Tag: tarot

Guest Post: Daily Tenet-Tarot Ritual

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ Leave a comment

René Grigori is one of many volunteer leaders who helped form the Southern California Congregation of The Satanic Temple(TST) in 2019. At the beginning of 2020 René became the congregation’s Media Liaison and began hosting a weekly Friday Night TST Hangout. In May 2021 René was ordained a Minister of The Satanic Temple. 

Interested in writing a guest post for the blog? Please contact me.

This ritual was inspired by the Temple Service sermon on Internal and External Satanism by Stephen Bradford Long and the ensuing discussion. Meditation/contemplation were provided as examples of internal expressions of Satanism while embodying/living the tenets were provided as examples of external expressions. The resulting ritual is a fusion of the internal and external where contemplation of the various situations that arise in the Tarot deepens our understanding of the Tenets and helps us better apply the Tenets to the various situations in our daily lives.

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Sacred Tension AMA: From Christianity to Satanism

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 4 Comments

This is the first ever solo Ask Me Anything episode of Sacred Tension. In this episode I take questions from my audience about my personal journey from Christianity to Satanism, how to handle an aversion to Christians, my take on protests and riots, my favorite pop culture representations of Satan,  my thoughts on Satanists using Tarot, and much more.

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Tarot, Journaling, and Meditation

Tarot and Journaling
~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ Leave a comment

I have several not-so-secret ambitions in life; one is de-stigmatize the use of Tarot as a meditative and creative practice. I’ve already written at length on Tarot: on how I can be a Christian who practices it, my personal method for reading it, and a meditation on the first Major Arcanum, the Magician. This article will explore the method of Tarot meditation I use most regularly.

Before we get into the meditation technique, however, we need to talk briefly about why Tarot is so effective as a Meditation practice.

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What is Esoteric Christianity?

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 3 Comments

For over a year now I’ve been describing myself as an Esoteric Christian. I adopted this terms before I fully understood what it meant, but I also knew that it was the best description of where I am in my faith journey. Whenever people ask me what an Esoteric Christian is, I jokingly respond, “it means I’m a Christian who’s into weird shit.”

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I’m a Christian, and I Practice Yoga and Read Tarot

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 15 Comments

When I’m not having awkward conversations with Christians about homosexuality, I find myself having awkward conversations about another aspect of my life: I’m a Christian who practices and teaches yoga, and reads Tarot cards. For many Christians this exiles me to the far fringe of the fringe – to those “crazy Christians who worship Sophia and call themselves Episcopalians.”

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On Living With a Black Dog: Surviving Depression

~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 3 Comments

During my brutal battle with anxiety, depression, and being gay in the church, I struggled deeply with finding relatable, insightful words about how to survive depression. I found a lot of general, obvious advice: exercise more, find a good therapist, and get on meds being the top three.  But when it came to real-life, personal advice from other strugglers, I found very little.

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