The Secret History of the Sola-Busca Tarot with Peter Mark Adams & Recluse (Patreon)

My guest for this installment is making his first appearance on The Farm. Peter Mark Adams is an author, tarotist, esotericist and professional energy worker. As to the former, he has authored such works as The Power of the Healing Field: Energy Medicine, Psi Abilities, and Ancestral Healing, Mystai: Dancing out the Mysteries of Dionysus, and has contributed literary prose and poetry to Corbel Stone Press as well as esoteric book reviews to Paralibrum. He has also contributed to the peer-reviewed publications Paranthropology: Journal of Anthropological Approaches to the Paranormal and the  Journal of Exceptional Experiences and Psychology.

While I'm always excited about these subscriber shows, this one I pushed especially hard for. Our topic for this discussion is Peter's groundbreaking work The Game of Saturn: Decoding the Sola Busca Tarocchi. Simply put, this is one of the most important works on esotericism ever published.

One doesn't have to dig very deeply into the cesspool of conspiracy culture to find musings of an elite cult, engaged in human sacrifice and bizarre sexual practices, that has been active in the great power centers for centuries. I myself have long been dismissed such Byzantine speculations. But then, I read Peter's book and was forced to conclude that my position was in need of re-evaluation.

Did a Saturnine cult survive from Antiquity in the Eastern Roman Empire and make it's way back to the West in the wake on Constantinople's fall? Peter and I weigh the evidence along with the rich neo-platonic and magickal traditions of Renaissance Italy; the mysterious family behind the deck and their ties to European nobility across the continent; astral magick and the Hellenistic vs Gnostic perspective of the Demiurge; modern manifestations of the Saturnine current such as the Fraternitas Saturni (Brotherhood of Saturn) and the Kosmic Gnosticism; and how all of this relates to Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.

It's quite a journey. As always, I hope you guys enjoy and thanks for your support!