I’m fascinated by the occult.
I don’t mean the toxic positivity dressed up as new age pseudo-witchy love and light bullshit that gets thrown around. I mean the old school systems of spiritual study that have unlocked much of the symbolism prevalent in ancient mythology. I mean the tables of attribution that delineate connections between the various myths across different cultures. I mean angelology and demonology far removed from modern christian theology.
“The method of science. The aim of religion.”
I’ve spent the last decade diving into occult literature and hermetic texts. One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that the Tarot serves as a means of thematically organizing much of the content that’s been released and made available to us lowly plebes operating outside of the fraternal orders that worked to uncover much of this knowledge. It was Crowley’s Book of Thoth that led me to the Tarot, and it was largely his work that provided the underlying foundation of Kabbalistic study coupled with divination practice that unlocked the Tarot’s beauty and utility for me.
Study and learn all the underlying attributions and any Tarot deck becomes accessible to the knowledgeable reader.
Coupled with my study of philosophy and psychology, the Tarot—and by extension, or inclusion, the occult—has become a means of approaching shadow work with curiosity and enthusiasm.
Modern theology will tell you that angels and demons are ethereal beings with their own inherent intentions and motivations. Hermetic study will have you recognize that angels and demons are inherently psychological aspects of yourself. One will demand your penance and submission to the clergy for salvation; the other will provide you with the means to manage your own healing and spiritual development.
One will have you move through the Valley of the Shadow of Death in fear; the other will have you move through it with courage.
There’s an occult text called the Ars Goetia, which is part of a larger work called the Lemegeton Claviculus Salomonis, or the Lesser Key of Solomon. It features the names and offices of the many demons King Solomon was purported to communicate with. It’s fascinating to study, considering that while Wise King Solomon was operating under the purview of the priesthood, he nevertheless uncovered a wealth of knowledge on the depths of our subconscious. The text highlights this by stating:
The spirits of the Goetia are portions of the human brain.
Their seals therefore represent methods of stimulating or regulating those particular spots (through the eye).
The names of God are vibrations calculated to establish:
(a) General control of the brain. (Establishment of functions relative to the subtle world.)
(b) Control over the brain in detail. (Rank or type of the Spirit.)
(c) Control of one special portion. (Name of the Spirit.)
Freud and Jung—particularly Jung—did an enormous amount of work to unveil what Jung eventually came to call the “shadow”: the subconscious in which much of the unseen motivations underlying our behaviors exist. In Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Jung describes how Freud set out to plumb the depths of the shadow and never found the bottom. The main point is that the field of psychology had, in some ways, begun to legitimize the work that was being done to interpret and appropriately apply what was expounded upon in the Lemegeton.
As Carl Jung has said, “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Solomon’s key is a means by which you can learn to recognize your demons, face them with humanity and respect, and bring them into the light of your consciousness. It’s a system of discovery of those otherwise unseen motivations driving your behavior, making them seen. Once they’re known, once they’re seen, you then have the capacity to change your behavior, to alter how you operate.
The only thing you’ll need in addition to a willingness to perform this work is the grace you’ll need to forgive yourself for past harms you’ve done against yourself and others. And this may prove to be more challenging than coming face to face with your demons.
But I digress.
About a year or two ago, I picked up the Goetia Tarot by Fabio Listrani, an occult artist whose work is studious and detailed. I picked it up as a means to deepen my own study of both the Tarot and Goetia. However, upon receiving it, some of the card attributions seemed a little bit off. At the time, I didn’t have the patience or bandwidth to figure out what I was missing, so I put it away. Fast forward to this week: I ordered and received the Occult Tarot that was offered by a card shop on Etsy. This deck was far more plain and direct, with little to no description as to how the demons were attributed to particular cards. Listrani’s deck at the very least had the attributions printed directly on each card.
Turns out, the occult isn’t so much an exact science as it is a language that requires some interpretation.
Due to the differences in decks, I dove into the accompanying text to the Goetia Tarot. While it didn’t directly clear up my misunderstanding of the attributions—that will take study, as it should—it did help me understand Listrani’s approach. And now that I have a little more time and patience to dive into the deck, I’m excited to do so.
Shadow work isn’t easy. But it also doesn’t have to be terrible. Thanks to the system of Tarot, I can approach this study, deepen my knowledge and self-awareness, and pursue my healing with enthusiasm. I’ll become a better version of me one demon at a time.
