About Free Hands Oracle


©1994-2015 Joshua E Seaver

Stele of Revealing – ©2004-2015 Joshua E Seaver

The Free Hands Oracle combines modern images of the 22 Trumps of the Tarot with the I-Ching. Influenced by Thelemic philosophy, Kashmir Shaiva Tantra and post-modern Majikal thought, the major arcana paintings were painted between 1994-1995.

This site humbly presents suggested divinatory meanings on the trumps and hexagrams, with thanks to Lon Milo DuQuette for his informative and entertaining Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot  as well as the amazingly beautiful Liber T: Tarot of the Stars Eternal for inspiration on the wisdom of the imagery.

For a deeper understanding of the I-Ching from a modern perspective, The Everyday I Ching by Sarah Dening has proved to work well in combination with the cards of the deck. Others swear by the Wilhelm translation, however, some claim it is muddied by the sexism and religious bias of that era.

Why is it called the Free Hands Oracle? The first painting done when this project began (pictured at left and inspired by the Stele of Revealing) in 1994 shows the artist with disembodied hands, a motif that reappears often in the cards. The idea of free hands, non-grasping and unattached to tools to do The Work, is appealing in this age of acquisition and over-dependency on technology.