Past Eden

Classes, Podcasts & Panels

Dear reader,

I recently finished my Horror of Her series and I have to say Lilith has been a fruitful meditation.

“Lust” from the Ritual Tarot, depicting Lilith

Lilith foregrounds motherhood’s darker aspect. Patriarchy obsesses and fetishes motherhood with its fictions. Often the culturally mandated iconicity of motherhood fragments the totality of a woman’s selfhood. Culture imposes the notion that motherhood is “natural” to women and refuse to consider any evidence to the contrary like post-partum depression, abandoned children, or neglected children for instance.

In Eden, birth is is a power specifically given to a male God, who creates all that exists without the benefit of a woman. Lilith forces man to confront his fear of her elocution as well as his assumptions of what woman is. She valorizes defiance and rejects Eden as she unveils its seeming perfection to be a prison.

Lilith co-opts the power of the Word as she speaks the ineffable name of God to leave Eden. Speaking and creation are one in the same in this act, for she births not only her plentiful demon children but she births herself, creating her own rebellious sexually-empowered self. She makes it so that every woman must invent her life, her narrative, if she is to have her/story. And so she guides us to map the world anew, a world beyond a patriarchal conception of womanhood, a world past Eden.

In many of my decks the Devil aranum appears as Lilith. As I often like to say, tarot is kaleidoscopic and as the cards shuffle new images, symbols and stories turn into new constellations, unfolding its revelations consistently.

I was recently interviewed in the recent Devil issue of The Rebis, and now I’m so excited to announce that we’re partnering with the wonderful folks at the Philosophical Research Society, (good friends of mine at this point!) for an intimate conversation about The Devil on stage at their beautiful headquarters.

Editor of the Rebis, Hannah Levy will be moderating a panel with me, Maria Minnis, and Rebecca Scolnick.

Topics will span sexual liberation and kink, trans joy, living with chronic illness & disability, and the ongoing work of making art and living under authoritarianism.

We can’t wait to see you there!

When: Saturday, November 15th, 4pm (the panel will be ~1 hour)

Where: Philosophical Research Society — 3910 Los Feliz Blvd Los Angeles, California. (The Philosophical Research Society has been at the center of the city’s occult community since its inception in 1934! )

More info: This is a live event and will not be streaming. You’ll get a copy of our Devil issue with your ticket purchase!

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Inspired by Lilith’s transgression and boundary-breaking, I am looking toward an otherwise way of living; a way to cope, a way to survive the present without resorting to violence by looking toward the cards. In the spread is an underbelly mapping of our social reality. Tarot readers are rogue, pursuing the ferality of a future that is unruly in its pursuit of possibility.

The Fold Out has a few spots left for enrollment!

Via 3 pairs of classes over 6 weeks we will connect the oracular practice of laying cards with migratory movements, fundamentally difficult as well politically charged. This container offers a dynamic, generative approach to spread construction, and interpretation. We will summon a divinatory poetics that uses the oracular to direct the word.

6 week intensive

November 5 - December 10, Wednesdays at 2pm PT

I look forward to working with folks in the spread to write new worlds into being. Reach out if you have any questions.

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Uplifting the Erotic

While I always love to champion a red femme, I love a man who can handle his fire with care.

I recently had the utmost honor of being on the penultimate episode of Between the Worlds! I spoke with the illuminating Amanda Yates Garcia about the King of Wands and Uplifting the Erotic!

We discussed the King of Wands, the freedom fighter who uplifts their community, heals shame, helps us overcome our resistance to change, and tap into our erotic power.

I was so honored to be featured and to have Amanda Yates Garcia share these very gracious words:

“We had a very special guest with us: Christopher Marmolejo, author of the book Red Tarot: A Decolonial Guide to Divinatory Literacy (required reading for tarot lovers!), who happens to have an EXCELLENT newsletter here on Substack called The Red Read, which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Christopher is a profoundly gifted teacher with a virtuosic knowledge of the esoteric arts.

This conversation will have you thinking of the King of Wands, and maybe even the tarot, maybe even life in general, in a radical, joyful new way. I know you’re going to love it, so have a listen!”

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Thank you all for being here with me through the writing! Every subscriber, and especially my paying subscribers, your support make this transfemme diviner work sustainable!

Join me Saturday November 1st at 11:45am pst for a subscriber exclusive online event to partake in a gallery reading extravaganza!

As a new benefit to becoming or being a paid subscriber, I’ve designed quartlery solarium events for your benefit.

For about an hour & a half on Saturday 11/1, I’m inviting my paying subscribers to join me in my psychic solarium for the chance to get your cards read.

I’ll read a couple cards for as many of the participants as I can in the time we have, and as usually happens we’ll likely generate a field where our questions and cards all connect in an occult circuity that shows we are more connected than we realize.

This is a quartely / seasonal offering to paying subscribers, so if you’d like a chance to get your cards read for only $5 / mo from yours truly, here’s your chance!

Again, thank you for supporting and investing in this publication! I hope you are enjoying yourself so far and consider this offering as a reason to stay around and to tell a friend about it 🫶

I’m here if you have any questions. Let me know how you enjoy the podcast. See in in the Autumn Sunroom, in LA, or in the Fold!

x,

Christopher