Death

Death, originally uploaded by J Swofford.

The Hermetic Library visual pool is a visual scavenger…

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The Chariot

The Chariot, originally uploaded by J Swofford.

The Hermetic Library visual pool is a visual…

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You may be interested in the Dream Logic Tarot, a collaborative project by Jay Gidwitz and Anthony Teth. I reblogged a quote that was illustrated with the Dream Logic Tarot’s Lust - Strength card over at the Thelema and the Libri of Aleister Crowley blog, and thought you’d be interested in taking a gander at the actual ongoing project.

The 3 of Swords from Dream Logic Tarot

“I’m working on all 78 images for a deck of tarot cards in collaboration with occultist Anthony Teth.
The final images will also be available as fine art prints.
The imagery from tarot provides a rich landscape of archetypes.
The meanings of the cards are derived from platonic ideals, that ultimately every person can relate what a given card “means” to various points in their life.
Conceptually the meanings of the cards are at the perfect level of both generality and specificity that give Anthony and I both creative freedom, as well as a strong framework within which to work.” [via]

The Tower from Dream Logic Tarot

“I have recently joined forces with the extremely talented artist, photographer and reality deviant Jay Gidwitz. Together we are currently embroiled in the creation of a fully functional deck of Tarot Cards, with each card being a digitally illustrated (and esoterically relevant) work of art. An instructional book is also in the works.” [via]

Original Article

You may be interested in the Oracle Tarot Deck, an original and complete deck by Lisa Chow.

“My curiosity was piqued when a book I was reading described the beautiful and intricate illustrations found on a deck of tarot cards. I found myself picking up a deck and studying the cards. I soon learned that many artists have interpreted tarot cards for themselves with their own unique spin and I figured I was up to that challenge as well.” [via]

Original Article

I mentioned the Tarot, Mystics and the Occult Exhibition previously. I just noticed an announcement that pre-orders for an actual tarot deck are now available. You may be interested in checking that out.

“We’re printing a limited quantity run of The Light Grey Tarot to accompany our Tarot, Mystics and the Occult Exhibition (Coming to Light Grey Art Lab October 19).

Each 78-card boxed set of the Light Grey Tarot comes with a 32 page guidebook that walks through all of the meanings, symbolism and details of each card, plus instructions on how to read several classic Tarot spreads. The cards are approximately 2.75 inches x 4.75 inches (nice and tall!)” [via]

Original Article

You may be interested in Light Grey Art Lab’s Tarot, Mystics and the Occult project and exhibition. The exhibition runs Oct 19th through Nov 9th, 2012, at Light Grey Art Lab in Minneapolis, MN. In particular, you may be interested in the collaborative showcase of tarot card inspired art by 78 artists.

“As you may have guessed, we’re going all out for this show. We’re looking to really fill the gallery with mystical, magical and incredible pieces -and- the space will be filled with fate-tempting booths with live tarot readings and other fortune-telling and mystical experiences! For this project: Each artist selected for the Tarot exhibition will be exhibiting an incredible large-scale print of their work and we’ll also be publishing a limited quantity of fully illustrated Tarot Decks containing the work of all 78 artists, just for this occasion!”

Original Article

Moon, originally uploaded by Vedauwoo.

An image of the Moon tarot card from Godfrey Dowson’s The Hermetic Tarot deck.

The Hermetic Library visual pool is a visual scavenger hunt for images of a living Western Esoteric Tradition. Images of your ritual or ritual space, images of sigils or tools, showing off your own library or special volume from the restricted stacks, sacred spaces and places, esoteric artefacts and installations, inspired paintings and people — these and much more are part of the culture and practice of magick. If you would like to submit your work for consideration as part of the visual pool, head over to the Hermetic Library visual pool or contact the librarian.

Original Article

Devil, originally uploaded by Vedauwoo.

An image of The Devil tarot card from Godfrey Dowson’s The Hermetic Tarot deck.

The Hermetic Library visual pool is a visual scavenger hunt for images of a living Western Esoteric Tradition. Images of your ritual or ritual space, images of sigils or tools, showing off your own library or special volume from the restricted stacks, sacred spaces and places, esoteric artefacts and installations, inspired paintings and people — these and much more are part of the culture and practice of magick. If you would like to submit your work for consideration as part of the visual pool, head over to the Hermetic Library visual pool or contact the librarian.

Original Article

nine of pentacles, originally uploaded by Stela Maris Munhoz.

“releitura do tarot of trees: www.tarotoftrees.com/minor.html”

The Hermetic Library visual pool is a visual scavenger hunt for images of a living Western Esoteric Tradition.

Images of your ritual or ritual space, images of sigils or tools, showing off your own library or special volume from the restricted stacks, sacred spaces and places, esoteric artefacts and installations, inspired paintings and people — these and much more are part of the culture and practice of magick.

Original Article

Commentary (ΜΒ) on ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΜΒ Dust-Devils in Liber CCCXXXIII, The Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley.

“The card Gimel in the Tarot is the High Priestess, the Lady of Initiation; one might even say, the Holy Guardian Angel.” [via]

Original Article

Atu XVIII - the Moon - Video Painting from Harlequinade Art on Vimeo.

“An ambient video for the Abattoir Pages production by Foolish People and Guerrilla Zoo. Based on Atu XVIII the Moon card in the Tarot, this is a collaborative piece using 2D artwork by P. Emerson Williams and audio by Zane Kanevsky. Created as a single channel looping installation.

P. Emerson Williams:
choronzon.org/
veilofthorns.com/
mythosmedia.net/

Zane Kanevsky:
myspace.com/ilovebannedbooks”

The Hermetic Library video pool is an experimental scavenger hunt for video from a living Western Esoteric Tradition.

Motion pictures have a peculiar kind of magic certainly, but these are video records of people, places and events inspired by the ideas of Western Esotericism and Mysticism. Music video, interviews, rituals, instruction, documentaries, dramatizations — This group helps create a space for saving and sharing these records with others.

Original Article

93-stgermain-oto:

“She rides astride the Beast; in her left hand she holds the reins, representing the passion which unites them. In her right she holds aloft the cup, the Holy Grail aflame with love and death. In this cup are mingled the elements of the sacrament of the Aeon” - Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley

I noticed that Dionysius posted his discovery of Gnostica, a game played with pyramids and tarot cards.

“This game looks like great fun. Tarot cards and pyramids; what’s not to like?” [via]

I’m going to try really hard to keep this relatively brief, and avoid going down the rabbit hole of talking about everything there is to say about this game and the topic of Looney games. But, I’ve got to say something!

“Gnostica is an abstract territory based war game. Tarot cards make up the often-changing board, and players use Icehouse pieces to represent minions that control those territories. Every tarot card has a power, and when a player has one of his pieces on a territory, he or she may use the power of that territory through that piece. Players also have a hand of tarot cards which allow them to use those powers through any of their pieces. Territories are worth points when occupied, and the game ends when one player challenges the other players and has 9 points on his or her following turn.” [via]

While you do need a deck of some kind, you don’t really need to use a tarot deck. I made my personal deck out of blank note cards. Actually, I made both a Gnostica and Zarcana deck, because I wanted to play the two similar games and compare. However, there is no denying that a real tarot deck would look awesome during play, and have to bonus of freakin’ our both the squares and the uptight. It has always been my plan to dedicate a Thoth tarot deck toward this purpose, but I’ve not yet done that.

Other than a deck of cards for territory, you’ll need a number of Looney Pyramids. Think of the pyramids kind of how you do a deck of cards, something that is used to play a large number of games. There’s a whole lot of history to these pyramids, which you can find and read; but, you should take a gander at IcehouseGames.org Wiki, the fan-built wiki of games that people have designed for play using the pyramids to get an idea of how these are used.

There are actually a large number of pyramid colours that have been available over the years, though currently there are two sets of colours that come boxed together. In order to play a game of gnostica, you really should have five boxes of Looney Pyramids so that you have a stash of 15 of each colour, since 3 of each colour come in each box. The pyramids themselves come in three sizes, each having 1 to 3 pips on them, so a complete stash of 15 pyramids of the same colour will have 5 of each size.

And, I can personally vouch for the way that one can become a little bit obsessed with all the various accessories and tchotchkes.

If you’re interested in the Looney Pyramids, and games you play with them like Gnostica, you may also want to look at some other nifty games from Looney Labs, like Fluxx (including a planned Cthulhu Fluxx at some point!) and Chrononauts.

The Looney Pyramids and Fluxx games are part of a set of games that have flexible or self-amending rules, and I personally find the way I think about playing these games to be similar to the way I think magically. I keep meaning to write my thoughts about that down, and had the notion of a class on “Games Magicians Play” where I would share my thoughts with others. To just put this out there then, I find the need to be flexible and adaptable, while still maintaining a focus on intention, to be an excellent way to play with magical thinking outside of ritual.

Of course, for me, this all started with Peter Suber’s Nomic, which is one of the first games of self-amendment I ever explored. Problem was, it just wasn’t fun. And, if the single necessary and sufficient Nomic rule is “all players must agree on the rules of the game” then it seems to naturally follow as a corollary that “all games should be fun” … you know, unless you’re into the kink of playing games that aren’t fun, I suppose. But, these games from Looney Labs have always seemed to fit that necessary and sufficient core rule and its corollary; they have always maintained a consistent level of fun and interest for me that no other games have sustained.

Check out Gnostica, or the other Looney Labs games, and let me know what you think about my hypothesis about them being a game that mirrors magical thinking, or if you have games you think other magicians should know about consider letting me know or sending me a review of them.

Original Article

I ran into some images of the Phantomwise Tarot and thought how it reminded me of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Well, turns out there’s a reason, because the deck is by the author.

“The Phantomwise Tarot is a 78-card tarot deck, painted entirely in black and white acrylic. While drawing inspiration from the Rider Waite style, it has a variety of influences ranging from Egyptian mythology and Victoriana to carnival/circus chic and of course, the works of Lewis Carroll.”

The site for this says that the deck will be completed in 2009, but is it? Also, the limited edition cards that were available through Adam McLean’s Alchemy Website are sold out. Also, the etsy shop is on hiatus. Good news or bad news?

Update 2011dec6 @ 8:19pm

So, there’s a post by Erin Morgenstern back in May on her site about the status of the deck.

“I do not have a publisher for the complete deck yet.

It is on my ever-growing to-do list and I promise I do intend to get the deck published because I want it to be available for the tarot-loving masses, but I also wrote a book and it sort of ate my life. (If you happen to be a tarot publisher and are interested in publishing the deck, please feel free to contact me.)

The tarot aficionados will likely appreciate this aspect of my current life balance issues: in the summer of 2009, just before I started querying literary agents, I had a wonderful professional tarot reading and the only negative element was in art/writing balance, where The Tower showed up to remind me that I cannot give all of my energy to different things without falling down. Something had to take priority, and the universe clearly and loudly decided it would be writing.

My apologies for the continued wait, but I want to give the deck the time and energy it deserves, including possibly touching up some of the paintings, so it’s going to take a while. Thank you for your patience.” [via]

Update 2011dec12 @ 3:33pm

There was a specific question about this tarot deck in a recent interview with Erin Morgenstern over at GoodReads:

“GR: Goodreads member Brandi asks, ‘Does she plan to reprint her Phantomwise black-and-white tarot card deck?’

EM: It is on the to-do list. Fortunately there are a lot of things on the to-do list. There was a limited edition, but there’s never been a 72-card deck. I do have the art for it; I just haven’t made the time to pursue proper publication of it. But there will be in the foreseeable future a published deck that people can get.” [via]

Original Article