Who is Paul Foster Case?

Sundee Bourret ~ Tarot Life Coach

Who is Paul Foster Case?

Paul Foster Case (October 3, 1884 – March 2, 1954) was an American occultist, Freemason, and writer of books on occult tarot and Qabalah. Perhaps his greatest contributions to the field of occultism were the lessons he wrote for associate members of Builders of the Adytum or B.O.T.A. The knowledge lectures given to initiated members of the chapters of the B.O.T.A. were equally profound, although the limited distribution has made them less well known.

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Here’s a little story of how I discovered Paul Foster Case

I was at a second-hand store and I had just discovered a very well used deck of Tarot cards. I mean this deck was OLD, stained and fragile! As I thumbed through the cards I noticed that the images were unlike any others I had seen before (and I have a LOT of decks). So as I am intently examining this deck, card by card, an unusual woman approached me. She was African American with long braided hair, and very bohemian in her appearance. She began talking about Paul Foster Case and recommended one of his books. Then, she stood with me for a few minutes looking at the cards and she said “pull out the Magician”. I looked through the deck to find that the Magician card was missing! Then I counted every card, there were 77, just one card shy of a full deck. Did she know? How did she know?

Then she walked away, and returned a few minutes later, and said “my name is ISIS”, and honestly, I don’t remember the rest of what she said in that moment but she seemed very mysterious and I was very intrigued with her. Then as she was walking away again I asked her to take my phone number, she said “no, we will meet again”.

Who was that woman? I do hope to meet her again!

So then, after i returned home I searched the internet in hopes of finding information on the deck of cards I had found in the second-hand store. It took some digging but I discovered that the deck was called the Albano-Waite Tarot, originally published in the late 1960’s. I read on to discover that Frankie Albano had colored the Rider-Waite deck to the same specifications of Paul Foster Case’s B.O.T.A. Tarot deck.

Did ISIS know this when she recommended that I read a book written by Paul Foster case?

To me, this all felt very magical. I mean, what are the odds? It was like puzzle pieces that were effortlessly put together!

Sidenote; I did not buy that deck from the second-hand store because the Magician card was missing and the Ten of Pentacles card was badly torn and deteriorating, and they wanted $60 for it! But I did buy a brand new Albano-Waite deck from Amazon and i am loving it!