I am a liar.

My relationship with the Truth has waxed and waned.  I was a liar from a very young age, particularly after I learned that lying could help me get away with things and contra to what my parents told me, telling the truth didn’t make things better (nor was I believed when I told the truth.)  At some point, my moral development kicked in, and I began valuing Truth for its own sake, culminating in college, where I joined a fraternity that had “Truth” as one of its cardinal principles, got a degree in the hard sciences, and began work in an analytical chemistry law-enforcement lab.  Then I became involved with a beautiful woman who believed that the value of Truth was in its utility, and had extremely persuasive arguments for that point of view (and by very persuasive arguments I mean “but dat ass doe.”)

Anyway, this puts me in good company, since lying is not only a tradition or social norm among arcanists, but is part of the very education process.  Sometimes, (such as now) people are quite overt about it.  For example, when you are building up your Thelemic library you will encounter The Book of Lies.  Which was titled as such because ol’ A.C. was becoming more arrogant and thought that his students/useful idiots needed to be explicitly told that all of his works were full of lies.  The ones that refused to have their faith in him shaken were then excellent sources of funds and substitute/short term Scarlet Women.

All occult texts suffer from internal contradictions of purpose.  They need to record the author’s discoveries, but prevent them from being stolen.  They must educate the worthy apprentice, but confound the doofus.  Sometimes key words were omitted (a practice the remains today in writings of Masonic and Masonic-derived rituals,) sometimes parts of the text are encoded, and sometimes lies are inserted, or truths misstated.  The idea being, those who had wisdom would be able to tell which parts were traps (and through their discernment of the truth would prove their worthiness to receive the secrets) while those unready would gain a flawed, useless, and harmless understanding.  Then when these false initiates would spread their error, true practitioners would be able to recognize the impostors.  This still happens today.  In my fraternity, there were bogus rituals and signs that were used specifically for situations such as your girlfriend demanding that you tell her secrets to prove you trusted her or whatever and a few times in college I had someone purporting to be a member of a different chapter slip me that faux handshake.  It was always very amusing to see the lengths people go to in order to cadge a free beer.

I mention this because I will be discussing the role of Tarot occasionally, and I want you to know why there is so much contradictory information out there.  For example, I refer to the suit of “coins,” not “pentacles.”  If you read the literature contemporary with the creation of the Waite deck, the official name is “pentacles.”  That’s one of those lies.  People who call it pentacles are either dilettantes who don’t really know what they are doing, or people who don’t respect their clients to speak to them directly.  Either way, kick them to the curb and find a different reader.  another fun fact about the Waite deck, Artie Waite switched the order of two of the cards.  This is a classic bit of misdirection.  Now the debate is, was A.E.W. correcting an earlier trap, or adding one of his own?  The consensus answer is yes, though there are multiple arguments, fat too tedious and really not worth your while to go into here.  Instead, let’s see what the heavens have in store:

This week, there is only one alignment:  Jupiter-Sol-Mercury-Mars.  This is indicative of discordant entities coming together but in a way that results in a positive outcome.  It’s good news for chefs and chemists, but bad news for sculptors and welders.

This is the first week with the sun in Pisces, so let’s get them some theme music.  Also joining the party is Mercury, so it should be a great week for all the little fishies out there.  A waning gibbous moon in Scorpio is not such good news, indicating bad moods and crankiness, particularly to the detriment of your love life.  This might be related to Saturn and Venus being in Capricorn, which predicts that you’re going to say something rather stupid to a romantic partner.  Jupiter in Sagittarius is typically a good sign as we’ve mentioned before, but it is an aggressive pairing, which is important since Mars in Taurus is also such.  So we’ve got two indications of aggression, one of crankiness, and one warning about shooting your mouth off.  Probably a good week to practice whatever relaxation techniques work well for you.

That’s what’s in the stars; here’s what’s in the cards:

Pisces:  5 of Coins, reversed – Disorder, chaos, ruin, profligacy

Aries:  8 of Cups, reversed – Great joy, feasting

Taurus:  7 of Cups, reversed – Desire, will, determination

Gemini:  6 of Wands – Victory, great news

Cancer:  King of Swords – Skill, courage, destruction, wrath, ruin

Leo:  King of Wands, reversed – Division, interruption, discord

Virgo:  2 of Coins – Parties, recreation, news in writing, agitation

Libra:  2 of Wands, reversed – Surprise, wonder, trouble, fear

Scorpio:  Ace of Wands, reversed – Fall, decadence, perdition

Sagittarius:  The Hermit, reversed – Concealment, disguise, fear

Capricorn:  3 of Coins – skilled labor, artistry, glory, renown

Aquarius:  Temperance – Economy, moderation, frugality, wise management