How to Use the Cauldron

The Cauldron is kept behind a small door. Look for the door icon in the main menu, and again at the bottom of any page under the footer links. It opens the Cauldron hub, which lists every tool and collection with a note on what is free and what is for members.

Once you are inside, a second bar appears under the site header. Choose Browse the Cauldron to open it. On a wide screen the sections drop down; on a phone they unfold one at a time.

The herb library is still one click away. Many herb pages now link into the Cauldron, and many Cauldron pages link back to the herb.

On the draw page you choose one, three or five cards and whether reversed cards are allowed, then deal. Each card is revealed when you turn it, or you can reveal them all at once. Select a card to open it in a window and read about it without leaving the page.

Anyone can draw from the 22 Major Arcana. Members draw from the full deck of 78.

Nothing is interpreted for you. The meanings are the ones written on each card’s page, the same for every reader.

Saving a Reading

Members can save a spread with their question and a note of their own. Saved spreads live in My Readings, where you can read them again, add to the note, or delete them.

The card library shows the free Major Arcana to everyone. Members also see the Minor Arcana and can filter by arcana and suit. Each card page sets out:

• Correspondences in the Golden Dawn tradition, shown as small tags.
• Meaning, upright and reversed, with imagery and numerology.
• Herbs and stones that belong to the card, each linking to its own page.
• Where the Golden Dawn differs. When the order’s own teaching departs from what is commonly said today, a marked note says so, so you can tell the two apart.

The links run both ways. A herb page can show the cards it appears under, and a card page shows its herbs.

Tarot here is presented as a symbolic tradition and a tool for reflection. It does not predict anything.

The sky tools are free for everyone. They use the traditional seven planets and the tropical zodiac, and every calculation runs in your own browser.

The Sky Today

The Moon’s phase and sign, where each planet stands, and a look at the week ahead.

Moon and Planetary Calendar

Phases, eclipses, retrogrades and the eight festivals of the year. You can download the calendar as an .ics file and add it to your own.

Tarot Birth Cards

Enter a birth date and the tool finds your Personality and Soul cards by the numbers of the date, using the method popularised by Mary K. Greer.

Birth Chart

Enter a date, time and place for the Sun, Moon, planets and rising sign. Place names are looked up through a public geocoding service (Open-Meteo) straight from your browser, and nothing about your birth details is sent to Teapotheca unless you save the chart.

Each placement carries a short classical note, in our own words, drawn from Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos and William Lilly’s Christian Astrology, with the source named. Members also see the herbs, stones and cards that go with the planets ruling their chart.

Saving Your Charts

Members can save charts and birth cards. They are kept in My Charts.

The stone library holds seventy-nine stones. You can browse them all or filter by planet.

Each stone page keeps two things apart, on purpose. What the classical sources said, taken from Agrippa’s planetary lists, is one section. Modern associations are another, always labeled as modern practice. Care notes and safety flags sit beside them in plain terms, for example stones that should not be soaked in water, that must never be used for gem water, or that fade in strong sunlight.

Stones make no medical claims anywhere on the site.

The folklore directory holds what different cultures have believed and done with each plant. Use the purpose tabs at the top, such as Protection, Love or Healing, to narrow the list, then open an herb.

Each entry is divided by tradition, so one tradition is never allowed to speak for another. Under each you will find the associations and how they were applied, followed by a marked Cultural Context note that gives the background. Sources are listed at the bottom of the entry, and the herb’s own page is one link away.

This section records belief and history. It is not medicine, and it is kept apart from the safety notes on the herb pages.

The rituals library places real historical charms and customs beside modern practice, and it labels each one so the two are never mistaken for each other.

• Historical and traditional entries are cited to a named source. Where a text appears, its translator and edition are credited.
• Modern practice is written for this library. No historical source is claimed for it.
• Safety. A “Before you begin” box appears on entries that need one. Anything that involves another person says so and reminds you that nothing is done to or about someone without their knowledge and consent.
• Harm and binding. Entries about harm, binding or compulsion are presented as history only. They describe what was believed or done and give no instructions.

Some entries include a timing note, for example a Moon phase, a weekday or a festival, and the page tells you when the next one falls.

Herb, stone and card pages carry a “Used in rituals” box linking back to the entries that use them.

• Free: the sky tools, the 22 Major Arcana, the draw page using those cards, a number of preview entries in the folklore and rituals libraries, and the safety information everywhere.
• Cauldron members: all 78 cards, the full stone library, and every folklore entry and ritual.
• Saving: members can also keep readings in My Readings and charts in My Charts.

The Cauldron can be joined on its own or with the Full Herbarium.