Turning Things Around: The Inner Tarot Revolution Chapter 37

Justifying My Worth

Ever since rebooting Dark Twins in Week 24, I’ve fallen into an interesting groove when it comes to writing new entries for this series: I don’t necessarily know exactly what I want to say in a given post, but I do begin to feel on the inside that the time is right to do so; I might have some idea of what points I want to make in relationship with the Sun and Shadow cards, but it’s nothing like a careful plan or a script. I pick a photograph to use for the Featured Image, I edit it in GIMP to make it artistic, and take photos of the cards for the chapter. I sit down to read the relevant chapters in Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot by Lon Milo DuQuette and Tarot: Mirror of the Soul: Handbook for the Aleister Crowley Tarot by Gerd Ziegler, and then I start writing. There’s a completely personal and somewhat self-centered reason I wait until the last minute to read the corresponding chapters from my source books: It’s to compare my inner feeling of “readiness” with the information I actually find in the books to see how the thoughts of the authors line up with whatever “inner alchemy” I’ve already got brewing in my mind. By and large, I find that we’re all “sympatico” and it makes me feel good. Of course, this isn’t necessarily an objective measure of how “in tune” I am or whatever—after all, I have most assuredly read all of these chapters at least once, but likely twice or more. It was years ago, I wasn’t exactly sober at the time, and I generally can’t consciously remember what’s in any given chapter of the books, but I’m sure plenty of the “essence” of the books is buried somewhere in my subconscious mind and that whatever percolates by the time I feel ready to write the next chapter, it’s probably colored by past readings.

Anyway, I followed that same process for this chapter and it all worked out pretty well. To illustrate what I mean: I’ve been thinking about this chapter’s cards a lot—particularly the Sun Card, which is the 9 of Disks: Gain, and that’s because its most straightforward interpretation is pretty obvious: It’s a card about making money. I’ve been second-guessing my readiness to write this chapter because, point blank, I’m not making any money at the moment and so it’s difficult for me to see the relevance of that card’s energy in my life; nevertheless, I’ve been really feeling like it’s “time” to write the chapter. I figured I was going to have to get pretty abstract with my handling of the card’s themes if I were really going to push it and write now without waiting for some news in my life that’s more reflective of the card’s most apparent meaning, and upon reading the corresponding chapters in my source books, what do you know? There are indeed some much “nobler,” more esoteric readings of the card that fit very well with what I’ve got on my plate at the moment.

The vibe is a little bit different this time, though. This time, I’m definitely getting the inner signals telling me it’s time to write this chapter, but it’s difficult to find the motivation right about now. Fortunately, the reasons for that do fit well with this chapter’s cards, so I can basically spend this post addressing the reasons I’m feeling unmotivated in the terms of the cards in question.

One is a feeling of sheer ovewhelm. I’ve written in recent chapters that I’ve been accepted into University of Houston so I can finish my bachelor’s degree, but there’s been an unexpected hangup: Here in Texas, in order to enroll in college-level classes, students must meet certain academic standards in reading, writing, and math. I’ve never been a great math student and that’s been my main academic weakness my entire life. I have always been a great reader and writer, but I never graduated high school, and even when I last attended, my math skills weren’t commensurate with my grade level. I took algebra classes in high school, but had very little idea what was going on. The last time I sat in a math class, it was a remedial college class starting with basic arithmetic, and I struggled. I’ve always known I’d eventually have to address this discrepancy on the way to earning my degree, so in a way, it’s good that I’m being forced into it now. However, the timing is unfortunate: I’ve been accepted into school and my college grades thus far have been so good that I qualified for a transfer scholarship at UH that is applicable for the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semesters, but now I can’t actually enroll for any classes until I pass the TSIA exam.

I took a pre-test to get an understanding of what I need to learn and am now working my way through courses for free at Khan Academy. I’m doing pretty good and noticing some changes I never thought I would see. I’m developing a number sense I’ve lacked for 40 years and intuiting answers to questions I have always had to laboriously reason through step-by-step. It’s changing my very relationship with numbers and even the world around me, and going through such a transformation is worthwhile in and of itself. I am seeing firsthand that developing these skills isn’t just about learning math you’ll never do in your actual career: The reasoning associated with these skills is applicable in many other areas of life. Learning math is learning new ways of reasoning itself that carry into other spheres of one’s intellectual life. It’s doing wonderful things for me to see that I can still grow in such substantive ways, even at my age. However, it’s taking a long time. After acing Arithmetic, I’m working my way through Pre-algebra, and sometimes it takes me all day to work through a single Unit. I’ve got a long way to go and am beginning to doubt I’ll be ready to enroll for Fall classes…and in turn, I worry that this means I’ll lose those scholarships.

And, of course, the more time I spend learning math each day, the less time and energy I have for applying to jobs. There’s a tradeoff and a balancing act to pull of, and it’s very stressful because in my current situation, the pursuit of both school and work are equally important to me. On the one hand, the clock is ticking on a fast-approaching deadline for school, and on the other hand, the longer I remain unemployed, the harder it gets to find a job. The market isn’t exactly getting better, and I’m not the most marketable candidate to begin with.

I am very fortunate to find myself in a living situation where I have the room to pursue my education in these ways, and making it a point to practice gratitude will be important in working through all of this, but the stress takes a toll…and honestly, in light of such concerns, I am finding it relatively difficult to feel the relevance of the work I’ve been doing here.

It’s been good to have my esoteric work to provide a sense of meaning and purpose during a time in my life when it’s been difficult to make much headway in other areas—even if one of the main reasons for that happened to be the difficulties I’ve been facing in the wake of inner transformations connected with said esoteric work. In other words, I kind of created my own problem there. I get that. The irony, however, is that now that I’m keeping busy in other areas, there have been times lately when I think all of the energy I’ve put into my writing has been a waste.

It’s my developing number sense and algebraic thinking that are enabling me to assess such matters more critically and evenhandedly. It’s giving me a much deeper sense of some of the nuance involved in my esoteric ideas that I hadn’t fully appreciated before…and at this stage in the game, much of what I’m seeing with such fresh eyes is making me question the value and relevance of my ideas.

I think it’s possible the stress associated with my recent math struggles and the feeling that there just isn’t enough time in the day are also coloring my perspective at an emotional level—that I’m just too tired to feel as excited about it all as I could.

Even so, I know the mental habits I’m building through my study of mathematics have highlighted some real and valid weak points in my esoteric theories surrounding the Word of Hermekate. They need some work. I need to up my game and I’m seeing it now more clearly than ever.

Don’t get me wrong: That, in and of itself, isn’t a deal-breaking sort of problem. It means I’m far from finished, and likely have much farther to go in developing the Word of Hermekate than I thought until recently. It’s a pain in the ass because I’ve gone from knowing that the Word lay latent deep within me, but feeling utterly impotent in the face of its sheer ineffability, to understanding it well enough to begin articulating it in a way that others can understand. Yet, now that I’ve begun to do so, I’m understanding it comprehensively enough that I already know I’ve taken some missteps in expressing it. The overall journey thus far is nothing less than commendable given the level of commitment that has been required to see things through to this point, but the kinks that I can now see are in need of ironing out are giving me a new kind of pause simply because I haven’t yet solved them. The good thing—the thing I need to keep reminding myself—is that this is par for the course, and these can easily be seen as “the good kind of problem.” All sorts of theories—good, solid, viable theories—have had problems along the way that needed some solving before they could truly fly. If that’s what discourages me at this point, I don’t know how I even got this far.

Besides—one of the most important skills I am developing as I build my math competency is that of finding these kinds of challenges not only surmountable, but enjoyable.

I’m finding algebra fun and satisfying in unique ways, and I’m finding that it fits in really well with my existing Ma’atian sensibilities. Algebra is all about balance, and I’ve carried the innate impulse behind that for as long as I can remember; what learning algebra is helping me to do is to refine my understanding of how balance works, and deepening the level of complexity with which I am able to reckon.

These will be essential skills for developing the Word of Hermekate.

Case in point: The intersection between Hermekate and political theory. I’ve been gradually incorporating more and more of it in my writings of late, but I’ve just recently begun to see how I’ve been doing so in some relatively simplistic ways. I mean, I’ve always known I’m not exactly operating at the level of a political science major, but I’m starting to understand some of the specific ways in which I’ve been watering political theory down in my application of the same to the Word of Hermekate.

As an example, a couple of weeks ago, in my post The Magic(k)al Theory of Zelda: Part Three, I wrote near the end that I’m realizing I need to give Hermekate a more emphatically left-leaning spin—which is not necessarily untrue, especially in the particular context from which I was writing—but I was also entirely ignoring the other axis on the political compass: The Y axis. In fact, it could even be said that in terms of the actual meanings I’d been intending to convey, I’ve even conflated the X and Y axes; that is, I have often used the terms “left” and “right”—terms which fall along the economic axis—in ways meant to connote things that might be better described in terms of “libertarian” and “authoritarian” positions—which fall along the social axis. This isn’t necessarily the greatest error in the world, especially since my intentions have likely been fairly easy to infer—but I can and should do better, especially since I have already specifically referred to the Political Compass model more than once.

Realizing this has brought to light some problems with reconciling the Word of Hermekate with the Left Hand Path esoteric polarity I’ve emphasized through all of this work, even as I’ve come to recognize how the Word involves a deeper reconciliation between the Left Hand Path and the Right Hand Path; now things get really complicated. Despite the similarity between the terms, there is not, in fact, a direct 1-to-1 correlation between the LHP and the political left wing, nor the RHP and the political right wing. In other words, you can’t really nail down which political wing is “more LHP,” because there’s some accounting to be done for differences in the core values held by different individuals. Some pros and cons might be named and perhaps even some patterns found: The left wing on the economic axis (the X axis) tends to be more tightly regulated than the right wing, so some might say the right wing is “more LHP” because it leaves more freedom to the individual; others might say the left wing is “more LHP” because more individual freedom translates to more freedom for some people to fuck other people over, which results in a net loss of freedom for most people except those with the most resources. There’s no clear answer and people could debate this endlessly without forming a consensus because different people find different economic conditions preferable for countless reasons.

It’s probably easier to determine which end of the Y axis—the social axis—is “more LHP:” The libertarian side leaves more room for people to express themselves and make personal decisions about their life, so it seems obvious that most people on the Left Hand Path—a path emphasizing individualism—would prefer this. Yet, there may be those who disagree and would rather the government be more authoritarian. Who knows why? As I suggested in Part 3 of The Magic(k)al Theory of Zelda, some people even on the LHP put a high premium on power and would honestly prefer taking their chances of finding favor and achieving a high position in an authoritarian hierarchy that affords them more power over other people. Who knows? Even here, though patterns may be clearer, there is room for variety.

This relationship between the Left Hand Path and political theory means that not only does the LHP resist being neatly mapped onto the political compass—the relationship might be so nuanced that it would be worth adding an axis to the model to accommodate esoteric affiliation. In other words, rather than a two-dimensional graph, we would have a 3-dimensional model:

X Axis: Economic (left wing vs. right wing)
Y Axis: Social (authoritarian vs. libertarian)
Z Axis: Esoteric (Left Hand Path vs. Right Hand Path)

At first, when I started to realize some of these problems as they relate to writing I’ve already done, I panicked a bit. I also felt a bit demoralized and even began to think perhaps I’d gotten this all so wrong that I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I’ll get into some of this in later sections, but I started to think maybe I had been using too limited a frame of reference all this time by framing my ideas in an esoteric context at all, and also thinking that some of these examples of a past lack of sophistication in my thinking might indicate that the Word of Hermekate is less novel than I once thought—perhaps not novel at all, offering no new ideas even to the relatively limited esoteric world.

Now I understand that the framing of the LHP/RHP spectrum as a new axis on the existing Political Compass is actually a pretty neat innovation in and of itself. This opens up a whole world for exploration, and sufficiently developing ideas like this could make for an insightful (and meaty) book. Lots of work, yes, but it’s definitely something to build upon.

Let’s do cards.

Top/Sun Card

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

As I mentioned above, applying the most obvious meanings of this card—involving the suit of Disks, which is typically held to signify wealth, and the number 9, which is not only a number of completion but—in the Qabalistic formula for tarot interpretation—is very low on the Tree of Life, means it is relatively down-to-earth. All of this comes together to suggest one thing: Making good money.

How would that apply to the Word of Hermekate?

Well, given the area of study under which Hermekate falls—esoteric studies—my work involving the Word is not going to make me rich. Take this Substack for example: At the moment, I have no paid subscribers. I’m pretty amazed I get any readers at all, given how focused much of my writing has tended to be on myself. If anyone is paying attention at all, it’s because of the promise that as the Word of Hermekate develops, it will be meaningful. Will I deliver on that promise? I think I will, and as the Word develops and my writing does more and more to address impersonal and more universal themes, more people are taking notice. I’m seeing this not only in my stats here at Dark Twins, but also in the slow-but-steady growth of the audience of its Facebook page. These are good things.

As I near the end of this series, my thought surrounding Hermekate is reaching a point that is now defying the limits of this online medium to adequately convey. This is good, because I’ve long held the publication of a book or books as a goal, and this means I’ll actually have something to write about. I’ve got a manuscript that’s been in progress for several years now, development of which has halted because—surprise, surprise—I began to see its relationship with the Word of Hermekate itself, and thus knew that the scope of that work would change as my understanding of Hermekate grew. As such, I knew to put development of the Word first. As a result, my ideas for that manuscript have grown tremendously and it now has a lot more promise than it did before—and I can think of ways to connect it meaningfully with another book entirely that more directly focuses on the Word.

Once I’ve got a book or two on the market, I can expect my audience to grow.

However, the limitations of the genre must be understood and respected; Esoteric Studies is definitely “niche,” and the subject of Words like Hermekate—which intrinsically leans upon the work of more than one highly controversial occultist—comprises but a corner of that niche itself. Even the best-selling occult authors in the world aren’t getting rich off their book sales, and in order to really capitalize on their reputations, they need to do things like holding classes or establishing entire schools of their own. In no way do I expect my reputation to be competitive with theirs. Realistically, I think the appeal of the Word of Hermekate has the potential to be great for people who are already familiar with its particular corner of the esoteric market, but that’s a relatively small corner.

It won’t make me a living, that’s for sure.

Clearly, the implications of this card need to be taken into an “expanded” context beyond my bank account, to a scope that factors in things like the potential intangible impacts of my work. This is something else I’ve been ruminating over lately.

By now I’ve made it pretty clear that the Word of Hermekate has ramifications pertaining to social justice, which is wonderful in theory—but how about in practice?

Show me the money!

I’m not sure. Here again, the intrinsic limitations of its context become painfully apparent. Occultism is such a narrow area of interest that frankly, certain biases tend to prevail throughout its audience. In some ways—especially in this economy—esoterica is a “luxury” interest. In order to engage in it, one needs a fair amount of free time for study, and there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that for the average person interested in social justice, there are more productive things to spend one’s time and mental energy on than magic(k).

To just come out and say it, if I really wanted to advance the cause of social justice, I’d do better to follow the examples of my favorite YouTubers. Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube honestly seems to embody some of the core principles of the Word of Hermekate better than I could ever hope to, and she does it without ever referring to anything overtly occult. The same could be said for münecat or Art Chad. Some of it is admittedly the medium: If I put enough energy into running a YouTube channel, I know my audience would grow simply because it would be way easier for most people to watch a video and listen to me speak about Hermekate than to sit and read the long posts I write. Still, a lot of it is also the fact that their overtly secular focus appeals to more people right out the gate. This little paradox has been bugging me:

Every ounce of energy I pour into Hermekate—a Word with marked social justice aims—would probably be more effective if it were instead poured into just about any context other than an esoteric one.

What to do?

Not that considerations such as the above aren’t valid or important—they certainly are, and if nothing else, they can definitely inform my approach to developing and disseminating the Word of Hermekate—but while the esoteric context may not be as accessible or popular as other contexts and frames of reference, it also involves a view of the world that recognizes the importance of dimensions of life that are often overlooked from other perspectives. For once, I am going to skip quoting DuQuette and instead focus on something notable Gerd Ziegler wrote about this card in Tarot: Mirror of the Soul:

The highest task life sets for us is to realize ourselves. This happens in carrying out the special tasks assigned to each of us. Retreating from your life’s tasks out of fear or a desire to remain “comfortable” means denying yourself. Gain comes from giving willingly and lovingly. Giving in this sense means also giving yourself to the universe; giving yourself fully to Life. The cosmic law of wealth is hereby fulfilled: The more I give the more I receive.

p. 174

If—in the same tradition as Thelema—”Hermekate” truly is a Word, then it goes without saying that developing it is my True Will. As Thelemites and Ceremonial Magicians know, in such matters, there is no room for debate or hesitation: The Great Work is The Great Work, and questioning its validity in purely secular terms doesn’t even really make sense. By the time a person is consciously encroaching upon such territory, they’re well-acquainted with a sense of Mystery that allows for a system of values which departs sharply from worldly standards; everyone’s life purpose is unique, and although “every man and every woman is a star,” that doesn’t necessarily mean all of them will be well-known by everyone, or that we will all usher in world-sweeping change. Paradoxically, there is room in The Great Work for humility. If everyone whose True Will came up somewhere short of some arbitrary standard of minimum impact on the world decided to do something else with their time, the world as a whole would be a much more dismal place. Every one of our lives is graced with the beauty of people who create things for their own sake, not just the sake of “making it big.” There would be much less total beauty in the world if all of them decided not to create because of it.

Through the eyes of a Magus, the importance and necessity of one’s Word is completely self-evident, especially in the sense of its esoteric nature; that is, even before I’ve finished the work of expressing and articulating it in the form of something more tangible and far-reaching like a full book, I can already see my Word at work in the world. A Word—and by extension, a Song—is an esoteric force to be reckoned with. It is the direct perception and understanding of this that fuels one’s work during the darkest of moments.

Speaking of which…

Shadow Card

It’s all downhill from here.

This is the card that most alludes to the other half of my concerns: The ones purely colored by my mood, my stressed-out emotional state. Given the stresses I’ve been under lately and the life adjustments I’ve been making, a great deal of what I’m feeling is likely to be expected…and need not necessarily be acted upon. That’s a theme that has repeated more than once in this series, popping up so often as to be a veritable “leitmotif.”

However, while this is my Shadow Card and it’s also one of those cards that is almost universally interpreted in a negative light, there is certainly a silver lining.

I’m flat-out tired lately, and it can be difficult to be optimistic when you’re tired and facing adversity. However, one reason I’m tired is the sheer amount of work I’ve been doing—not just in math lessons, but here at Dark Twins, as well. A certain amount of mixed feelings are bound to be part of the journey as I wrap this series up. On the one hand, there’s a sense of relief because of the manifestation of something I’ve been working on for close to a year and a half. These most recent posts in particular have been the fruit of a great deal of inner work that has been arduous and that I could well have completely abandoned. Given my track record in life of leaving certain things incomplete (like school), the mere act of completion itself is a sign of some very positive change. It’s something to be welcomed.

That being said…there’s also the, uh, “quality” of some of the work. As I’ve said, I was neither mentally stable nor sober when this series first began, and as a result, I’ve kept it all behind a paywall since rebooting the site. That’s something I’ve always known would have to be dealt with, because there’s really no point in making a mere portion of a series like this free to read. It’s all one big, comprehensive series based on the tarot, which is a tool that can’t be “cherry picked.” Although I blush because the earlier pieces aren’t of the same quality as the later chapters, part of the whole purpose of writing it has been illustrative; that transition from sloppy and flippant posts to substantive and thoughtful ones shows growth, which is the proof in the pudding for the magic(k)al working that serves as a backdrop for the series.

And now for the downshot. DuQuette’s take on this card provides a unique perspective on the sort of shame I’ve been feeling about this work of late. From Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot:

What is it that turns this card sour? Mars rules Scorpio and is very happy to be there. Not only that: all this is in Geburah, the hometown, the sphere of Mars. So where’s the problem?

The problem stems from the fact that Mars is too happy to be here. He gets himself too excited to indulge in foreplay. This makes Scorpio nervous. He ends up prematurely blowing such a fiery blast upon the relationship that it retards what might have otherwise been the slow processes of passionate decay that Scorpio uses to devour and liberate her lovers. Who among us cannot understand this?

p. 229

Colorful enough?

More than anything else, these statements in connection with this card reflect a pattern involving impulsivity and, shall we say, a “lack of containment” that runs through this entire series. It’s evident in my typically off-the-cuff writing style. I have often done quick proofreadings, once-through, just before clicking “Publish” on my posts here, but typically haven’t done any real substantive editing beyond that. In fact, in earlier posts, I didn’t even do a proofreading before publishing, instead doing my first proofreading immediately after publishing. Almost all of my writing here has been spontaneous…and as a result, it’s not as good as it could be. I don’t care how naturally writing might come to anyone: Editing improves writing dramatically. We need to let it percolate, we need to read our work with critical eyes and most importantly, with fresh eyes. No one is exempt from this.

I’ve lamented this often regarding my work and have said it a few times: There’s definite gold scattered throughout this series, but given the overall framing around personal matters—combined with its sheer length if one were to read it through from start to finish—it’s not very likely to reach a lot of people because of how much work is involved in mining it. In most cases, the initial surge of readers who come poking around because a post is new are likely to comprise the bulk of those who ever read a given piece here.

I recently got a pretty good view of how the blogging medium and this context of relative shortness of “shelf life” impact the quality of the writing here when my Magic(k)al Theory of Zelda series took off and proved fairly popular; at the end of it, I was asked if I were willing to compile the entire thing and submit it for publication. Stay tuned for more details!

I’ll tell ya: When I did so, I edited it much more closely than I ever would have otherwise, knowing it’s going to be published fairly formally, in a format people will be paying to read. I changed sentence structure and word choices that I otherwise wouldn’t have cared about. Suddenly, the details mattered that much more…and as a result, I’m much more proud of those pieces.

Showing them that level of care was, by extension, showing myself that level of care. It was a symbol of self-investment.

The timing works out, because as I complete this series, I am afforded the opportunity to enter a new phase of my writing work—a much more deliberate, careful, and organized one.

There will be much less to be disappointed about in the phase to come, and I’m looking forward to it.