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Showing posts from May, 2024

The Major Arcana and the Zodiac Houses

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In the Major Arcana Exaltations table (which I reproduced in a prior post ), only some Arcana are associated with Zodiac signs. Twelve Arcana are associated with specific signs, while the remainder are associated with the planets/days (except Saturn/Saturday) and the elements (specifically Air, Fire, and Water). But couldn’t all of the Major Arcana be associated with Zodiac signs? Hypothetically, yes. On the figure below, the remaining ten Arcana are assigned to the twelve signs based on their planet. If the Arcanum's associated planet matches the ruling planet of the sign, then it is associated with it. These planetary associations come from the Golden Dawn's publications and include the outer planets beyond Saturn. As you can see, this leaves an asymmetry because there are twelve Zodiac signs and twenty-two Major Arcana. So The Magician (Mercury) and The Empress (Venus) are duplicated: The Magician appears under both Gemini and Virgo, The Empress under Libra and Taurus. Ther

What is archemy, again?

In a  prior post , I referenced the etymology of Archemy as deriving from archimastry . According to  another source ,  Archemy  comes  from  archè  (" principle") and  mia  (" one"). [Although I cannot find any corroborating sources for this latter part's etymology. Perhaps it derives from Italian mia  ("mine") or Latin monas  ("one; unity")?] Therefore meaning “the principle of unity”. Thus, Arkhémia is “the land of the principle of unity”, an apt name. In French fanzine Vision-Ka #2–3, a fan introduced an original occult science of Archemy designed specifically and solely for Ar-Kaïm. It displays noted similarities to Alchemy and is suggested as a path to Qiyas. The name is a play on Alchemy (which it resembles in some respects), Ar-Kaïm (who practice it) and archetypes (which informs how spells work). It involves invoking archetypes in order to get symbolically appropriate benefits, with the practice relying on physical catalyzers, ambi