The Gnostics believed that the material world was a construct, a cosmic illusion. In this belief system, humans possessed a divine spark inside them, waiting to be discovered.

On Samhain, energies shift and the construct can fracture. This marks it as a time (astronomical Samhain is on the 7th of November) where more direct, experiential knowledge of the…

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Few symbols have captivated the imagination collectively as the Sphinx. Said to have symbolised divine kingship, the Sphinx can take three forms in Egyptian mythology: a lion with a human head (androsphinx), ram’s head (criosphinx), or a hawk’s head (hieracosphinx). The most famous example is the Great Sphinx of Giza on the west bank of the river Nile in Northern Egypt. Carved from limestone bedrock in the 26^th Century B.C., the Sphinx lies in a recumbent position symbolising the guardian of a sacred place.

The Sphinx also features in Greek mythology. In this version, the Sphinx comprised of a woman’s head and upper body, a lion’s lower body, eagle wings, and often a serpent tail. The gods sent the Sphinx to plague the city of Thebes. She perched on a rock in front of the city gates and posed a fatal riddle to unsuspecting travellers. She devoured or strangled the poor misfortunates who either gave the wrong answer or failed to answer at all (the word Sphinx derives from the Greek verb ‘spfingo’ meaning ‘to strangle’). The Sphinx’s riddle was concerned with stages of life – ‘what has one voice, walks on four feet, then two feet, then three?’ It was finally solved when Oedipus answered her correctly with the answer ‘man’, prompting the Sphinx to cast herself from her rocky perch to her death.

Both the Egyptian and Greek sphinxes share the function of gatekeeper – and in the context of the Rider Waite Smith (RWS) Tarot could be said to speak to keeping the unhelpful thoughts out of our minds, and letting the right ones in. In the RWS deck, the magical Sphinx appears in both the Chariot and the Wheel of Fortune cards.

The Sphinxes in the Chariot card carry deep significance. Arthur Edward Waite was fascinated by Hermetic Androgyny – the spiritual blending of male and female energies to achieve spiritual wholeness. In an alchemical context, the black one was considered to represent the nigredo (decomposition; the breakdown of dense matter) while the white Sphinx was considered to signify the albedo (symbolising the emergence of illumination). Together they marry alchemically to generate forward momentum.

The Charioteer has no reins; the Sphinxes are untethered to the vehicle yet commands these two opposing forces through sheer willpower. It could be said that this speaks to how true control doesn’t come from forcing external circumstances but from the integration of the conscious and subconscious minds to set intent that aligns with our future plans.

The only symbol surrounding the Wheel of Fortune in the RWS card that is not in motion is a blue Sphinx; the jackal Anubis ascends while the serpentine Typhon descends alongside the wheel. Every single element on a RWS card is deliberate; the stationary Sphinx represents the equanimity of the Higher Self; when the facets of our lives ebb and flow as the wheel turns, there is one element that we can rely on to remain constant: our internal compass. In the card, the Sphinx holds the sword of discernment, a reminder that the favourable and not so favourable elements in our lives may change, but our true essence of that internal compass that never will.

The Sphinxes are arguably the most magical creatures in the RWS deck. In the Chariot card, the Sphinxes symbolise the untethered psychological drives we must learn to master, the Sphinx in the Wheel of Fortune symbolises the reward of that mastery. As the Wheel of Fortune spins bringing unpredictable chapters of luck, loss, joy and grief, the Sphinx remains perfectly calm.

The Sphinx in our lives can speak to the gatekeeper that stands at the threshold of our minds; the everyday external triggers that demand access to our consciousness. When we act without intention, like a novice Charioteer, those opposing forces could become our undoing. But if we can channel the calm of the Wheel’s blue Sphinx, we claim our power as the sole driver of our inner worlds. We don’t have to strangle intrusive thoughts like the Greek monster, nor submit to the fate of the Wheel. We can simply hold the sword of discernment, solving the riddle of our own minds; choosing exactly which energies we allow across the threshold.

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There seems to be an unsettling pattern at the moment of blurring the lines between intuitive guidance using tools like the Tarot and engaging with therapeutic modalities. Last week I heard about a person who enlisted a Tarot reader on retainer, relying on them to make all her decisions for her, large and small. She fired her therapist, believing she didn’t need one anymore. Though Tarot symbology may touch on principles of Jungian psychology, it is not therapy and it should NEVER take the place of counselling or therapy from a fully qualified and accredited practitioner.

Tarot is a wonderful means to reflect on the self, but becoming codependent on a Tarot reader for every life decision is very dangerous territory. Tarot is supposed to cultivate agency, not take us away from it. In life, we all need to learn to foster a sense of real-world accountability and if we need support, get professional help. While a professional therapist provides tools and frameworks to help others move through life in a more skillful way, Tarot could be thought of more as a mirror. When a person begins relying on the cards as therapy, the Tarot moves from being an intuitive practice to an unhealthy transfer of sovereignty. For this reason, I would never recommend more than one reading every six months. The chapters of our lives take time to come to completion, and the archetypes in a Tarot reading need space to integrate.

This framing is also relevant to how we read for others. When questions are asked on behalf of others, but it’s best to bring the focus back to the querent’s own path. The querent gave you consent to read their cards; the third party did not. Energetically and ethically, reading for someone without their consent erodes the integrity of the reading. If this situation arises for you when reading for others, shift the focus back to the querent as much as you can.

Tuning into our intuition shouldn’t detach us from reality or create a dependence on Tarot cards or anything like them. By grounding ourselves first through practices like mindfulness, we become empowered, clear-headed co-creators of our own lives, rather than seekers searching endlessly for easy answers or an escape. Tarot should be a tool that helps shed light on our blind-spots, not enable them.

Practice

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In recent times, I have been studying the Gnostic tradition, a religious and philosophical movement that took place from the 2nd to 4th centuries. The Gnostics shunned obedience to traditional religious hierarchies, as they believed that salvation comes through awakening to the true knowledge of our divine origin. One of the core beliefs of Gnosticism that particularly interests me is the concept that humans possess an inner divine spark. (This is obviously a huge topic, more than one Substack post can ever convey. You can visit the Gnosis Archive or the Gnostic Society Library to read more about its history.)

The word Gnostic derives from the Greek word gnōstikos meaning ‘pertaining to knowledge’ or ‘knowing’. When capitalised, the word refers to the Christian and syncretic groups that pursued direct spiritual awakening rather than adhering to any institutional authority. The lowercase adjective refers to someone or something associated with deep, secret understanding.

Viewing the cards through a gnostic lens can, in my experience, decode archetypes in a very deep way. The more time I spend reading the Tarot, the more I rely on my intuition to interpret the cards. This is why for the past few months, I have been at a crossroads with my Tarot School work. Though I had planned to release a lesson per card, I found it hard to limit the varying meanings and layers of each card to a single lesson. The cards work as a system; not in isolation. In a spread, they influence each other and work together to give meaning. So going forward, my Substack posts will focus on deepening insight into how to listen to the Tarot. This will help you to understand the underlying nuances of the cards; the way they knit together. There are many excellent teachers and resources that teach the traditional meanings of the Tarot, so I won’t be echoing that information here. In my own journey I spent decades learning the traditional way, and I am glad that I did. More often than not, the two methods align, though in my experience, a gnostic lens can give you the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’.

In the Gnostic tradition, the ‘nous’ is the divine intellect, the light of perception that transcends logical analysis. It is the truth that can only be revealed by going within. When we read the cards through the lens of ‘nous’ we can access clarity and truth that can lead to personal transformation. This approach can move us away from unhelpful distractions such as consulting the cards too often to get a desired answer rather than reading the messages in front of us, or seeing a reading as fortune telling; instead the cards become a tool of revelation and archetypal insight, not attempts at prediction.

Life in the modern world is filled with all kinds of distractions that can dim the ‘nous’ and mar our ability to access our inner vision. Having a fatalistic belief in the cards is disempowering - the future is never fixed, and we always have freewill. Tarot can potentially reflect cognitive distortions and projections with this belief. In my experience, it is best to use the cards to navigate life, not attempt to control it. The Tarot can help us track our journey using the universal themes of the archetypes. So, the next time you lay out your cards, try to avoid asking what is going happen, instead, ask: ‘what do I need to know?’

Ritual 1

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One of the hardest parts of learning to read Tarot is figuring out who a character represents in a Tarot card; whether a specific person in my life, or an archetype.

This is where all the intuitive practices come in, with experience you get the ‘ping’ that helps you discern whether the card signifies a person in your life, a situation, archetypal energie…

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The Moon tarot card is a perfect point of focus as we navigate the liminal and intense space of the eclipse portal that culminated with the Piscean Lunar Eclipse on August 28. The dust has finally settled. Eclipse seasons are notoriously disorienting; they are cosmic wildcards that shake up our reality. We cannot force the lessons of a Piscean eclipse to make sense overnight.

Many fear The Moon card because it rules the shadows and the illusions we construct. The Moon card doesn’t force us to dive into our subconscious, instead, she gives us the opportunity to face the things that are causing us discomfort; the patterns that trip ourselves up. We all have ways of getting our needs met that may be less skillful than others, and during this ‘path of totality’ we have a safe space to surrender deeply, and stop running from ourselves. Sometimes we need to tune into the undercurrents that are shaping our reality to remember that we possess great depth. Now that the eclipse season has settled, we are entering an ideal time to dive right into our subconscious mind.

The sleeping face in the card speaks to how the moon illuminates the sky while we are sleeping, a time when our subconscious communicates with us in dream state. Important messages and guidance are contained within our dreams and they often put us in touch with our inner voice. Our inner knowing can remind us to stand our ground and follow our own path. The moon moves through its phases in its own time, a reminder to let things take the time they need. The Moon card invites us to treat the phases of our lives as opportunities. There may be unknown paths ahead of us, but the card asks us to trust our intuition and let our inner wisdom guide us.

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The Eight of Swords can speak to the self-imposed prisons we create in order to keep ourselves safe. The woman in the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck is seemingly trapped but the ties that bind her are loose, there is nothing blocking her path, and the water at her feet could be said to represent emotions that she is choosing to ignore in favour of overthinking.The card has sometimes been thought of as embodying the concept of learned helplessness, a psychological state where a person is unable to change a bad situation they find themselves in because of past negative events they experienced where they had no control.

Delving deeper though, we are shown that there is a pay-off for staying trapped; it can be a subconscious choice to avoid the responsibility of sovereignty. Though perhaps an unskilful means of staying safe, the stagnation mitigates the fear of the unknown.

The moment the character decides to alter her perception by taking the blinkers off, she can see the way forward. The character is both prisoner and jailer but the breakthrough comes when she realises that since she got herself into this predicament, that she has the exact keys she needs to let herself out again.

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The concept of warding in folk magic speaks to protective thresholds that can let the right ones in…. And keep the wrong ones out. Traditional warding examples are witch bottles, iron horse shoes, or herbal preparations like rosemary or mugwort. By aligning a protective boundary with the hopeful radiance of the Star Tarot card, we can clearly read the synchronicities that guide us, without cutting ourselves off in overprotective defensiveness.

The Star Tarot card is always associated with hope, and to hope is to trust. The Star encompasses a feeling of being protected - the character at the centre of the card feels safe enough to be truly seen; she is undefended. Surrounded by the Seven Sisters and the North Star - symbols of a Higher Power watching over her, guiding her - she reminds us that protection isn’t always about pushing unwanted influences away, but also moving forwards safely by heeding the guidance that can often arrive in the form of synchronicities.

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In her masterpiece “Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom”, Rachel Pollack compares the archetype of the High Priestess Tarot card to the Pythia, the holy women of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in Ancient Greece.

Deities’ counsel was in high demand in the ancient world, and guidance was regularly consulted by interpreting dreams, casting dice, drawing lots, and analysing signs in nature. But for matters of great consequence such as when to attack an enemy or how to lift a curse, the ancients wanted to hear the words of the gods themselves, channelled by the Pythia. As a consequence, the Pythian Priestess became some of the most powerful women in classical society. Although there are conflicting accounts about how the priestesses delivered their prophecies, they were said to fall into trance and speak the words of Apollo - the god of revelation and inspiration himself.

Visiting the Oracle required a long journey on foot or a sea voyage to the south slope of Mount Parnassus. Despite the inconvenient setting, thousands of visitors sought guidance from the holy women, and seekers would line up along the ‘Sacred Way’, the steep path up to the temple from the break of dawn. Delphi soon became the richest and most famous sanctuary in Ancient Greece, becoming known as the ‘Omphalos’ or ‘navel of the world’.

The Omphalos monument in the Museum of Delphi.

Along the Sacred Way were statues, monuments and offerings left by grateful supplicants. Once they reached the entrance the inscriptions ‘Know Thyself’, ‘Nothing in Excess’, and ‘Make a Pledge and Ruin is Near’.

These maxims are useful for those of us who read Tarot cards.

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Image: Engraving by Matthaeus Merian the Elder depicts the alchemical universe with the philosophers’ stone at its centre, 1618.

There is a temptation when we become comfortable with tarot, to become very good at labelling things, e.g. the Tower is disruption / Death is transformation / the Star is hope / Temperance is balance. None of these interpretations is wrong, but eventually I think tarot asks something more interesting of us: what is happening here? What is this becoming? That is where alchemy can profoundly deepen a tarot practice.

Historical alchemy encompassed practical experimentation, philosophy, cosmology, spirituality and an extraordinarily rich symbolic language concerned with the transformation of matter. And we should make an important historical distinction before going further: tarot was not originally created as an alchemical textbook. The earliest tarot emerged in Renaissance Italy as a card game; explicit occult systems accumulated around it much later. Scholars of tarot imagery caution against assuming that similarities between tarot and alchemical imagery prove that alchemy was secretly encoded into the original cards. But that doesn’t make alchemy any less useful to the reader; it may actually make it more interesting, because we don’t need to prove that tarot is alchemy to ask what happens when we read tarot alchemically.

The fundamental shift is beautifully simple; instead of treating the spread as a collection of answers, treat it as an alchemical vessel. Something has been placed inside it: a relationship / grief / a creative block / a decision. The cards show us what it is, and what is happening to it. This immediately changes the questions we ask. Instead of: will I get the job? We might ask: what is this experience trying to change in me?

We live in a culture obsessed with rubedo - the finished thing, the flowering, the manifestation, the gold. Alchemy reminds us that gold has a backstory. The nigredo is darkness, decomposition, confusion, putrefaction: the stage in which the old form breaks down. Later psychological interpretations of alchemy, particularly those associated with C. G. Jung, found enormous significance here. Jung used alchemical symbolism to think about encounters with unconscious and shadow material, and the nigredo became associated with the disorientation that can accompany such encounters.

For tarot readers, this gives us an important corrective: Not every difficult card describes a problem that needs immediately to be fixed. Imagine somebody asks about their creative practice and draws:

Five of Cups - Death - Eight of Swords.

The novice reader may feel obliged to locate the positive message; don’t worry! Death means transformation! Perhaps. But the alchemical reader might say: this looks like nigredo. Something is decomposing. Perhaps the querent’s old understanding of themselves as an artist is dying. Maybe their previous way of working cannot accompany them into the next phase. The block may not be preventing transformation; the block may be the transformation. That distinction can completely alter a reading.

Questions to ask when you suspect nigredo

• What is decomposing?

• What identity can no longer be maintained?

• What am I trying prematurely to rescue?

• What truth has become impossible to avoid?

• What would happen if I stopped demanding clarity from this stage?

Practical exercise: The Nigredo Card

Shuffle your deck and ask: what in my life is currently undergoing decomposition?

Draw one card.

Spend ten minutes describing what is ending, decaying, becoming uncomfortable or losing its former meaning.

Then ask: what if nothing has gone wrong?

Notice what changes.

Albedo: washing the matter

After blackening comes albedo, the whitening. The imagery is of washing, purification, clarification, illumination. Importantly, this isn’t necessarily the happy ending; it is the moment when we begin to see what has happened.

One Jungian account describes the movement from nigredo toward albedo as a movement from darkness toward conscious recognition - while emphasising that recognition alone is not yet full transformation.

In tarot, I often think of cards such as: The Star, Ace of Swords, Judgement, Six of Swords, The Hermit. Not because these cards permanently ‘correspond’ to albedo - I would resist turning alchemy into yet another rigid correspondence table - but because in particular readings they can perform its work. They clarify, wash away distortion, and reveal what remains after the collapse.

Imagine:

Tower - Five of Pentacles - Star.

We could read this as: something terrible happens, you struggle, everything gets better.

But alchemically the Star becomes much more subtle. After the Tower strips away a structure and the Five of Pentacles exposes vulnerability, the Star doesn’t rebuild the tower; she restores relationship between body, earth and cosmos.

Albedo asks: now that the old story has broken, what can you finally see?

Journal prompts

• What has recently become clearer?

• What belief did I once mistake for truth?

• What remains when I remove shame from the situation?

• What am I beginning to understand that I could not have understood six months ago?

• Which card in my deck feels like clean water?

Citrinitas: learning to trust the light

Some accounts of the alchemical work describe four principal colour stages - nigredo, albedo, citrinitas and rubedo - although alchemical systems varied considerably, sometimes naming many more operations. There was never one universally fixed recipe for the Great Work. I love citrinitas, the yellowing, because it is sometimes neglected in simplified modern accounts. Think of dawn; not blazing noon nor completion. It could be thought of as the first light by which we can orient ourselves. In tarot practice, this might be the moment when insight becomes confidence. The querent no longer merely understands what happened. They begin to understand how they might live differently because of it.

Here I might notice cards such as:

• The Sun.

• Three of Wands.

• Queen of Wands.

• Strength.

• The Magician.

Again: not fixed correspondences, but functions.

Ask of the card: what is beginning to illuminate itself from within?

Rubedo: making it blood

And then comes rubedo; the reddening. Life / blood / embodiment. Here is where alchemy becomes especially useful for tarot readers, because tarot readings can become extraordinarily sophisticated ways of avoiding doing anything. We can pull another clarifier, and another, and consult another deck. And ask whether the Queen of Cups represents us or another person / check the bottom card / calculate the quintessence. And three hours later we possess a magnificent symbolic understanding of why we haven’t sent the email.

Alchemy eventually asks: can you make matter of it?

One Jungian interpretation of the rubedo emphasises precisely this movement beyond intellectual recognition toward embodiment; bringing what has been understood back into lived experience. That makes rubedo one of my favourite principles for closing a tarot reading.

Ask: what does this reading require me to do in the material world? Not understand, nor contemplate, but do.

If you pull the Empress, perhaps you plant something. If you pull Justice, perhaps you document something.

• Eight of Pentacles: practise.

• Queen of Swords: say the sentence.

• Four of Swords: cancel something and rest.

• Six of Cups: get in touch with somebody.

• Death: throw the dead thing away.

• The Magician: begin.

The reading becomes embodied.

Solve et coagula: dissolve and reform

One of alchemy’s most useful ideas for tarot is contained in the famous principle solve et coagula: dissolve and coagulate. Break apart and re-form. This gives us a wonderful method for reading difficult situations.

Suppose you draw: Ten of Wands - Eight of Cups - Three of Pentacles.

Rather than treating them as three independent definitions, watch the chemistry.

Ten of Wands: the existing structure has become too heavy.

Eight of Cups: Solve. Dissolve the arrangement. Leave what no longer contains life.

Three of Pentacles: Coagula. Build another structure, this time collaboratively.

Suddenly the spread moves.

And this is perhaps the greatest gift alchemy offers tarot: it gives the cards verbs.

It encourages us to stop asking what the card means, and instead, try asking: what operation is this card performing?

• The Tower may be breaking.

• Temperance may be combining.

• Death may be putrefying.

• The Devil may be binding.

• The Hermit may be distilling.

• Judgement may be revivifying.

• Justice may be separating.

• The Empress may be generating.

• The Hanged Man may be suspending.

• The Star may be washing.

• The World may be integrating.

Now imagine applying this to an entire spread.

Instead of: Tower means upheaval. Star means hope. Empress means abundance.

we get: something is being broken open → washed clean → returned to life.

That’s a story, and more importantly, a process.

Temperance: the alchemist hiding in plain sight

There is perhaps no better card with which to practise than Temperance. The familiar image of liquid passing between vessels practically begs for an alchemical reading, and scholars have traced the way alchemical imagery became associated with interpretations and representations of this card across tarot’s long development.

Look at the Archangel Michael’s vessels. He isn’t choosing one over the other; he is creating something between them. That is the alchemical coniunctio: the conjunction, the meeting of apparent opposites.

Jung became particularly fascinated with this aspect of alchemy - the possibility that symbols can hold apparently irreconcilable opposites together when ordinary logic cannot simply resolve them. This can transform difficult tarot readings.

Suppose somebody says: should I choose security or creativity? The ordinary reading tries to answer A or B.

The alchemical reading asks: what third thing becomes possible when A encounters B?

That question is pure Temperance.

The third thing

This is perhaps my favourite alchemical tarot practice. Take two cards representing an opposition.

For example: Hermit + Three of Cups = Solitude / community.

Or: Devil + Temperance

Attachment / modeation.

Place them apart.

Now shuffle and draw a third card between them.

Don’t call it the solution, instead call it: the Child of the Conjunction.

Ask: what can exist that neither side could create alone?

Then journal:

• Where am I trapped in either/or thinking?

• What does each side protect?

• What does each side fear?

• What would I lose by abandoning either completely?

• What third possibility have I failed to imagine?

This is an extraordinarily good exercise for experienced readers because it interrupts our tendency to identify one card as desirable and another as problematic.

Alchemy is fascinated by precisely the material we’d rather throw away.

Prima materia: begin with what you’ve got

The alchemical prima materia is the original matter upon which the work operates. Psychologically, this offers a beautiful principle: begin with what is actually here. Not with the person you intend to become / the healed version / your highest self / your potential.

This, here and now, in all of its glorious messiness. That is your material - and tarot is extraordinarily good at locating it.

The Prima Materia Spread

Draw four cards:

1. The Matter

What is actually present?

2. The Fire

What is transforming it?

3. The Vessel

What must contain the process?

4. The Gold

What quality is trying to emerge?

Notice that card four is not ‘the outcome.;

Gold is not necessarily a promotion, relationship, money or success.

It might be courage / discernment / sovereignty / compassion / a boundary.

The vessel matters, and this deserves particular attention.

Alchemy requires a vessel; transformation cannot occur if the contents are constantly spilling everywhere.

Tarot readers need vessels too: time / boundaries / ritual / confidentiality / the physical reading space. The relationship between reader and querent. Even the question itself; a vague question often creates a vague vessel, e.g. ‘tell me what’s going to happen to me?’ Compare that with: ‘what am I being asked to understand about my relationship with work over the next three months?’

We’ve built walls around the experiment. The matter can now heat. This gives us another useful question when readings become confusing: Is the problem the cards - or is the vessel leaking?

Perhaps the question is wrong; perhaps the querent is asking the same question repeatedly; perhaps we’re reading while emotionally activated. Perhaps we’ve drawn twelve clarifiers and dissolved the original spread into soup. Sometimes the most alchemical thing a tarot reader can do is stop pulling cards.

The Irish question: transformation and the land

For Journey Through the Tarot via Irish Herstory, I think there is another layer worth bringing into the practice. We don’t need to pretend that medieval Irish tradition secretly contained tarot or European laboratory alchemy. It didn’t. But Ireland has its own extraordinarily rich imaginative vocabulary of transformation: bodies become landscape / rivers emerge through transgression and encounter / sovereignty appears as a woman. Humans cross thresholds into the Otherworld and return altered. The Tochmarc Étaíne gives us transformation, disappearance and return. The stories surrounding Boann make knowledge, transgression and landscape inseparable. The Morrígan moves between forms.

Irish storytelling repeatedly asks a profoundly alchemical question: what can this become?

And Irish occult history later developed its own fascinating intersections between politics, mysticism and cultural revival. Figures including W. B. Yeats and George Æ Russell inhabited worlds in which artistic, political and esoteric imagination overlapped rather than occupying tidy separate compartments.

That matters, because transformation is never purely personal.

The political alchemy of tarot

There is a danger in contemporary spiritual practice of turning every structural problem into an individual lesson.

Can’t afford housing? Work on your abundance.

Being exploited? Examine what you’re manifesting.

Experiencing discrimination? Raise your vibration.

No!

Alchemy may concern transformation, but tarot shouldn’t be used to magically convert injustice into personal inadequacy. Sometimes the poison isn’t inside the querent - often the water is poisoned. An alchemical tarot practice should therefore ask both: what must transform in me? and what must transform around us?

Justice is not merely personal balance. The Emperor isn’t merely your relationship with authority. The Five of Pentacles isn’t necessarily a scarcity mindset. The Ten of Wands may describe an individual carrying what should have been distributed collectively.

Tarot becomes more ethically interesting when we allow cards to speak simultaneously about psyche and system, self and society, microcosm and macrocosm.

A seven-day alchemical tarot practice

For the coming week, try reading one card a day without looking up its conventional meaning.

Instead ask only:

What is this card doing?

Record a verb.

• Monday: separating

• Tuesday: nourishing

• Wednesday: burning

• Thursday: binding

• Friday: washing

• Saturday: revealing

• Sunday: integrating

At the end of the week, read the seven verbs as a sentence describing a process. You may be surprised by how differently the cards begin to speak.

Journal questions for the alchemical reader

• Take these into your next month of practice:

• Where do I rush to turn nigredo into a positive message?

• Which cards do I instinctively treat as ‘good’ material?

• Which cards do I want to remove from the vessel?

• What is currently being dissolved in my own life?

• What is trying to take form?

• Where am I confusing insight with transformation?

• What reading have I understood intellectually but failed to embody?

• Where am I trapped between two apparent opposites?

• What might their conjunction create?

• What is the prima materia of my life right now?

• What does my practice need in order to become a stronger vessel?

• Where am I individualising something that is actually political or collective?

• What would it mean to read for transformation rather than prediction?

The Great Work

Perhaps ultimately this is why tarot and alchemy make such compelling companions.

Both begin with ordinary matter; a deck of painted cards / a human problem. Neither is particularly interesting if nothing happens to it. The alchemist heats, dissolves, separates, recombines and waits. The tarot reader shuffles, lays down images, notices relationships and waits. And in both practices there is an important humility: we cannot always know what something is while it is becoming. That may be the principle I most want to bring into my own tarot practice. When Death appears, perhaps I don’t need immediately to know what will replace what has died. When the Tower falls, perhaps I don’t yet need the architectural plans. When the Moon rises, perhaps uncertainty itself is part of the operation. When Temperance pours endlessly between his vessels, perhaps the work is occurring precisely in the space between categories. And when the World finally appears, perhaps the gold was never a perfect life. Perhaps the gold is the consciousness capable of inhabiting the whole cycle:

• the blackening,

• the washing,

• the dawning,

• the reddening,

• the loss,

• the conjunction,

• the return.

Alchemy asks us not merely to find meaning in the cards; it asks us to watch meaning change state. And perhaps that is the deeper work of tarot too - not telling us what the future is, but teaching us to recognise what is becoming possible.

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, there is a curious piece of folklore attached to August 17: it is said that this is when the ‘Cat Nights’ begin. According to a story that they describe as an old Irish legend, a witch possessed the ability to transform herself into a cat eight times and return safely to human form. But there was a catch; on the ninth transformation, made on August 17, the change became permanent. She could no longer return to her human body, as she had ‘used up’ her transformations. The story has even been offered as an explanation for our belief that cats have nine lives, although its origins are difficult to pin down. The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which popularised the story, calls the legend itself ‘rather obscure.’ Which is a shame, because I have questions! Why August 17? Why eight transformations? And most importantly: how did the witch feel about remaining a cat? Perhaps we’re supposed to imagine it as a punishment, but I am not entirely convinced. Anyone who has lived with a cat knows that they don’t seem particularly unhappy with the arrangement.

There is something quite useful about shapeshifting as a metaphor for creative recovery, because recovering a creative life requires us to try on different versions of ourselves: writer, painter, musician, illustrator, poet…

When we have been separated from creativity for a long time, saying ‘I am a creative’ can feel unbearably grandiose, so we shapeshift instead: I’m only messing around / doing a little course/ it’s just a hobby /I’m only making this for myself.*

These disguises can be useful as they allow us to approach creativity sideways. A cat doesn’t stand at the edge of a room wondering whether she has sufficient qualifications to enter it; she simply walks in. Perhaps creative recovery sometimes requires the same audacity; we tend to imagine a creative life as something remarkably linear. You discover your idea, develop it, find your medium, realise the idea. Eventually other people recognise what you have created. But real creative lives rarely behave themselves so neatly; we abandon things / begin again / spend years writing and suddenly want to paint. Something that once felt like our life’s work stops speaking to us while sometimes something we dismissed as frivolous begins calling us back. We have creative lives within creative lives, and sometimes we interpret this as failure and ask ourselves why we can’t stick to anything.

But perhaps we are simply shapeshifters, and one form teaches us something we need for the next. The photographer learns composition and becomes an illustrator, the journalist learns how to tell a story and becomes a novelist, the person fascinated by mythology starts teaching workshops, the abandoned manuscript leaves behind a character who turns up five years later somewhere entirely different. Nothing is necessarily wasted.

But there is another, slightly more uncomfortable possibility in the Cat Nights story. Eventually the witch cannot change back, and creative recovery has moments like this too. There comes a point when something that began as experimentation starts becoming identity: you’ve written long enough that you have to admit you’re a writer / made enough art that perhaps you are no longer merely ‘messing around with collage’. At some point we have to stop standing outside our creative lives explaining that we’re only visiting, because perhaps the ninth life isn’t a punishment; it might actually be a commitment: this is who I am now. And that can be frightening because commitment closes certain doors: choosing one project means temporarily not choosing twenty others / finishing something means allowing it to be judged /publishing means relinquishing control over how something will be received. Becoming visible means we can no longer completely retreat into ‘I wasn’t really trying anyway’. The ninth transformation asks: what if you stopped keeping an escape route out of your own creative life?

There is another reason cats belong beautifully to this point in August; they are crepuscular creatures, particularly active around dawn and dusk. As August progresses, the extraordinary long evenings of June and July begin quietly contracting as darkness returns. The Almanac connects those lengthening nights with the folklore: cats see extraordinarily well in low light, and therefore, poetically at least, ‘the nights belong to them’, and creative recovery asks us to develop something similar: a sort of night vision, or, the ability to continue when we can see only a little way ahead. You don’t need to know whether the book will be published / the painting is good / anyone will come to the workshop. You don’t even need to know whether this particular creative form will still belong to you ten years from now; you just need enough light for the next few steps. Cats understand this instinctively; perhaps that is why they have always seemed slightly magical: they don’t require the whole room to be illuminated before they enter it, and neither do we.

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There is something quietly radical about The Hermit in a culture that rewards constant visibility, relentless productivity, and immediate answers. In the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, The Hermit stands alone on a snowy mountain peak, holding a lantern aloft in the darkness. He doesn’t rush forward, nor ‘perform’ his wisdom for an audience; h…

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There is a strange grief that comes when you discover you have been living by an agreement that nobody else signed. It can sound something like this:

• If I work hard enough...

• If I am kind enough...

• If I sacrifice enough...

• If I carry enough...

• If I become indispensable...

• ...life will eventually reward me.

But then something happens: you don’t receive the inv…

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Imagine standing beside a river. If you drop a leaf into the current, you can make a good guess about where it will travel because you can see the direction of the water; a tarot reading works in much the same way. The cards reveal the current that is already carrying a situation. The future isn’t fixed but the momentum is. And momentum can change.

This …

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Of all the images in the Rider–Waite–Smith Death card, it is the white rose that holds my attention. The skeleton on horseback dominates the scene, carrying a black banner emblazoned with a five-petalled white rose. Most discussions of the Death card understandably focus on endings, transformation or the inevitability of change. Yet the white rose quiet…

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Of all the cards in the tarot, few have been as thoroughly claimed by contemporary self-help culture as The Magician. Scroll through enough social media content and the card quickly becomes associated with manifestation, abundance, and the power of thought to shape reality. The message is familiar: focus on what you want, align your energy, and the universe will respond accordingly. Yet there is an uncomfortable question lurking beneath this interpretation: what happens in a world shaped by war, inequality, ecological collapse, and systems of power that distribute opportunity unevenly? What does manifestation mean to the millions of people living under circumstances they did not choose?

At its most simplistic, manifestation culture often reduces complex social realities to matters of individual consciousness: success becomes evidence of alignment / struggle becomes evidence of limiting beliefs. The implication, however unintended, is that people are responsible not only for their choices but also for conditions over which they have little control. This is where the concept begins to break down: a person cannot positively affirm their way out of every circumstance, visualise away grief, nor manifest peace in a genocide. They cannot individually solve problems created by systems, institutions, and histories far larger than themselves and to suggest otherwise risks turning spirituality into a form of denial.

For many people, particularly those of us paying attention to the state of the world, manifestation can evoke a complicated form of survivor's guilt. How can we visualise abundance while others experience dire poverty and terminal inequality? How can one dream of a new home, a creative project, or personal fulfilment while genocides continue, ecosystems collapse, and suffering remains widespread? It is very difficult to imagine better futures for ourselves while trying to ensure that those futures remain connected to the wider world. I feel this challenge is where the Magician can help. The Magician never asks us to choose between personal flourishing and collective responsibility. Rather, the card invites us to consider how our gifts, resources, creativity, and wellbeing might become part of a larger web of repair. Hope, under The Magician, is not a retreat from reality; it is a refusal to surrender the future entirely to despair. The card doesn’t ask what we can extract from the world, but what we can help bring into being. In that sense, manifestation becomes less about getting everything we want and more about participating in the slow, collective work of repair.

Traditional imagery depicts The Magician standing before a table containing the symbols of all four suits: wand, cup, sword, and pentacle. Modern interpretations often treat these objects as evidence that everything required for success is already present, but not everybody receives the same tools, and the Magician doesn’t ask us to pretend otherwise. Instead, the card asks: given the tools available to us, what can be created? This shifts the emphasis away from fantasy to resourcefulness; away from abundance as entitlement to responding with creativity instead.

One of the greatest limitations of modern manifestation culture is its individualism. The underlying assumption is that transformation occurs primarily through personal effort; yet human beings rarely flourish alone. We are shaped by families, communities, cultures, movements, ecosystems, and histories. The older magical traditions understood this; magic was often communal, while rituals were collective. Blessings were offered for crops, weather, healing, protection, and shared wellbeing. The focus was on participation in a larger web of life. Seen this way, The Magician becomes less concerned with getting what we want and more concerned with contributing what we can.

At its heart, The Magician introduces a deceptively simple question: what is possible from here? Not from ideal circumstances, a future version of ourselves, nor from a world free of injustice. From right here. The Magician is not a promise that reality will bend to our desires, nor is it evidence that we are responsible for every outcome we experience. Instead, it reminds us that even within constrained circumstances, there remains a space between powerlessness and omnipotence. A space where imagination, skill, effort, relationship, and courage can still operate.

The card doesn’t ask us to deny the existence of systems, it asks us to remember that systems are not the entirety of the story. There is still work to be done, beauty to be made. There are still futures waiting to be shaped. The challenge is to understand that we can’t control everything. It is to recognise that we are never entirely without influence. That, perhaps, is where the real magic begins. It could be argued that magic is not the power to control the world but rather the willingness to participate in its becoming.

Rituals that ask the question: what can we help bring into being?

The Seed and the System

A ritual for resisting individualism.

Plant a seed or bulb.

As you do, reflect on all the conditions required for growth:

• soil

• rain

• sunlight

• pollinators

• time

Reflect on the fact that no seed grows through effort alone. Neither do we.

Journal: What support systems make my life possible? What support systems am I helping to sustain?

This can be a beautiful antidote to hyper-individualistic manifestation culture.

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The final sequence of the Major Arcana moves toward themes of reckoning, integration, completion, and psychological wholeness. If the previous cards explored collapse, healing, uncertainty, and renewed vitality, Judgement and The World examine what happens when individuals begin confronting the deeper meaning of their lives beyond survival, performance,…

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This sequence of the Major Arcana moves through some of the most psychologically charged archetypes in tarot. If the previous cards explored surrender, transformation, integration, and attachment, these cards examine what happens after structures collapse and certainty disintegrates. Astrologically, the progression moves from Mars’ destructive force and…

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The next stage of the Major Arcana moves into more destabilising territory. If the previous sequence examined power, solitude, cycles, and ethical balance, these cards confront surrender, transformation, integration, and the sometimes unskillful ways we can get our needs met directly. Astrologically, the progression moves from Neptune’s dissolution of c…

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