I am sure that there are some people on this planet who know what the future holds, either by creation or by revelation. I am not one of them. However, there are many tools available to us to help discern the subtle movements of energy and causality. One of these tools is the Tarot deck.
There is a lot of exhaustive information on the internet about the history of the cards that explain it way more eloquently and thoroughly than I can so I won’t go into it here, except to say that nobody really knows how, where and why they came about! I am writing about my personal journey with the Tarot deck and offer my own interpretation of them. I do offer a more contemporary interpretation than most of the tarot interpretations I have seen, combining how they show up in our everyday lifestyle.
I have studied the Tarot for many years now. Although most books tell you to start off with the Rider Waite deck, I started off with the Thoth deck which was designed by Aleister Crowley and Freida Harris. Most people (even published authors) tell you to stay away from the deck because of the advanced, multilayered symbols within each card. They also stay away from it because of the reputation of Crowley but that is another story. Personally, I found these cards beautiful and not as scary as the Rider Waite deck which for some reason scared the hell out of me! Maybe it had to do with a childhood experience. I saw this movie called Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, which took place on a train. There was a man who was giving Tarot readings using the Rider Waite deck to tell gruesome stories that always ended with the Death card! I am sure this had some affect on me even to this day. However, I use the RW deck anyway just for a different perspective. To further my education, I became a member of the Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.) and used their version of the Tarot popularized by Paul Foster Case. He had the same tarot deck but in black and white - you were supposed to color them in so you can learn the symbolism. They recommended doing only one card a day, and being who I am, I thought “well why not two?” There is a valid reason for it - I found myself getting too tired and had a hard time focusing in.
In the mystical world, the four elements (fire, earth, air and water) play a huge role in almost any cosmology. Each of the cards are represented by one of the elements. Several of the cards are represented by the same element (for instance the Fool, and the Magician are both represented by air). In general, Air represents the intellect and communication. Fire represents the will, the life force and the creative energy. Earth represents the material plane. Water represents the intuition and the subconscious. The reason why these cards are matched up with different elements is so that we can have something tangible to relate to. They are also used in meditation and magic rituals.
There are 78 cards in the deck with 22 main cards called the Major Arcana, where “arcana” means “hidden”. Back in the day the messages of these cards where hidden to the average guy. Of course when anything is hidden, there is some rebel who decides to buck the system! They bucked the system by disguising a lot of the symbolism. Some of the images were really in the shape of letters, numbers, etc that only the initiate knew or cared about. Some people have interpreted to be the journey of man through life, as well as higher spiritual forces. In my experience, they represent images that have been consistent in the collective consciousness throughout mankind. That is why several of the images continue to manifest in this physical plane of reality whether we know the cards or not!
The tarot cards work on the level of the subconscious. You shuffle the deck, think about a question, shuffle the cards and see what the story is. Once you understand what the symbols mean, you can use your intuition to read the possible outcomes. The danger in readings is becoming too dependent on them and looking to them for specific answers. The cards are like the line in the Matrix where Morpheus says to Neo “I can only show you the door. It is you who must walk through!”
I find that the more connected you are to the cards and to your own journey, the more the cards speak to you. The more you practice and understand the symbology, the easier it is to interpret. Another way is to develop your own meditation practices. Although there are definite meditation practices using the deck, I also find that you can do your own meditative practices and will still be in sync, so to speak. You will find that when you are in sync you can shuffle the cards very well and still pull up the same cards (when that happens don’t be scared!) .
So here we go!!! I will probably revisit some things as they occur to me!
Next: The Fool
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