Recently Arwen started a Tarot Tag consisting of 15 really interesting questions, #tarottag15. You can watch her original video here. I’m still a blogger at heart, not a vlogger, so I’m going to join in on the tag via blog post.
Category: personal
Why the Suit of Swords is My Favorite
In a social justice law course I took back in my law school days, the professor went around the room on the first day of class and asked each one of us to offer what we think brings about social change in this world. A classroom populated by, um, well, white folks, offered thought bubbles like grassroots mobilization, advocacy, charismatic leadership, lobbying, equal access to justice, public policy, etc. Funny, I was thinking about it from a different perspective.
When it was my turn, I said, “Pain.”
Pain is not only the impetus for social change, but it is the impetus to greatness. Profound feelings of marginalization lead to zealous advocacy on behalf of others. Even when your pain looks different from my pain, the common emotional denominator between our pains is the same, and through that common emotional denominator, you and I can connect, create an incredible, powerful fusion, and together, through collectivism, become the impetus for social change and for mutual greatness.
How to Create Your Grimoire: Inspiration from One Approach
When you’ve dedicated yourself to the study of craft, you’re going to want to start your own written record of the path. It is the most natural thing and the concept of keeping a grimoire, book of shadows, or book of methods is found across all of the cultures of magical traditions, East to West. Now it’s your turn to feel that pull. You’ve got your big, beautiful blank book ready to go. Where do you start? How do you start?
By its nature, a private journal means no one can tell you what to do. Yet some of us just want tangible insights for inspiration, so that’s what this is. I’m most certainly not trying to tell you how to keep your own private journal. My own grimoire does not come close to following the instructions I am about to give.
Yet the other day, I was thumbing through a rather incredible tome, quite esoteric in nature for sure, and that tome offered some of the most brilliant insights into grimoire organization that I have ever come across. So I shall share that text with you today.
That’s right. It’s The Professional Chef by The Culinary Institute of America.
Okay, it’s a cooking book. But I swear if you went through this thing you’d agree it’s esoteric as hell. Who knew broth making and a roux could be so complicated. I digress. And I’m serious. This book provides incredible insights into how you might consider organizing and creating your grimoire.
Continue reading “How to Create Your Grimoire: Inspiration from One Approach”
A Comparative Analysis of Fortune Telling and Divination: Free Lecture
A Free Online Course Presentation
Is there any value to making a distinction between fortune telling and divination? How might Chinese perspectives compare to or inform Western perspectives? This free video (or audio) lecture will examine the etymological origins of the words for “fortune telling” and “divination” in the Chinese language, apply medieval esoteric Taoist texts to tarot reading, and propose a theoretical framework through which to read tarot, as either a fortune teller or a diviner, though the two are not mutually exclusive. We will then run a comparative analysis of that with Western perspectives and examine Western esoteric texts on the subject.
The video lecture is about 34 minutes in length. Click on the below to begin watching. Although it is in video form, you can also listen to it as an audio.
Continue reading “A Comparative Analysis of Fortune Telling and Divination: Free Lecture”
Tarot as a Tool for Craft
2025 June 15: Please note that the following course content was produced nearly a decade ago and may reflect the production standards and media quality that were even low for that time, so may foreseeably prove to be challenging for the present day user. We appreciate your understanding and grace as you engage with these materials.
Tarot as a Tool for Craft is a FREE DOWNLOADABLE guided workbook course that teaches practitioners how to elevate tarot from a system of divination into a powerful tool for spellcraft, ritual, and magical workings. Rooted in Western esotericism and enriched by practical hands-on exercises, the course blends tarot theory, ceremonial ritual, sigil work, talismanic crafting, and energy channeling to help the student activate the cards as magical instruments. Through progressive lessons and experiential assignments, learners will explore how to work with tarot archetypes, construct effective magical workings, and cultivate a deeply personal practice integrating both high and low magic traditions.
An expansion on the talk I presented in 2016 at the Theosophical Society of the East Bay, this course covers how a practitioner of craft might use tarot, from triggering intuitive creativity for self-empowerment, divination, and amplifying psychic ability to communion with celestial contacts, mediumship, and summonings. This is an intermediate course that presumes proficiency with tarot. Subject matter also runs into esoteric and mystical applications of the tarot, so the tone of the course might not be right for everyone.
Course Objectives
After completing this workbook course, you will:
- Understand how to transform tarot cards from passive symbols into active magical tools.
- Learn how to design and execute ritual spells using the tarot as both focus and channel.
- Practice creating and charging talismans using tarot correspondences, sigils, and planetary hours.
- Develop a personalized system of magical correspondences rooted in tarot structure.
- Cultivate the mindset and discipline of a ceremonial magician working through a tarot framework.
- Strengthen intuitive and psychic faculties through ritualized work with tarot archetypes and energies
What my 2015 book Holistic Tarot taught was the first of the five pillars that are discussed in this course. This course deconstructs the form and mechanics of using tarot for:
- Intuitive Creativity to achieve self-empowerment;
- Divination to connect to what Paul Foster Case called the Cause of Causes—the Universal Intelligent Life Energy;
- Psychic Readings both to amplify your innate psychic ability and to use tarot as a training tool for strengthening your psychic ability;
- Celestial Contacts to connect with deities, angels, ascended masters, devas, or the metaphysical force affecting physical conditions; and
- Netherworld Contacts and using tarot for mediumship, ancestral connections, or connecting to entities of nether-worlds and other-worlds.
A workbook with exercises to help you learn and master the mechanics of such tarot operations will also be provided to supplement the video lecture.
Also, this is not a video lecture that you watch just one time. I propose that the video lecture and the workbook should be revisited routinely. Print out the workbook multiple times and routinely work through the exercises prompted in the workbook to help you advance and further develop the skills taught in the video lecture.
The Video Lecture:
Download the PowerPoint:
Tarot as a Tool for Craft
PPTX DECK
As it tends to be when you’re working with me, the workbook is the most important part of this course. The 49-page workbook is intended for use and re-use. Print it out many times throughout your development to work through the training exercises.
Download the Workbook:
Tarot as a Tool for Craft
workbook PDF digital file for printing
As it tends to be when you’re working with me, the workbook is the most important part of this course. The 49-page workbook is intended for use and re-use. Print it out many times throughout your development to work through the training exercises.
The training exercises begin basic and analytical, compelling you to work with numerology, astrology, Kabbalistic references, and other forms of symbolism and system correspondences to broaden your working and experiential knowledge of the tarot.
Then the course deep-dives into training exercises for mediumship, using tarot for celestial contacts, using tarot in shamanic journeying, using tarot as talismans, and so much more. I hope you will be as thrilled and enthusiastic about this workbook as I felt when I went through the exercises for myself.
I hope this workbook will be a game changer for you in terms of your relationship with tarot as your divinatory tool, especially if you’re looking to hone your psychic abilities, intuition, and experience various forms of mystical training. As I tend to do, I fuse together eastern and western esoteric principles.
Although this course presumes intermediate proficiency with the tarot prior to commencing, it is a beginner-level introduction to using the cards as living, breathing instruments of ritual magic and mysticism.
Hi! I’m Benebell Wen, the author of Holistic Tarot (North Atlantic Books, 2015) and The Tao of Craft: Fu Sigils and Casting Talismans in the Eastern Esoteric Traditions (NAB, 2016). My background is in both law and classical studies, and so I strive to bring a synthesis of analytics-based scholarship, a practical teaching style, and yet also a deep initiatic understanding of occult systems.
Other Courses By Me:
Witchcraft Fundamentals: Doctrinal Basis and Theory of Transcendental Magic
$ 79 USD
WESTERN WITCHCRAFT I: This course is a 13-module immersive study of the first 12 chapters in Eliphas Levi’s Doctrine, Part I, of the greater collected work Transcendental Magic. There are 18 video lectures with a total run time of 9 hours along with a 363-page textbook/workbook. In addition, you’ll be getting a set of guided focused meditation for the magus videos. My recommendation is to work through the materials over a 13-week period. Both theory and practicum are covered. This course is structured after a one semester 400-level university elective.
Tarot, Occultism, and Modern Witchcraft
$25 USD
This class is structured after a graduate-level course with a series of lectures plus guided tarot readings ritualized and crafted to show rather than tell you about tarot in witchcraft.
The lecture portion covers a comparative analysis of exoteric, psychology-based tarot reading vs. an esoteric, psychic-based tarot reading, and also tarot as a witch’s tool. We’ll cover the history and legacy of tarot in Western occultism, focusing in on applying Hermetic principles to the tarot. Then we’ll consider the role of tarot and witchcraft in the modern era.
Note: “Tarot, Occultism, and Modern Witchcraft” was first offered during Tarot Summer School 2018 at the Tarot Readers Academy.
The Metaphysician’s Day Planner – Order Today
The 2020 Metaphysician’s Day Planner is Now Available
Click on the above image to visit the product description page.
$25
The Metaphysician’s Day Planner
I juggle a full-time day job in corporate law with writing and publishing books, doing interviews and talks for the book tours, part-time professional tarot reader and astrologer, blogger, avid home cook, and pro bono legal work on the side, all while being a metaphysician and keeping myself buried in metaphysical studies, so I do get asked a lot about how I organize my day. How do I make sure I am on top of my schedule of court appearances, hearings, and conferences for work, my client reading list for tarot and astrology, food prep for the week and menu planning, domestic chores, personal health and fitness, and everything in between?
With a day planner, of course. There is a set way I organize and format my personal day planner to cover everything I do. And now I’d like to share it with you. I’ve put together a 2017 day planner and organizer for the metaphysician.
It’s part day planner–annual, quarterly, monthly, and daily. And it’s part grimoire.Carrying around metaphysical correspondences and quick reference sheets helps immensely with memory retention. It’s my approach to broadening and deepening my esoteric knowledge.
Out on the market right now you’ll see a ton of beautiful, vibrant, inspiring, mind-body-spirit-based day planners and calendars rolling out for sale now.
Mine is none of that.
So if you’re looking for something with lots of pastel colors, inspirational quotes, affirmations, and space for you to jot down your secret desires, then this is not it.
Rather, this is a glimpse into how I organize my life and how I balance professional and personal accomplishment with esoteric studies. I don’t spend three hours filling in blank workbook prompts on what I love about myself. I don’t need “go get ’em, tiger” quotes in sans serif font printed in glittery hues across my planner cover. Instead, my planner is about optimizing the hours of my day and getting stuff done. I need a day organizer that helps me get stuff done. I don’t want color, because color ink is expensive. I want substance and I want economy.
That’s what my day planner is all about. And I’d like to show it to you. I made one up for my sister Cindy, so you’re going to see screenshots of hers for illustration.
Continue reading “The Metaphysician’s Day Planner – Order Today”
Method Journals: Documenting Your Woo-Woo Experiences
I’m often asked about my own journaling methodologies and how I document my personal work. At any given moment in time, I have the above-pictured four books/journals/what-have-you. Each one serves a different purpose for me.
If you want a more in-depth peek inside that big black one you see pictured above, check out this video I uploaded onto my YouTube channel:
Continue reading “Method Journals: Documenting Your Woo-Woo Experiences”
Tarot BlogHop: Tarot and a Seven Course Brunch
PREVIOUS BLOG | MASTER LIST | NEXT BLOG
I’m thrilled to be participating in the “Foodies Guide to the Tarot” BlogHop hosted by our co-wranglers Jay Cassels and Arwen Lynch Poe. The topic was left wide open for us bloggers to go in any direction of our pleasure, as long as it had to do with tarot and it had to do with food. I’m thinking I’ve done just that.
The Major Arcana of the tarot deck can be subdivided into Three Septenaries. The First Septenary of the Major Arcana is about the primal dramas of the ego, expressed by the first seven Keys of the Majors: Keys I through VII. You can read more about the Three Septenaries here.
Inspired by the First Septenary, I will be preparing a seven course brunch for Hubby and me. (Jay and Arwen: the hubby thanks you for your BlogHop topic idea). Here we go.
Continue reading “Tarot BlogHop: Tarot and a Seven Course Brunch”
The Chariot Card: Guest Post at BiddyTarot
Brigit’s BiddyTarot is one of the most popular (I even dare say the most popular) tarot spot on the web. And it’s for good reason, too. She sustains the site with incredible content. Brigit is compiling a free e-book, Real Life Lessons from the Major Arcana, a collection of 22 essays by 22 tarot authors, each writer covering one Major Arcanum.
I chose Key VII: The Chariot for personal and sentimental reasons. Click on the above banner to go straight to my article over at Biddy. Also, be sure to download the entire e-book for FREE (how cool is that!) by clicking on the below banner or going here.
Continue reading “The Chariot Card: Guest Post at BiddyTarot”
Altar Kit in a Tin (A Mini Travel Altar or Prayer Box)
I’m new to the craft idea of an altar-in-a-tin. The other day while surfing Pinterest (that never ends well for me), I came across photos of people who DIY-ed their own miniature altar kits or prayer boxes using a candy tin. These photos were incredible. The Pinterest excursion led to Etsy and three and a half hours later that lazy Sunday, I get the brilliant idea that I can DIY my own altar kit (or prayer box).
Above you see my initial proposition of contents. Given limited parameters (e.g., don’t want to leave the house to buy anything; must finish this crafty project today so must utilize what I have in my house right now; must be itty bitty tiny because this f****** tin of mints is itty bitty tiny; etc.), this project turned out to be harder than I expected.
Continue reading “Altar Kit in a Tin (A Mini Travel Altar or Prayer Box)”
benebell wen 