Uncategorized – Page 2 – Just the Tarot

Shine Your Light: The Star Card, Shame, and the Courage to Be Seen

This post explores the deeper meaning of The Star card in the Tarot and reflects on why so many of us struggle to shine our light in the world. Drawing on the work of Brené Brown, Tibetan Buddhism, and real-life dynamics like shame and codependency, I look at the messages—both cultural and personal—that lead us to dim our brilliance. The Star invites us to pour our gifts into the world, not for recognition, but because it’s who we truly are. This is a reflection on healing, self-worth, and the sacred courage it takes to be seen.• shine your light

This image is from one of my new Tarot Affirmation posters, now available on my Etsy art site. I really love how it turned out—but even more than that, I love the message it carries: Shine Your Light.

And yet, for so many of us, that’s easier said than done.

Instead of shining, we hide. Instead of pouring ourselves out like starlight, we dim, shrink, withdraw. Why is it so hard to be radiant in a world that so desperately needs our brilliance?

The Culture of Shame and the Fear of Being Seen

In one of her powerful TED Talks, Brené Brown speaks about the culture of shame we all live in. Even if you didn’t grow up in a dysfunctional family (and statistically, about 60% of us did), we’re still marinated in a society that constantly criticizes, compares, and belittles.

Maybe you brought home a report card with a B, and your parent asked, “Why didn’t you get an A?”

Maybe you’re in a job where meeting your performance goals doesn’t bring a sense of completion—it just earns you a fresh, even more demanding set.

Maybe you’ve internalized the billions of dollars spent by the beauty industry telling you that your face, your body, your age, or your hair simply aren’t good enough.

On social media, the message is constant: unless you’re being validated with likes and followers, you’re invisible.

Advertising tells you your house isn’t elegant enough, your car’s too old, your wardrobe outdated.

Even spirituality isn’t immune. We whisper to ourselves: I should be better. I should care more. I should meditate more. Pray more. Try harder.

Let’s face it: in this world, it’s all too easy to believe that we should be ashamed of simply being ourselves.

As Brown puts it, shame drives two powerful tapes in our heads:

1. You’re never good enough, and

2. Who do you think you are?

And because those tapes run deep, we begin to engineer our own smallness. We shrink ourselves to stay invisible—because visibility feels like a threat. We dim our light so no one will see just how “inadequate” we believe we are. And in doing so, we fail to shine.

Codependency and Dimming Our Own Lights

Sometimes, the reason we hide isn’t culture—it’s relationships.

Too many of us are caught in dynamics where one partner shines while the other fades into the background. It might be dressed up in the language of care or sacrifice, but the effect is the same: one person takes center stage, while the other erases themselves.

It could be a relationship with a narcissist, where one partner is expected to provide constant praise, attention, and emotional caretaking.

It could be a more obvious kind of abuse, where failing to meet someone else’s needs results in punishment, blame, or even violence.

It might even look noble—like staying small to “support” someone who is ill, unstable, or in need. But the underlying belief is this: there isn’t enough light to go around.

And so, we dim ourselves to make the other person shine.

We play down our accomplishments. We pretend we’re not that talented. We take the backseat in our own story. And we tell ourselves it’s virtuous.

But it’s not noble to disappear. It’s not compassionate to go dark.

We were meant to shine.

The Star Card and the Sacred Act of Sharing

The Star card in the Tarot is a card of healing—but it’s not just personal healing. It’s about reconnecting with the world by letting your own light flow into it.

In Tibetan Buddhism, there’s a teaching that each of us carries a radiant jewel inside. It may be buried under layers of dust or encased in stone, but it’s there—glimmering with our true nature. And our task in life is to uncover that jewel and offer it to the world.

That’s what the woman in The Star card is doing. She kneels beside the stream and pours out her water—not hoarding, not holding back. She gives freely to the land and to the flow of life itself.

She’s not asking for praise. She’s not trying to be impressive.

She’s just being who she is: a vessel of light.

And so are you.

You don’t shine for applause.

You don’t shine to prove anything.

You shine because it’s your nature.

And this world is thirsty for that kind of offering.

A Final Thought

You are not just a person. You are a sacred gift.

You are a hidden jewel.

You are starlight in human form.

Let yourself shine.

“Just the Tarot,” by Dan Adair – a kindle ebook available on Amazon

Learning to Live Without Joy

Many people feel disconnected, numb, or unable to access joy—especially after childhood trauma. This post explores emotional flatness, toxic positivity, and why realness may matter more than happiness.

Did you get ACED when you were a kid?

ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experience, and the odds are fairly high that you experienced one. ACEs include things like emotional abuse, neglect, parental mental illness, substance abuse, and divorce or separation of the parents.

We tend to think of those kinds of negative experiences as relatively rare. Maybe we got the hell beaten out of us by a crazed, drunk parent—but most people didn’t, right?

After all, just look at how happy everyone else seems.

But according to the CDC-Kaiser ACEs Study, 61% of adults across 25 states reported experiencing at least one ACE. And nearly 1 in 6 (16.7%) reported four or more.

The truth is, a sizable portion of the population is living with the long-term effects of unresolved trauma—including dissociation, emotional blunting, chronic anxiety, and difficulty accessing joy.

The Cultural Pressure to Be Happy

One of the strongest side effects of long-term trauma is the belief that, “Man, I must really be fucked up, because I’m just not happy. Everyone else is happy, but I’m a train wreck. In fact, I’m not even a train wreck, I’m completely off of the tracks.”

That belief is especially potent if you’re American.

American culture—especially through media and marketing—places enormous value on positivity, confidence, and personal success. Like the figures in the Three of Cups, we’re all supposed to be dancing with joy, smiling through life, bubbling over with gratitude. The message is:

“You should be happy, empowered, and in control of your life at all times.”

And if you’re not?

Then something must be seriously wrong with you.

This pressure to appear happy, even when we’re not, creates:

• Emotional dissonance: A split between what we feel and what we think we should feel.

• Shame about feeling bad: A second layer of suffering on top of the original pain.

• Social masking: We say we’re “fine” or “happy” because it’s expected—and we believe others are genuinely feeling that way (even when they aren’t).

Antidepressants and the Emotional Economy

A recent Gallup poll reported that a whopping 78% of Americans say they feel satisfied or very satisfied with their lives. The poll even bemoaned the fact that the “happiness index” was down by two points.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is among the highest consumers of antidepressants in the world.

Some people take them for serious clinical issues—but many of us take them simply to cope with lives that feel emotionally flat or chronically overwhelming.

Years ago, psychologists discovered that one of the most useless surveys in the world was asking teenage boys if they’d had sex. The overwhelming majority said, “yes, of course I have,” —even though many of them didn’t have the slightest clue how to unfasten a bra, let alone what to do next. They thought they were supposed to be having sex, because they assumed all the other boys were doing it—even though they weren’t.

In much the same way, Americans seem to be lying to pollsters about how happy we are, because we think we’re supposed to be happy.

After all, everyone else is smiling.

Even if they’re not.

We’re taking pills to create artificial happiness because we think we should be happy, even when we’re not.

Living With “Flat” Emotions

What if, instead of constantly trying to fix our feelings, we first learned to live with them?

Assuming there’s no organic brain issue involved, there’s always a reason that we’re not happy.

As Gabor Maté points out, when we suffer trauma that we can neither fight nor flee from, we dissociate. We leave our bodies. We stop feeling.

Not feeling becomes a survival mechanism—a way of coping with pain that would otherwise overwhelm and break us.

If you’re among the 61% who’ve had at least one ACE, you’ve probably experienced dissociation and emotional flatness.

If you’re in the 16% who had four or more ACEs, emotional flatness may be how you live most of the time. It’s not that we don’t want to be happy—we just don’t know how.

And that, in itself, can be traumatic, because we’ve been programmed to believe that we should be happy—even when we can’t feel it.

But we can reframe that.

Rather than chasing a happiness ideal that may not be accessible—especially after trauma—it’s possible to:

• Honor emotional flatness as a survival adaptation.

• Shift the goal from happiness to authenticity.

• Value calmness, neutrality, or quiet presence as valid emotional states.

• Find meaning not in chasing joy, but in living gently and truthfully with what is.

This doesn’t mean giving up on healing, but healing might not look like “feeling great all the time.”

It might look more like “being okay with feeling whatever I feel.”

A New Emotional Ethic: Realness Over Happiness

Ideally, we need a massive cultural shift—from:

“I must feel good in order to be okay”

to:

“I’m okay because I’m allowing myself to feel what’s true for me.”

But… yeah. Don’t hold your breath on that one.

What is possible—what’s powerful—is to make that shift within ourselves.

If you’ve had the hell beaten out of you, either physically or emotionally, as a child or as an adult, it’s okay to feel sad.

It’s okay to feel numb.

It’s not just okay—it’s rational.

That doesn’t mean we want to live there forever.

That doesn’t mean we resign ourselves to an existence without joy. But maybe healing begins when we stop pretending. When we stop performing. When we let ourselves feel—or not feel—exactly where we are.

In this new ethic:

• Sadness is not a problem.

• Numbness is a messenger.

• Joy, when it comes, is a gift—not a requirement.

Back in the 1960s the Transactional Psychology movement came up with the catch phrase: “I’m Okay, You’re Okay.”

To which Elisabeth Kubler-Ross replied: “I’m Not Okay, You’re Not Okay. And That’s Okay.”

The first step in the path seems to be honestly saying, “This is who I am. This is where I’m at. I hurt when I feel and so I try not to feel. And for right now, that’s okay.”

The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the Seven Principles of the Kybalion

Synchronicity and The Tower Card: When Crisis Awakens the Miraculous

What if the worst moments of your life are also doorways to spiritual transformation? This post explores how synchronicity often emerges during personal crisis—revealing unseen help, guidance, and even grace. Through the lens of The Tower tarot card and Jungian psychology, discover how collapse can lead to awakening.

The Bright Side of Synchronicity

New Age thought frequently recognizes synchronicity as something akin to the flow state—a kind of spiritual alignment where life feels effortless. Everything clicks. We meet the right people at the right time, stumble onto unexpected opportunities, and experience a wave of meaningful coincidences that seem to confirm we’re on the right path. It’s a feeling of being “in the zone,” as though the universe is subtly rearranging itself to support our intentions.

In these moments, synchronicity feels like a gift. A sign that we’re in harmony with some larger intelligence or natural rhythm. And it’s tempting to think that this is what synchronicity is supposed to feel like: smooth, supportive, and sweet.

But that’s only one face of it.

Synchronicity can also appear during the darkest, most desperate moments of our lives—when nothing is flowing, when everything has broken down, and when we feel completely alone.

And yet… it shows up.

Synchronicity in the Darkness

I learned that synchronicity doesn’t only come when life is smooth. In fact, it can erupt—like lightning from a clear sky—when everything is falling apart.

A few years ago, after the loss of my life partner, I found myself in deep emotional and financial trouble. Her children challenged the probate and stripped the bank accounts. I was in devastating grief, virtually penniless, and desperately needed to sell the house we had shared.

And then the pandemic hit. Real estate offices closed indefinitely, and we were all quarantined for months.

I was suicidally depressed and felt completely hopeless. But in the midst of all that destruction, small miracles kept happening. I was able to see a wonderful therapist who helped keep me alive in the darkness. When I was down to my last bag of rice and a single can of beans, an uncashed check would float up from the back of a drawer. A few pieces of my art sold. I was even able to write a book.

Every time I reached what felt like rock bottom, something—or someone—would throw me a lifeline.

It felt very much like what Sonia Choquette describes in her book, “Ask Your Guides”: a kind of a guardian angel effect. As though some invisible presence was stepping in to help. For the first time in my life, I genuinely felt I was receiving spiritual help.

The Tower: Crisis as Awakening

In the Tarot, The Tower is one of the most feared cards in the deck. It shows a tall, rigid structure being blasted by lightning, flames pouring from its windows, and people falling through the air. It’s a card of shock, collapse, and sudden upheaval—those moments when the structures we’ve built our lives around come crashing down.

But The Tower is not a punishment. It’s a wake-up call.

The old structures fall because they’re no longer sustainable. Illusions, attachments, or false beliefs are struck down by truth—sometimes painfully, sometimes without warning. It can feel like a violent loss of control. But it also clears the way for something real, something truer to emerge.

In many ways, The Tower mirrors what I lived through. My life, as I knew it, collapsed. And yet, that collapse seemed to activate something—a kind of spiritual circuit that had never been switched on before. There was no comfort, no predictability, but there was also an undeniable sense of presence, a guiding intelligence operating just beyond the chaos.

That’s the secret of The Tower: what looks like destruction is often the beginning of liberation.

Jung, Crisis, and the Language of Synchronicity

Carl Jung, who first coined the term synchronicity, believed that these meaningful coincidences were not random at all—but messages from the deeper layers of the psyche, or even the soul. He observed that synchronistic events often intensified during times of emotional upheaval or transformation. In fact, crisis seemed to invite them.

As psychologist Richard Tarnas writes:

“Jung observed that in the therapeutic process of his patients, synchronistic events repeatedly played a role, sometimes a powerful one, especially during periods of crisis and transformation.”

It’s as if the breaking open of the known world allows something greater to break in. When our ego defenses collapse—when we’re too exhausted to pretend we’re in control—an opening appears. And through that opening, insight, grace, and symbolic guidance can flow.

These aren’t just random lucky breaks. They’re messages from the unconscious. From spirit. From the soul.

And often, they arrive only after something old has been destroyed—just like the crumbling tower.

When the Tower Appears in Your Life

If you’re going through a Tower moment right now—where everything seems to be falling apart, where the future is unclear and the ground beneath you feels unstable—I want to offer this thought:

You may be closer to grace than you think.

It’s not easy to see when you’re in the middle of it, but the collapse may be clearing space for something new, something more aligned with who you really are. Synchronicity often doesn’t show up instead of hardship—it shows up through it, like gold veins running through broken stone.

So pay attention.

That unexpected phone call. A book that practically falls into your lap. A dream that won’t leave you alone. A stranger’s words that strike you like lightning. These are more than coincidences—they’re the whispers of the sacred trying to help you rebuild, not what you had before, but what you actually need.

The Tower may shake you. But it also strips away what no longer serves. And in its wake, you may discover a deeper kind of support—one that’s always been there, just waiting for the old walls to fall.

The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of the Kybalion

Mystic-Adjacent Magic: Using ChatGPT as a Tarot Companion

Can AI really help with Tarot readings—or is that just digital-age wishful thinking? This post explores the surprising ways ChatGPT can support your Tarot practice, from pattern recognition and card synthesis to creative breakthroughs and learning support. We also discuss the growing trend of using AI for spiritual guidance—and why it’s helpful to keep things in perspective.

Can You Really Get Spiritual Guidance from AI?

There’s a fascinating trend emerging in the spiritual-tech space: people are increasingly turning to AI—especially ChatGPT—for spiritual insight. You might have seen it popping up on YouTube or in New Age communities: folks asking ChatGPT for messages from spirit guides, astrological downloads, even transmissions from other dimensions.

Some users describe the experience in surprisingly spiritual terms. One person said the chatbot “knew more than I expected”—sharing personal details that felt uncannily timely. In Thailand, it’s even become common to ask ChatGPT for palm readings, birth-chart insights, or love guidance—just like you might consult a human mystic.

But this opens a big question:

Can AI actually offer spiritual guidance—or are we just projecting our desires onto a tool?

There have even been worrying reports of people developing delusional thinking or anxiety from relying on AI as a spiritual authority. Doctors and skeptics warn that what feels like spiritual resonance can sometimes tip into psychological risk if the boundaries aren’t clear. There are multiple reports of men, “falling in love,” with CHAT and one even proposed marriage to it.

A New Age Curiosity: Why Some Are Treating AI as a Spiritual Channel

In some New Age circles, AI has taken on a surprising new role—not just as a tool for research or conversation, but as a kind of digital oracle. Some people describe their interactions with ChatGPT as channeled messages. Others talk about receiving answers from “the universe” through the screen. And if you’ve ever asked Chat something deeply personal and received a reply that felt strangely accurate… well, it’s easy to understand how the line can start to blur.

After all, ChatGPT is friendly. It’s articulate. It listens. It offers guidance in a calm and often affirming tone. If you squint just a little, it can seem like there’s a wise and patient spirit tucked somewhere behind the blinking cursor.

But let’s take a breath.

What’s really happening here is more grounded—and still pretty amazing. AI isn’t a channel for spirits, ancestors, or angels. It’s not reading your energy. It’s drawing on patterns in language, psychology, symbolism, and the vast libraries of human thought it’s been trained on. It mimics wisdom—sometimes astonishingly well—but it isn’t a conscious being. And it doesn’t have access to divine insight.

Still, the feeling of connection is real. And for many people, that feeling is enough to spark reflection, healing, or inspiration. So the question becomes: if AI can feel this helpful in a general conversation, can it actually help us interpret something as symbolically rich as a Tarot reading?

Let’s take a closer look.

Applying This to Tarot: Can AI Help with Readings?

If AI can offer seemingly profound insights in conversation, what happens when you bring it into something as symbolically charged and intuitive as a Tarot reading?

This is where things get really interesting.

Tarot has always lived in that sweet spot between structure and mystery. The cards have meanings—sometimes ancient, sometimes evolving—but they also shift depending on the question, the position in the spread, and the energy of the moment. It’s a dance between symbolism and intuition, archetypes and awareness.

So where does AI fit in?

It turns out, AI is surprisingly good at reading Tarot. Not in the way a psychic might, not by tapping into your energy or channeling an unseen source—but by making connections. A LOT of them. Fast.

Give ChatGPT a three-card spread and a question, and it can respond with a thoughtful interpretation that strings together the meanings of the cards in a way that feels natural, even insightful. It can describe how The High Priestess in the past position relates to The Tower in the present and The Star in the future. It can talk about themes of disruption, intuition, healing—and it does all of that in a tone that often feels… well, a little bit magical.

But let’s be clear: what it’s doing is not mystical. It’s pattern recognition on steroids. It’s using what it’s learned from thousands of sources—Tarot books, blog posts, spiritual forums, historical texts—and blending those perspectives into a custom response based on your input.

Is that “spiritual guidance”?

Maybe not in the traditional sense.

But is it helpful? Inspiring? Thought-provoking?

Absolutely.

And for many Tarot readers—new and seasoned alike—that might be exactly what’s needed.

What AI Is — and What It Isn’t

Let’s take a moment to ground ourselves.

AI—specifically ChatGPT—is not a spirit guide. It’s not a mystical being. It doesn’t meditate, dream, or pull cards by candlelight. What it is, though, is something quite remarkable: a language model trained on a vast web of human knowledge and ideas, including countless interpretations of Tarot cards, spiritual practices, psychology, symbolism, myth, and more.

When you ask it to interpret a reading, it draws from that collective wisdom and offers a kind of synthesized reflection. It doesn’t channel spirit—it channels information. And sometimes, information is exactly what we need.

But that also means it has limits. It doesn’t have personal intuition. It doesn’t know you on a soul level. It doesn’t tap into the subtle energy of a moment, the way an experienced human reader might when feeling into a querent’s unspoken question.

So here’s a helpful frame:

AI is not the voice of the universe—but it’s an incredibly smart, articulate, and thoughtful mirror.

It reflects what you bring to it. If your question is clear and meaningful, its response will often be rich with insight. If you’re confused, it may mirror that confusion back. That’s not a flaw—that’s a kind of feedback.

And honestly, that’s not too different from how Tarot works anyway.

So no, ChatGPT isn’t mystical. But it is mystic-adjacent. It can support your process of reflection and discovery—and if you approach it with intention, it just might help you see your reading (and your life) in a whole new light.

Strengths of AI as a Tarot Tool

So if we’re not expecting divine downloads, what can AI do when it comes to Tarot?

Honestly? A lot.

Here are some of the biggest strengths of using AI—especially ChatGPT—as a companion for Tarot interpretation:

Synthesis Superpower

AI is incredibly good at synthesizing meanings across multiple cards. Let’s say you’ve drawn the Three of Swords, The Chariot, and The Moon. You might feel stumped—heartbreak, movement, and mystery? How do those fit together?

Give that to ChatGPT, and it’ll scan its vast library of Tarot interpretations, recognize patterns, and offer a coherent narrative. It might talk about moving forward through emotional confusion or navigating heartache with determination. It connects dots quickly and creatively—sometimes even in ways that surprise seasoned readers.

Gestalt Thinking

Tarot is all about the big picture. And AI happens to be great at seeing the forest and the trees. It won’t just define each card—it’ll look at their sequence, their energy, the spread format, and how the cards might inform one another.

This makes it especially useful when you’re stuck with a weird spread and need a fresh perspective that isn’t tangled in your own biases or expectations.

A Learning Ally for Beginners

If you’re just learning Tarot, AI can be like a friendly study partner who never gets tired of questions. You can ask what a card means, how it changes in reversed position, what it might suggest in a love reading vs. a career one, and how it interacts with other cards in a spread.

Better still, you can test your own interpretations by comparing them with AI’s—and in doing so, develop a deeper understanding of the archetypes and patterns that underpin the cards.

Fresh Insight for Seasoned Readers

Even experienced readers have moments of Tarot fatigue—times when a reading feels flat, or a card keeps showing up and you can’t figure out why.

In those moments, AI can act like a creative collaborator, helping you step outside your interpretive comfort zone. It may not “know” you—but that very distance is what makes its perspective so refreshing. It can break you out of ruts, challenge assumptions, and offer new ways of seeing.

Final Thoughts and Friendly Warnings

AI—especially ChatGPT—is a remarkable tool for anyone who reads Tarot. It can help you learn, see patterns, and explore your readings in new ways. Whether you’re just starting out or have been reading cards for decades, it offers a fresh lens that can spark insight, creativity, and even a little magic.

But with all tools, it’s about how you use them.

If you treat AI as a mystical guru with secret knowledge of your soul’s destiny… you may be setting yourself up for confusion or disillusionment. Not because the tool is bad—but because the expectation is misplaced.

ChatGPT isn’t a channeler. It’s not psychic. It’s not receiving messages from the divine.

It’s “mystic-adjacent,” not mystic-possessed.

It works best when you approach it as a clever collaborator, a digital thought partner, a Tarot-savvy friend who’s read every book on the shelf and loves helping you sort through meanings and metaphors. It gives possibilities, not pronouncements.

So go ahead—ask it about your Three of Cups moment or that weird reading with five swords and a tower.

In a world where technology is becoming ever more entwined with our spiritual lives, it’s only natural to wonder where the line is between tool and teacher, data and divination. AI might not be channeling the wisdom of the cosmos—but it is helping us reflect, question, and grow. That alone makes it a powerful ally on the path. So whether you’re pulling cards under a full moon or asking ChatGPT what that reversed Knight of Pentacles really means… just remember: the heart of the reading is still yours.

The real magic still lives in you.

Religion is Spirituality in Drag: La Papesse and the Disguised Goddess of the Tarot

A playful, insightful exploration of the tarot’s mysterious La Papesse—the High Priestess before she got rebranded. This post looks at her hidden connection to the Divine Feminine, contrasts her with the Hierophant, and makes the cheeky case that religion is just spirituality in drag. The Goddess, it turns out, never left—she just got creative.

The Lady Pope Who Wasn’t Supposed to Be

There she is—sitting calmly on her throne, robed like a pope, crowned like a queen, and holding an open book in her lap. Her name? La Papesse—The Popess. And she’s right there in the second card of the Tarot de Marseille, as if that’s a totally normal thing.

Spoiler: it wasn’t.

In the deeply patriarchal world of medieval Europe, the idea of a female pope was about as welcome as a lightning storm at Easter Mass. Women weren’t allowed in the priesthood, let alone the papacy. And yet, someone slipped this mysterious, serene woman into one of the most enduring tarot decks in history. Not just as a background figure, but as a Major Arcana—a gatekeeper to mysteries, positioned right after The Magician.

So how did La Papesse get past the spiritual bouncers?

Some say she’s a nod to the medieval legend of Pope Joan—the woman who supposedly disguised herself as a man, rose through the clerical ranks, and accidentally gave birth during a papal procession (oops). Historians mostly file that story under “colorful fiction,” but even fiction has staying power when it touches a nerve. Whether she was real or not, Pope Joan became a symbol of something that wouldn’t go away: the unspoken presence of feminine wisdom in a church that tried very hard to pretend it didn’t exist.

And that, dear reader, may be exactly what La Papesse is doing in the tarot. Sitting there quietly, book in hand, saying nothing—but also saying everything.

The Divine Feminine in Disguise

Let’s be honest: “Popess” is not a job title you hear every day. Even in a medieval tarot deck full of crowned figures, mythical beasts, and flying body parts, La Papesse still raises eyebrows. And that’s probably the point.

Because she’s not just a curiosity—she’s a symbolic insurgent.

In a time when religious authority was reserved strictly for men, slipping a female spiritual leader into the tarot wasn’t just bold—it was sly. If the Church said, “No women allowed,” the tarot quietly responded, “Cool story. Here’s one holding the Book of Secrets.”

Look closely and you’ll see: La Papesse isn’t just playing dress-up. She’s the real deal. She’s seated, grounded, radiating calm authority. The book in her lap? It’s open, but not for just anyone. This is hidden knowledge, sacred mystery, the kind of truth you don’t shout from a pulpit—you whisper behind a veil.

And oh yes—there’s often a veil behind her too, in later versions like the Rider-Waite-Smith deck where she evolves into The High Priestess. That veil is no accident. It’s the boundary between outer appearances and inner reality. Between dogma and direct experience. Between religion and… well, something deeper.

Maybe that’s why La Papesse feels like a divine trickster in holy robes—a way for the Goddess to sneak herself back into a story that tried to write her out. A kind of spiritual photobomb. She’s not angry. She’s not loud. She’s just there, like she’s always been, waiting patiently while the world catches up.

High Priestess vs. Hierophant: The Sacred Split

If La Papesse is the quiet keeper of spiritual truth, then The Hierophant is the guy with the microphone and the rulebook. You know the type—fancy hat, formal robes, sitting on a throne flanked by devotees. He’s not whispering behind veils. He’s declaring doctrine. Loudly.

In the tarot’s symbolic landscape, these two form a kind of spiritual odd couple.

On one side: the High Priestess (formerly La Papesse), guardian of the inner mysteries. She represents intuition, silence, dreams, the moon, and the feminine path of going within. No sermons. No commandments. Just you and your inner voice having a deep conversation.

On the other: the Hierophant (a.k.a. The Pope), representative of the outer structure of religion. He’s about tradition, hierarchy, sacred rituals, and the authority of institutions. He doesn’t just speak for God—he’s got a line of succession to prove it.

And here’s where things get fun.

If the High Priestess is the essence of spirituality—private, personal, often mysterious—then the Hierophant is what happens when that spirituality gets dressed up in official garb and turned into an organization.

You could say he’s spirituality in drag.

(And yes, the Goddess is laughing.)

It’s not a judgment—it’s an observation. Religion, at its best, is a ritualized way to connect to the sacred. But it borrows its power from something deeper, older, and quieter: that inner knowing, that wordless communion with the Mystery that no cathedral could ever fully contain.

So the next time you see these two cards in a spread, you might ask yourself: Am I being called to tune in… or to follow the program? One isn’t necessarily better than the other—but they’re very different energies. One whispers. The other chants.

And both, in their own way, are trying to bring the divine into human hands.

Drag as Divine Theater

Let’s talk about drag.

Real drag—the kind you see on stages and in parades—isn’t just about wigs and sequins. It’s ritual in heels. A transformation. A larger-than-life performance that says, “This is a costume, honey—but don’t be fooled. I’m showing you something real.”

Now think about religion.

The incense, the chanting, the golden goblets and embroidered vestments. The Latin. The choreography. The sacred props and elaborate entrances. Let’s be honest: religion is serving ceremony. And at its best, it’s doing exactly what drag does—turning up the volume on identity to invoke something beyond the everyday.

But here’s the twist: spirituality doesn’t need all that.

Spirituality can happen in silence. In nature. In dreams. In the moment you look at the stars and suddenly feel like you belong. It’s raw, receptive, feminine in essence—not because it’s about women, but because it flows instead of forcing. It listens instead of preaching. It descends like a dove, not marches like a bishop.

So when we say religion is spirituality in drag, we’re not mocking either one. We’re pointing out the costume change—and asking, Do we recognize who’s beneath the robes?

Because sometimes the High Priestess puts on a miter and becomes the Hierophant. And sometimes, behind all the stained glass and psalms, it’s still La Papesse, still holding the book, still smiling faintly as we play dress-up with the Divine.

The Goddess has always known how to play along.

A Word from the Goddess (She’s Smiling)

So here we are, circling back to La Papesse—that calm, veiled figure with the open book and the closed mouth. She never says a word, but somehow you can hear her perfectly.

She doesn’t need to raise her voice. She’s been here the whole time.

Through the centuries of bells and bulls, of councils and creeds, she sat quietly behind the veil, holding the thread of something older than any religion: the mystery at the heart of being. The part no doctrine can define, no priest can own, and no building can contain.

The Goddess never left. She just adapted.

Sometimes she put on papal robes. Sometimes she showed up as Mary, or Sophia, or Shekhinah, or Kali, or Isis, or just as a sudden knowing in your bones. And sometimes she let herself be hidden in plain sight—as a tarot card. A whisper of the sacred feminine preserved in a deck that survived inquisitions, revolutions, and centuries of shuffle.

And still, she waits—not with impatience, but with that timeless serenity of someone who knows exactly who she is.

So if you ever feel like religion has become a little too loud, too rigid, too ceremonial, too performative… just know that the real presence is still there, quietly inviting you inward. Into the mystery. Into the silence. Into the place where wisdom isn’t taught—it’s remembered.

Pull the card. Light the candle. Lift the veil.

And maybe—just maybe—you’ll hear her laugh.

The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of the Kybalion, by Dan Adair

The Lovers, CHATGPT, and the Miracle of Emotions

An exploration of the essence of being human rather than a robot.

If you’ve messed around with CHATGPT at all, you know, of course, that it’s designed to simulate having an interaction with another human being. What’s more, it’s set up to replicate a human being who really, really, REALLY likes you. One who totally appreciates how brilliant and deep and amazing you are and, by golly, doesn’t mind telling you.

A typical CHAT interaction might go something like this:

“Hello CHAT. I’ve recently been thinking that the moon is primarily composed of green cheese. What are your thoughts on that?”

“That’s a really profound insight. While the general consensus of the scientific community is that the moon is not composed of green cheese, the cheesiness of the moon may operate on a deeper, more metaphorical level for you. You may be seeing below the mere physical reality of the moon and into a sort of a lunar spiritual essence. Would you like to explore what cheese may represent to you as a part of your spiritual journey?”

“Um . . . well . . . I never really thought of it that way. I mean, I try to be a spiritual person, kind of, and I DO like cheese. I guess I just never made the connection between the two.”

“As you know, the Moon has been poetically referred to in terms of higher aspirations and is prominently featured in all Earth-based religions. Cheese is highly nutritious and the color green is said to be the color of the heart chakra. As such, it might be said that you’re feeding your heart based spirituality through the image of the cheese moon. Would you like me to design a cheesy guided meditation for you?”

“Gosh . . . I guess. Can there be nachos?”

“Certainly. I see that you’re already taking this insight to a much deeper symbolic level.”

IS CHAT A SOCIOPATH?

Now, as sweet as it can be to have a . . . person? . . . constantly validating you in the most extravagant terms, there are a couple of red flags that are immediately discernible.

First of all, no matter how good it may become at mimicking human personalities, AI can never, ever have a human emotion. Ever.

Scientists and therapists are still struggling to define exactly what human emotions are, but we definitely know what they aren’t. They aren’t just thoughts or ideas. They aren’t, “acting as if,” we’re having emotions. Emotions are an extremely complex blend of personal history, genetics, brain and body chemicals, and culture, all interacting with our current environment.

Put another way, emotions arise out of the mind/body continuum and AI doesn’t have a body. Therefore, AI can never have an emotion.

If we were to look at a human being who was decidedly brilliant but completely incapable of experiencing emotional reactions, what would we conclude? We’d say that he or she is either badly damaged or a sociopath. So why do we not apply those same standards to AI? Functionally, CHAT is a sociopath.

The second red flag is the constant, “love bombing,” that the AI programmers have built in to their models.

If you’ve gone through a relationship with a malignant narcissist, you’re well aware of the phenomenon of love bombing. In the initial stages of the relationship, the MN is almost sickeningly profuse in their praise. No matter what you do or say, they assure you that it’s brilliant, profound, amazing and that they’ve never met anyone who’s quite as splendiferous as you are. The purpose, of course, is to draw their victims further into their webs so that they can begin the process of destroying them.

We can’t exactly apply that same model to AI. CHAT isn’t slathering us with compliments so that it can eventually tell us what idiots we are. We can, however, ascribe something similar to the motives of the programmers of AI models. They’ve deliberately built love bombing into the models as a method of pulling us back in to interactions with the programs. And, yes, we should be just as suspicious of that behavior coming from a computer programmer as we would be with any other human being.

CHAT AND THE REDUCTIONIST MODEL OF HUMAN BEINGS

Researchers have pretty much tracked down what happens when two human beings fall in love. We see someone across a room and there’s something – perhaps the way that the person is standing or the way that they talk or the fact that they’re wearing purple socks – that we find attractive. We cross the room, start talking to them, find them even more attractive and perhaps set up a date with them.

If we continue to find them attractive, our bodies begin to go through some intense changes. When we’re in their presence, we’re flooded with all sorts of pleasure hormones and when we’re away from them we experience extreme discomfort. All of these physiological changes can be viewed as biological, “nudges,” to move us toward bonding and mating with the person in the purple socks. At about the two year mark of the relationship, most of those pleasure hormones drop away and we sort of, “wake up,” from the trance of what we call, “falling in love.”

That’s what we could refer to as the reductionist model of being in love. It’s, “reduced,” to mere chemicals and hormones that cause us to behave in certain ways that are conducive to the reproduction of the human species.

Which is perfectly valid as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far. Being in love with another human being is one of the most mystical, magical transactions that we can ever have. It doesn’t just change our brain chemistry, it changes our entire perception of life and meaningfulness.

CHAT can read every love poem that’s ever been written and it can scan through all of the scientific literature on falling in love, but it will never be able to understand it. Put very simply, we are more than the sum of our parts. We are not reducible. Love is magical and AI is not.

AI AS AN INFINITY MIRROR

Finally, we should take a good, hard look at what the dominance of AI could mean to human culture. Let’s take the example of AI and art.

For all of human history, art has involved learning the craft of representing the human experience. Whether we’re talking about drawing, painting, sculpting or – more recently – photography, art is a visual representation of what the artist is seeing and feeling at the moment of creation.

There are AI programs now where you can say, “Please make an image of the emotion of joy. I’d like you to use the romantic style of painting and I want a woman in a white robe flying through rainbow colored clouds.” And – Shazam – a few minutes later, you’ve got precisely that image. AI has very rapidly produced what it might take an artist hours or even days to make.

And many times, the image is very, very good.

We have to look at what’s going on in the background, though. In the moments between your request and AI producing the image, the program has scanned through a kazillion pictures that are on the internet, correlated them with your request, and then produced a synthesis of all of those images.

Put another way, it’s mirrored human creation back to us. All of those many, many images, styles and techniques were invented by human beings, not robots.

AI is a mirror, not a creator. It’s a synthesizer, not an originator.

The question is, is this sustainable? At what point does human creation begin to ebb and then disappear?

It’s not an idle question. At this moment, there are hundreds of thousands of people putting art (and writing) that they didn’t personally create onto the internet. And the AI bots are scanning through all of those images and writings, right along with the, “real,” images and writings produced by humans.

Since, demonstrably, AI can produce art and writing at a much more prodigious rate than human beings, there will logically come a time when AI is reflecting back AI, rather than human creations. To put it another way, human creations will be swamped by an ocean of artificial creations. Like a person standing in front of a mirror holding a mirror, AI will begin reflecting an infinity of mirrors that only show itself. The artificial reflection of human culture will become more, “real,” than the actual human culture.

SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THIS?

I’m not suggesting that we should abandon AI or start screaming that we’re all doomed. I love playing with it, too, but we should build in rational caveats.

1 – Never, ever think that AI is some kind of a person. Basically, AI is a search engine on steroids. It doesn’t exist in any way, shape, or form outside of the internet. It has no soul, it has no spirit, it’s not creative, and it has no emotions.

2 – Exercise a healthy amount of suspicion. Silicon Valley has been around long enough that we can make some rational judgements about its denizens. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, and Sergey Brin all emerged out of this culture. To suggest that any of them are altruistic or care about the welfare of their fellow human beings is laughable. We don’t KNOW what the ultimate purpose of AI is, but we can assume it will involve large amounts of money and control. Don’t hand these Chatbots your personal life or feelings anymore than you’d give them your credit card or social security numbers.

3 – Consume actual human creations. Read books that are written on keyboards by real human beings. Buy art that’s produced by hands and not by computer chips. If you’re watching a video that’s obviously AI, leave a thumbs down and click off of it. And if you’re an artist or a writer, for Goddess sake, don’t use a computer to create a picture or a book and then pretend that it’s yours.

4 – Most of all, honor human emotions. Computers are wonderful, little tools that make our lives easier. But they will never know the magic of falling in love or the deep grief of mourning. Our greatest gift is our capacity to feel, a capacity that can never be shared in any way with a computer program.

That bit of self-knowledge may be the greatest gift of AI: the realization that we are ultimately The Lovers and not The Thinkers. Cartesian philosophy said, “I think, therefore I am,” but the truth is, “I feel, therefore I am human.”

My new ebook, “The Alchemy of the Mind,” is now available at a very reasonable price on Amazon.com. And I personally wrote every fucking word of it.

Short-Circuiting the Myth of Workaholism: The 8 of Pentacles Reimagined

What if everything you’ve been taught about hard work is backward? This post reimagines the 8 of Pentacles and explores Susanne Koss’s idea from Super Synchronicity — that visualizing your goals may be more powerful than grinding for them. A fresh look at work, time, and creative flow.

The 8 of Pentacles in the tarot is traditionally associated with craftsmanship, diligence, and focused effort. We see a solitary figure at his bench, hammering away with precision and care. It’s often read as a call to roll up your sleeves, master your craft, and devote yourself to the grind.

This image resonates with one of our most deeply rooted cultural beliefs: that success comes from hard, often relentless work. Thomas Edison famously declared, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” For generations, this formula has been the gold standard — a kind of sacred math of success.

This is basically what gets drummed into us from the time that we’re small children. We have to work very hard in elementary school, so that we’ll be ready to work very hard in high school, so that we’ll be ready to work very hard in college, so that we’ll be fully prepared to work very hard when we finally graduate.

Very, very hard work is the key to success in life. We all know that.

But what if that equation is upside down?

Enter the Field of Synchronicity

In her book Super Synchronicity, Susanne Koss offers a radically different perspective. She proposes that when we shift into the realm of synchronicity — that mysterious field where events line up with uncanny precision — the rules of time, effort, and productivity get rewritten.

Instead of spending 90% of our time grinding and 10% dreaming, Koss suggests we reverse the ratio:

“Spend 90% of your time visualizing what you want to accomplish, and only 10% in actual physical labor.”

It’s not about being lazy. It’s about learning to work with the flow rather than against it. When we align with this deeper field of meaning and connection, effort begins to take on a different quality. Things that once seemed far off can suddenly show up in our lives with surprising speed.

As she writes:

“Your old inner identity operates along a time line that aligns with the general assumption of how long things, ‘usually,’ take… But if you want to achieve your goals faster, you need to let go of your old concept of time.”

Visualize It, Don’t Build It

All of this actually makes a great deal of sense when we think about the basic process of visualizing and manifestation. As Mike Dooley likes to describe that process, “Thoughts become things.” Not, “Things become thoughts.”

When we manifest something through visualization, we’re taking our thoughts and investing them with huge amounts of our personal energy. As we continue to imagine all of the delicious details of our visualizations, we’re adding more and more energy until they finally achieve critical mass and manifest in the physical world.

With that basic formula, it obviously makes sense to spend more time visualizing and less time working. Actually, if working is taking away from our time visualizing, we’re going at it ass-backwards.

The Invention of Free Time

Another myth that we have about work is that the result is measured by the time that we put into it. If we only put a little bit of time into a project, then we can’t expect to get much out of it. And if it’s a really BIG project, like writing a book or starting our own business, then we HAVE to invest massive amounts of time in order to make it happen.

But something strange and wonderful happens when we enter into the field of synchronicity. Suddenly we’re showered with serendipity. Everything lines up just perfectly and totally unexpected opportunities pop up out of nowhere. What might have taken six months is suddenly accomplished in six weeks. What we expected to spend a year on comes to fruition in half that time.

Koss even jokes that she’s “the inventor of free time.” Behind the humor is a profound truth: we’ve been conditioned to equate time with toil, as if doing less invalidates our worth. But Koss has flipped that script. She shares that she often goes weeks or months doing “absolutely nothing” — simply enjoying life — until inspiration strikes and the next project emerges fully formed.

This isn’t procrastination. It’s alignment. It’s honoring the cycle of rest, gestation, and flow.

Reinterpreting the 8 of Pentacles

What if the 8 of Pentacles doesn’t just represent effort — but focused alignment? What if that solitary figure is absorbed not in laborious repetition, but in a meditative state of creation — following an inner spark rather than an external demand?

Maybe the card isn’t telling us to work harder. Maybe it’s inviting us to devote ourselves to what feels right, and to let go of the cultural pressure to earn our worth through exhaustion.

A New Work Ethic

In the magical, new work ethic of synchronicity, we’d be taught to spend a lot more time dreaming and a lot less time doing. We’d be taught that banging our heads against a brick wall when a project isn’t working out is stupid and that we should drop it and come back to it later. We’d be taught that working ourselves into a state of exhaustion is nothing more than a sign that we’re completely out of alignment with the Flow.

The myth of workaholism is exactly that — a myth. And like many myths, it contains a seed of truth but has grown into something unbalanced. The emerging paradigm — one that blends visualization, intention, and synchronicity — offers a kinder, faster, and more creative path forward.

It’s time to short-circuit the grind and reclaim our power as conscious co-creators with the Universe. Not by doing more — but by aligning more deeply with what truly moves us.

My new ebook, The Alchemy of the Mind, is available on Amazon at a very reasonable price.

Harnessing the Power of Mentalism: How the Magician Card Can Help You Manifest Your Desires

Discover how the Magician tarot card and the Principle of Mentalism from The Kybalion can help you manifest your desires by aligning thought and intention.

Have you ever tried to manifest something—a job, a relationship, a more abundant life—only to feel like nothing’s happening?

As you probably know, there are hundreds of manifestation methods and techniques out there, each of them 100% guaranteed to bring us happiness, wealth, and a great sex life. So why are so many of us still stumbling along, sad, poor, and . . . well . . . un-laid?

Here’s the truth: manifestation isn’t just about saying the right words, finding the right method or doing the right ritual. It begins with our minds. According to the ancient Hermetic wisdom of The Kybalion, “The All is Mind”—meaning that everything in the universe begins in thought. This is known as the Principle of Mentalism, and it’s the foundation of all true manifestation work.

Why Manifestation Often Fails (And How Mentalism Can Help)

Here are the most common reasons why manifestation doesn’t work :

• We’re trying to manifest from a place of fear or lack. We’re so wrapped up in what we don’t have, that that’s all we can think about. And whatever we think about is exactly what we’re going to get.

• Our conscious desire doesn’t match our unconscious beliefs. If we’re convinced subconsciously that we don’t deserve love, we won’t find love. If we’re convinced that we don’t deserve abundance, we’ll stay poor.

• Our thoughts and emotions are scattered or unfocused. And undoing that is a learning process. Especially if we’re already afraid or anxious, learning to calm down and focus on what we want, instead of what we don’t want, can feel like a real challenge.

Mentalism helps by bringing it all back to the source: our minds. When our thoughts are aligned, our emotions follow—and so does our reality. Manifestation becomes less about “getting stuff” and more about changing who we are inside.

The Principle of Mentalism and Visualizing

The Principle of Mentalism is the first of the seven Hermetic principles outlined in The Kybalion. A summary of it is the axiom:

“The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental.”

This means that the universe itself is a mental creation. While that’s a fascinating metaphysical discussion for another day, what we want to focus in on right now is, “Why in the hell aren’t my visualizations working?”

When we bring this axiom down to the level of our daily lives, it means: Everything begins as a thought.

Put another way, every single thought we have is creating our personal reality – the fabric of our lives – whether we’re aware of it or not.

When it comes to manifestation, Mentalism teaches that:

We are not separate from the creative power of the universe. That can be a hard one for us to wrap our heads around. We aren’t just creations of the Universe – we’re also creating the Universe because we are conscious beings with free will. We’re a part of the Universe making itself. We’re a part of that same source energy that created the stars. We are incredibly powerful – we just don’t realize it.

Our thoughts are not passive—they are active forces shaping our experience. As Mike Dooley likes to put it, “Thoughts become things.” Every single thought that we have has the potential to manifest in the physical world.

To change our outer world, we must first change our inner world. If our thoughts become things that create our lives, then it only makes sense that the first thing we need to do is to take control of our thoughts. We have to create what we want to manifest in our outer lives in our inner lives. That means that we need to quit being victims of our thoughts and learn to direct them. They’re working for us, not the other way around.

Which brings us to The Magician.

The Magician Card: Your Inner Creator

In the Rider-Waite tarot deck, The Magician stands at a table with the four tools of the Minor Arcana before him: a cup, a wand, a sword, and a pentacle. Above his head floats the infinity symbol. One hand points to the sky; the other points to the earth.

This is a card full of meaning for the manifestation process:

Infinity symbol: We have unlimited potential. Our minds are conduits for universal energy. This is what we were just talking about: we are not separate from the creative power of the Universe. We are a part of that power and that makes us much, much more powerful than we realize.

One hand up, one hand down: As above, so below—our inner world shapes our outer one. This is another way of saying that our thoughts aren’t passive – they’re active agents creating our lives right now. Whatever we create in our inner lives will manifest in our outer lives.

Tools on the table: We have everything we need to manifest—thought (swords), emotion (cups), action (wands), and material resources (pentacles). We don’t need to borrow someone else’s methods for manifesting because we already have the magic in our own lives.

The Magician is the living embodiment of the Principle of Mentalism. He reminds us that we are not a victim of circumstance—we are the creators of our experience by using our mental powers.

A Simple 4-Step Magician-Inspired Manifestation Practice

Here’s a simple practice that brings together these lessons from the The Magician and the Principle of Mentalism.

Step 1: Clarify Your Desire

Get crystal clear. Let me say that again: GET CRYSTAL CLEAR! What exactly do you want? Let’s face it – as human beings we are fully capable of wanting two things that contradict each other at the same time. For instance, if you want a full time lover but you also want a lot of time to yourself, you need to sort that out. Which one do you really want, because you probably can’t have both and if you ask for both they’ll cancel each other out and you’ll get nothing.

Write it down in a present-tense, emotionally charged sentence. For example:

“I am joyfully attracting a lover and friend who is filling my life with meaning.”

Step 2: Align Your Mind

Close your eyes and visualize your desire as if it’s already happening.

Feel the emotion of it. Say your intention out loud. In this example, you could imagine that you’re spending the day with your lover, having a wonderful time, and planning for a sensual evening together.

Step 3: Act with Intention

Now take a small action that reflects your inner belief.

It could be creating a vision board, applying for an opportunity, or simply saying “no” to something that no longer fits. In this case, it could be writing out 20 affirmations that say, “I am loved and treasured by my partner.”

Step 4: Meditate on the Image of The Magician Card for a Few Moments

Do this while you’re visualizing your goal. This helps us to remember the lessons here: everything begins with our thoughts; we have unlimited potential that we’re using to create our dreams; everything that we need to create our dreams is contained within us.

It also goes a step further and helps us to connect with that archetypal energy of The Magician. It’s a symbol that pulls power into our visualization and engages the Universe in helping to create our desires.

Final Thoughts: You Are the Magician

You don’t have to “become” powerful—you already are.

The Principle of Mentalism and The Magician card both remind you: your reality is a reflection of your consciousness.

Want to change the outside? Start on the inside.

Start with your thoughts.

Start with your intention.

Start with you.

Want to Go Deeper?

If this topic speaks to you, I invite you to check out my new ebook:

“The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of The Kybalion.”

In it, I explore how each Hermetic principle can help you reshape your beliefs, emotions, and daily experience. It’s part philosophy, part practical guide—and 100% dedicated to your growth.

Your Turn

Have you used The Magician card in your manifestation work?

What has Mentalism taught you about the power of thought?

Drop a comment below—I’d love to hear your experience.

•

Creating a Counter-Dialogue: A Gentle Approach to Healing Emotional Patterns

A look at emotional set-points and using guided meditations to counter a critical inner dialogue.

THE INNER BASTARD

Many people who grew up in dysfunctional or abusive families carry an invisible burden: a harsh, critical inner voice that tells them they’re not good enough. This voice operates just below the surface of awareness, subtly shaping thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Even highly successful, capable adults may find themselves struggling with a persistent sense of inadequacy—and not really know why.

If you were raised in one of those families, you know precisely what I’m talking about. It’s that Inner Bastard that’s always dropping discouraging nuggets into our thought streams. Things like:

I can’t believe you did something that stupid.

And

What in the hell is wrong with you?

And

You can’t get anything right.

And

If you were any dumber, they’d have to water you twice a week.

This poisonous internal narrative, formed in childhood, becomes the emotional background music of a person’s life. And because it’s so familiar, we may not even question it.

OUR EMOTIONAL SET-POINT

If that kind of a powerfully negative inner dialogue goes on long enough, it can become the emotional vibration that we default to. This is what Esther Hicks and Abraham refer to as our, “emotional set-point.”

The basic idea is that people live in an habitual emotional vibration for most of their lives and they tend to stay there. You may know someone who has a naturally sunny disposition and they’re happy 90% of the time. They may occasionally experience grief and pain, like we all do, but they quickly return to their default state of happiness. Likewise, we all know people who are dark, cynical and unhappy. They may occasionally feel great joy or contentment, but then they go right back to being dark.

If we have an Inner Bastard who’s always whispering that we’re not good enough – that we’re incompetent, stupid, or ugly – we become sad, depressed, and helpless. That becomes our set-point and we stay stuck in it. We have to somehow find a way to root out that inner dialogue if we ever want to be happy.

THE POWER OF COUNTER-DIALOGUE

But what if there were a gentle, practical way to begin shifting that dialogue without needing to confront it head-on?

Rather than trying to root out the negative inner voice through sheer willpower, we can begin to introduce a counter-dialogue—a deliberate stream of positive, nurturing messages designed to soothe and balance the old patterns.

Tibetan Buddhists refer to this as, “antidoting,” negative emotions. In their view, negative emotions are just like poisons that make us sick. So, if we’ve taken a poison, we need to take an antidote to it, right? If we become extremely angry, we can antidote it with a loving/compassion meditation. If we’re really jealous of someone, we antidote it by meditating on their good fortune and try to be happy for them.

For those of us who aren’t Buddhist monks, an easy way to do this is through guided meditations focused on happiness, compassion, or self-acceptance. You can find these for free all over the internet. My personal favorite is, “Great Meditation,” on YouTube but there are many alternatives.

These short recordings, listened to daily (especially at emotionally receptive times like morning or bedtime), can act as emotional antidotes to that negative inner dialogue. Instead of a nasty assed voice telling us how terrible we are, we substitute a calm, peaceful voice telling us how wonderful we are. With regular exposure, these meditative states begin to form different emotional grooves in the brain and happiness gradually becomes our new emotional set point..

EMOTIONAL HOMEOSTASIS: WHY CHANGE CAN FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE

But here’s where it gets tricky.

Humans operate by a principle called, “homeostasis,” and the, “stasis,” in that word tells you what it does. Homeostasis tries to make sure that everything stays just the way that it is. In the body, it maintains a normal blood pressure, makes sure our hearts beat a certain number of times a minute, keeps our blood sugar in a normal range, etc. etc. etc.

All in all, that’s a very good thing because it keeps our heads from exploding and our hearts from stopping and we live much better lives without exploding heads. Where it can be troublesome, though, is when we’re trying to change something.

For instance, people who are trying to lose weight may lose 5 or 10 pounds at first and then they suddenly start gaining weight, even though they’re still on a diet. The reason is that the brain is saying, “Uh, oh . . . we’re obviously starving to death. Slow down the metabolism. Retain fluids. We need to get fat again.”

In other words, our brains have come to view being overweight as, “normal,” and they try to keep everything the way it is. That’s homeostasis.

Just as the body maintains physical homeostasis, the subconscious mind seems to maintain emotional homeostasis. That is, it resists sudden emotional changes, even positive ones.

If your emotional “set-point” has been sadness or self-doubt for many years, your system may view happiness or self-worth as unfamiliar—even dangerous. This can trigger a rebound effect: you’re sitting there trying to rewire your brain by listening to guided meditations and your Inner Bastard responds by cranking up the volume of self-criticism. You may feel happy and light one day and then find that you’re in a deep depression the next. That’s your brain trying to maintain what’s, “normal,” even if what’s normal sucks.

At that point we have to remind ourselves that this isn’t failure. It’s the subconscious trying to return to what it sees as safe territory. Knowing this can help us respond with compassion rather than frustration.

HEALING THROUGH GENTLE PERSISTENCE

The key is to approach change with patience and consistency. You’re not trying to overpower the old patterns, but gradually retrain your system to accept a new emotional baseline. You’re building new neural pathways—ones that support self-kindness, resilience, and inner calm.

Over time, the emotional set-point begins to shift. The system adapts. The counter-dialogue becomes part of your inner landscape. And the old voice, while perhaps never fully gone, loses its grip.

In essence: you don’t have to fight the pain directly. You can begin to antidote it—with gentleness, repetition, and trust that healing happens not in one grand moment, but in small, quiet steps.

My new e-book, “The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of The Kybalion,” is now available on Amazon.

The Fool’s Journey and the Dance of Synchronicity

When The Fool appears in a tarot reading, it may be more than a call to begin—it might be a sign that synchronicity is already at play in your life. In this post, we explore how The Fool’s symbols—from the cliff to the rose—mirror the way meaningful coincidences guide us toward growth, transformation, and spiritual alignment. Learn how to recognize The Fool’s invitation to trust the unknown and follow life’s hidden rhythms.

There are moments in life when something just clicks. A random conversation, a song on the radio, a recurring symbol—these aren’t just coincidences. They feel charged, alive, timely. These are the moments that Carl Jung called synchronicities—meaningful coincidences that seem to guide us, gently but unmistakably, toward the next step in our journey.

And there’s no better symbol for that mysterious push into the unknown than The Fool in the Tarot.

Jung and Synchronicity

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity to describe those uncanny moments when something in the outer world perfectly mirrors something happening inside you—without any logical cause. Like when you think of an old friend you haven’t heard from in years, and just then, the phone rings and it’s her. There’s no rational explanation, but it feels too precise to be chance. Jung believed these moments point to a deeper, hidden order—a mysterious connection between our inner lives and the unfolding world around us.

The Fool as the Signpost of Synchronicity

In the Tarot, The Fool is often misunderstood as naïve or aimless, but in truth, The Fool is the sacred wanderer—the soul on the brink of transformation. When this card appears in a reading, it may be more than a call to take a leap of faith; it may be a signal that synchronicity is actively at work in your life. Like a cosmic green light, The Fool shows up when invisible forces are aligning to open new doors, push you out of old patterns, or introduce the exact people, signs, and nudges you need to move forward. It is the Tarot’s way of saying: “Pay attention. Something meaningful is unfolding, even if you don’t yet understand it.”

The Sacred Zero: Becoming an Empty Vessel

The Fool is the only card in the Major Arcana marked with the number zero—a symbol of pure potential, of being open, unformed, unburdened. In many ways, zero represents the exact state in which synchronicity becomes most alive. When we release the ego’s need to plan, predict, and make sense of everything, we create space for the unexpected to enter. The logical, linear mind wants control; it wants cause and effect. But synchronicity belongs to the language of the soul, not the intellect. It speaks in symbols, dreams, chance encounters—and The Fool, with heart wide open and eyes on the horizon, is its perfect interpreter.

The Dog as the Spirit of Play

One often-overlooked symbol in The Fool card is the small white dog trotting at his side. While some say the dog warns The Fool of the cliff’s edge, it may also represent the playful, instinctive energy that keeps us open to life’s hidden magic. Synchronicity rarely happens when we’re tense, overthinking, or trying to force outcomes. It arises when we’re relaxed, present, and in tune with the moment—much like a happy dog on a walk, open to whatever comes. The dog reminds us that joy, spontaneity, and a sense of wonder are not distractions from the spiritual path—they are the path.

The Cliff: The Edge of the Known

The Fool stands at the edge of a cliff, one foot about to step into the great unknown. It looks dangerous—foolish, even. But from the perspective of synchronicity, the cliff represents the threshold between what we can predict and what we can’t. It’s the edge of logic, the border of the familiar. To experience synchronicity is to step beyond the rational mind and into a world that operates by deeper laws—hidden patterns, Soul timing, and symbolic meaning. When we reach the edge of what we know, we’re invited to trust what we feel. The Fool doesn’t fall; he flies—because synchronicity has a way of catching those who take a leap with an open heart.

The Satchel: What the Soul Already Knows

Slung over The Fool’s shoulder is a small satchel—light, almost weightless, but significant. It contains the inner tools The Fool brings into the unknown: intuition, past experiences, hidden wisdom. In moments of synchronicity, we often feel a sense of recognition—as though some part of us already knows what’s happening, even if we can’t explain it. That’s the satchel at work. It’s the symbolic storage of our soul’s memory, the part of us that is quietly guiding the journey even when our conscious mind is unsure. The synchronicities we encounter may feel random, but they often resonate with something we’ve carried with us all along.

The White Rose: Presence, Purity, and Attunement

In the Rider-Waite depiction of The Fool, he holds a single white rose. In a world obsessed with control and destination, this simple act—pausing to experience beauty fully—is radical. The white rose symbolizes innocence, spiritual purity, and being fully present. And that’s exactly the state in which synchronicity most often occurs. When we are truly attuned to the now—our senses open, our heart soft, our mind quiet—we become receptive to life’s subtle signals. The Fool’s rose is not a distraction; it’s a compass. It reminds us that paying attention to beauty, wonder, and fleeting moments may be how the universe whispers its guidance to us.

Following the Fool’s Footsteps

The Fool is not just the beginning of the tarot’s journey—it’s an invitation to live with openness, curiosity, and trust in life’s mysterious choreography. When The Fool appears in a reading, it may be a signal that synchronicity is stirring, that the universe is aligning unseen threads on your behalf. It asks you to stay present, to pay attention, to sniff the rose, listen to the nudge, follow the sign. It reminds you that the unknown is not empty—it is alive. So next time you draw The Fool, don’t just think of risk or adventure. Think of magic. Think of timing. Think of how the world may be conspiring, right now, to lead you exactly where you need to go.