Reply #75: LOL

[stellanoir]

If gaining an ill gotten crown for hijacking a "Delete" thread is really your idea of a vicious payback I'm starting to truly question your Mars placement. LOL

:hi:

Crowley is an unusually sticky wicket as were many members of the Golden Dawn. They were interestingly most active during the Neptune/Pluto conjunction in Gemini at the beginning of th 20th century. They all appear to have been total characters but there is consistently some cerebral quirks that were predictably far more about head than heart.

Yup he knew a whole lot and I know plenty of people who I respect enormously who use his deck exclusively and have for years and would never use any other.

Yet turning people temporarily into stone and cocktail parties is very bad form IMHO and not an especially wondrous example of uplifting or redemptive magic or spirituality. That sort of stuff makes us all look as though we just play idle parlor games.

Still, I remember coming out of my existentialist phase, where I only wore black silk vintage dresses and shit kickers a quarter of a century ago and knowing all these people that got deeply into Crowley and Zeppelin. They would oddly invariably disappear for a few years and then return, only to seem extremely bewildered.

I've just always been concerned about his primary agenda and have harbored an uncanny revulsion to him for some inexplicable reason. Maybe it's due to something trivial. Maybe it's something more. Not sure.

But that is not to say his works don't have power or offer tremendous insight for others.

I hope and pray they will for you but I'll happily acquire a "gummy bear deck" or perhaps a Tarot of Baseball if you'd like something a bit lighter. :)

No seriously, I probably have about 30 decks. I've pretty much used the multi ethnic and somewhat obtuse "Wheel of Change" deck for many. many, years. Though for close friends and myself I use a really wild deck I was gifted with by a surrogate adopted baby sister. She funnily found it at a Roman flea market. It looks like a repro from Victorian times but is Italian.
Most of the cards do not correlate with traditional Tarot cards. However some do. It's really a cool deck.

There are probably tens of thousands of decks out there at this point. I always joke that anyone who has any graphic skills whatsoever who then has a spiritual awakening will believe that it's their divine purpose to create a new Tarot deck. Perhaps it would be ideal if we all created our own but alas, not all of us are graphic artists.

Last night pseudo beau was jokingly suggesting that I craft a "Perot Tarot" . I joked back that one could probably base it upon his funny expressions exclusively. He then said that he had worked with a company that was affiliated with one of Perot's companies in the late 80's and could provide me with innumerable quotations. Oh joy. Now there's an offer a girl can't refuse.
/sarcasm

Ahhh somehow, I don't think that such an effort is truly aligned with my soul's purpose, but we had a good laugh, especially since I had just told him that though I am sitting on over 5000 pages of spiritual and reasonably crafted writing that I don't know how to market, all I want to promote is "Ooga, Booga, Smooga, Wooga" (aka total gibberish.)

Look, most folks start with a version of Rider/Waite and then branch out from there. But whatever one is really drawn to often works.

I've been doing card readings for decades but have never read a single Tarot Book. Though I did study (Jungian) symbolism, numerology, and astrology for many years before endeavoring to do so.

Like dream interpretation books, many times we as individuals, hold different associations with certain symbols, whilst others are more universal.

Again, it like astrology, is an experiential art, and not a science.

I like to describe the Tarot as flashcards from the underworld (aka unconscious.)

So anything goes. You just have to determine which representations work best and really resonate for you.

Good luck with it and if I can help in any way you know I will.

It's just that I was hung up in Russia when Crowley was around. And he didn't make Rasputin any more warm and cozy.

Yikes.