4.7.2024
Eclipsed . . .
Hello everyone, and welcome new readers. As fate would have it, I live in the direct path of tomorrow’s eclipse, so I’m looking forward to an interesting experience. I’ll write about it!
Of course I Googled “eclipse and Tarot.” There wasn’t as much as I’d expected, but I did find the dramatic and distinctive Golden Eclipse deck:
Their description:
This artisanal circular tarot deck combines tarot, astrology, and planetary magick. Each contains 85 double-sided gold foil and features meticulous hand-gilding crafted by the esteemed Italian gilding atelier that serves the Vatican. This deck is crafted in limited batches, requiring a minimum of six months, and is 100% ecologically produced.
Available accessories for the $200 deck include an extensive guidebook in various formats, as well as an altar cloth.
The eclipse connection?
The Golden Eclipse is named after the merging of polar energies that occurs during a kundalini awakening — the process wherein evolutionary energy makes its way up the bodily chakras, or spiritual energy centers, on the inner path to enlightenment. This journey unites dualities, elevating the mind above the notion of separation.
In Alchemy, the eclipse represents the union of opposite forces: the sun, which symbolizes the masculine, and the moon, which symbolizes the feminine. This convergence mirrors the flow of kundalini energy, leading to unity consciousness, or oneness with the Universe. The unfoldment of this psycho-spiritual process provides the archetypal context for the Fool's Journey.
My thought:
This super-luxe deck echoes the richness of early painted decks, then adds an extravagantly complex graphic style, as well as multiple layers of esoteric lore and psychological interpretation. Which seems like a lot to take in!
But the Golden Eclipse certainly promises an immersive experience—and represents an impressive amount of effort.
A Note about Books
I looked around the EP archives to see if eclipses had come up before, but it seems not. So I chose today’s flashback for a different reason. I was recently invited to create a list of five “favorite” Tarot books, and after quite a bit of thought, decided to highlight important books that few people know about. I discussed one of them in the very first “real” EP post . . .
1 . . . Then: An overview of Angeles Arrien and James Wanless’s pathbreaking 1992 anthology, Wheel of Tarot: A New Revolution.
By 1992, a number of important Tarot books had already been published. (You can see a timeline in the Exploration Project story Transforming Tarot: “A New Revolution.”) But only one had brought together varied perspectives on Tarot—the 1989 volume New Thoughts on Tarot: Transcripts from the First International Newcastle Tarot Symposium.
Four of the folks featured in New Thoughts will also be found in Wheel of Tarot. Four others were already-popular Tarot authors:
Eileen Connolly (Tarot: A New Handbook for the Apprentice, 1990)
Gail Fairfield (Choice Centered Tarot, 1982)
Mary K. Greer (Tarot for Your Self, 1984)
Amber Jayanti (Living the Tarot, 1988)
Carl Lammey (Karmic Tarot, 1988).
All of those authors continued to produce new books for at least a decade, and Connolly created a Tarot deck that was very popular for a while.
The editors of New Thoughts on Tarot—Mary Greer and Rachel Pollack—would go on to become the best known and most admired writers/teachers in the entire field of Tarot studies.
But let’s get back to Wheel of Tarot, which was published three years after New Thoughts. It’s a very different kind of book, in several ways. First, it’s comprised of articles (some written for other purposes) rather than transcripts of Tarot-centered discussions. Second, the majority of articles are by authors from various academic or professional disciplines, who write about Tarot from their own disciplinary perspectives.
In other words—they were not (specifically) Tarot specialists.
The editors of Wheel of Tarot themselves came from academic/professional backgrounds. Angeles Arrien, Ph.D. was a cultural anthropologist, James Wanless, Ph.D., a political scientist. Both became fascinated by Tarot, and created works that contributed to the late-20th century “transformation.”
Along with Mary Greer and Hillary Anderson, Arrien and Wanless are the only authors to appear in both New Thoughts and Wheel. The other nineteen Wheel contributors include two physicists, half a dozen practicing psychologists, a social worker, an ordained minister, and an assortment of people who had integrated Tarot into their professional and/or creative practices.
Two contributors, in particular, were well known in circles outside Tarot:
Consciousness researcher Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., became famous—along with Timothy Leary and Ram Dass—for exploring the intersection of psychoactive drugs and sacred traditions. Metzner was also a pioneer in the emerging field of parapsychological research.
Jane English, Ph.D., had begun a career in particle physics, but shifted her focus to photography and Oriental philosophy. In 1985, English collaborated with her husband (Taoist teacher Gia-Fu Feng), on an illustrated translation of the Tao Te Ching that has remained popular ever since.
Looking back at Wheel of Tarot, it seems important in (at least) two ways. For one thing, it’s a snapshot of certain cultural/intellectual trends that were converging in the later 20th century: consciousness research, parapsychology, interdisciplinary studies, “new age” philosophies, cross-cultural and alternative approaches to psychotherapy.
But beyond any historical significance, most of the anthologized articles are not only still interesting, but often refreshing—and even provocative.
Wrapping up this overview of Wheel, here’s the Table of Contents:
If you’re wondering what the other four choices were, I’ll tell you next time.
Thanks for reading! More soon, C
Enjoy the eclipse!