SCORPIO III: Projections

Fixed water: phantasmagoria, dreams, fairy tales

• Atmosphere: Projections

• Sign: Scorpio

• Plant: Skullcap

• Planet: Moon + Venus

• Dates: 13 - 22 November

• Tarot: 7 of Cups

In the Book of Thoth, Aleister Crowley describes the 7 of Cups as the "Palace of Klingsor". This is a reference to the Parsifal myth, in which the wicked sorcerer Klingsor attempts to waylay Grail-bound knights with a palace and temptress-filled magical garden. But when righteous Parsifal sees through Klingsor's magic, the garden withers.

– T. Susan Chang

In Scorpio III, co-ruled by Venus and the Moon, we are in the realm of fantasy, dreaming, and fairy tales.

Projecting gets a bad name, but I think that’s only half the story. Without being able to project into the future, nothing new would exist.

Like its close cousin, delulu, projection can be a potent force for creation but its radical capacities have been clouded by the negative associations that cling to it.

T. Susan Chang connects this decan to the Parsifal myth and the obstacles used by the sorcerer Klingsor to prevent the knights attaining the grail. As in many other myth cycles (The Odyssey, the Bible) a dark projection of the characters’ inner desires is used against them. In this case, the knights are offered a magical garden full of temptations.

But all that is needed for these temptations to crumble is the ability to see through the illusion, as Parsifal can.

There is a shadow side to projecting. If there is a creative aspect – the power to project a new idea, world, or reality – there is also a destructive one.

The concept of the phantasmagoria can be a helpful way to understand this shadow side. The phantasmagoria is a magic lantern show that projects terrifying images of devils, monsters, ghosts etc. Though it isn’t ‘real’ it produced real effects in its viewers, as this image shows – the show is illusory, but the audience are really fainting.

Projections captures the whole spectrum of shadow and light in this decan.