More about THE LOVERS and THE MAGIC OF DOUBLING

In the previous post, we looked at a love spell involving The Steampunk Tarot, which uses an image of doubling in The Sun card, (echoing some of the more antique renditions of this card).  When different creative teams come up with new tarot deck variations, it expands our understanding of the individual cards, and offers new opportunities for magic working.  Another deck which portrays a happy couple in its rendition of The Sun card is the “Tarot of Jane Austen,” (a Lo Scarabeo deck by Diane Wilkes; illustrated by Lola Airaghi).  This deck also portrays a happy couple in The World card, as in the world of Jane Austen, relationship is key to completion and wholeness.  These cards, then, are ideal for a spell where love leads to marriage, as shown below.

As stated in the previous post, you don’t perform love spells with an intent to bind a reluctant partner to your will, but to send an invitation out into the Universe, to attract the attention of individuals who will resonate to a shared vision of pleasure in relationship.  When performing this spell, as you lay out the cards, you could visualize different ways that you and your potential partner might come together, (while also allowing for unexpected ways of meeting), having fun discovering some things you have in common, and the eventual trip to the altar.

You’ll notice that The Lovers card is not included in this particular spell.  That’s because the Tarot of Jane Austen also uses an older conceptual rendition of The Lovers, that features another woman in the scene.  Older cards which depict the man having to decide between two women make a philosophical statement about choices, and touch on Jungian notions of lunar and solar forces, and the Dark Woman and Bright Lady archetypes.  However, for purposes of a love spell, we normally don’t want to distract attention from the desired one-on-one relationship, because we want the Lovers to be solely and intimately focused on each other.