The Tarot Series 6
16. MAMMON
(The hollowness of materialism)
Oil on canvas 56 x 72cm (2024)
Influences
The Queen of Spades, a short story by Pushkin. (1962).
A story of greed and gambling, a reference to the Count of St Germain with a supernatural twist.
Scent: Bois des Iles by Chanel, created by Ernest Beaux 1926, inspired by the opera the Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky, in turn inspired by the short story by Pushkin.
A buttoned up man
atop a wooden torso.
Horn in hand,
but where’s the spark?
Patched in portrait face.
No mouth.
Mere puppetry
Now only greed prevails.
17. Thunderstruck (The Tower)
Oil on canvas 30 x 40cm (2025)
INFLUENCES
Theme Tune: David Bowie Quicksand. Hunky Dory (1971).
Traditionally this tarot card in a spread signifies destruction. However on a spiritual level it is the undermining of the self-constructed ego; the recognition of the false self; the shock of enlightenment.
18. Your Chariot awaits (The Chariot)
Oil on canvas 30 x 40cm (2025)
INFLUENCES
Theme Tune: Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. (1971).
Merkabah mysticism (chariot mysticism). Hekhalot literature.
Paul second epistle to the Corinthians.
“I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago – whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows, such a man was caught up into the third heaven.”
Hexagram 26, line nine in the I Ching – Is this Heaven’s Highway? Success.
Traditionally the Chariot card means the controlling of one’s own nature and the mastering of animal passions. This card is a mystical nod as to how to achieve this.
