36 Secrets

The minor arcana of the tarot have an astrological secret: 36 of them, in fact. In the early 20th century, members of the British secret society of the Golden Dawn created what would become the world's best-known tarot deck: the Rider Waite Smith tarot. They also created an infrastructure of esoteric correspondences around the deck, assigning each minor card numbered 2 through 10 in each of the four suits, to a decan—a 10° section of the zodiac, and by extension a 10-day section of the calendar year. For magical practitioners, these decans have a deep and lasting relevance; their mythic history, their imagery, and their use in talismanic work date back millennia. In our time, the yearlong "decan walk" has become a means of honoring that occult legacy, a way of experiencing firsthand the qualities reflected in each of these cosmic windows. 36 Secrets is the chronicle of one such walk, taken by T. Susan Chang in the period from March 2019 to March 2020. It explores the ways tarot and decan imagery overlap and depart from one another, and the metaphorical language they share. Beyond that, it is a deep excavation of the meaning to be found in the minor arcana, or "Lesser Secrets," and one practitioner's heartfelt contribution to the lore and mythic legacy of the cards.