Home » Magick » M3 Episodes » Season 2 » Jack Chanek, Qabalah, and Tarot – Ep. 3
Jack Chanek is a Gardnerian High Priest and the author of three books: Qabalah for Wiccans, Tarot for Real Life, and Queen of All Witcheries.
In this episode, Jack and I discussed his background, his books, Qabalah, Tarot, and even a little James Bond.
Shaken, not Stirred
Jack started reading Tarot at the age of 11.
He was raised in what he calls an “aggressively anti-religious” household. I asked him how he managed to get ahold of Tarot cards if that was the case. Apparently, it was all thanks to James Bond.
In Live and Let Die from 1973, a character is actually seduced with a stacked deck of Tarot cards. It promised to be a Bond film with “more excitement, more action, more danger…” and of course, Roger Moore playing 007.
As a word of warning, Jack reminds us all that seducing someone with Tarot cards is highly unethical. Either way, it definitely caught his attention. His parents were big James Bond fans, so they eventually gave in when he begged them to buy him his own set of cards, thinking it would just be a passing phase. I don’t know… maybe he’ll still grow out of it.
He’s been reading Tarot ever since.
When he started college, he was living alone in the South of France and decided to try to piece together a working magickal practice. He drifted towards some heavier occult texts, like Mathers and Levi, because that’s what he was able to get access to online. In fact, one of the first books he read was a translation of the Sefer Yetzira from sacred-texts. It sounds like he sort of went through a couple cycles of reading, frustration, and re-reading… but it wasn’t long before he started to develop a keen understanding of Qabalah.
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Qabalah for Wiccans
I have a lot of books on Qabalah. I mean, I’m always adding to the collection, but there’s a decent number on our bookshelves.
One of my favorites has almost always been Qabalah for Wiccans by Jack Chanek. After all, I did list it in my “Qabalah Books I’d Recommend” article quite a while back. There’s just something different about it — and it’s sort of hard to describe with words, but I’ll try anyway. Jack writes about each of the sephiroth as if they’re people that he knows. Instead of just reading about esoteric facts and memorizing long tables of correspondence lists, it’s more like understanding a character in a book.
Don’t get me wrong, I love esoteric facts and correspondence lists. And this book does contain that sort of stuff, too… it’s just that it’s more about understanding why things are the way they are rather than just accepting them at face value.
And that’s a critical skill, especially today in the occult world where you’ve got 10 different people telling you 10 different things and expecting you to just accept it as fact.
Jack doesn’t disguise the information or dumb it down. He just makes it accessible for everyone. And to practically apply all of what you learned, he’s got exercises, meditations, and rituals for each one of the Sephiroth.
What is the Qabalah?
We talk quite a lot about Qabalah throughout the entire interview — reasons to study it, reasons to not study it, what it is, how it connects to things, and how to use it. For those who are not familiar with the topic, I asked Jack to give a quick overview of what it is.
So what is it? It’s basically a way of organizing information to make it more accessible.
What type of information? Energies, planes, the human soul, the creation of the universe, and more. It’s as much a map as it is a giant correspondence list.
There are ten spheres — each represents a different type of energy. The top sphere, Kether, essentially represents Source. The bottom sphere, Malkuth, represents manifest reality. Everything in between is a different type of energy — or idea — so we can easily map out the relationships between all of them.
And each sphere also has a set of correspondences — colors, numbers, herbs, crystals, deities, etc… which allows us to connect everything to everything else.
A very rudimentary Tree of Life
There’s also lines (or paths) that interconnect the spheres — 22 of them to be exact. But that’s a conversation for another time.
We can use all of these correspondences to do Qabalah Magick.
How to Do Qabalah Magick
Lots of people look at Qabalistic Magick as if it’s going to be something that’s overly complicated… and therefore, inaccessible to them unless they’ve had years of study or an excessive amount of special tools. And sure, Qabalistic Magick can be complicated, if that is your desire. But it doesn’t have to be. That’s the beauty of it.
Even something as simple as using color correspondences can qualify as Qabalistic Magick.
As a simple example, Jack talks about doing a love spell. Modern associations will commonly use red or pink candles for this, but for a more Qabalistic approach, we can use green. Green is the color of the sphere called Netzach, which is associated with the concept of love in the Tree of Life. And that’s it! It can really be that simple.
And since we already know that we’re in the sphere of Netzach, if we want to “enhance” our love spell further, then we’ve got an entire list of other correspondences that can be thrown in. Maybe we want to incorporate the number seven by saying a spell seven times or perform the spell on a Friday or burn sandalwood incense — all things that are associated with the sphere of Netzach.
By the way, if you’re interested in finding out why those things are associated with Netzach, then I would highly suggest reading Jack’s book. It’s great to know what things are, but it’s on another level entirely when you can understand why they are.
Tarot
One of my favorite aspects of Qabalah is how it interconnects with Tarot. There’s actually a rather fascinating history here and Jack was kind enough to explain some of it.
As he states in the interview, there really weren’t standard divinatory meanings for Tarot cards before the 19th century.
Rose Cross of the Golden Dawn
There are some obvious links between Tarot and Qabalah. For instance, there are ten spheres on the Tree of Life and ten numbered cards in each suit. There are also 22 paths (or lines) on the tree and 22 Major Arcana cards. Because of these similarities, they just seemed to fit together, but there was no real “standard” way of doing so until the Golden Dawn made one.
Jack says that the Golden Dawn’s entire system of Qabalistic Magick used Tarot as its backbone. Once that system was in place, each card began to take on a specific divinatory meaning.
Well, thanks, Golden Dawn! There’s just so much of modern occultism that is based on the work that they did.
Jacks Other Books
We spent most of the interview discussing Qabalah, but Jack has two other books out right now as well.
The first, and most recent release, is called Queen of All Witcheries. As the subtitle would imply, it’s a biography of the Goddess.
That’s right. I said “the Goddess.” Which Goddess? The Goddess.
You see… over the past 100 years or so, we’ve kind of been developing this idea of an archetypal goddess energy — something that has associations with things like motherhood, the moon, tides, cycles, etc…
This goddess, while prevalently mentioned in Wicca, is a modern construct. She wasn’t really worshipped in the ancient world. Our entire concept of Maiden, Mother, Crone also came from fairly recent times.
But just because it isn’t ancient doesn’t mean it isn’t less effective or less legitimate! We’re totally capable of inventing new ideas and new ways to worship as we progress as a society. The book explores these type of themes, taking a look at where they came from and how we’re handling them today.
Jack’s other book is called Tarot for Real Life. He says that unlike many other Tarot books, it gives special treatment to the Minor Arcana.
Why is that important? Because the Minor Arcana cards deal with regular, day-to-day topics like money, health, love, work, and communication. Yeah, the Major Arcana are really cool, archetypal energies, but they might not be the best answer for a simple question like “am I going to get that job?”
The book covers topics like how to choose a Tarot deck, how to begin reading Tarot, and how to get into the habit of doing things like a daily card pull. From there, it discusses goes into topics like what each suit means and more.
At then, once you understand all of that other stuff, he talks about the Major Arcana. He says you can’t really understand the Major Arcana themes until you’ve got a handle on all the other underlying information.
Finding Jack Chanek
Although Jack says social media is poisonous (and I’m inclined to agree with him) you can still find him some places, like Instagram. The best place to connect with him, however, is probably his blog. Here are links to find him…
- Website – https://jackofwandstarot.wordpress.com/
- YouTube – @JackChanek
- Instagram – @jack_of_wants
And hey… if you’re in Utah and looking for a coven, reach out to him! Right now he might just be the only Gardnerian in his state… I think we need to change those numbers!
Music & Magick
My favorite part of every interview! Jack says that vibrating and intoning names or words of power became a crucial part of his practice very early on and continues to be so today.
Recently, he’s been exploring the use of song in ritual with a wide range of genres from Pagan chants to Death Cab. I think it’s a fascinating approach. Music, regardless of whether it’s something you would regularly hear on the radio or in a ritual environment, has the power to transform us and take us places.
But… you know how this part goes. If you want to hear more about it, this is really a section of the interview you should listen to directly.
Conclusions
This episode was certainly a fact-filled hour. Jack answered all my Qabalah questions and more. If I have one final thought to leave you with, it’s just that you should do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of one of his books (if you already haven’t, that is).
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Come over here and let me tell you a story. It is a tale of love, loss, adventure, and of course, the internet. Once upon a time, a great hero named Aerik Arkadian went on a noble quest to build a website. On this great website, he wanted to include links to things like books, so he performed an ancient magickal ritual and summoned an Amazon Affiliate account. Suddenly, Bezothus, the patron deity of Amazon, appeared before Aerik and with a mighty voice said: “O ye who sought great linkage, knowest thee that this one thing shall be required of you on all of thy pages that displayeth our links. Thou shalt nobly disclose the fact that if an affiliate link is used to make a purchase, then ye beist entitled to a tiny commission. And woe to them who do not disclose. Woe to them!” And with that, Bezothus disappeared into a cloud of black smoke that formed into a smile before it was packed into a box and shipped back to headquarters.”
Aerik Arkadian 
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