Author: Alex Schmidt

Greetings, my acolyte. Welcome, young novice. [A gesture done with a penis to indicate “hello”], pork-padawan. This article is dirty! I wrote it for 1900HOTDOG, which is a mystical order shrouded by secrecy. According to the back cover of this book…

…membership in any mystical order shrouded by secrecy, such as our mystical doggz-order, gives you access to all the secrets of…

…The Sexual Key To The Tarot. A mysterious, eldritch tome available as a mass market paperback. These secrets could be unlocked for $1.25 USD, in the early 1970s. Or you can pay a fraction of that (with inflation) for a used copy, in 2023, festooned with stains. A lot of stains on this book. You see them. So you realize how much I care for you. I braved unsettling vintage discolorations – stains on a book about you-know-what – for you. I also spelunked for you. I found this in the basement of the world’s largest used bookstore. The Strand is literally the biggest, most overstuffed used bookstore on Earth, with inventory beyond any mortal’s reckoning. Yet this book is so weird, even by their standards, my cashier saw this and said “What? Ewww” out loud.

Dear Hotdogger: she was right. This book is gross! Also it’s kind of adorable. I’m almost not even self-conscious about how sexual it is, because its simple corny/horny combo is a breath of fresh air. I approached this book in a weird headspace. I’m coming off of a diet of books that force J6 on kids. So cracking open The Sexual Key To The Tarot was a welcome change-of-pace. Partly because it turns out the stains are exterior-only. Mainly because this author is an earnest clod, bubbling with B.D.E. (Boyish Doofus Energy). He is a horny idiot. He did also look up some fancy words in the library dictionary. But that’s all he is! His heart is pure – in the sense that some nudie mags use the word “pure” as a modifier for “babes” or “butts” or whatever.

Unfortunately, having read this, I’m confident this guy is probably not fun to do sex with. But that’s okay, now. Why? Theodor Laurence wrote this old-man-ish book in 1971. So I presume he is dead. If he was a weirdo to potential partners, he stopped. He got pulled outta the bars and off the streets by the ultimate cop (Time). I can’t find any biographical information about Theodor Laurence. But this book seems to be his magnum (non-condom meaning) opus. It also seems to be a book he wrote several times over:

He basically does magic sex books, for money. If you leave the word “books” out of that sentence, he is a sex worker with a B+ gimmick. Also, yikes, I think he did this gimmick semi-successfully. He’s got more than half a dozen published something-or-others. Also, some poor soul translated this sex-tarot book into Spanish. So at least one English copy sold first. Also, what a waste of bilingual man-hours. How about we tackle the rest of Cervantes’s diary before we rush El Tarot Sexual into tiendas.

Let’s go back to my English copy of this book. This gloriously dumb book. The book’s premise is that in every moment, every adult on Earth is on the verge of sex-ing. You know: like in pornography. This book is so porny, it reminds me of (I’m so sorry Kurt) Kurt Vonnegut’s maxim about porn’s essence. Everyone in this book is an upbeat, uninhibited, certified freak. They could all pass a Philharmonic Orchestra audition for first chair skin-flautist. However: this universal horniness presents a challenge. Wait, what? No it doesn’t. A world of people heaving with horned-up-itude is not challenging to live in. You just horn to completion. Still, here is what this book presents as a challenge: what if you live in a plentiful sex playland *and* wish to achieve clairvoyance? What if you wish to *foresee* the imminent nutting, before it pre-nuts? What if you don’t want any surprises in your life as a constant Mister Pre-Nut? Well if that describes you, you’re gonna love this book. By purchasing this book, you now wield the awesome power of…a deck of cards. Specifically, tarot cards. Which are cards bearing 1400s Italian concepts, drawn and published in their modern form in 1909. Tarot are historically interesting cards that also informed the development of regular playing cards. I earnestly think tarot cards are cool, both as a storytelling medium and as a form of fine art. However: they are so much more, according to this paperback. This book claims the tarot abound with hidden magicks. These magicks are the unlockable sex wizardry that this author holds the sexual key to, or something. How can that key be inserted (sex word!) into its lock (more of a home security word)? Here’s how: the key is to select one tarot card, and look for all the parts of the card where there are straight lines (penis) or flowers (vagina) or water (body fluids, i.e. sex water). Then, by interpreting those penises and vaginas and sex waters, one may something something something something sex.

To harness this definitely real power, the book walks us through every card in the tarot deck. As we journey through the author’s descriptions of people, we learn he thinks everybody wants to have sex right this second. They’re all lookin’ to Rider somebody’s Waite, if you know what I’m spreadin’. It’s hard to find any entry where his predictional prognosis is not “you are about to smash.” He almost gets there with the card called The Hierophant, but only because that card is a plain drawing of two Catholic monks and a Pope. Not sexy. Yet this author free-associates his way to a Sex Pope.

In real life, not everyone is having sex at every moment. You would think that would mean at least one of these cards indicates Not Sex. But no! This guy is so horny, he sees the card for Death and thinks “vagina flag, plus solar dick mesas.”

Things get far more wild whenever a tarot card is plausibly sexual. Faced with the prospect of you saying “no duh” to the card’s sexiness, Theodor digs up every hidden meaning he can. However, he only knows how to find three hidden meanings (penis, vagina, torrential onslaught of ejaculate). So some of the entries are a sweaty cycle of Theodor repeating the same three tricks, over and over again, like some kind of dog/author/gimp who you never asked to own/hire/own. Easily the messiest entry is The High Priestess. That’s a card rendered by Rider-Waite as a lady sitting between two pillars marked “B.J.”. Even the most amateur look-at-picture person could find something sexual there. Theodor goes above and beyond, and insane. He turns up two vaginas, five penises, further genitalia in numerological vibration form (?), and then tries to class up the joint by closing with a reference to “concupiscence.” I had to google that word. It did not enrich my experience of this author going on a dong-based snipe hunt.

When you see sexuality in a yawning vagina, that’s fair. But when you look at gray globes and think, “FLESH, fleshy pursuits, FULLNESS OF FLESHY APPETITES,” most people would call that too horny.

Speaking of dongs, you may be familiar with some of the suits of tarot. Such as the wands, and the swords. I know what you’re thinking: wand is penis, sword is penis. Theodor Laurence knows you are thinking that too. After all, he is a Master of The Tarot. He knows everything there is to know about The Tarot. Also, no he does not. Turns out he hasn’t Mastered which suit is which. He can’t get one sentence into his book’s introduction section without mixing up which tarot suits led to which playing card suits…

…but hey, he’s trying his best. Why don’t *you* try typing out an entire book! With one hand! Because your other hand’s gripping your wand! Anyway: phalluses. They abound in The Tarot. In order to prove you’re in the (half-occupied) hands of an expert, Theodor does not just point out these cards’ various symbol-stiffies. He goes overboard, over-reading every phallic shape in the deck. For example, you may think the card The Tower has a phallic shape. Because it is a tower. Wow: shut up. Would you shut the heck up and let a Master show you its secrets?

Another example: you may think the card The Emperor is holding a scepter. Wow: you rube. Let Theodor show you what you’re missing:

See? He’s not holding a penis! He’s holding a penis, during a specific video timecode. Duh! But also: not duh. Because these secrets have been restricted to only the mightiest of knowers, for millennia:

Heck yeah: that’s solid hokum *and* a clear claim you can’t get the goods here anyplace else. And boy howdy: what goods! The Sexual Key To The Tarot is tumescent with understandments, mystical-wise. For example: did you know the “Ouroboros” snake is sucking itself off? Or that “the sphinx identifies with conquest”? Or that the classic symbol of a “Wheel Of Fortune” is primarily a symbol of the human penis becoming hard and then soft and then hard again? Wow: you had no idea. All three of those cards were prophecies of penises ejaculating, and you were too busy wondering about every other element of your life to notice.

There’s also rich theology here for any Christian reader. Also, if you’re a Christian reader, thanks for rolling with the earlier bit where this guy’s least favorite concept in the whole world is the Pope. Your reward: the secrets of the card Temperance:

If I’m reading that right, he’s done a “Sexual Key To The Bible” version of the Covenant between God and Man after the Flood. According to this guy, Noah’s Ark both contained *and floated on* seamen. And speaking of young men: Theodor knows exactly how they talk and think. Check out his breakdown of the card The Fool. Is this some hep young people talk right here or what?

The one Major Arcana card this book does not cover in detail is The Lovers. Probably because it’s almost straight-up a “Sex” card. Theodor does achieve one layer beyond that reading, with a claim that only heterosexuality is normal.

Theodor also shares a bit more about his own life, accidentally. He appears to be way into fantasies, and appears to be old. Almost like he’s a lonely older guy, making the best of that. However: you are wrong! Is what he would say. Because when he analyzes the card called The Hermit, he makes a point of saying that old guy on the card is alone on the card because he is *so great at sex* he doesn’t need any sex or companionship or friends, thank you very much. He would definitely be having sex right now if he wanted that, though. That’s what’s going on…with the card.

Anyway that’s it! All the tarot cards, rendered in the world’s stupidest interpretation of tarot. It’s so bottomlessly dumb. I meant that thing I said before, about liking tarot. Tarot is interesting. Part of why it’s interesting is that tarot cards have (highly technical description incoming) a whole lot of stuff on them. Real dense drawings. Super intricate little doodles on those suckers. Their visual complexity, combined with symbols from all sorts of religions and mysticism, makes tarot a fun playground for your mind. If you get creative, tarot allows you to ponder every aspect of the present and future. One aspect of that present/future can be sex. But if you exclusively use these cards to think about sex, you are ignoring the entire rest of the human experience. You are zero-ing in on sex stuff, and shrinking your imagination, in the same way people and animals do whilst cranking off. If you do that, that’s fine. If you do that *and* publish that, you are…a lot of things. Chief among them, you are author Theodor Laurence. And his stupid book. With cover text written in borderline unreadable letters. Just the most pendulous, heaving font.

Wow: those letters kind of have boners. Right? Or not? Let’s say they do. As I re-read what I wrote there, I feel like it’s kind of a flimsy claim. The letters aren’t quite phallic. They’re doing more of a fiddlehead fern shape. However: I’m gonna plow ahead and call them penile. Why? Because I read an author recently who rocked my world. He taught me any author can squint, and type fast, and claim to see a million billion boners in an old thing, and then move on with their life while readers are just kind of left hanging, with no thought-through conclusion to the

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This article is brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Milly, who just drew the two feral hogs porking in an abandoned Arby’s card, and so will have success in romance.