© Alex Sumner 2013
This post has come about due to a Facebook conversation about what Divination I tend to do before Magick. Actually I found this so inspiring that instead of just another FB reply I thought i would devote a whole blog post to the subject.
My favourite method remains the one I outlined in the blog-post How to Use Horary Astrology With Tarot, i.e. cast a Horary figure for the question and to use that to cross-check a Tarot divination for the same question. My Tarot spread of preference is a 15 card spread which I believe was created by Robert Wang in connection with the Golden Dawn Tarot
Recently, however, I have been trying to get to grips with infamous Opening of the Key method, as outlined in the original Golden Dawn papers. I say infamous because it appears at first sight to be extremely long. Wang himself said it “could take hours for a complete reading,” which corresponds pretty much with my own early experiments with the method. Nick Farrell, in the FB conversation to which I referred above was even more vociferous, saying “it takes days” and “I still do not know what Westcott was smoking…”
Westcott might have been smoking anything he liked – I was always under the impression that Mathers wrote that particular manuscript!
Anyway, the actual authorship of the method is a side-issue. People with whom I have spoken privately consistently concur with the above sentiments, by complaining about its overlong nature. However, I think I have found a solution! The breakthrough, for me, was realising that it is only overlong if it is done by the book in the style of the book.
Here instead is my suggestion. When you come to a card – or in the pairing off part which ends each section, a pair of cards – think up a single word which sums its meaning. At most, two or three words to make it fit into context, but preferably aiming for a single word wherever possible. Then connect them so they make a coherent narrative – that is the operation done.
Done this way, it reduces the duration of the Opening of the Key from a matter of hours – or, if you are Nick Farrell, days 😉 – to a far more reasonable half an hour at most. What is more, this is a perfectly valid cartomantic practice: at least, that is the impression I get from the accounts of Tarot readers who have never been exposed to Golden Dawn methods.
Where Mathers / Westcott went wrong was that they took each card to be a complete sentence or couple of sentences – instead of words within a sentence. By changing ones point of view regarding the style of card-interpretation to something like I suggest, one can still use the actual Opening of the Key method but in a way which is ultimately more satisfying.
by Alejandro Jodorowsky – and include an account of an uncanny encounter of my own with Psychomagic.
The Golden Dawn was my entry into occultism generally, and consequently the Tarot as well. Hence Robert Wang’s 
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 
instead, mainly because the art-work is livelier.
Aleister Crowley’s 
).
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.
Given that the 
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.
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.
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.
. This book will be nothing like Feehan’s though. I deliberately go in a different direction and follow my own path.
. I should hasten to point out that demonic-magick is a complex matter. The issues raised are akin to Jungian notions of integrating the Shadow into the Self, rather than a straightforward Manichean good-vs-evil duality.
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
What The Stars Have In Store for… Kim Jong-Un
Just saying.
Basketball-loving dictator Kim Jong-Un has been in the news this week. I personally think he is getting a bad press. After all, who among us, if they became a despot, would not immediately start by drawing up a list of countries to nuke? He’s only human after all!
Nevertheless, after my spectacular success with the new Pope the other day, I have decided to bring my powers of astrology to bear on the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Kim Jong-Un’s Natal Chart
Kim Jong Un
The first problem one comes up against as an astrologer is that there is very little publicly available information about Kim Jong-Un. For example, Wikipedia says:
Helpful, this is not! Nevertheless, I shall humour the North Korean authorities for one moment by assuming that their data is in fact accurate. I shall further make the assumption that KJU was born in the general vicinity of Pyongyang. I have used an approximated birth-time (12 noon local time). The resulting chart would therefore look like this:
Very much approximated natal chart for Kim Jong Un
NB: Mars and Pluto both square Sun – this man was born with serious chip on his shoulder!
As a Sun Capricorn, Moon Gemini person, other astrologers have speculated that
And:
Mr Bean has the same Sun-Moon combination as the Supreme Leader of North Korea.
Other famous celebrities with the combination Sun Capricorn, Moon Gemini include Joan Baez, Jim Carrey, and Rowan Atkinson.
Kim Jong-Un’s Accession to Power
Kim Jong-Un was proclaimed Supreme Leader on 28 December 2011. A chart drawn up for that event, compared with the (approximated) natal chart above, shows the following:
Inner ring: KJU’s natal chart.
Outer ring: Chart for KJU’s accession to power.
As you can see, not only did KJU recently have his Saturn-return (which everyone does roundabout that age), but Saturn was transitting Pluto, the planet of Explosive Transformations. A Saturn-Return marks a decisive event in one’s life which is the signal to make the transition from youth to the responsibilities of adulthood. For most people this would be something like settling down, getting a proper job, getting married, start thinking about kids, etc. For Kim Jong Un, it was becoming dictator of a south-east Asian country.
As regards the Saturn-Pluto transit, Cafe Astrology says (inter alia):
And
And even:
We may thus begin to understand that when Kim Jong-Un did accede to power, it was at a very stressful time in his life for him, so we should not be surprised that he has so far reacted in the way he has.
The Future For North Korea
“But what,” I hallucinate that I hear you ask, “does the future hold for North Korea under Kim Jong-Un’s rule?” An indication of the likely direction of KJU’s time in power can be gained by looking at the chart for his accession – the outer ring of the chart above. The Sun (representing KJU’s regime itself) and Pluto (the planet of things happening away from public sight), would indicate that KJU is more than ever obsessed with the secrecy which has characterised North Korean politics up to now, and probably has no qualms about resorting to torture and other human rights abuses of political opponents. Sun trine Jupiter would suggest that KJU will find it straightforward to establish his own personality cult. Moreover, the Sun/Pluto square to Uranus also suggests that KJU sees it as his especial mission to harass and bully nearby capitalist regimes, i.e. South Korea, and its allies the United States.
But… does KJU actually want to start a war? I would be inclined to speculate no. The planet Mars in this chart does not appear to form an inharmonious or challenging angle with the Sun, which is what I would have expected had KJU was actually looking forward to hostilities. (Contrast this with a chart drawn up for the coming to power of the current UK government, when the Sun, Moon, and Mars formed a nasty T pattern. Within a year, Britain was involved in new hostilities in Libya).
Mars, however, does form a challenging angle with Mercury, suggesting that the current publicity KJU is generating is essentially posturing and rhetoric. More worryingly, though, it may also indicate the violent repression of freedom of the press, communication, and writers in general – so don’t expect any of my books to be available in North Korea any time soon.
1 Comment
Filed under Comment, Supernatural
Tagged as astrology, Kim Jong Un, Mr Bean, North Korea, Rowan Atkinson