Youtube Tarot Pisces July Jess Reads Tarot

Non so long ago, the discovery of esoteric knowledge was a rite unto itself, requiring enquiry and travel, as many expressionless ends as discoveries. Today, these quests are as simple equally a Google search, a glance at an astrology app or a scroll through Instagram, where the hashtag #witchesofinstagram will lead you to nearly vi million posts.

The democratization of the arcane is a welcome development, but the mystery of the occult will never lose its attraction. The Library of Esoterica, a new series from the fine art book publisher Taschen, acts as a bridge between the dark halls of history and the vast data at our fingertips. Created by a team based in Los Angeles, the serial debuted in Baronial with "Tarot"; volume two, "Astrology," just landed in bookstores. "Witchcraft" is slated for September.

Edited by author, journalist and filmmaker Jessica Hundley, the series speaks the universal linguistic communication of symbolism. "The thought," says Hundley, "was to create a super introductory, very inclusive and seductive way into these practices, which is through the fine art." Taschen, with its lavish art production, made the platonic partner "because that's what they do best."

When Taschen founder Benedikt Taschen suggested to managing editor Nina Wiener that the topic of "secret knowledge" was worth exploring more than deeply, "Jessica was one of the first people I thought of to go to," says Wiener.

Metaphysics and the counterculture are a through line of Hundley's work, including a number of Taschen collaborations — most notably an overview of Dennis Hopper's photography enriched by hours of interviews with the actor.

Vladimir Manzhos Waone, "The Magus," Ukraine 2012-fourteen. From "Astrology: The Library of Esoterica."

(Vladimir Manzhos Waone)

Hundley has been fascinated by culling spiritualities and the occult since she was a goth-punk teenager on the East Coast, "listening to Siouxsie Sioux and reading tarot cards." She moved to Los Angeles in 1998, drawn to the urban center's legacy of esoteric exploration and its renown every bit a place where dreams are made manifest and identity is mutable. "The freedom to define your own identity also means defining your ain spirituality," Hundley says, "and that's congenital into so much of the ethos of Los Angeles."

50.A.'due south homegrown institutions helped get the Library off the basis. The Philosophical Inquiry Gild in Los Feliz, a library and research center founded in the 1930s by scholar, mystic and collector Manly P. Hall, has been the team'southward chief research partner. The Getty, with its collection of alchemical art and texts, was another important local resource. Merely contributors ranged far and wide, from the Met and the British Museum to artists in Tokyo and Kenya.

For the series' designer, Nic Taylor, one "formative moment" was a visit to New York City'southward Morgan Library, which houses J.P. Morgan's drove of occult art and books — including the oldest existing tarot cards, the gold-leafed Visconti-Sforza deck from 14th century Italy.

In conceiving an overarching series design, Taylor, co-founder of L.A.-based Thunderwing Studios, incorporated elements common to antique books, aiming to "have the gestures that are historic to bookmaking and update them and make them feel fresh." Every item, from the series logo — a fundamental formed by the letters T, 50, O, E — to the sacred geometric gilt foil designs along the spines, feeds into the reader's feel of these books equally objects of beauty and, yes, magic.

The Empress: Sebastian Haines, "The Tarot of the Golden Serpent," 2013 (detail)

(Sebastian Haines)

Cards on the Tabular array

"Tarot," written by Hundley, sets the tone for the series. "I wanted to come at it from a journalistic, academic viewpoint and non go mired in the dogma," she says. This meant consulting with numerous specialists and quoting foundational texts while still allowing her passion to shine through. The book is organized by card, not chronology, inviting united states to consider personal journeys. The beginning in the 78-card deck is the Fool, "total of blissful ignorance and blind optimism," Hundley writes, "as he takes his commencement step into the abyss."

This archetypal character then encounters unlike aspects of himself in the form of the High Priestess, the Hermit, the Devil. He meets the world with innocent joy (the Sun) and explores his subconscious (the Moon); he confronts destiny (the Bike of Fortune), devastation (the Tower) and, finally, liberation (the World). Is it any wonder that artists are consistently drawn to these symbols?

At that place are about xx historical examples of each "major arcana" menu in "Tarot," creating a tapestry of interpretations. More than 100 featured decks include work by fine artists such as Salvador Dali, Francesco Clemente, Pedro Friedeberg, Niki de Saint Phalle and Penny Slinger, the feminist-surrealist who wrote the volume's foreword. The best-known deck, from which almost modern tarot evolved, is the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, created by Pamela Colman Smith and Arthur Edward Waite, who met in England as members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. ("It was substantially an artist collective," says Hundley of the secret club, which included William Butler Yeats.)

Tarot evolves alongside fine art and civilization, Hundley says: "You had a surge of decks made in the 1960s and '70s that were aligned with the counterculture … and and so with the New Age motility of the '80s you had another surge … I recollect with each movement, the circle comes dorsum around."

Spread from "Tarot. The Library of Esoterica." Left: Strength: Michael Eaton & A. A. Khan, "The Black Power Tarot," 2015. Correct: Hy Roth, Linweave Tarot, 1967.

(Michael Eaton & A. A. Khan/Hy Roth)

Every decade hosted brilliant additions to the canon; witness Julia Turk's Navigators Tarot of the Mystic Sea from 1994, whose vibrant Sunday bill of fare shines from the encompass of the book. But it was the 2012 self-publication of Kim Krans' Wild Unknown deck, inspired past the natural world, that Hundley points to equally the launch of a new era. Working in all media, contemporary artists proceed to evolve the course, drawing from a prismatic assortment of philosophies, traditions and cultural movements — from ecofeminism and shamanism to Mexicayotl and Black Ability. (The last i features Billie Holiday and Tina Turner as figures.)

Which brings u.s. to the democracy of the web. Many of these cocky-published decks were discovered online. Browsing eBay, Hundley happened upon an exquisite deck of Afro-futurist digital collages past the artist Manzel Bowman. Not only are several of Bowman'southward cards included in "Tarot," his art graces the cover of "Astrology."

The Return of the Stars

Alphonse Mucha, Zodiac, Bohemia/France, 1896. From "Star divination: The Library of Esoterica."

(The Art Institute Chicago)

Applied science too democratized the age-sometime practice of seeking guidance from the cosmos, equally Susan Miller writes in her forward to "Astrology." One of the showtime in her field to flourish online (she launched her pop site Astrology Zone in 1995), Miller describes how computer-generated charts have made complicated calculations attainable to a new generation.

"Astrology" focuses on what nosotros know every bit the Western horoscopic system, codification in 539 BC when the Babylonians created and named the bicycle of the zodiac. By charting the movements of v planets plus the sun and moon in relation to this cycle, they gave us a way to talk about our identities, our instincts, how we beloved and communicate.

Andrea Richards, the book'southward author, is the outset to say that she is not an astrologer but a journalist and scholar, interested in examining "the beliefs around behavior." She dismisses the notion of astrology as "fortune-telling"; instead, it's about "patterns and stories and the transmissions of stories betwixt generations."

Ane revelation of this volume is that astrology and astronomy were one time sis sciences. Cambridge University even had an star divination chair. Only after the Enlightenment, shame was bandage upon matters of the spirit. And yet, as Richards attests, the practice never went away: world leaders from Queen Elizabeth I to Winston Churchill to the Reagans have relied on the counsel of their personal astrologers.

John Alcorn, Sagittarius, from Sydney Omarr's "Astrological Revelations Most You" series.

(John Alcorn)

Every bit with "Tarot," one comes away with an understanding of astrology's identify in history, pop culture, fine art, mythology and psychology. Included are 15th century frescoes, 18th century etchings, Mucha posters, cigarette ads, assemblage work by Betye Saar in the 1960s, a 1970s psychedelic calendar, '80s fantasy art, scientific charts and telescopic space photographs. Each chapter is anchored past the words of respected scholars and younger stars like Chani Nicholas and Jessica Lanyadoo.

In Richards' opinion, we are experiencing a new kind of spiritual enkindling, in which intellectual rigor can coexist with the metaphysical. While writing the volume, she recalls, "At ane point I had this remarkable day. I had spoken with a scientist at NASA, an astrologer and a historian, and I was similar, 'that confluence of people is exactly what this book is.' … Finally, I think people are ready to recognize that there are multiple paths to truth."

So it will be for the side by side book in the series. Author, podcast host and professional witch Pam Grossman, who is co-editing the upcoming "Witchcraft" with Hundley, believes those multiple paths have always been key to witchcraft's entreatment. "There is no pope of witchcraft," she says. "Everyone'southward practice is extremely personal."

What Grossman finds unique about this cultural moment (in which, for example, witchcraft is exploding on TikTok) is that "more previously marginalized people are in positions to brand decisions — queer people, people of color who have a history of beingness othered past the white cis patriarchy."

Vasko Taškovski, Pisces, Macedonia 1998. From "Astrology: The Library of Esoterica."

(Vasko Taškovski)

By virtue of this intersection with cultural shifts and the long association of the witch archetype and feminism, "Witchcraft" will likely exist more political than the first two volumes — which does not mean it volition be whatever less aesthetically hitting. Grossman was a consultant on Zoe Lister-Jones' recent revamp of "The Arts and crafts," and she is "deeply interested in how cinema, fashion, music and television take helped us to evolve the image of the witch." She also shares with Hundley a love for fine artists, including Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo, "who use their fine art do equally a form of magic making."

Growing upwardly in the analog era, Grossman spent hours in her local library poring over a series called "Homo, Myth & Magic." She considers the Library of Esoterica to be "an updated, more stylish version of that." The prospect, Grossman says, "makes the xiv-twelvemonth-erstwhile in me levitate with joy."

Nelson is the editor of Slouching Towards Los Angeles: Living and Writing by Joan Didion'southward Light" and the co-author of "Judson: Innovation in Stained Glass."

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Source: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-12-15/taschen-brings-the-occult-to-your-coffee-table

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