Middle English

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ˇ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
ˇ Current Events
ˇ Another Avenue
ˇ The Thursday Night Tarot
ˇ How I Came To Love Chaucer's English

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The Thursday Night Tarot

The Thursday Night Tarot is a discussion group started by Jason Lotterhand, a student and friend of Paul Foster Case. Following Jason's retirement, the class was led by Jason's long time associate and editor, Arisa Victor, who is now continuing her work in metaphysics for children and young people. In 1999, Arisa asked Tanya to lead the group.

Since childhood, Tanya has felt a connection to what she calls "something larger than herself." Kenneth Clark writes that, for convenience, we call that "something else" Nature. Nature is at the core of all Tanya's activities.

Tanya's formal study of metaphysics began in 1958, when she inquired into spiritual systems where, in her own words, "Nothing was, by its nature, good or bad." Her research led her to Taoism. In the mid-1960s, Tanya bought her first copy of The I Ching at The Metaphysical Town-Hall Book Shop in San Francisco, where Jason was teaching, though the two did not meet until later.

Tanya was introduced to the Western Mystery System when she read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a student of novelist, John Gardner. "What concept," Tanya wanted to know, "encompasses both the pentacle, on the outside of Gawain's shield, and the Virgin Mary, whose image on the inside of the shield Gawain prays to for courage?" Tarot, ultimately, provided answers.

Subsequent to academic work, Tanya studied Christian contemplation in Basil Pennington's workshops on The Cloud of Unknowing. She studied the Old Testament Royal Tradition of Creation Spirituality at Matthew Fox's Institute. The description of a pentacle in a New Age catalog led Tanya to tarot. She joined Robert LeRoy Smith's first tarot group. Douglas Kipping introduced her to Jason's classes.

Tanya has had the opportunity to study several Medieval sources of both literature and spirituality firsthand at The Morgan Library in New York, The British Library in London, and through tours and exhibits at London's Freemason's Hall and at The St. John's Gate Museum, which is the museum of the Knights Hospitallers, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. She has been encouraged in various aspects of her interdisciplinary investigations by art historian Harry Bober, poet and Medievalist Carter Revard, by the head of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae project, Theodore F. Brunner, and, over and over again, by Jason and Arisa.

So the food for thought and grounds for further research continue! Check this website for updates and e-mail Tanya with your thoughts and suggestions.

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