This adorable card shows a bare-bottomed Cupid eclipsing the sun as he prepares to shoot an arrow at a couple who have come before a witness to make their vow of marriage. By a wonderful conjunction of mathematical coincidences, the number six is both the sum (1 + 2 + 3) and the product (1 × 2 × 3) of the first three numbers. It is therefore considered “perfect.” This card represents the "perfection" produced by the union of two halves. The perfection of the number six is told of in the Bible, as it takes God six days to perfect his creation before he takes one last day to rest. This story is of course derived from Chaldean and Sumerian mythology. Six was considered the number of completion, harmony, love, creativity, and the physical senses. Psychic perception is sometimes called the "sixth sense". Psychic simply means "of the mind" as "psyche" is Greek for "consciousness". There is a classic tale where Psyche personified falls in...

Through our daily earthbound life, we recognise the sun rising in the east (northeast in the summer and southeast in the winter) and mounting the sky. The sun rarely passes directly overhead, and rather we see it moving toward the south, if you're in the northern hemisphere. The sun will then set toward the west (southwest in the winter and northwest in the summer). This all changes if you're in the southern hemisphere, where the sun will appear to travel through the north, rising in the southeast at winter and the northeast at summer, and rising in the southwest in summer and northwest in winter. The following diagram shows the perceived passage of the sun for each hemisphere. For this reason, I would place my altar in the South and draw the circle anti-clockwise if I were in the southern hemisphere. Whether we are in the southern or northern hemisphere, the altar is placed in the darkest quarter of the circle, where the sun is perceived to travel under the earth. Psychol...

The Wiccan Charge begins with the words  "Listen to the words of the Great Mother, who of old was also called among men Artemis, Astarte, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Diana, Arianrhod, Bride, and by many other names." What are some of the other names? Hecate, Persephone, Selene, Cybele, Demeter, Rhea, Gaia, Astraea, Ceres, Isis, Hathor, Venus, Psyche, Sophia, Shakti. These are all names of our Goddess. How can one goddess be known by so many names? How can one goddess have multiple faces? We find the same fact is stated by pagan philosophers of the first millenium. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius is a Latin text from the 2nd century CE. The story is of a young man called Lucius who is eager to be initiated into the mystery cult of Isis. The secrets of the cult are explained to him before he goes through the process of initiation, which involved a trial by the elements during a journey to the underworld. Lucius also seeks initiation into the cult of Osiris, and...