Ph.D. in literary and cultural studies, professor, diviner, writer, trans, nonbinary
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33% complete! Calliope has read 22 of 65 books.
@arnemancy You'll probably like David Vine's full intro and translation (Place uses Vine's work in this book). I got it direct, but I think a few sites are selling it now. Here's the direct link if you want: tarot-history.com/boutique/
A very good book with some small moments that made me twitch.
So it's a tarot book that doesn't sit down and run through all 78 cards, telling you the meanings. I wish we had more books like this. This particular book is inventive and playful, drawing both on esoteric traditions of tarot and the simple fact that we're looking at playing cards here.
At its core the book is about exploring different means we can draw information and wisdom from tarot, founded on the idea that the tarot is "the instrument of our wisdom."
There's a little more gender essentialism than I expected from Rachel Pollack, but from what I understand, this is a revision of a book first published in 2002.
There's also an understandable but unfortunate -- for me, probably not for you -- tendency to use Pollack's deck she made, and I don't like it …
A very good book with some small moments that made me twitch.
So it's a tarot book that doesn't sit down and run through all 78 cards, telling you the meanings. I wish we had more books like this. This particular book is inventive and playful, drawing both on esoteric traditions of tarot and the simple fact that we're looking at playing cards here.
At its core the book is about exploring different means we can draw information and wisdom from tarot, founded on the idea that the tarot is "the instrument of our wisdom."
There's a little more gender essentialism than I expected from Rachel Pollack, but from what I understand, this is a revision of a book first published in 2002.
There's also an understandable but unfortunate -- for me, probably not for you -- tendency to use Pollack's deck she made, and I don't like it very much. I'm sure the black and white reproductions aren't doing the deck any favors, though.
She draws on Kabbalah including actual Kabbalah, like, you know, midrashes; she also draws on Egyptian myth, astrophysics, and Hindu practice. The latter is perhaps a little too poppy, but still better than many.
The astrophysics bit is also better than you'll see in nearly every other work on occult topics.
A nice expanded lwb essentially. The book goes through both de Gebelin's and de Melletcs lives and essays, briefly, before turning to describing the cards. Place used Aluette cards for inspiration when de Mellet didn't describe their meanings, as he concluded that's where de Mellet got his pip meanings in the first place.
It ends with a nice, succinct description of how to use de Mellet's divination method, including notes on how to deal with the inconsistencies.
If you get the deck -- and it's lovely -- definitely get the book as well.
They're lesbians Harold.
In all seriousness, this series is great. The author is even involved in an organization in Japan agitating for marriage rights for all, and promoted it unabashedly in the book.
The basic premise is two lesbians who haven't realized it yet fall im love over their shared love of food. And also there's trauma, well handled -- new characters in volume 3 include a loud and out asexual lesbian and a young woman suffering from trauma related to eating disorders. The chapters that hit heavy begin with trigger warning in fact.
Excellent book, clear and well organized. Some annoying personal biases will leave you rolling your eyes but they never get worse than the tradition he's drawing on.
An incredibly wide variety of essays on animism, incorporating everything from new anthropological research to media criticism of anime. I probably shouldn't say this kind of thing, but every magically operant person ought to read it, if they can. A lot of the essays are available online now, so you can check out the ToC if you don't want to buy it, or can't of course.
This 62 page book is designed to take your planetary work to the next level. …
Nice chapbook sized ebook sold direct on Miller's site. It needed a copy editor, but there's only one spot where the errors could interfere much: "Mercury" is in one place substituted accidentally for "Mars" but if you follow the repeating sequence in the Calls chapter you'll not be confused.
I'm not sure there's much specifically about "healing" as the description says, but what's here is good.
It has a section on "seed syllable" style use of Greek vowels mapped to the planets, a Heptasphere ritual to connect the practitioner to the seven planets, and 49 short spells mapped to the interplay of planetary hours and days.
Very good. Straightforward, and with noteworthy changes from the first edition. Most tellingly, Miller completely overhauled the "love and lust" chapter after realizing he didn't like traditional erotic binding spells and didn't want to be the one providing them for people.
His daily exercises have been a good foundation for changing my daily practices, and his specific spells look solid. The book's conceit of working with magic by performing mundane tasks is something I understood already, but it never hurts to be reminded.
