I’m writing this post mostly for my own benefit because I get the question asked so often and I’m kind of getting to the point of laziness where I dread typing and rehashing out my answer. Now in the future I can link to this post.
Everything I share….everything…is set with the intention, the hope, and aspiration that if you’ve found it, resonate with it even when it’s not your culture or even anywhere close to what ordinarily enters your personal path and craft, that you will nonetheless feel an untainted, anxiety-free freedom to integrate it into your path.
On an unintentionally related note, the way I did my makeup for the video is reminiscent of how Chinese demons get depicted in film. It was totally unintentional. Hence, interesting. Hmm. Anyway.
Figure I’d expand more on the juicier bits of the subject here in writing rather than in the video because guess how many people are going to watch the video but not read this post. Hidden in plain sight, yada yada. Right?
Demonology and the nearly universal cultural tendency to peg all ills of humanity on the work of demons is fascinating to me. Sick with disease? Acting out of the ordinary? Getting a bit too emotional for people’s comfort? Commit a crime? Oh. Demon possession. Of course. What else could it be?
In the Fall of 2017, I started a fun little series on my YouTube channel, called “Bell Chimes In.” Here’s a refresher of the 18 episodes that came out last year:
“Bell Chimes In” is a video series on my YouTube channel where I pick a topic that is oft talked about and chime in with my perspective. In doing so, I hope you’ll chime back. After the video, please join in conversation with me through a video response, blog post of your own, or by adding your thoughts in the comments section of the video.
I hope this series won’t be about me. I hope that it will be about us, about discourse, and the collective ideas of a community. There will be a new “Bell Chimes In” video every Sunday for the first quarter of the year.
Imagine yourself at Point A and you need to get to Point B, which is several winding hallways away. You are focused with this one objective, to get to Point B. However, as you start your way through the halls, flanking both sides of the hall are television and radio sets, every one of them on full blast, images of compelling narratives blinking at you from the glaring bright screens, and you catch snippets of phrases from the radio that sound important, that you wish very much you could stop and listen to acknowledge, but you’ve got to get to Point B and none of what’s bombarding your senses in these hallways relate to your destination.
The practical maybe even all too obvious advice is to ignore the distractions, stay focused, and get yourself to Point B, stat.
Now what if all those television and radio sets buzzing at you also happen to represent sincere cries for help. What if those weren’t television and radio sets but telephones, each one ringing at you and every ring is someone calling for you, hoping you’ll answer and give just one minute of your time, just one little moment, so that you can use your know-how and skill sets to help them solve their life problems.
What do you do? Do you still ignore the “distractions,” stay focused, and get yourself to Point B, stat? Or do you stop and answer those calls? If you stop to answer every call, you’ll never arrive at Point B, which is a destination you really, really want to arrive at. Do you stop to answer only some of the calls but not others? How do you discern which to answer and which to ignore? Speaking of calls, what’s your calling? In the midst of this chaos, you start to wonder: what exactly is your calling anyway? Is it to stop and answer as many of these calls as you can and that in and of itself is your life purpose? Or is your life purpose still to try to arrive at that destination Point B?
That’s the irony, or maybe paradox, I don’t know which, of the empath (which, by the way, my digital device keeps telling me is not a word and keeps wanting me to change to “empathy”).
In this episode, I answer a question that was presented to me: Can a non-Asian craft and sell Fu talismans to the public?
I recorded the video rather on the fly on the same day the question was presented to me, and didn’t fuss over my face before recording, so now in retrospect when I see the video, I cringe. Ugh. This is what happens when you don’t check your hair or makeup (the eyeliner was already smudging after a long working day) before you hit “record.”
The Fu talisman is a form of Chinese sigil magic that dates back to 400 BC and was later integrated into Taoist mystery traditions around 100 AD. If you’re not familiar with what a Fu talisman is, check out the below links:
This is the third installment of a video series on my YouTube channel called Tinkering Bell where I showcase my personal esoteric tinkerings.
Episode #3 Description
There is a common denominator among mystery traditions across the world that instruct on a perfected way for harmonizing human architecture with deity and with nature. In “Architecture of Sacred Space,” I share with you the basic criteria I follow for ensuring a sanctified living space.
This is Part 2 of 2 videos on the architecture and design of sacred space. Part 1 covered harmonic resonance. Part 2 (Episode #3) will cover magnetism, orientation, water, and anchoring. In touring each of these fundamental principles, we also touch down into feng shui, spell-crafting, and so much more.
Among Western mystery traditions, you often hear about eclectic witchcraft, can even loop chaos magic into the scope of this topic, and those who observe esoteric practices in a way that blends different cultures and religions. Taoist religious scholars refer to this particular way of practicing religion as syncretism. I say Taoist here because Taoism, as a religion, tends to be syncretic.
In Bell Chimes In #4, I make a case for syncretic religious practice. Today very few of us stay sequestered within a homogenous framework. Not only do we travel physically to interact with different cultures, become geographical and cultural transplants ourselves, but with the Internet at our fingertips and our own curiosities to navigate that web, we have access to a diversity of religious ideas in a way our ancestors did not.
As we engage with different faces of the Holy Spirit, we’re able to discover and formulate our own unique Key of access to that Holy Spirit, or connection to Shen (I talk about this in the video), that fits our physiology, karma, life experiences, and psychic imprint. To not reach out and seize upon such opportunities is what I’d describe as rejecting authenticity. Following one fixed religious doctrine from its Point A to its Point Z that conforms to what a textbook says is historical is not “authenticity.” Authenticity, I argue, is about following what’s in your bones and in ways that maybe no one else will ever truly understand. And what’s being guided by your bones may appear to be eclectic.
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.
Video Lecture Screenshot
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.
Workbook Page Spread Preview
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
Click image file to download the Workbook pdf
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.
Workbook Page Spread Preview
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.
Video Lecture Screenshot
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.
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.
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.
Workbook Page Spread Preview
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.
Workbook Page Spread Preview
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.
Your Course Instructor
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.
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.
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.
Photograph that is unrelated to the topic at hand but posting here for the visual effect notwithstanding because your eyeballs need there to be a photo here and I couldn’t source one that would be related.
First off, naturally I will be speaking in generalizations.
People my age are sandwiched somewhere in between the Old Guard and the Millennial Readers.
Although my mother is not a tarot reader, she’s a metaphysical reader/practitioner of sorts and I’m super sure that had tarot been accessible to her as a young one, she would have totally become a tarot reader. Instead, she reads other stuff. Like your face. No, I kid, but oh no, I don’t. She really does.
I can see her attitude reflected in many of the Old Guard tarot readers. “I’m not normal. Tarot is not normal. Damn straight this is fringe. Deal with it.”
There’s an unabashed embrace of marginalized culture. There’s no embarrassment with dressing woo-woo as you walk among normal society. You can almost see traces of a hedge witch mentality.
Although she has never come outright to say so, I get the distinct sense that she doesn’t want everyone and the mainstream to become diviners, mediums, shamans, and practitioners of craft. There is a tacit yet clear exclusionary attitude. Or at least that’s always been the impression I got. She doesn’t want (let alone buy in to the ideas of) Mediumship 101, “everybody’s psychic,” or “pay me $300 and I will certify you as a bona fide tarot master.” (Hi. Certified tarot master here.)
Meanwhile millennial readers apply general business and marketing tactics to tarot–e.g., general PR and marketing principles to tarot business, coaching anyone and everyone to become diviners, mediums, shamans, and practitioners of craft, if you so choose. There are efforts to establish tarot into mainstream culture.
There is a pop psychology approach to tarot (which I have been pegged and critiqued as adopting, so apparently I’m in this camp) that strives to normalize divination practices or astrology, and to talk about spell-crafting as the law of attraction and “yay for positive thinking.”
However, at the heart of the millennial approach is the notion of accessibility, a socialist attitude toward the metaphysics. We can all have equal access to the Divine, to metaphysical energy work. (I confess, that is the attitude I adopt. That line sums up my opinion.) Metaphysics is for everyone. This is not paranormal, it’s normal. You don’t need anybody else to help you connect to the Divine. You only need you.
Okay, so as circumstances would have it, I’m now only a couple paragraphs in and I’ve already changed my mind.
Maybe I haven’t changed my mind exactly, but it is for sure vacillating. Is it really a generational thing? Or is it just a two-different-schools-of-thought thing? Is my personal anecdotal evidence and direct observations even reliable?
I’m in effect just looking around me, only to the point I am able to physically see, and making gross generalizations about what else is out there based on only what I see. Is what I happen to see an accurate microcosmic sampling of the macro? I don’t know. I really don’t.
However, there is for sure a determined voice among the occultists and metaphysicians who say that “occult” means concealed, and we are not to remove the veil for all. Only those who choose the path should or even can go beyond that veil to see for themselves what is there, and then come back with divinatory or revelatory information as needed, like an appointed messenger.
Is that way of thinking a bit reminiscent of limiting literacy to the elite so that the proletariat must rely on figures of authority (like a priest or priestess) for Divine insights? That was the way of institutionalized Western religion for ages. Is it hypocritical when metaphysicians repudiate that kind of authoritarian approach to religion, pursue occultism because they’re anti-authoritarian and want the answers for themselves, but then once they’ve found those answers, act in the same exclusionary manner?
I’ve observed that the Old Guard, Mom inclusive, have this sense that what they do “isn’t for everyone.” She would probably opine that not anyone can just pick up a grimoire, follow something in there, and yield results. Only certain people can do that. As I said, there’s a staunch exclusionary attitude. I’m also sure if I introduced her to the 21st century spiritual coaching power of manifestation business model, she’d find it absurd.
Actually, she wouldn’t. She’s pretty open-minded. She’d be surprised at first, but then come around. “Okay, all right, I get it. I wouldn’t have thought of that but I get it.” For instance, it might take her some time to grasp the idea that, say, I’m holding an online webinar course on Learning the Opening of the Key for Tarot Summer School and teaching occult theories to a whole bunch of people I’ve never even met, all at once. Perhaps in her view, spirituality, divination, and woo-based teaching is done one pupil at a time, a single teacher to pupil relationship that is honed over several years, not in 60 minutes.
Whereas maybe I do have a more “free love” attitude here. We’re entering a social era where notions once reserved in the New Age or even occult category run as an undercurrent through mainstream society. Corporate offices pay for yoga classes and meditation retreats for their employees. Businesses far from the woo will consider feng shui tips and tricks. Law firms invite in tarot and palm readers for their company Christmas party. Silicon Valley high-tech companies will hire a witch to cast a circle of protection around their computers, protecting them from hackers. All true stories here. I doubt any of this would have happened even 20 years ago. Things are changing.
As woo practitioners such as tarot readers converge more with the corporate and mainstream worlds, they adopt corporate and mainstream commercial strategies to advance their tarot business. Corporate and mainstream businesses converge more with woo practitioners and adopt woo into their environments because hey, “anything to help us earn more money. If that’s a spell or feng shui, then let’s do it.”
So admittedly, there was no point or core thesis to this post. I just thought I’d ramble on some thoughts of late.
Or father. I’ve been hearing a lot about parenting for pagans and wanted to add my own thoughts. However, I won’t be talking about it from the perspective of the parent. I want to talk about it from the perspective of the child.
Now, my parents are not pagan, mostly because that word is not in their vocabulary. They’re Taiwanese immigrants. However, my mother is a metaphysical practitioner, though she wouldn’t see it that way. What she thinks she does is as natural as cooking, praying, dreaming, meditating, and just using what you have within reach to manifest what you want.
I think that is an important point. Growing up, I never saw what she did as “occult,” though living in the Western society has made me realize that Westernerswould define what she does as totally occult. Paying attention to equinoxes and solstices, knowing when the veil was thinnest, when to honor the dead, what to do when there was heightened spirit activity, calling upon the elements of nature and combining it with recitations to make things happen, understanding the phases of the moon– these weren’t seen as pagan.
“After their deaths, in my dreams I went down to the realm your late auntie and uncle were trapped in and it was so cold and dark. They told me they were hungry. So we burned offerings and chanted prayers for them and then many nights later I visited them again. I saw that they were now in a different, better realm, very happy and at peace.” (Mom, paraphrased)
I’ve come to understand that in the Western society, that is absolutely bonkers, but in Mom’s world, that was perfectly normal. And accepted at face value. After a death in the family, she’d relay her dreams and all the relatives would just nod. Yeah, that makes sense, they’d confirm. Okay, let’s burn offerings and chant prayers. And then they’d all wait for Mom’s post-dream-shamanic-travels to verify that the offerings and chanting worked. Mom always said that dead people liked to call to her from the post-mortem realms they were in, and so she’d go to them in her dream state to bring back messages for the living. God, growing up when that happened, I’d cover my ears and run out of the room and make it clear to all who’d listen that I thought all of this was batshit crazy.
benebell wen 