Tag Archives: spirituality

November 23, 2025 · 12:52

Esoteric Jaunt

Tarot – to charge or not to charge…

Not delving into politics…have the flu, I feel sick enough. NyQuil is your friend.

For some reason, my Tarot cards have been on mind, a LOT, lately. I even dream about them. Yeah, yeah, a sign that I should pull them out. I don’t wanna. I haven’t done a serious reading since 2013. Some information just doesn’t need to be “had”, you know?

I started with Tarot in the early 80’s; like most, I started with Rider-Waite, for about 5 years and then, jumped into the deep end with no life preserver, moved to Thoth. The deck was a gift from someone and I just felt electrified by it. It was my deck from that point forward.

One of the larger controversial points in my practice was charging for readings. I don’t. It just goes against my own beliefs. You charge? Fine. Whatever you wish to do. And the blowback? Holy crap on a cracker! You’d think I was kicking puppies or something. My practice, my choice.

Why don’t I charge? Well, it was something I was taught, decades ago; you don’t charge for Craft and Tarot readings fall into that purview for me. I see it as a gift of sorts and my ethics (not better than yours, just mine), do not allow me to charge for a gift.

Gives (gave) me a lot of freedom as to who I read for and who I didn’t feel I wanted to read for. I learned relatively early on, not to read for family, I WON’T read for my kids or immediate family, for example. A couple of reasons, the readings could be tainted by my intimate knowledge of them and their psychology, another reason is learning too much, perhaps…bad news or huge struggle on its way. Selfish on my part? Probably.

I used to hold Tarot classes, didn’t charge those those either. What people did with what they gleaned from those classes/workshops was up to them.

Why am I writing about this? I guess I am just working out, whether or not I should pull the cards out.

Okay, well – if you stuck around? Thanks for reading. I am off to open a new box of tissue and dose up on DayQuil.

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September 4, 2025 · 14:15

Christianity and Occultism/Paganism/Witchcraft

I mean, the meme above, is not false, kind of presumptive, definitely simplistic but not completely false.

Forcing religion is never the “right” thing to do. Okay, so the fam has been R.C/Baptist/Jewish/Muslim for generations. A lot of things went on for generations that required change and change came about, sometimes painfully. Religion, by and large, has not kept up.

People, with the exception of right wingnuts, are far more educated, able to form conclusions based on evidence. Society is far more based in logic than in fairy tales and fear mongering.

I get that parents and families have been victimized by terrors from the various pulpits etc. The visions of some sort of devil persona and everlasting punishment repeatedly beat into their psyches until it became their reality, regardless of proof. And no, the bible/Torah/Q’ran are not proof. They’re books, written centuries upon centuries ago. Gilgamesh is believed to have been composed in 2100 BCE. Doesn’t make it valid, just some great storytelling. Same goes for the holy trinity of books/scrolls. Great storytelling but not proof of validity.

So what is at the root of the turning away from the recognized religions of the world? Education. The search for meaning. The search for that elusive path to truth.

The various branches of Occultism, Paganism and Witchcraft seem to offer the freedom to search. For sure, there are branches just as restrictive as the Big 3 but by and large, Occultism and the offshoots flow with change.

Atheism/Agnosticism is also on the rise. You know what is not on the rise? Historical religions. Islam is still higher up on the acknowledged beliefs than Christianity or Judaism but that too, shall change. Absolute control over individuals can’t last, it isn’t who we are as a species.

If your system doesn’t allow questioning, doesn’t allow for freedom of thought, of movement; if your system encourages the subjugation of members? This new millennium is not going to be kind to you, and with good reason.

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June 25, 2025 · 10:31

“We Need Help The Poet Reckoned.”

Edward Dorn, with special recognition to Stephen King (The Stand).

Boy…do we need help.

Optimism has been beaten into the ground by the insanity below our Canadian border. In my younger and admittedly, naïve years…I truly believed we were living in the Age of Horus and then? George Bush Sr. Lost some of that optimism. Clinton, Bush Jr. and my optimism was ebbing away; then Obama and I remember the joy I felt he was elected. Hope returned. I am sure I don’t need to rate my optimism at this point….

Someone I greatly admire, said the following, in a clip I saw this morning, “Things ain’t the way they were when we were kids…” (Lon Milo Duquette). Struck me like a ton of bricks as that was, exactly, what I was feeling, along with, “What, the f*ck”, happened?!”

No, I was not at Woodstock, far too young. No, I did not experience the “Summer of Love” nor was I a “hippie”. I did, however, though osmosis, and Aleister Crowley/Thelema (its a love/hate relationship…don’t ask), develop a hope for the future of humanity, where individual spirituality took us to a place of inner and outer peace. The building of world of intellect, where ego was not narcissism but a thing to be grown, tended and used to enhance the concepts of a greater world.

Yeah, that’s a big old “Nope”.

We can’t look to pseudo-leaders, men and yes, they are men, so poisoned, so insane, so dangerous that, as human beings, we can’t tolerate their continued efforts to destroy our world to enrich themselves.

They are law breakers, they have perverted their office, trampled on the rights of their citizens.

I’m in my sunset years, and I am so afraid for my children, for my grandchildren. The fear can make me burst out in tears of frustration.

We are in trouble, friends and neighbours. We are in deep, desperate trouble. There is no hero waiting in the wings to swoop in and rescue us from the evil empire. We need to be our own heroes, I’m afraid. We need to recognize the sleights of hand being used, globally. Diversion from the destruction of a society of free will, of individual spirituality, of collective peace.

“We need help, the poet reckoned.”

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November 12, 2012 · 10:19

The Devil XV

*Synchronicity at its finest…I always have music playing when I write; a random playlist.  I am sitting here, putting my words together to start the piece and what starts to play?  The Number of the Beast – Iron Maiden; blew coffee on my monitor…too funny!”

The Devil.  The scapegoat of the religious and fearful.  The fall guy for the coward.  But, this isn’t his domain in Tarot and this card, perhaps above all others, requires that the reader approach without preconceived notions of the Devil.  Religion changes as the world moves forward.  The concept of the Devil must change as well. 

This card is the ultimate expression of irony.  We create our own realities, in this realm and thenm, we end up wailing, moaning and fighting against what WE created. 

The representation here shows the Devil as a goat, grinning out at us and he, absolutely, deserves that grin; our own concepts, our own magnum opus, is taking control.  The Art is on a rampage.  Instead of the masterpiece existing as our creation, it is now a dominating force.  

Consider Frankenstein and his monster – the initial dream, the theory was good but it quickly spiraled out of control devouring all sense of equilibrium, of our internal sense of balance.   

This is a loss of perspective.  We’ve created something and we’re now obsessed with making it bigger, larger and to hell with anyone standing in our way. (Pun not intended, just kind of happened).  In other words, we’ve lost sight of ourselves. 

It was all good and then suddenly, it has all gone all bad – out of control and there is no one to blame but us.  No scapegoat, no fall guy.  This is our own personification of the concept of the Devil but as he does not truly exist?  We must understand that we are to blame, we are our own Devil.  Creating our own monster.

The Devil dominates this realm and can allow us to completely enjoy the material and human desire but the risk of losing sight of perspective walks with the Devil, holding hands. The two are inseparable.  We embrace the creative energy of Art but must always guard against the creative force taking control and turning a situation at best or us, at its worst, a destructive force.

The Devil, in the Tarot, can be a really funny guy – he represents our own human desires but in balance and giggles away as we allow them to take control, thereby becoming our own “devil” per se.

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