Oh no, the Tower! Death, destruction, disaster (wow, a lot of scary words start with a D), and general woe to all who are in the vicinity!
Well, we all know that there aren’t really any truly one sided things in this universe, so let’s get to digging into what this card really represents.
Here we have another one of those cards that is supposed to be eeeeeeeevil in the popular culture. Case amplifies its traditional meaning of temptation to give the Devil card the keyword bondage.
Temperance is not reflective of the common definition of the word, like Women’s Christian Temperance Union. It’s about the act of tempering, which is a way of treating steel with fire to make it stronger. This week’s keyword is verification, in which we try out hypotheses to form theories.
Death is a fairly dramatic card, and not in a “THE DEATH CARD!! BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!” kind of way. Death is a signifier of change, transformation and rebirth.
Because I give up!
Anyway…
The Hanged Man is probably the most famous Tarot card. I know I was aware of it before beginning to actually study and use the cards. This one and the Death card are the ones most often used in popular culture to emphasize the “woooo…scary” aspects of the use of the Tarot. Now that I know more, it always makes me laugh, because these are so NOT the scary cards. Give me the Hanged Man over the Tower, or the Three of Swords any day.
I apologize for the lateness; I’ve been traveling a lot and getting ready to move, so things kind of got away from me this week.
Anyway, let’s get to Justice, an important card in the Major Arcana. Case begins the lesson quoting what he calls an occult maxim: “Equilibrium is the basis of the Great Work.” This is an important point in ceremonial magick, witchcraft, folk magick and any other work you might undertake to do. Balance is incredibly important in all things.
I’m in a car all day traveling back from a job hunting/baby smooshing trip. We’ll do the Justice card some justice next week but in the meantime… Continue reading
No, silly, not the game show!
So we’ve looped back around to the beginning numerologically: 10 = 1 + 0 = 1 again. More accurately, the combination of the qualities of 0 and 1. Therefore, the 10th Trump is the “embodiment of growth and the reciprocal action between opposites.” Case calls it the “eternal creativeness of Life Power whirling forth.”
Case kind of disappears down a Qaballistic rabbit hole at the beginning of this lesson, which is a shame because the Hermit is an interesting card. I’ll give a quick summary of his rambling before we get into the meat of the lesson.
Lucina's Cauldron 