This episode offers a flip through the rare mid-20th century tarot guide, The Painted Caravan by Basil Ivan Rákóczi (1908-1979). Although born in England, he was inspired by his mother Charlotte May Dobby’s Irish heritage and his father Ivan’s Hungarian history, including claiming his parents were married according to ‘Gypsy’ traditions. However, he grew up…
Category: podcasts
Irreverent Tarot 13: Flip Through
Irreverent Tarot, the podcast, returns with a flip-through video of The Art of Drawing Cards and The Tarot. By popular demand of the Tarot History group, who want a proper nosy before they commit to buying anything even if they do get a thanks in the postscript! Take a look through yourself. Find out the…
Irreverent Tarot 12: Leonora’s Priestess
OCCULTURE, LEONORA & MORE Episode 12 – Contemplating Leonora Carrington’s High Priestess card as I work on my presentation for Occulture this October in Berlin. I am very excited about that, of course, especially as it gives me even more excuses to delve into my fascination with Carrington, her art, and her magic. So much…
Irreverent Tarot 11: Etteilla’s Creation
ETTEILLA & CREATION The Grand #Etteilla, featuring his thematic desire to encode the creation story into the opening sequence of cards — and why his Fool and Magician are in such unexpected locations. Also a bit about the astrological associations he gives the cards. If you’re unfamiliar with the first professional cartomancer from the 18th…
Walpurgisnacht Shenanigans
Peg and I started talking about Rosemary’s Baby between cats, a snoozy dog and far too much rustling of lapel mics (oops!). Peg did a great job editing but we may pick up this conversation and run further with it because there is just so much to say! The film most responsible for the 80s…
Irreverent Tarot 6
‘Sir, you quibble!’ Today’s quick take is on THE SQUARE OF SEVENS, a cartomancy guide from 1896 by Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson (1868-1942). He declares it to be the work of Robert Antrobus, who met a ‘Mr George’ in Cornwall who was supposedly a ‘gypsy’ but alienated from his people and willing to spill all their…
Irreverent Tarot 4 & 5
It’s typical of me to have done all the things with the most recent episodes of Irreverent Tarot *except* actually posting them here. Episode 4: Surrealist tarot! Well, the Jeu de Marseille which isn’t technically tarot but tarot-adjacent for sure. episode 5: The amazing Xul Solar, surrealist, futurist, polyglot language creator, gamester and yes, tarot…
Irreverent #Tarot Ep3
The Three Ages of Tarot: from game to occult repository to more reflective modern uses for personal development and expression. Much of this informed by scholars of tarot history including: A Cultural History of Tarot by Helen Farley (2019) A Wicked Pack of Cards by Decker, DePaulis & Dummett (1996) which makes a quick cameo!…
Irreverent Tarot Ep2
Another #TarotTuesday flick up: this one takes a quick look at a strange 1911 tarot, Le Tarot de la Reyne which I came across at the Beinecke while looking for something else (what? who knows?! knee deep in figuring out a thing that remains a bit amorphous but deals with tarot history). The queen in…
Irreverent Tarot Ep 1
Because having eleventy million things to do is not much different than doing eleventy million and one, I decided to start a micro-podcast to share weird tarot things that have been obsessing me as I dive deeper into the history. The first one has to do with this nineteenth century deck — so-called Egyptian, as…