Even with this highly abbreviated procedure, it took nearly four hours. I broke twice for coffee and bathroom breaks and finished with the evocation of the day spirits just before sunset.
I found ripe avocados, corn chips, and cheese in the house, so I made a demonically huge mess in the kitchen then gorged on nachos and guacamole (the fast-food favorite of California magicians whose wives are out of town). Sated, and a little sick to my stomach, I turned on a tape of Respighi’s Pines of Rome and took a long early-evening nap.
I got up and showered about 11:00 p.m. and repeated the procedure for the thirty-six night spirits. I finished about four o’clock Sunday morning. By then I was in such a state of wild-eyed exaltation and exhaustion that those last thirty-six spirits were the most polite and cooperative beasties I have ever conjured. Still, I barely had enough energy to put the cards back in their box and banish the temple before I crashed.
After a crazy night of the most bizarre and amusing dreams, I lounged around late Sunday morning, then drove to the deli and treated myself to a fresh onion bagel before forcing myself back to work. I was getting really tired of doing magick.
The twenty-two Trumps would be the last cards to get the full treatment. I sat on the living room floor with Aleister Crowley’s 77756 and a chart listing the traditional archangels, angels, and qliphotic demons of the signs of the zodiac, and surrounded myself in a magical circle made entirely of tarot cards. I placed the three elemental Trumps (Fool, Hanged Man, and Aeon) nearest me in the center. Around these, I placed the seven planetary Trumps (Magus, Priestess, Empress, Fortune, Tower, Sun, and Universe). Circling the planets I spread out the twelve zodiacal trumps (Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers, Lust, Hermit, Justice, Death, Art, Devil, Star, and Moon) all in a great circle surrounding me and the other Trumps.
Around that circle I laid out the thirty-six Small Cards in a huge circle that required me to move some more furniture just to fit it on the floor. Each of the Small Cards represents 10 degrees of the zodiacal year, so I placed them in order starting with the 2 of Wands (0 to 10 degrees Aries) in the nine o’clock position and moving counterclockwise, finally ending with the 10 of Cups (20 to 30 degrees Pisces).
Finally, I positioned the Aces and Court Cards outside the great outer circle according to the quarters they rule. Then I carefully tiptoed into the very center of my tarot mandala and began my final magical chore.
Using the tables from 777, I lumbered through my butchered Hebrew pronunciation of the appropriate divine names, archangels, angels, spirits, and intelligences for each element, planet, and zodiac sign. It was really … really boring!—so boring that it actually induced a state of consciousness that I can only describe as a dull rhythmic electric ecstasy. (Could fatigue and boredom actually be the key to Qabalistic illumination? Constance certainly thinks so!)
When I was done, I just sat there and buzzed like I’ve never buzzed before. And so did the cards. I was physically drained, emotionally gratified, psychically raw, and more than a bit insane. Even though I was completely sick of performing magick, I had an epiphany concerning the nature of magick—the realization that the only thing a magician can effect change upon is the magician. Yes, the cards got charged—but not because I charged them but because I charged myself with that crazy two-day ritual.
By five o’clock Sunday afternoon, nearly forty-eight hours after I began, it was over. With tingling fingers I reordered the cards, gave them a big kiss (at the time, I still wasn’t sure where my lips ended and the rest of the universe began), and returned the charged cards to their box. I mustered the energy to banish the temple with the Greater Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram, and then moved the furniture back into place. I took a long shower and dressed. I rewarded myself with a trip to my favorite Mexican restaurant where I ordered nearly everything on the menu and got good and drunk.
So there it is. You’d be right to point out that it seems like a damned silly thing for a grown man to do with his weekend alone, and perhaps you would be right.
Am I happy with the way it worked? Well … yes. Of course I am. The cards have gotten great reviews and magicians and tarotists all around the world have told me wonderful and magical things they’ve done with the cards (and wonderful and magical things the cards have done to them). That’s exactly what I wanted to happen.
After fifteen years, two printings, and twenty thousand decks sold worldwide, I’ve recently changed publishers and it looks like the deck will be around for a long time. I have to confess, however, that I wish I had done one more little thing during my forty-eight hours of magical madness. I wish I’d done some magick to make the damned things sell better.
[contents]
40 I first shared the outline of this ceremony in an address to the 2003 Los Angeles Tarot Symposium, and in the Beltane 2005 issue of Pentacle Magazine, UK.
41 Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.) is a religious nonprofit, tax-exempt, California corporation founded by Paul Foster Case (1884–1954).
42 Since the early 1970s, the Thoth Tarot has been printed by an assortment of publishers.
43 Lon and Constance DuQuette, Tarot of Ceremonial Magick: A Pictorial Syntheses of Three Great Pillars of Magick (Astrology, Enochian Magick, Goetia). Originally published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 1994. Newest edition by Thelesis Aura, 2010.
44 Enochian magick is a magical system developed in the late sixteenth century by Dr. John Dee and
