Golden Dawn Tarot Decks 1

This post is intended as the background to a review I intend to do for a new tarot deck coming out this week.

I have commented here before about my interest in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's approach to the tarot. The reason for this is that this approach is what lies behind the ubiquitous Rider Waite tarot - Waite and Colman-Smith published an exoteric version of what they (mostly Waite, because he was a higher grade) knew about the order's understanding of tarot. In fact the order was primarily responsible for first making the connection between the qabalah and the tarot. The way the order revealed the knowledge to learners was by a series of knowledge lectures (strictly lections, rather, because they were written down) and initiations into the knowledge and energies of each degree.

In true witch fashion I personally come at this backwards by not learning properly about astrology and the qabalah first but coming to the information about the tarot and kinda letting the other stuff sink in. I suspect the true definition of a hedgewitch is someone who nobody else will have in their coven or order. If you want to do it the hard way there are various warring groups claiming descent from the Golden Dawn and you can join one of them and go through the degrees. Anyway, through some lucky chances of history the order's teaching about the tarot was contained in a book called Book T which is out in public. It contains descriptions of the cards in the order's deck, meanings and ways of reading which are surprisingly close to fortune telling meanings. You can read it in this book and if you want to read almost all the available Golden Dawn material you can find it in this book. The order's tradition was that the initiate would make their own deck following the descriptions and I can't praise this practice highly enough. If you have been through the knowledge lectures and understand the colours, making your own deck will produce a powerful magical tool. Many of us don't have the ability or leisure to do this unfortunately.

There are some exoteric decks related to the Golden Dawn deck which may commonly be used. Rider Waite, of course. Paul Foster Case produced a deck intended to be coloured in but not drawn, the BOTA deck. In today's free thinking world BOTA tends to be criticised for being a bit dogmatic about what people should think, but there is nothing to stop you buying the deck and colouring it in Case's colours, the Golden Dawn colours or any other. My only criticism of it would be that it is clearly derivative of Rider-Waite but doesn't have pictorial minors, and they also don't follow the descriptions in Book T. There is also Uncle Al's Thoth deck. Bless him, he is the proof of the advantage for everyone else of battles in magical orders, because one of the parties is quite likely to reveal the order's secrets. His writings on tarot are very close to the orders teachings with a few corrections of his own. If you want a book on the Thoth tarot I would recommend the one by Lon Milo Duquette and I would also recommend his book on Qabalah. My only caution about the numinous Thoth tarot is that it doesn't like working with other decks so if you use it it tends to be your only deck.

The Golden Dawn Magical Tarot

There are a number of decks drawing more or less closely on Book T. My personal criteria for a Golden Dawn deck is that it should be close to the descriptions in Book T. Some decks have updated the colours and those will do for you if you have a thorough understanding of the tree of Life and the vibrations of the colours. But I don't.

There are a number of esoteric tarot decks which do not meet my criteria of being close to the descriptions in Book T, but nonetheless are influenced by the Golden Dawn and all have very good reputations as esoteric decks. They are the Servants of the Light Tarot, the Gareth Knight tarot and the Hermetic Tarot. The tarot as envisaged by the order is supposed to pop with colours as an essential link to the qabalistic tree of life, and this last one would fail on the basis of being black and white!

Of published decks which claim to draw directly from the Golden Dawn tradition, I will go through them one by one and give my humble opinion on which is best. Another problem we have is that because no original decks from the order are known to survive (although there are some drawings, and one of them, Yeats's drawing of the World in his notebook, illustrates this post) modern creators of the deck can't recreate something which would have existed then. On the other hand they have a high level of artistic freedom to stick to the descriptions but use their own style. I will go through them in ascending order of fidelity to Book T.

I would not recommend Lo Scarabeo's Initiatory Tarot of the Golden Dawn. It is highly praised for the fidelity of its court cards, and they have followed the order's deck in the Majors, particularly the Fool and the Lovers, which in the Golden Dawn deck are quite different to the way we are used to seeing them, however it tends to diverge in the minors.

The Golden Dawn Temple Tarot is rightly highly praised and gives the authentic feel of the Golden Dawn Temple. The cards fizzle with colour. However it is described as a modern reinterpretation so I would recommend it if you already have a good understanding of the qabalah and the colour scales. It may be more useful for path working than reading because the cards are 'king HUGE.

Next and most affordable of the currently two decks I would highly recommend is Robert Wang's Golden Dawn Tarot. I note from online reviews that you either take to this deck or you don't. It doesn't fizzle with colour and the minors tend to be much less colourful than you would expect, because the colours are intended to reference which part of the tree of life they are on, and that in this system is a whole layer of meaning. You can read the booklet about the deck here although it is very much a little white book and no more. I do recommend his more comprehensive book about tarot and qabalah very highly, and here and there he does comment about bits he missed out in his own deck, without giving a reason for it. I am currently chewing over this book slowly with much benefit.

Next comes my current favourite The Golden Dawn Magical Tarot by Sandra and Chic Cicero. This is the closest I know to the descriptions in Book T and comes in a box with a very informative book which I highly recommend.

This deck is coming out this week and I have (unusually for me) pre-ordered it. I can't wait till it turns up. Judging by the book Zalewski wrote about the Golden Dawn tarot, if the deck is consistent it will be excellent and I will review it when I have it. The book is another one I recommend by the way, so to summarize my reading about the Golden Dawn tarot I move between chewing over Zalewski, Wang and Book T.

Agony Hound: I’m so scared for my daughter’s future with my violent ex if I die

This is a Dear Deirdre again.

DEAR DEIDRE: IF anything happened to me, I am terrified that my daughter might end up with her dad or his family.

I am 28 and a single mum. I left my ex-husband six years ago because he was violent and a drunk.

Thankfully, my daughter – who is now eight – doesn’t remember any of it.

My ex has never taken the slightest interest in her life or asked to see her.

The only contact she has is twice a year when she goes to his parents’ home for a few days. They don’t see my ex.

But this week, I woke up in a cold sweat with the thought that if I were to die, my daughter could end up with him or his parents.

He is named on her birth certificate. While I like his parents, I hate there being a possibility he could walk back into her life.

DEIDRE SAYS: It is very unlikely anything like that will happen to you in the near future.

However, I understand that you want peace of mind.

You need to take legal advice to understand where you both stand should he want to come back into her life more in the future.

Please get in touch with Coram Children’s Legal Centre.

They will understand the issues here and can support you.

The fact your ex has shown no interest in your daughter’s life to date would be a factor in any court’s decision.

The Hound says:

Dealing with solicitors can be very daunting however when it comes to this situation it is the only way to deal with it properly. In addition to what Deirdre says the Citizens Advice Bureau website has a lot of useful helpsheets and you can make an appointment to talk to them. They can help explain what needs to happen next.

Do you have any support with this? It sounds like your ex's parents have got him sussed so they may be supportive and any friends you have. If you often find yourself worrying about him, the effects of abuse can be long standing and include leaving you feeling jittery, worried and generally finding it difficult to get on with life. Talking therapy can help to process your own difficult experience and your local Improving Access to Psychological Therapies service should take a self referral, or you can talk to your doctor. I am sure that as she gets older you will find ways to tell your daughter that not everyone is kind and to recognise signs of possible abusive relationships. You won't be wanting her to experience it and helping her grow up with self confidence and a clear idea of what good relationships should look like, will help with that.

Mundane bit over, this is a situation crying out for some magic. In the craft we have a saying that where there is fear there is power, and it very much sounds like this is what is your situation.

If you want a book about Witchcraft to help you understand this Inna witchy way, I would recommend Starhawk's Truth or Dare. She talks about the way oppression gets into us. Another great mother of the witchcraft movement is Z Budapest. She is a very strong feminist and some people can find her too much, but I would specifically recommend a little book called The Goddess in The Office, because there is a lot in it about power and dealing with mistreatment.

Magically there are several things you can do and I think the first is taking stock of your situation because if you're anxious things can get out of proportion. I would like you to think about what your relationship with your ex was like. If it is too painful take it slowly. Look at the good things as well as the bad and as you are doing this make a mental note of your physical feelings and emotions. This is to help you decide what you want to do next.

If it is all literally too much, don't do it, put yourself in professional hands and be easy on yourself.

How do you feel after lifting the lid?

If you feel relieved or wrung out you may want to get rid of the thoughts and emotions. There are a number of traditional ways of doing this. First make something which represents your relationship - a picture, use something he gave you or say, a wedding photo. Make a ceremony to get rid of his influence from your life. You could burn it, put it in running water, flush it away, etc. The important thing is that it is the equivalent of a funeral in your head.

Now if he comes back into your mind, it doesn't mean you've failed, it means he has got in there the way abusers do. So do it again. Nothing wrong with that, these people are difficult to get rid of. You will notice as time goes on that something in you changes, and he has less of a hold. That's how magic works.

If instead you simply want to prevent him having access to your daughter, do all the legal stuff and also use a link with him. Not something that makes you think of both of you, but is definitely connected with him. Call it by his name. Keep doing that over some time until it actually feels he is in the house. Unfortunately this kind of magic does mean connecting with these people.

Once the object is completely identified with him, put it in a plastic box, cover it with water and freeze it. As you do this address it by his name and tell him in the present 'you stay away from name'. As a statement so you are announcing it. I love this magic and freezers are great for this - it's called a binding and won't hurt him but will stop him connecting with your daughter.

If you don't feel you want to do the magical bit that's absolutely fine. Some people just want to hear what will happen and I'll tell you he won't make contact with his daughter, your only trouble will be stopping her contacting him as an adult so have a think how to explain it to her when she's old enough.

Like a Dog with a Bone

I'm not a surveyor but if structural concrete looks like this yesterday was the time to act

Despite definitely being a cat person, always having had cats, and being distinctly cat-like myself my rapport with dogs is growing. The goddess likes gay men and obviously likes dogs and so one of her little jokes is to make a status job with a bit of rough trade, turn into a total puppy with me. Thus embarrassing the rough trade.

I am also becoming more dog like in terms of worrying a bone. Even years ago I stayed in one work place over a decade partly because I liked the clientele but mainly to annoy the staff.

I must give a shout out to my deceased mother at this point because I learned from her how to be as awkward as hell. Unlike her, I don't self-sabotage with it because I don't have a personality disorder and can use it when I want to.

There is genuinely a divine part to this in terms of correcting the karma we have and witches are nothing if not the instruments of divinity in helping people correct their own karma. Not necessarily because they want to, but because you're not taking the piss and getting away with it.

Take the people who sold me my sofa. I haven't had it a year and the springs rattle, the fabric is bobbly and feathers keep coming out of it. I had a lengthy email exchange with their quality control people earlier this year and they told me the bobbling was to be expected, the feathers coming out was my fault because I don't shake the cushions every day and they ignored the rattling completely.

Can you tell that the rattling is about to be transferred to their heads?

I posted a review on trustpilot. I have to say even I was impressed with what a total cunt I was, and particularly made a point of including their feedback when I tried to tell them how crappy it was. Within 24 hours they put a reply saying how sorry they were to hear I wasn't happy and asking me to contact them. I will not be doing so - they had their chance to resolve it and didn't. So I posted a reply saying exactly that, and that they have all the information they need to put this right, and commented that this different approach was obviously because I had put it in a public review.

What makes this a magical and karmic act rather than just being a disgruntled customer? On the one hand we are well used to thinking that all acts are magical acts. In a magical worldview everything we do has ripples in different worlds and different areas. One of the goals of magical paths is to be so aware of everything that you won't get unexpected kickback and won't be one of those kids posting on forums that they've changed their mind about a spell and want to undo it.

On the other hand, to my mind what makes this magical and karmic is the element of consequences. If you complain about something and they resolve your complaint that is the limit of it. If you sue them and get a payout, that's also the limit, the company will be insured and they'll make you sign a NDA ending it. When a company fails to resolve something and they get potentially business-affecting poor reviews, that is their actions returning and giving them real-world consequences.

What they do now, I will add to my review but will not remove it so the difference in their customer service in private and in public is now apparent. They also have a very obvious trustpilot widget thingy on their website so it's the first thing people shopping there will see today.

In terms of witch values, it is very bad indeed to try to get away with things in private that show you up as a two-faced bastard in public. The company says that quality is a value of theirs but it obviously isn't. And now because of doing it across a witch it has bitten them in the bum.

I must be on a roll today because I have also stopped the tenant over the hall plugging his extension lead in to the hall socket by the very simple means of going out and unplugging it every time he plugs it in. Apart from using the building power he puts it right across the hall, dangerous clown. I haven't actually spoken to him, that wouldn't at all be in mother's playbook of driving people mad. I did email a picture to the concierge and I was actually quite impressed - within five minutes she replied to say she had sent it to the letting agent who would be giving them a warning.

The concierge is feeling a little fragile. I hasten to say that this isn't because of me, but I happen to know that one of the directors has been on at the management company for ages about the smell of damp in the basement, and I also know that every flat dweller in the world has been bothering their concierge because the collapse of Champlain Towers South is enough to make anyone nervous about a concrete building.

To be frank the Florida collapse sounds like exactly the sort of tragedy that should be avoided if people pay attention to the likely consequences of their actions. Critical safety concerns have been documented for around three years. I'm not necessarily saying this about the management of that building but there is a human tendency to try to get away with things and try to avoid the consequences of our actions. And it's exactly that attitude witchy intervention is aimed at changing.

You'll thank us for it in the long run.

Spirit of Place: Our Welsh Water

 Surely it must be common knowledge that Birmingham has its water brought here from Wales?

Every day 320 million litres of water travels 73 miles (117 km) from Wales to Birmingham to fill kettles, baths and boilers. But why does it come so far?

It dates back to the Victorian era when Birmingham was a rapidly growing city plagued by illnesses like cholera and typhoid which were caused by contaminated water.

A search for clean water sparked an "amazing feat of ingenuity" to bring it from the Welsh hills to the city.

 During the industrial revolution Birmingham's population soared and the city's wells and rivers, the Rea and Tame, become contaminated by sewage.

In 1873 Joseph Chamberlain became mayor which went on to cause a hostile takeover of the city's waterworks, creating the Birmingham Corporation Water Department.

His surveyors went out in search of clean water and decided the best place to get it from was Elan Valley in Wales.

 It had an average annual rainfall of 1830mm and its landscape was higher than Birmingham's, which would enable the 55 million litres of water to be transported to the city entirely by gravity.

Sarah-Jayne O'Kane, from Severn Trent Water, said the ambitious plan was to create a series of lakes by damming Elan and Claerwen rivers and transporting water via an aqueduct.

'No say'

The Birmingham Corporation Water Department achieved an Act of Parliament in 1892 enabling the compulsory purchase of the Elan Valley.

"The people of the village had no say," said Glyn Webster at Elan Valley Visitors Centre.

"About 100 people had to move out and around 20 buildings were destroyed.

"Most of the villagers were tenant farmers and only the land owners were given a small amount of compensation." Source

Actually what made me post this was reading today about a new government initiative. They want us all (or perhaps it's just schools) singing - the article I read compared this to North Korea. It also commented that Wales just isn't doing it. In fact nobody is doing it except a couple of schools in Bradford. What is wrong with them? Tomorrow is OBON day but the education secretary is having the piss taken out of him over it. Here is the song:

Agony Hound: My cash-loving girlfriend won’t stop having affairs with rich men

No, seriously. This is a Dear Deirdre (Here) and is just calling out to be worried by The Hound.

DEAR DEIDRE: MY girlfriend loves flashing the cash so much that she has constant affairs with rich men.

I’m a joiner, I work hard and earn a decent wage but it’s not enough for her.

I’m 28 and she’s 27. I wanted to marry her but I think I need to face the reality that I won’t ever earn enough money in her eyes.

She’s a beautician and is really stunning so has no problem getting attention.

We’ve been together for three years and I found out about her first fling within the first six months because her colleague let slip that she was seeing someone else.

I forgave her after she explained she wasn’t sure we would last — and this other guy was “insurance”.

I reassured her I wanted us to work and she said she did too. I thought we had put it behind us.

I try to spoil her as much as possible and take her to the best bars and restaurants I can afford.

But it’s not enough. Last month I found a stash of designer handbags, shoes and jewellery in the back of her wardrobe.

We don’t live together and I was looking for a jacket I’d left at hers.

I picked up a tiny Burberry clutch and a note fell out. It read: “The hottest bag, for the hottest girl. Love your sweet cheeks M.” She walked in on me while I was still sitting there.

Within minutes the gory details had tumbled out of her mouth.

She said it wasn’t about the sex, which was normally forgettable, it was about being spoiled with gifts and being driven around in luxury cars.

How can we have a future when all I can offer is a ride in my white van?

DEIDRE SAYS: A glitzy lifestyle and wads of cash are no substitute for true love. If she doesn’t want you unconditionally, no amount of money will ever be enough for her love.

Perhaps there were other reasons apart from her expensive tastes that made her cheat. While it may seem she is nothing more than a gold digger, there may be other aspects of the relationship she was not happy with.

She has to learn that she can’t have it all. Talk together about changes you would both like to see that would make your relationship more satisfying.

My support pack Cheating – Can You Get Over It? will help. But ultimately if her love for you remains shallow, you need to seriously consider walking away.

You deserve someone who would be proud to sit next to you in your Transit.

The Hound says: I have honestly given much thought about what to say to you. I have thought about how to try to be subtle and it's frankly rather difficult to know how to, so I am giving up on the subtlety front and will say what I'm thinking!

Firstly, you do realise you are her side hustle don't you? She has actually told you that she sees people as insurance and while she would deny it if you asked her, there is no indication she doesn't see you as insurance as well.

If you think about how she sees you, it is not impossible that she sees you as the reliable one who will put up with her games, in fact as insurance!

Secondly, I would suggest you keep my side hustle scenario in mind if you talk to her about it. Since she seems to see people as mere scenery to prop up her own life, if you try to talk to her about this it is not outside the bounds of possibility that she will say all the right things and, if you press it and confront her with her behaviour, she will try to manipulate you. My bet would be that she would talk about her poor self esteem and tell you how good you are for her. Keep in mind, though, the sort of things she could also be saying to her other hustles!

The bottom line is you are frankly too good for this gold digger and she's taking you for a ride. However you are in charge of your own life and I'm never one to stop people screwing up their own lives. You may care to optimize your income though, and I think that the film studio called Triga would like to use you in their films. They use this talent agency if you want to apply. Your girlfriend's reaction should be interesting.

If you decide you want to end it with her, it sounds like she either won't be bothered (she's probably got several insurance policies) or else it will turn into a mammoth drama and she'll try to marry you. My suggestion would be rather than try to end it have some fun by telling her that since she's basically a prostitute anyway you would like to formalise this and be her pimp.

Knowing the Shadow with the Tarot and Another Great Occult Secret

It is surely common knowledge that in Jungian psychology there is an idea of the shadow, defined either as parts of ourselves that the conscious isn't aware of, or else possibly the entirety of the subconscious.

We get hints of it when reflected by other people - the classic one is when someone tells you that you do something and it is complete news to you. I must probably stress caution here because of course the reflections we get from other people are influenced by their perception.

In one of my many previous jobs every year you were given feedback. This took the entire team being given the opportunity to say whatever they liked about you and it was then given to you completely unfiltered. I must say that as a tool for personal and professional development it was completely useless. If you have any self-awareness at all, there will be no surprises, and if you lack self awareness it will come as such a shock it will also be useless. The team lead in particular spent a fortnight crying in a corner.

A means of divination such as tarot can give us a privileged insight into what is going on for other people and also into stuff we ourselves may not be aware of. An exercise I like to do is go through the deck and see which cards either repulse me or that I find it difficult to connect with, and it's fairly likely my shadow will be in there somewhere. I'm delighted to announce that I seem to be making some progress because the cards I find difficult are not the same as they were some years ago. I do, however, have an ongoing problem with the 6 of cups, sometimes called the 4711 card because it brings up grandma's scent. My own upbringing means that I tend to interpret it in a twisted way.

I have recently come across a tarot writer who blew me away by saying that our perception is influenced by evolution and survival. I have never taken to the idea that everything is illusion but this is an idea I like a lot. I'm just not naming the writer now because he credits someone else with the idea and of course I can't find it in the book. He says that if we saw the whole of tarot we would die. Like the face of G*d although of course we witches say that that's just like seeing the face of the milkman.

Speaking of change and perception, the great occult secret I'm going to let out of the bag today is that progress in magical traditions is almost invariably accompanied by a load of shit happening to you. I mean, you only have to look back through this blog. The reason for that is that unfinished business from previous incarnations and this one gets corrected as you go on. Yes I know this is no comfort at all, I just put it out there to indicate that if anyone claims magic can get you three homes, four lovers and a string of cars, and never experience any problems, they really don't know what they're talking about. For those you need the prosperity gospel, not us, and the fact that we witches think every day should be a celebration and there is no need to make things difficult, doesn't stop Life happening!

Why I can't write a Book about Witchcraft

Try as I might. I have started so often, then either find that what I have written either seems to vanish as I write it, or I find someone else has already written the book I am setting out to write. For this reason I have tended to find the episodic writing of a blog suits the subject matter better, and while writing things down has the same effect of making them vanish for me, the blog allows themes or patterns in my thinking to appear.

I used to think it was almost the fault of the subject matter. I didn't want to write a 'do this, say that, whack that' beginners guide but wanted to write a book about what was behind the beginner's guides. This is of course impossible, because these things are intangible. I would liken the layers behind what we see to a dynamic in psychotherapy - you can't see it but you can definitely feel it. And it is essentially these dynamics that all magical traditions work with.

Even in the real world of management, there are recognised things called intangible assets - for example the loyalty returning customers have to a company. You can't necessarily measure the loyalty, you can only measure the return and the reasons for it.

It is also not surprising that other people should helpfully keep writing the book I mean to. There isn't a tangible history of witchcraft succession, but we sure as hell know each other and walk the same paths without necessarily visibly meeting. And of course there is the tradition that witches keep meeting, so it's no surprise we should cover the same ground. We are, after all the ultimate intangible tradition.

I have also noticed that published authors who write more than one book either publish the same stuff rehashed or else publish different stuff as their own interest and journey moves on. Exactly the experience I have that I write something down and it's no longer my current focus.

I don't think you'll be seeing an actual book by the Hound at this rate...