The Journey of the Fool

The Major Arcana of the Tarot is filled with timeless images of mysterious origin, each numbered and offering a plethora of interpretations for the purpose of divination. The Fool is a notable outlier of these 22 cards, as it holds the number 0 or no number at all; its placement in the order of these cards has been debated in the long history of Tarot, which has changed its interpretative value. Various occultists have placed The Fool between the 20th and 21st cards- Judgement and The World, respectively- or at the very end. More modern decks place the card at the very beginning, preceding The Magician. While the meaning of the card can be, and often is, interpreted simply as a caution to the querent, its historical ambiguity in its placement serves as an example that The Fool may not be as simple to read as it appears.

It’s easy to read The Fool as a warning. A young man is pictured, in the popular Rider-Waite-Smith deck, as being one step away from falling headlong over a cliffside with a small dog at his heels. His head in the clouds, as it were, he seems oblivious to the danger. To be called a fool, or described as foolish, can hardly be interpreted as a compliment. Thus, it’s tempting to associate The Fool with folly, over-exuberance, and lack of awareness with little or no other context. The Fool, however, also has his admirable qualities - he is pure of spirit and has a lot of heart, he is adventurous, and he is willing to trust his intuition. An innocent tumble from a cliff could also be interpreted as a leap of faith. Moreover, The Fool can symbolize simply stepping into the unknown.

A popular idea among readers of the Tarot, in fact, is that of the Fool’s Journey through the Major Arcana. In this context, each card can be read in order as a linear progression through life, as The Fool meets The Magician, The High Priestess, and so on. In this sense, each of us is a fool, or at least begins as one- and the rest of the cards follow a path that constitutes the journey of our individual lives. We all play the fool at some point, and at any moment when we find ourselves trusting our gut instincts and beginning a new venture, we become The Fool as we plot our way through it. While caution and self-awareness are valuable in these cases, the intuitive decisions made in our lives that “feel right” are powerful turning points, which can lead to ruin or fortune. What may seem to be a foolish decision can, and often is, a life-changing one. In this sense, The Fool in each of us is what prompts us to avoid becoming victims of our present circumstances. The Fool is a challenge to Fate itself. 

In the spirit of foolishness and fate-defying actions, a comparison of two historical kooks who took similar leaps into the unknown might help to illustrate how the twists and turns of such decision making might play out. Submitted for your appreciation, here are the stories of Emperor Norton I and Lord Timothy Dexter.

Timothy Dexter was born in Malden, Massachusetts in 1743. He was certainly not a “lord”, but he dreamed of being among those in the high society of Boston at the time. His ascent to wealth can, in large part, be ascribed to dumb luck. Saving money he earned in his youth, bolstered by a dowry through a marriage to an older unwed daughter of a farmer, he moved to Newburyport and opened a shop selling gloves and mittens. In a move that seemed absurd, he traded his tidy savings of gold and silver for continental currency, still new at the time. After the American Revolution, Alexander Hamiliton’s reforms to the banking and financial systems meant that Dexter became a millionaire for his seemingly foolish investment. He would go on to claim that he had been guided in a dream to make this decision, as well as later gambits that seemed very odd but only profited him. 

He dubbed himself Lord Timothy Dexter, and proceeded to be an embarrassing bane to the wealthy community members in Newburyport. He preferred eccentric clothing, including a wide-brimmed hat that was several times too large for his head. He could be seen walking with a gold cane, accompanied by a small hairless dog named Pepper. He tried to claim himself the King of Chester, New Hampshire after buying property there, but it didn’t stick and he had to settle for his fake lordship- and his proclamation that he was the “first in the East, and first in the West, and Greatest Philosopher in the World”. 

His business moves were always ridiculous, but in spite of it they only ever increased his wealth. He chartered merchant ships to send hundreds of cats, cases of mittens, and bed-warming pans to the plantations in the Caribbean. The mittens were sold to a passing ship, heading to the Baltic sea, and the plantation owners were happy to buy the cats as a means of rat control for their store houses. The bed-warming pans sold at a profit as well, being useful as ladles and strainers for vats of molasses. Eager to see Lord Dexter fail, other businessmen conspired to suggest to him that he ought to send shipments of coal to Newcastle, England- a town well-known for coal mining. So absurd was this proposal, the idiom “sending coals to Newcastle” had been a phrase meaning a pointless and foolish action. Dexter’s shipment just happened to arrive as a strike from the miners was underway, and he still made a tidy profit from what should have been a terrible business move. 

His mansion on High Street became a local eyesore, as he decorated the property with wooden statues which stood as grotesque interpretations of historical figures and animals. He wrote a book, called A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truths in a Homespun Dress, which contained his alleged philosophy. It was also written in his own form of English, with inconsistent spelling and no punctuation at all. It sold out and went into further editions, and in these later editions he added a few pages of various punctuation marks that the reader may “peper and solt it as they plese” throughout the text. The disdain from his neighbors and his wife was obvious, but he had a troop of hangers-on who were happy to encourage his ridiculousness for a chance at his money. In order to prove loyalty from those around him, he faked his death and observed his “funeral” from his house. When he eventually did die, at age 63. The ‘Newburyport Nut’ attracted thousands to his real funeral, and is still remembered for his eccentricities.

Lord Dexter's Newburyport home today. Interestingly it was once purchased by Katherine Tingley, then President of the American Section of the Theosophical Society- she had hoped to turn it into a headquarters of sorts. A series of burglaries and fires led her to sell the place instead.

13 years after Lord Dexter's death, Joshua Abraham Norton was born in London- although the city he is most often associated with is San Francisco. Fate brought him to the era with dreams of striking it rich during the gold rush, but he decided money was better made through mercantile trade in the city. He did well, until greed got the better of him- in an attempt to corner the market on rice, he bought every shipment that came into the city and charged a premium. When ships laden with rice arrived from South America, the bottom fell out and he was ruined. A few years later, the down-and-out rogue would walk into the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin and solemnly tell the editor “I am the Emperor of the United States.” The amused editor, who likely was in the midst of a slow news day, agreed to run a front page article with Norton’s proclamation. Citizens of San Francisco were amused as well, and fell in love with this shabby character who would soon proclaim that he had abolished Congress, and that he had decided he was also The Protector of Mexico. 

His reputation grew, and he would hold court in a rooming house or be seen walking around town in his tattered military uniform. He is often portrayed as being accompanied by stray dogs, namely the celebrity strays Boomer and Lazarus, although it seems this relationship was apocryphal. He issued his own currency, which was largely honored; he implemented taxes that were paid by the amused “subjects” of his empire, and would ride the rails for free. So beloved was the Emperor, that a century after his claim to the title he would be honored as a Saint in the pseudoreligion of Discordianism. Co-author of the Principia Discordia Greg Hill wrote “Everybody understands Mickey Mouse, few understand Herman Hesse, hardly anybody understands Einstein, and nobody understands Emperor Norton.”

When Norton I collapsed on a street corner and died in 1880, his funeral lasted two days and was attended by 10,000 people. As an emperor, he was held as a beneficent one. His obituary said that he “killed nobody, robbed nobody and deprived nobody of his country- which is more than can be said for most fellows in his trade.”

The similarities between the two men are obvious- each claimed a title of nobility, each made absurd decisions that forever cemented their associations with their respective cities, and each had a flair for eccentric clothing and are depicted accompanied by dogs. It is interesting to see that while Dexter attained wealth, he lacked the respect of his community, while Norton was destitute but widely loved and respected. The association with dogs is also curious, considering that The Fool depicts a small dog at the heels of the title character. This harkens back to the Greek philosopher Diogenes, the original cynic, who eschewed social norms and spent his life looking for an honest man, living in abject poverty among the stray dogs. It is more than fitting for Norton I to be sainted by the Discordians, as Diogenes and others exemplify the concept of “The Holy Fool”, those subversive characters who are able to enact social changes through profoundly eccentric behavior. Various cultures have examples of such figures, who behave in an extravagantly weird fashion in order to reflect the absurdity of the society they have abandoned back at it. While Dexter’s inscrutable attempts at philosophy amounted to little more than complaining about his treatment by those around him, his garish and opulent excesses which so offended the elites of Newburyport make a salient, albeit likely unintentional comment about greed and excess. Norton used his platform as a notable kook to advance progressive social ideas such as civil rights for African Americans following the Civil War. 

Foolishness can be a powerful thing, and can lead to profound changes in one’s own life as well as effects throughout society at large, and even down through the ages. The Fool and its trickster nature within the top 22 cards of the Tarot deck should ever be a reminder that Fate, along with its many and varied wyrd pathways, need not hem us in with cliff sides or nipping hounds at our heels. The Fool is a bridge builder, and summoning that energy from your own gut can sometimes be just the thing to break you from the bounds of a liminal rut. Short of taking a leap of faith, it at least behooves us all to get into the open air and face what’s coming with a smile. After all, it’s The Fool’s world- we just live in it!

A foolish self-portrait of the author, with his intrepid hound Bernie at his heels

* A version of this article appeared in the April, 2023 issue of Paranormality Magazine- which, incidentally, was the month I left the publication in a rather dramatic fashion. Hail Eris!

Blue Moons, Blue Lights, and Elvis Disclosure

 "Blue Moon, 

Now I'm no longer alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own..."

At the time of this writing, we are on the cusp of a Blue Moon- and a Super Moon at that. It occurs to me that the Moon gets a lot more attention these days than it ever used to, although that can be debated. I also don't consider that a bad thing, because the Moon is pretty danged cool. Blue moons happen just infrequently enough to inspire a colloquialism - "once in a blue moon"- which is about every 2.7 years. This one just so happens to be arriving in time for my birthday, while the last one, on Halloween of 2020, coincided with my wedding. 

Monsters in love

On this most auspicious date, and lunar arrangement, I thought it would be a good time to share a little more Elvis weirdness. I recently joined Steph Quick to talk weird Elvis on Project Archivist, and in the course of discussing the alleged connections between Elvis and UFOs I told the story of the mysterious blue light that appeared over his birthplace in Tupelo, right after he was born. Unfortunately the descriptions of this, based on recollections from Elvis's dad Vernon, are rather vague. I said during the recording of the show that I had meant to look into naturally occurring phenomena that might cause such a light, but had never really gotten around to it... so naturally, after recording the show, I did. I ended up finding this article from a few months after his birth in 1935, from the Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA).

The article appeared on March 31 of 1935, and referenced a reported Blue Moon "a few months ago" which would seem to be around the time of Elvis's birth in January. Current news articles about this effect say that it could result from diffraction of light through particles in the atmosphere, such as those thrown up from wildfires or volcanic eruptions. Such was the case in the 1880s, when green moons were reported after the eruption of Krakatoa. If you haven't already, please check out my post UFO Rope Tricks and Threads From Nowhere for a really weird example of a green moon story. 

At any rate, the blue light and blue moon idea seems to have had a profound effect on Elvis and informed his choices about songs he recorded. The author(s) of The Elvis/UFO Connection, Richard Daniel, make it a point to list some such songs: Blue Moon, Blue Moon of Kentucky, Blue Christmas, Moody Blue, Blueberry Hill, When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold, and of course, Blue Suede Shoes. While some of these might be a stretch, there does seem to be some numinous significance to the motif in Elvis's life and perhaps as a symbol for us all. Consider the Moon in Tarot, numbered 18 in the Major Arcana. I included Salvador Dali's version up at the top of the post, which includes a lot of blue and gold in its presentation. The usual interpretation of the card has to do with illusions, fear, and madness. After all, the word "lunatic" is derived from the idea that a full moon causes people to lose their minds. I suppose it's fitting, then, as Elvis surely lived a life fraught with hidden insecurities and became more of a mythic figure than an easy-to-pin-down historical one. Furthermore, my bestie SJ and I can attest to exactly how crazy the Elvis synchronicities we experience together are... but they would take far too long to explain here.

Which brings me to a very odd thing indeed- the leak from Secret Sources of a song Elvis wrote himself, and recorded, only to have the demo swiped by the Men in Black. Said Secret Sources were not able to recover the recording, but they were able to send me the chords and lyrics to the song. I was told Uri Geller knows about it, but he's being pretty coy about confirming or denying anything. You know what THAT means... wait, what does that mean?

Anyway, here's the song. I hope you enjoy it. Also, happy birthday to me, and happy Super Blue Moon to you all! 

Elvis by the Numbers or: The King and the Tower of Death

 It's been 45 years since Elvis left the building one final time. August 16, 1977, Elvis Aaron Presley was found dead in the bathroom of his home, Graceland. For millions of fans around the world, this was a dark and life-changing event indeed. One writer named Gail Brewer-Giorgio, who wasn't necessarily a big fan of the King of Rock and Roll, was so moved by the effect that the death of the idol had that she wrote a fictional story that coincidentally mirrored many of the events in Elvis's life. This set in motion the events that led her to write her book Is Elvis Alive? which, along with several other books and groups of dedicated fans led to the belief that the King had merely faked his death. But we're not here to talk about that so much; I would refer you to my appearance on Conspirinormal for that. Today we're talking about the numbers.

"50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong" is a phrase that has stuck in my mind since I heard it as a kid in TV commercials that advertised Elvis box sets while I watched reruns of 60s sitcoms. One can get philosophical about such a statement- does majority opinion really determine actual quality? Or, one can nitpick the numbers to determine how they were generated in the first place. I'm doing neither here, but rather using it to illustrate the importance of numbers on our common perception of people and things. If the box office sales for the 2022 Elvis movie are any indication, the numbers suggest an enduring interest in the King. According to Brewer-Giorgio, Elvis was very concerned with the numbers indeed.

She claims in her book that Elvis had been turned on to the occult science of Numerology by his hair dresser, Larry Geller. He had given the King a copy of Cheiro's Book of Numbers, which, she says, he was so enamored with that he always kept it with him and based his big decisions around dates that the numbers showed to be auspicious for whatever it was that he planned. Naturally, when I learned about this I had to get my own copy of Cheiro's book. 

The above mentioned books in front of my Velvet Elvis. Unfortunately, my copy of Is Elvis Alive? does not have the cassette tape.

Reading Cheiro's Book of Numbers it becomes apparent why it would have struck a particular chord with Elvis, as the author makes specific mention of his birth number. Born January 8, 1935, not only was he saddled with the "peculiar influence" of the number 8 as his birth number, Cheiro also indicates that those born between the 21st of December and the 26th of January are 8s born under the House of Saturn (Positive) which intensifies these peculiar vibrations. These influences make for a particularly fatalistic role of those bearing the birth number to play; they often feel isolated and misunderstood throughout their lives, have intense natures and great passion, and usually will either succeed in the most dramatic ways or fail spectacularly in life. In most cases, Cheiro recommends decisions be made on days that align with your birth number, but in the case of 8s born in January, particularly when they have other 8s and 4s in their chart, it's best to avoid them. He returns to this very specific date range several times throughout the book, and to Elvis it must have seemed that Cheiro was talking directly to him. It's worth mentioning here as well that David Bowie shared Elvis's birthday... make of that what you will. 

Since you can't change what day you were born, Cheiro recommends changing your name if you'd like to change your lucky numbers. Letters can be converted to numbers and added up, and it's possible to affect your fate by calculating a name with the number you wish to have. Much was made of Elvis's birth name being different than the one on his grave marker in Brewer-Giorgio's book, and true-believers have sometimes pointed to the difference in the spelling of his middle name (Aron to Aaron) as a clue that he had not died after all. It seems possible that he changed the spelling of his middle name, which by some accounts occurred around the time Geller introduced him to Numerology, in order to change his lucky numbers. If this indeed is the case, it would have been right before Elvis's big comeback at the end of the 60s. This is a bit odd though, because to Cheiro the name you're most known by is the one that's really important; having your middle name change from a 6 to a 7 shouldn't mean much if nobody calls you by that name. Instead, ELVIS = 18, which reduces to 9 (1+8), as does PRESLEY (27, 2+7=9), and if you add the first and last names you get 45 and then 9 again. 

This brings us back to the date of August 16th. Much speculation about the significance of that date in Is Elvis Alive? is aimed at proving that had Elvis wanted to fake his death, then that would have been the date he would choose to help him succeed. Brewer-Giorgio says that Elvis often expressed that he thought he would die at the same age his mother did (42) and on the same day, August 14th. Through a bunch of playing around with numbers, she determines that although he would have preferred to use August 14th as a date to fake his death, the cosmic influence of that day would not have worked, and that he invariably would have chosen the 16th instead. Having no mastery over Numerology myself, but having read Cheiro's book, I'm not sure her accounting adds up. But let's take a look at what Cheiro wrote about the number 16:

16. This number has a most peculiar occult symbolism. It is pictured by "a Tower Struck by Lightning from which a man is falling with a Crown on his head." It is also called "the Shattered Citadel". 

It gives warning of some strange fatality awaiting one, also danger of accidents and defeat of one's plans. If it appears as a "compound" number relating to the future, it si a warning sign that should be carefully noted and plans made in advance in the endeavour to avert its fatalistic tendency.

So, probably not a great day to plan a cunning deceit like faking one's own death then...

What's striking here though is that Cheiro uses the Tarot's Major Arcana to illustrate the meanings behind the numbers. He is of course referring here to The Tower, numbered 16 in the deck. The image of lightning, which calls to mind Elvis's custom "TCB" symbol, striking a Tower and causing the fall of a crowned figure really is evocative. The simplest meaning of this card in the Tarot is Chaos, but the more nuanced read of it is the clearing away of the old to encourage new growth. As my friend, author and Tarot reader Kiki Dombrowski commented when I shared this on Twitter - "I wonder if we could say that a fairly decent interpretation of the Tower card is 'taking care of business!'"

     Oddly enough, had the date been aligned with Gladys Presley's death date of August 14th, the card that would have been Temperance. As Cheiro explains, it's a number of "movement, combination of people and things... This number is fortunate for dealings with money, speculation, and changes in business..." He adds that there is an element of risk and that caution should be employed when planning for this day.

Now we can get into how odd August 16th is as a death date. The image of a fallen monarch isn't exclusive to the King of Rock and Roll, because just a few years after he was born another King had died on that same day. 

Robert Johnson, sometimes referred to as the King of the Delta Blues Singers, died by poisoning on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27. It can here be noted that 27 reduces to 9, and we again see 9 as significant. Further, Johnson was also in the 8 club, his birth date being May 8, 1911. His early demise makes him perhaps the founding member of the so-called "27 Club" - the odd grouping of musicians who left us at that age. This list includes Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim "The Lizard King" Morrison, and in more recent decades Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. 

Much of Johnson's life story is mixed up in legends told about him, including the idea that he met the Devil at the Crossroads in order to sell his soul for his guitar playing ability. This story is likely apocryphal, and it's likely that Robert had been confused with another bluesman called Tommie Johnson, for whom that claim had often been made. Still, Robert had songs like "Me and the Devil Blues" which probably didn't help discourage the idea. It's worth noting that the card immediately preceding the Tower in the Major Arcana is The Devil, and Cheiro says of 15 that people born under 4 or 8 can be unscrupulous in employing it. It has an association with "good talkers", musical and artistic gifts, and charisma. So it seems that a bargain with the Devil isn't off the table, in this sense.

Another musical monarch, the Queen of Soul, also died on August 16th. Aretha Franklin was born March 25, 1942, making her birth number a 7 ultimately. 25 is, according to Cheiro, indicative not so much of luck but of strength and benefits through hard work and trials early on. Passing on at age 76, she is the longest-lived of the crowned heads who fell on the 16th. It is odd that this pattern holds up so well, and what it ultimately means is really just a matter of perspective, just as the opinion of 50,000,000 Elvis fans is. 

A few non-musical entries can also be added to this list - Babe Ruth, sometimes called "The King of Swing", the "Sultan of Swat", etc, died August 16th 1948. One could say that numbers were significant with the Great Bambino, as his was the first player number to be retired in his honor. The number 3 was his when he played for the New York Yankees, and it originally signified his place at bat in the line-up. Prior to that, when he played for the Red Sox, players didn't have numbers. His leaving the Sox led to what was called The Curse of the Bambino, an 86 year period during which time Boston never won a world series.

Finally, Bela Lugosi also died on August 16, in 1953. Though not labelled a king of anything, he was pigeon-holed into horror roles after his depiction of Count Dracula. Toward the end of his life, he costarred with the Amazing Criswell in several Ed Wood movies. Criswell's actual name was Jeron Criswell King, and his birthday was August 18th. Close, but no cigar, to the dates already mentioned, but too fun not to include especially since he had the surname 'King'. The 18th of August, 1999 was also when he predicted that the end of the world would occur, after the planet became enveloped inside a "black rainbow". Cheery, that.

On a final and more personal note, August 16th was the birthday of my best friend Jeff Siegrist, who passed away earlier this year. Worcester Magazine was kind enough to publish my tribute to him, and it occurs to me writing this now that I referenced Elvis in that tribute. I also made reference to Jeff's gold jacket, and in finding images for this post the album cover that came up features the King in a gold suit. It's bittersweet, these synchronicities, and although I sometimes worry that I get too granular and go on too long about these things, over all it seems sometimes like reality rhymes with itself quite often. There are systems at work and underlying structures which can only be peripherally perceived; like numbers, they can be played with, made to support the messages we want to hear. My hope is to inspire the reader to consider these odd coincidences and decide for themselves what they mean. I truly hope you take away something useful from this.

That's all for now... and Thank you, thank you very much for reading!