Low Magick: It's All In Your Head ... You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is - Lon Milo DuQuette 2010
A Weekend Alone with the Spirits of the Tarot
You hold the universe in your hand when you pick up a deck of tarot cards.
RABBI LAMED BEN CLIFFORD
The creation and ritual “consummation” of my seven planetary talismans launched me on a wondrous magical adventure that I am only now (at the dawn of my reflective years) beginning to put in perspective. In the years that immediately followed that birthday immolation, I would unexpectedly undergo magical initiation at the hands of some of the last surviving personal students of Aleister Crowley, find myself leading a magical lodge, and become friends with many of the brightest magical minds in the world, including Robert Anton Wilson, Christopher S. Hyatt, and Francis (Israel) Regardie. I would undergo (one might say suffer) an Odyssean array of personal and magical ordeals, challenges, triumphs, and tragedies.
Among the subjects that captured my imagination (and spare time) in the first two decades of my journey was tarot and its relationship (at least in the minds of hermetic magicians) to the Qabalah. I realize that probably not everyone reading this book is familiar with tarot, but it is highly likely that many of you are. Those of you who read the cards for yourself or for others probably have a favorite deck that you’ve used for a long time—a deck you trust; a deck you’ve charged with your own personal essence and vibrations; a deck you’ve empowered through years of repeated use. If you do, it’s probably scuffed and dog-eared. Its edges are most likely filthy gray from years of skin-oil and dirt. It just might be a biohazard! I know many tarot readers whose cards are so flaccid they hardly make any noise when they are shuffled.
But, unattractive as your well-worn cards may be, you probably view them as old friends. You have a history together. You trust them. They are alive—perhaps more alive than you can imagine.
My first deck of tarot cards was one I painted myself as part of the marvelous Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.)41 Tarot/Qabalah correspondence course back in the early 1970s. It was sort of a paint-by-numbers project (only without the numbers), and I had worked on only the twenty-two trumps. I didn’t attempt to read or divine with those cards because the lessons cautioned that one could cripple oneself spiritually by using the cards to tell fortunes. I took the warning seriously—for a while.
The deck I first used to read the cards was an early edition of the Thoth Tarot42 deck that I bought in 1972 at Pickwick Bookstore in Costa Mesa. I would use that deck exclusively for more than twenty years. I might still be using it but, as fate would have it, I would eventually create my own tarot deck, The Tarot of Ceremonial Magick,43 and I guess I would be a poor advertisement if I didn’t use my own deck. I would eventually come to realize that the creation of The Tarot of Ceremonial Magick was really a continuation and elaborate expansion of the magical operation that I started years earlier by creating my seven planetary talismans—for indeed, the tarot is one magnificent and complex talisman containing within its matrix all the usual suspects of the Western hermetic and magical traditions. Please don’t think that I am suggesting that, in order to successfully use the cards as a divinatory tool, a person has to be aware of all the astrological and magical virtues of the seventy-eight cards. In fact, I’d wager that the majority of tarot readers in the world couldn’t care less about the underlying magical principles, forces, and spirits inherent in the cards. Yes. I said spirits—but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Because it is built upon fundamental Qabalistic principles, tarot is in a very real way the graphic DNA of the hermetic arts that are also Qabalah-based, including astrology, alchemy, and several varieties of ceremonial magick. As such, tarot is (or should be) of special interest to magicians and would-be magicians.
If we could magically peek just below the slick surface and colored inks of tarot cards, we would see that every pack is a tidy little block of flats that houses a teeming world of angels, spirits, and demons. For centuries an odd assortment of obsessed holy guys (who obviously had a lot of time on their hands) identified, fingerprinted, and booked these spirit creatures, and with zealous and anal-retentive attention to detail, categorized them by their elemental, planetary, zodiacal, astrological, and other traditional correspondences. Then, with the ruthlessness of tenement landlords, these holy guys squeezed each of them into its appropriate place in the spiritual hierarchy of the cosmos—referenced and cross-referenced in mountains of ancient and modern tables, graphs, and charts. This information has always been implied by the structure of the tarot but, until I designed my deck, this information (or at least the major landmarks of this information) was never overtly displayed on a deck of tarot cards themselves. I wanted to make flash cards of pertinent data relating to Astrology and the two most widely practiced varieties of magick (Enochian44 and Goetia45), and that’s just what I did—first in crude, hand-drawn notecards for the edification of my Monday night magick class, then later in the more heroic published deck. A couple of weeks before the first edition of my deck went on sale worldwide, I did the very best I could to magically charge the cards by invoking, evoking, or otherwise magically activating their spirit tenants. If you have a moment, I’d like to tell you how it was done.
The afternoon I opened the UPS package and took out the first box of my tarot cards was one of the most magical moments of my life. The project had taken the better part of five years from design to manifestation. Oh, how I savored the moment! I sat down in my big papa-chair and turned the box over and over in my hands. I closed my eyes and held it up to my nose and inhaled the exotic incense of plastics and inks and resins. I tried to picture in my mind the factory in faraway Belgium where they were printed, cut, and packaged. I tried to imagine how all ten thousand boxes might look stacked up in a pyramid. For some reason, however, I was hesitant to open that first box and break the clear plastic wrapper that bound the deck into one perfect, virgin entity.
“Why can’t I open the box?” I asked myself.
Even as I mentally broadcast that question, the answer returned on the same thought-wave.46
A deck of tarot cards is a wondrous thing. According to tradition, tarot was designed, organized, and arranged to be a perfect reflection of the cosmic principles that create and sustain all things in heaven and earth.47 Tarot is a telescope through which we can gaze at the great macrocosmic world of deity; and it’s a microscope by which we can dissect the tiniest secrets of nature and our own souls. But, unless we are somehow cognizant of this Qabalistic perfection, either intellectually or intuitively, tarot is just seventy-eight pieces of printed card stock.
Sitting there in my big chair, I was paralyzed with the realization that this was a rare and magical moment. It would be weeks before the cards would be on the market—weeks before other hands would touch them and other eyes behold the images. For this golden moment, the deck I held in my hand was the virgin mother deck—the virgin father deck—the immaculate archetype of all the decks of my Tarot of Ceremonial Magick that would ever be printed and sold in the future.
For a magician, this was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had the chance to charge and attune this mother deck with all the powers and properties that lay hidden in all tarot decks. I had the chance to literally invoke upon (and evoke into) this deck all the spiritual forces, aspects of deity, archangels, angels, intelligences, and spirits that magical tradition informs us are resident in each card.
I had the chance—no—I had the responsibility to magically charge this deck as no deck of tarot cards has ever been charged, and, in doing so, transmit that charge to all its cloned children throughout the world!
(Perhaps you are hearing the “Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-hah!” of mad scientist laughter?)
This obviously would be a big job, requiring many hours, perhaps days, to complete. I would need to draw upon all the knowledge and skill a mad, narcissistic, and obsessed magician (with far too much time on his hands) could muster. Constance was out of town visiting her parents in Nebraska. I had the house all to myself. I had a three-day weekend before me … and of course, most importantly—I was just the mad, narcissistic, and obsessed magician who could do it!
I set immediately to work. I unplugged the telephone, then showered and dressed in clean black sweatpants and a white T-shirt. (This wizard needs to be clean and comfortable!) I then cleared the furniture from the center of the living room. “If Constance knew I was doing this she’d kill me! Ah, but she won’t know until she gets back from Nebraska. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-hah!” For the next two days, this space would be my temple.
I am pretty much a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants magician, but there are certain magical formulae that I never fail to acknowledge and incorporate in my operations. The most venerable of these concerns the preparations I make prior to an operation. I had already done the first prerequisite, that of bathing myself and putting on clean clothes. Now it was time to do something similar to the area in which I would work.
I thoroughly vacuumed the living room carpet, then proceeded with the more formal ceremonies. I started by anointing the top of my head with holy oil (Oil of Abramelin48), then I banished the temple with the standard Banishing Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram. These two ceremonies served the purpose of clearing the temple completely of elemental and planetary influences. The room was now, for the moment, a magical vacuum. From that moment on, the only magical forces to enter this sacred space would be those that I specifically allowed in.
Next I purified the temple with water. There are many elaborate ceremonies I could have used, but instead I went to the kitchen and grabbed my favorite coffee cup49 and filled it with tap water. I stuck the forefinger of my right hand in it and stirred it around for a moment. There! I had manufactured my own holy water. (As a duly consecrated bishop,50 I can do that.) I returned to the living room and sprinkled the floor east, south, west, and north. At each quarter I simply pronounced an impromptu, “I purify the temple with water.”
Next I consecrated my temple with fire. I took a votive candle off the fireplace mantle and lit it. I approached each quarter of the room as before and drew in the air an equal-armed cross with the flame with the words, “I consecrate the temple with fire and dedicate this space to the purpose of this act of magick.”
There. I was almost ready to get to work—but get to work doing what? Standing there in my nice clean body and clothes, in the nice clean empty universe of my living room temple, I needed now to announce to myself and the magical cosmos what exactly I was here for. I had to frame my magical intention in words. I had to take the oath. I grabbed my magical diary and a pen and quickly composed an oath that encapsulated my magical intent for this operation. I fired up some charcoal in the censer and covered it with pure frankincense. As the sweet-smelling smoke rose to the heavens, so did my ninety-three-word oath:
I, Adeo Sat Bene,51 Zealator and Ninth Degree, swear to the Supreme What-It-Is of the Universe that I will charge this deck of tarot cards and every other deck of this design that currently exists, or will exist in the future, with the force of every spiritual entity in the universe that I am capable of conjuring and binding into it. May their presence in the cards serve to contribute only to the enlightenment and spiritual health and well-being of all with whom it comes in contact. So mote it be!
With the banishing, purification, and oath out of the way, I got down to business. I would start by charging the fifty-six cards of the tarot’s Lesser Arcana: The four Aces (Ace of Wands, Ace of Cups, Ace of Swords, Ace of Disks) the sixteen Court Cards (four per suit—a Knight, a Queen, a Prince, a Princess), and thirty-six Small Cards or pips (2 through 10 of each suit).
In the middle of the floor, I assembled several items of the elaborate magical equipment associated with the Enochian magick of Dr. John Dee. For this operation I would use the four Elemental Tablets and the small Tablet of Union that rules them. These tablets and the way they are constructed have a direct correlation to the structure and organization of the tarot. They offered me the perfect consecrated centerpiece for my operation.
Space does not permit me here52 to elaborate fully on the magical significance of the Enochian Tablets. But, in order for this part of the story to make any sense at all to anyone who is completely unfamiliar with Enochian magick, I must at least point out a few landmarks of the system—particularly those that modern Enochian magicians refer to as “Elemental Tablets.” There are four of them; one each for fire, water, air, and earth. Each Elemental Tablet is made up of 156 squares or truncated pyramids arranged in a large tablet twelve squares wide by thirteen squares high. Each pyramid is lettered with the one-letter-name of an elemental angel. Combined with one, two, or many other letters within the tablet, an almost infinite number of larger and more complex angels are generated, forming an elaborate (and painfully logical) hierarchy of elemental angels. It is a breathtakingly elegant system, and can be the subject of a lifetime of study.
This system parallels the hermetic structure of the tarot. The four Elemental Tablets are the equivalent of the four Aces of the tarot. For example; put the Ace of Wands under a magick microscope and you will see the entire Enochian Elemental Tablet of Fire teeming with the living hierarchy of angels that inhabit it. Do the same with the Ace of Cups and see the Elemental Tablet of Water; the Ace of Swords for the tablet of Air, and the Ace of Disks for the tablet of Earth.
Each Elemental Tablet is equivalent to a tarot Ace.
Each of the Enochian Elemental Tablets is subdivided into four equal-sized quarters by a cross made up of two vertical columns and one row. This cross is made up of thirty-six lettered squares (more on that in a moment). Each of the four quarters created by this cross is assigned to one of the four elements. For example: the fire tablet has a quarter for fire (fire of fire), one for water (water of fire), one for air (air of fire) and one for earth (earth of fire). The Elemental tablets of water, air, and earth are divided in exactly the same way.
These subquarters (often called subangles) of the four Elemental Tablets are the equivalent to the sixteen Court Cards of the tarot. The Knights are fiery, the Queens watery, the Princes airy, and the Princesses are earthy aspects of their respective suits.53
For example: put the Knight of Wands (fire of fire) under a magick microscope and behold the fire quarter of the Elemental Tablet of fire and all the Enochian angels living inside it. Look at the Queen of Disks (water of earth) with the magick microscope and see the water quarter of the Elemental tablet (Ace) of earth, etc. I’m sure you are getting the picture.
Each Elemental Tablet is divided into four sub-elemental quarters
which are equivalent to the four tarot Court Cards of each suit.
The remaining cards of the Lesser Arcana are the thirty-six Small Cards (or pips), the 2s through 10s of each of the four suits. The Small Cards also are populated by a rich assortment of traditional spirits, angels, and demons, many of which are arranged in neat hierarchical families dictated by their place in the zodiac and the zodiacal year.
[Warning! If all this technical Enochian magick talk is putting you to sleep—Wake up! It’s going to get good!]
Each of the thirty-six Small Cards represents one decan (ten degrees) of the zodiac. In groups of three:
· The nine Small Cards of the suit of Wands naturally live in the three fire signs of the zodiac (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius).
· The nine Cups live in the water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces).
· The nine Swords live in the air signs (Libra, Aquarius,
Gemini).
· The nine Disks live in the earth signs (Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo).
Starting at 0 degrees Aries, these thirty-six Small Cards spread themselves in perfect 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, order through the zodiac with elegant simplicity:
· All four groups of 2-3-4s inhabit the cardinal signs of the zodiac (Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn).
· The four sets of 5-6-7s reside in the fixed signs of the zodiac (Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius, and Taurus).
· The four sets of 8-9-10s find themselves neatly housed in the mutable signs of the zodiac (Sagittarius, Pisces, Gemini, and Virgo).
From left to right, the 36 Small Cards
distributed through the zodiacal year.
The thirty-six squares of the Great Cross of each Elemental Tablet are equivalent to the thirty-six Small Cards (2—10) or each tarot suit. The 2-3-4s (the cards that represent the 30 degrees of the cardinal signs of the zodiac) are always positioned in the left-hand column of the Great Cross; the 5-6-7s (the cards that represent the 30 degrees of the fixed signs of the zodiac) are always positioned as the horizontal row of the Great Cross; and the 8-9-10s (the cards that represent the 30 degrees of the mutable signs of the zodiac) are always positioned in the right hand column of the Great Cross. The ordering of the cards within their respective columns and row, however, differ between the four Elemental Tablets.
The 36 squares of the Great Cross of each Enochian Elemental Tablet
are equivalent to the 36 Small Cards of the tarot
The Tablet of Union is sort of like the master ruler or table of contents for the four Elemental Tablets. It is made up of only twenty lettered squares (five wide by four high), but oh what squares they are, for those twenty squares contain the entire elemental enchilada.
Tablet of Union
Now that you have had a basic introduction the Enochian way of looking at the elemental world, you’ll understand a bit more of the method to the magical madness I was about to embark upon.
I laid the unopened deck of cards upon the Tablet of Union like it was a tiny little virgin on a sacrificial altar and performed a brief baptism ceremony whereby I officially named the deck Tarot of Ceremonial Magick. I opened the box and slid out the little white book and the sealed deck. With my thumbnail, I broke the clear plastic hymen and took out the cards. They smelled wonderful! I separated the twenty-two trumps (greater arcana54) from the fifty-six cards of the lesser arcana.55 I would start by charging the lesser arcana.
I placed each Ace in the center of its natural tablet (the Ace of Wands on the Fire tablet, the Ace of Cups on the Water tablet, the Ace of Swords on the Air tablet, the Ace of Disks on the Earth tablet). These lettered tablets, which contain the names of literally thousands of Enochian elemental angels and spirits, are reproduced on the Aces of my deck.
I then placed the sixteen Court Cards upon the appropriate subangles of the four Elemental Tablets. These lettered subangles with their specific hierarchy of spirits are also reproduced in colorful detail on the Court Cards of the deck.
Finally, I arranged the thirty-six Small Cards (nine per tablet) on their appropriate squares of the Grand Cross area of each tablet. These individual squares are also reproduced on the Small Cards of the deck.
I opened the temple with the traditional four-part Opening by Watchtower ceremony that was used by the Golden Dawn, and then systematically activated the tablets by invoking the Three Great Secret Names of God and the seven planetary Seniors of each tablet. Then I intoned, in turn, the first eighteen Calls in the Enochian angelic language. Over the years I had intoned the Calls many times, but never all at once. It felt very strange, and put me in an altered state of consciousness that intensified as the two-day-and-night ritual would proceed.
It was midnight by the time I was through activating the tablets. I went to bed without banishing in order to let the fifty-six cards of the lesser arcana “fry” all night upon the fully activated Enochian Tablets. In the morning (Saturday), before getting back to magick, I outlined the rest of the marathon ceremony in my journal. There was still a lot of Enochian work ahead of me. For each of the sixteen Court Cards, I had to call upon the three major angels (two God Names and Kerub of the Calvary Crosses) and four minor angels (the four servitors of each subangle). As the tablets were already activated from the night before, this took less than ninety minutes.
After that, the ceremonies turned classically Qabalistic. I called into the thirty-six Small Cards (the 2s—10s of each suit) the seventy-two Angels of the Shemhamphorash, whose names appear on the cards. This took more time than I imagined. I had to first lay out the cards, then intone, in order, each angel name and recite the Psalm that tradition holds is expressive of the duties assigned to each particular angel. (Oh those Qabalists do love their Psalms!)
Spririts of the Tarot Chart - part 1
Spririts of the Tarot Chart - part 2
Next, I turned my attention to evoking into the cards the seventy-two spirits of the Goetia whose names and sigils appear in pairs
on each of the thirty-six Small Cards. The spirits of the Goetia are traditionally categorized as fallen angels and can be a pretty rough bunch. It’s not that they’re evil per se—just blind, unbalanced forces that do the heavy lifting in the universe. Like heavy machinery, they can be dangerous to the untrained operator, and very helpful to the experienced (or lucky). These critters are divided into thirty-six day spirits and thirty-six night spirits, so naturally, I would have to evoke thirty-six in the daytime and thirty-six at night.
It was nearly noon on Saturday when I started the evocation of the day spirits. I first cast the circle and triangle that would be necessary for that kind of operation. As each of the thirty-six Small Cards plays host to one day spirit and one night spirit, I spread all thirty-six cards in the Triangle together (a tight fit) and evoked, charged, and dismissed the thirty-six day spirits in turn without having to leave the circle. My charge was the same for each spirit: “You will be helpful, obedient, and protective to me and everyone who uses this card and its replicas.”
Even with this highly abbreviated procedure, it took nearly four hours. I broke twice for coffee and bathroom breaks and finished with the evocation of the day spirits just before sunset.
I found ripe avocados, corn chips, and cheese in the house, so I made a demonically huge mess in the kitchen then gorged on nachos and guacamole (the fast-food favorite of California magicians whose wives are out of town). Sated, and a little sick to my stomach, I turned on a tape of Respighi’s Pines of Rome and took a long early-evening nap.
I got up and showered about 11:00 p.m. and repeated the procedure for the thirty-six night spirits. I finished about four o’clock Sunday morning. By then I was in such a state of wild-eyed exaltation and exhaustion that those last thirty-six spirits were the most polite and cooperative beasties I have ever conjured. Still, I barely had enough energy to put the cards back in their box and banish the temple before I crashed.
After a crazy night of the most bizarre and amusing dreams, I lounged around late Sunday morning, then drove to the deli and treated myself to a fresh onion bagel before forcing myself back to work. I was getting really tired of doing magick.
The twenty-two Trumps would be the last cards to get the full treatment. I sat on the living room floor with Aleister Crowley’s 77756 and a chart listing the traditional archangels, angels, and qliphotic demons of the signs of the zodiac, and surrounded myself in a magical circle made entirely of tarot cards. I placed the three elemental Trumps (Fool, Hanged Man, and Aeon) nearest me in the center. Around these, I placed the seven planetary Trumps (Magus, Priestess, Empress, Fortune, Tower, Sun, and Universe). Circling the planets I spread out the twelve zodiacal trumps (Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers, Lust, Hermit, Justice, Death, Art, Devil, Star, and Moon) all in a great circle surrounding me and the other Trumps.
Around that circle I laid out the thirty-six Small Cards in a huge circle that required me to move some more furniture just to fit it on the floor. Each of the Small Cards represents 10 degrees of the zodiacal year, so I placed them in order starting with the 2 of Wands (0 to 10 degrees Aries) in the nine o’clock position and moving counterclockwise, finally ending with the 10 of Cups (20 to 30 degrees Pisces).
Finally, I positioned the Aces and Court Cards outside the great outer circle according to the quarters they rule. Then I carefully tiptoed into the very center of my tarot mandala and began my final magical chore.
Using the tables from 777, I lumbered through my butchered Hebrew pronunciation of the appropriate divine names, archangels, angels, spirits, and intelligences for each element, planet, and zodiac sign. It was really … really boring!—so boring that it actually induced a state of consciousness that I can only describe as a dull rhythmic electric ecstasy. (Could fatigue and boredom actually be the key to Qabalistic illumination? Constance certainly thinks so!)
When I was done, I just sat there and buzzed like I’ve never buzzed before. And so did the cards. I was physically drained, emotionally gratified, psychically raw, and more than a bit insane. Even though I was completely sick of performing magick, I had an epiphany concerning the nature of magick—the realization that the only thing a magician can effect change upon is the magician. Yes, the cards got charged—but not because I charged them but because I charged myself with that crazy two-day ritual.
By five o’clock Sunday afternoon, nearly forty-eight hours after I began, it was over. With tingling fingers I reordered the cards, gave them a big kiss (at the time, I still wasn’t sure where my lips ended and the rest of the universe began), and returned the charged cards to their box. I mustered the energy to banish the temple with the Greater Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram, and then moved the furniture back into place. I took a long shower and dressed. I rewarded myself with a trip to my favorite Mexican restaurant where I ordered nearly everything on the menu and got good and drunk.
So there it is. You’d be right to point out that it seems like a damned silly thing for a grown man to do with his weekend alone, and perhaps you would be right.
Am I happy with the way it worked? Well … yes. Of course I am. The cards have gotten great reviews and magicians and tarotists all around the world have told me wonderful and magical things they’ve done with the cards (and wonderful and magical things the cards have done to them). That’s exactly what I wanted to happen.
After fifteen years, two printings, and twenty thousand decks sold worldwide, I’ve recently changed publishers and it looks like the deck will be around for a long time. I have to confess, however, that I wish I had done one more little thing during my forty-eight hours of magical madness. I wish I’d done some magick to make the damned things sell better.
[contents]
40 I first shared the outline of this ceremony in an address to the 2003 Los Angeles Tarot Symposium, and in the Beltane 2005 issue of Pentacle Magazine, UK.
41 Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.) is a religious nonprofit, tax-exempt, California corporation founded by Paul Foster Case (1884—1954).
42 Since the early 1970s, the Thoth Tarot has been printed by an assortment of publishers.
43 Lon and Constance DuQuette, Tarot of Ceremonial Magick: A Pictorial Syntheses of Three Great Pillars of Magick (Astrology, Enochian Magick, Goetia). Originally published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 1994. Newest edition by Thelesis Aura, 2010.
44 Enochian magick is a magical system developed in the late sixteenth century by Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley. Aspects of the complex system were expanded upon in the late nineteenth century by adepts of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and later by Aleister Crowley. See my Enochian Vision Magick—An Introduction and Practical Guide to the Magick of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley (York Beach, ME: Weiser Books, 2008).
45 DuQuette, Tarot of Ceremonial Magick.
46 A phenomenon that often characterizes spirit communication. See chapter 13.
47 Whether or not this is a historical fact, the current structure of a standard deck of tarot cards has nevertheless evolved over the centuries to represent a perfect reflection of basic Qabalistic principles.
48 Considered by many magicians to be the most sacred and powerful of magical unguents, Oil of Abramelin was first mentioned in The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, written in 1458 by Abraham the Jew. It is made up primarily of pure cinnamon oil, olive oil, and small amounts of oil of myrrh and galangal.
49 When you think about it, what more personal, practical, and sacred magical vessel is there for a coffee drinker?
50 See chapter 13 and appendix 2.
51 My magical motto is “Adeo Sat Bene.” It is Latin for “So far, so good.”
52 But I have written a very nice introduction to the subject that I am not shy about urging you to read. Enochian Vision Magick—An Introduction and Practical Guide to the Magick of Dr. John Dee & Edward Kelley (York Beach, ME: Weiser Books, 2008).
53 Or in many standard decks, the fire, water, air, and earth Court Cards are King, Queen, Knight, and Page.
54 The twenty-two cards of the greater arcana are associated with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and are often referred to as the “Trumps.” They are the cards most people think of when they hear the term “tarot cards.” In the Tarot of Ceremonial Magick they are numbered 0—21 in the following order: Fool, Magus, High Priestess, Empress, Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers, Chariot, Adjustment, Hermit, Fortune, Lust, Hanged Man, Death, Art, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, Aeon, Universe.
55 The fifty-six cards of the lesser arcana are divided into the four elemental suits: Wands/Fire; Cups/Water; Swords/Air; Disks/Earth. The Ace of each suit is, as it were, the master card of the suit; the four Court Cards (Knight, Queen, Prince, and Princess) and nine Small Cards (2—10) all “living” inside the Ace. A complete pack of tarot cards contains: Twenty-two trumps; four Aces: sixteen Court Cards; and thirty-six Small Cards.
56 Aleister Crowley, 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley, revised edition (York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser Books., 1986).