Linda Falorio's "Shadow Tarot" and some Reflections on the Nature of the Tarot Itself

Linda Falorio took a difficult task upon her shoulders when she decided to attempt to create a Qliphothic Tarot deck, the Shadow Tarot. I have had the deck for a few weeks now and would like to share some thoughts about it along with some general reflections on the nature of the Tarot. Let me start my reflections by stating what I take to be the near unassailable challenge this task faced. Falorio's Tarot drew its original inspiration from the Qliphothic correspondences of the 22 paths of the Tree of Life as derived from Aleister Crowley's Liber CCXXXI and further investigated in Kenneth Grant's The Nightside of Eden. In other words, it started from a clearly defined system for presenting the Major Arcana of the Tarot, the most famous 22 cards frequently understood to correspond to the 22 paths of the Tree of Life and 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It was this portion of the Shadow Tarot which has been floating around the internet for years. The challenge is figuring out how, having started with a clear Major Arcana, was the deck to present the Minor Archana - the 56 cards from which our standard 52 card deck is derived? For this purpose Falorio drew on two sources, stars of Qliphothic importance and the spirits of the Lesser Key of Solomon or Goetia. I believe this to be, for various reasons I will explain, an inadequate solution to a very difficult problem.

How to Enter the Tunnels of Set

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The Dog Days are upon us (depending on how you choose to time them) which has frequently corresponded with some of my most intense and often unusual occult experiments and experiences. Several years ago I began a complete path-working of the Qlippoth and Tunnels of Set starting during the Dog Days and stretching across a year to end at the completion of the next Dog Day period. Over the past few days a friend and occult colleague of mine began a new exploration of the Tunnels so I thought it might be useful to share some further details and concrete examples of the methods I used in my own work.

Painting by A.O. Spare