hence Robert Wang’s Golden Dawn Tarot was the first deck I ever bought: it was the one on which I learnt. The trumps struck me as the most impressive, although I confess I thought the art-work was a bit ordinary. Nevertheless this is still my default deck today, the one which I most use for doing readings. I have to admit though that if I were buying a Golden Dawn deck for the first time today, I would probably get Tabatha Cicero’s versioninstead, mainly because the art-work is livelier.

Crowley-Thoth

Crowley-Thoth deck. Designed by Aleister Crowley, illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris.

Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot deck is one of a number of decks which I keep at home mainly for the sake of comparison. One has to remember that for 19 years from 1969 until 1988, this was the closest thing to a Golden Dawn type deck that was publicly available. In many ways this would be an ideal deck, due to its bold artwork courtesy of Lady Frieda Harris and its wealth of symbolism which is all authentic … from a Thelemic point of view. Essentially Crowley took the GD symbolism, right down to the particular colours appropriate to each card – and augmented it with ideas derived from his own visionary work, e.g The Book of the Law and The Vision and The Voice. Hence, whilst it is mostly GD-ish, and undoubtedly superb for actual Thelemites, a GD purist would need to be wary of this. (Incidentally, a good book to read about this deck is Lon Milo Duquette’s Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot).

Golden Dawn Enochian Skrying Tarot

Golden Dawn Enochian Skrying Tarot

This is not really a Tarot deck per se, more a Cartomancy deck. It is not based upon the traditional Tarot format at all: instead, each card represents a portion of the Enochian Watchtowers and the Tablet of Union. Meanwhile, the reverse of each card instead of having a uniform backing has elemental symbolism (corresponding to the Enochian associations on the obverse side) which can be used in skrying. The meanings of the individual cards take a bit of getting used to, although there is a logic to the general scheme which is based on GD teachings.

This has given me an idea – about how an Adept might incorporate this into ceremonial magick. When performing a divination with this deck, typically there will be one card which points to the solution of a given problem. Because each card represents a portion of the Enochian Watchtowers, the “solution-card” will therefore represent a particular Enochian angel – a being who can be evoked by constructing a magical ceremony with the appropriate symbolism.

Rider Waite

Rider Waite – designed by A E Waite, illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith

Given that the Rider Waite deck is the world’s most popular version, I suppose that I could hardly call myself a tarot connoisseur unless I actually had a copy. Undoubtedly Pamela Coleman-Smith’s artwork must be a big reason for its popularity – especially the fact that each of the Minor Arcana is individually illustrated.

The Mythic Tarot

The Mythic Tarot

I decided to get hold of this after seeing a fellow Tarot reader use this. What I find most appealing is that the creators of this deck have based the artwork on Greek mythology. Hence: the suit of Cups is the story of Cupid and Psyche; Wands is the story of Jason and the Argonauts; whilst the characters in the Major Arcana are identified as Greek gods and goddesses. This is a visually appealing deck because, like the Rider Waite one, all 78 cards are fully illustrated. Also it is refreshing to see a deck which goes with an original idea for a change which comes off successfully.

Builders of the Adytum

The BOTA deck.

Of all the Tarot decks which are available, the ones that particularly interest me are those created by Occultists – as opposed to the many which appear to be novelty decks, or created by people with only a superficial understanding of the subject. Hence my reason for being drawn to not only the Golden Dawn, but also the Crowley Thoth, Rider Waite, etc decks. I suppose it was thus inevitable that I would seek out the Builders of the Adytum, given that it was designed by not only an occultist but by an actual Tarot scholar, Paul Foster Case. The thing about the BOTA deck is that it comes uncoloured: the point being that as a student learns about the Tarot, they use their own knowledge of the esoteric associations of colour to colour it in themselves. Unfortunately I discovered that the BOTA deck is very hard to come by on Amazon – with one going for over £100.

So I cheated.

The unfortunate fact, I am ashamed to say, is that a full set of scans of the entire BOTA deck is available via bit-torrent and certain P2P clients. So whilst I have never purchased a BOTA deck, I am nevertheless using my Adobe Photoshop skills to illustrate it anyway.

The Black Tarot

The Black Tarot – illustrated by Luis Royo

This is something of a curiosity which came into my possession, and of which I have not made use since acquiring it. The trumps feature a lot of lurid artwork – dragons, monsters, scantily-clad buxom women, etc – which only vaguely references traditional tarot imagery. Meanwhile the accompanying booklet puts a Vama-marga Tantric spin on interpretation of the cards.

I first acquired this when a dear friend of mine was getting rid of her spare tarot decks, so I just happened to pick this up. Ironically, the same friend later received a present – another copy of the Black Tarot. Hmm seems to me this must be more than coincidence – perhaps the universe is trying to tell her something???

Line-drawing of a recently re-discovered Defixion or curse tablet.

A slow day on Planet Sumner today, which is why I was forced into reading the Daily Mail, where lo and behold, I uncover a story about an ancient “Defixion” or “curse tablet.” There have been defixiones before but this is particularly interesting because it was recently re-discovered after having been lost for a hundred years.

The Defixion in question seems to be a binding spell against an unfortunate chap called Psellus. Intriguingly, a feminine goddess appears to be invoked: the Italian scientist interviewed tentatively suggests that it might be Hecate.

Hecate

Now I can think of one good reason why it might not be so: the female figure depicted on the Defixion has none of the known traditional symbolism. However, the Fluffy-Bunny Brigade have taken to the comments section denying that it is Hecate, because they can’t believe that she would ever curse anybody.

Sigh. It doesn’t take five minutes to come up with the most sympathetic description of Hecate from ancient times, namely Hesiod’s Theogony:

Whom she will she greatly aids and advances: she sits by worshipful kings in judgement, and in the assembly whom she will is distinguished among the people. And when men arm themselves for the battle that destroys men, then the goddess is at hand to give victory and grant glory readily to whom she will.

It ought not to take a genius to realise that if Hecate is gracious enough to grant victory in “the battle that destroys men,” to her faithful followers, it is not beyond her scruples to see their enemies defeated, i.e. destroyed.

So, whether or not the female figure on the Defixion is question is Hecate, would she realistically have been willing to curse someone anyway? In the right circumstances yes she would – because two thousand years before the invention of fluffy-bunnyism and political correctness, that is how ancient people viewed the gods and goddesses.

A photo of this Sunday / Monday’s eclipse, originally taken by Nasa

Following on from my post about the eclipse that occurred late last night / early this morning, here is a photo of the event originally taken by NASA. Thanks to Keith for sending it.

If you want to be remembered for doing something good for the Golden Dawn community, that is.

A skeleton in the High Street – from “Glastonbury People”

News today that skeletons have been appearing on the streets of Glastonbury! I.e. in the form of graffiti. It is an utter mystery why they got there. Which is as much to say that I just had a quick squizz at Banksy’s website and he’s not admitting responsibility … yet.

Anywow, assuming that it is one of the denizens who either lives in or regularly visits Glastonbury, it occurs to me that there is a good chance that I am already “friends” on Facebook/Twitter/etc with the perpetrator! If so, feel free to drop me a private message fessing up.

Unfortunately Filipino is not among them, as I fancy my proof-reading skills in Asian languages even less than I do in European ones!

By my calculations they are (biggest potential market first):

“Wait!” I hallucinate that I hear you ask. “Germany above Canada? How can that be so?” Quite simple: there are more people in Germany who speak English as a second language than there are in Canada who speak it as either a first or second language. This indeed is the reason why non-anglophone countries make it onto the list at all.

Other factors used to determine ranking include % of people with Internet access and relative poverty / richness. India for example has 125,000,000 English speakers, but because over half the population live below the Poverty line (defined by the UN as earning less than $2 / day) and only 7.5% have access to the internet, the potential market for ebooks must logically be a mere fraction of this number.

Of the countries of the rest of the world, most of the member states of the European Union ranked highly. The highest ranked country in Asia was Turkey at number 14. The highest ranked country in Africa was Nigeria at number 22, whilst Brazil was the highest ranked country in South America at number 23.

Solar eclipse

A rare astronomic event is taking place on 20th May 2012, starting at 21:10 GMT and ending some four hours later the next morning: a full (annular) Solar Eclipse, visible from parts of South-East Asia and the United States. Astrologically speaking, this means that for this brief period, the Sun, Moon, and Lunar Node will all be in perfect conjunction.

This reminds me of a theory I heard that this is the real meaning of the Osiris – Set – Horus myth. Osiris (the Sun) is killed by Set (the Moon passing in front of it) who is in turn avenged by Horus (note how the Sun emerging from behind the Moon looks like a giant Solar Hawk – the “jewel” of the ring being the Hawk’s body, with its wings stretching out to either side). See the picture to the left.

That was the good news: the bad news comes from a conversation I was having recently with an astrologer friend of mine. He pointed out that the last time such an event occurred, the countries from which the full eclipse was visible all suffered chaos and disaster within a few years of it taking place! Referring to the one which occurred on 11th August 1999, he pointed out that the course of the eclipse crossed most of Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan, and what do you know, now we have the Eurozone crisis, the Afghan conflict and the second Gulf War.

To be quite frank, this reminds me of the story of the Buddha, who told the grieving widow: “I will raise your son from the dead if you bring me some Earth from a house where no-one has ever died.” However: let’s suspend our disbelief for a moment and look at what is occurring this May. The eclipse promises to start in China, go up via Japan (just missing South Korea), arc across the Pacific Ocean and hit the western seaboard of America, ending in Texas. Intriguingly, for the most part it will be following the course of the tectonic faultlines that circumscribe the Pacific.

Now, I’m not saying that China, Japan, and the United States are going to be destroyed in a conflagration of Earthquakes and tidal waves… BUT: the Egyptological myth quoted above may in fact point the way to how - magically speaking - these countries can escape or mitigate the Setian-destruction, i.e. to invoke Horus. Either that, or drop a reasonable contribution into the Alex Sumner Appreciation Fund and I can put you in touch with estate agents should you want to buy a holiday home in Europe.