viable alternative then keep your prices modest and within the
range of all. Such an action communicates the inherent beneficence
and compassion that is the essence of the Higher Intelligence,
which is revealed through all true methods of divination.
The Meaning of Tarot
“Tarot” may be generally defined as any deck of 78 illustrated
cards whose imagery is said to reflect metaphysical, esoteric or
mystical symbolism that purports to relate to or represent occult
knowledge - knowledge that is not generally known by every day
Individuals or is deliberately kept secret or hidden from the
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majority of people due to a lack of correct understanding of this
knowledge and the human tendency to paint what is unknown to
them with a broad brush stroke of fear and superstition. Before any
discussion of the correct approach to reading and interpreting the
Tarot can be valid, the meaning and context of the word “Tarot”
from its historical inception to its present evolutionary status must
first be clearly understood so as no confusion can exist in the mind
of anyone who chooses to utilize Tarot practice as a method for
accelerated
self
evolution
or
practical
divination.
Despite
vainglorious claims to the contrary, the historical birth place or
point in time at which Tarot was created or who its author’
s
actually were cannot be accurately established. The most intriguing
explanation is an anecdotal story related by Paul Foster Case in
which he place great credence. According to what was passed
down to him, the Tarot originated in Pez, Morocco in the 12th
century as was the work of a group of Adepts who met there on a
yearly basis as Pez was a highly regarded intellectual and cultural
center at this time in history. Their motivation was to preserve their
knowledge and spiritual practices in the face of an increasing tide
of hostility and persecution from those who wished to erase the
past and substitute their viewpoint as the one and only truth. In
their wisdom they perceived the vulnerability of the written word
so they concealed this knowledge and spiritual practice in the
images illustrating a deck of common cards so as to insure its safe
transmission to other epochs and grant access to all who sought to
decode and understand its images. In European civilization, most
of what we actually know in this matter comes from the historical
records of earlier ages. As the story goes, a French writer, named
Court de Gebelin, was preparing a manuscript contrasting
primitive and modern societies. While attending a party one night
he observed a group of people playing a game of cards. He walked
over the table where the game was being played and observed that
the game was being conducted with cards upon which were drawn
very strange symbols and images. Upon closer examination his
immediate intuition was that the symbols and images painted on
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the cards were of ancient Egyptian origin and constituted the occult
knowledge of the priest kings of Thoth - the Egyptian God of
magic, science and learning - and thus were a repository of ancient
wisdom sent forward to us by this ancient and highly religious
civilization. When he published his observations and conclusions
the Tarot entered written history and from this time forward
became a subject of the most intense interest and study
to
individuals of
the highest intellectual and moral character as
well as being used by many in an attempt to understand their
present circumstances or to pierce the veil of time and gain
knowledge of the future. Within two years after its historical
“coming out” another individual named Jean-Baptiste Alliette
(often referred to as “Etteilla”) published a manuscript in which he
outlined a practice for reading the Tarot utilizing the techniques of
cartomancy, (fortune telling through using a deck of cards) a
practice which was prevalent at the time and to which he adapted
the Tarot. In 1791, he even issued his own Tarot deck specifically
for use in divination and other occult purposes. Tarot decks had
also become popular among the aristocracy and many were
produced on commission by individual artists and were illustrated
with exquisite and beautiful symbolism. These commissioned
decks were used in card games played for amusement and
wagering. It is interesting to note that our modern deck of 52
playing cards is derived from these earlier Tarot decks.
After several hundred years of diversification and usage the Tarot
entered the spiritual current known as the Golden Dawn, an
English fraternity of mystics and occultists who practiced the arts
of ceremonial magic, divination, alchemy and astrology. From this
spiritual nexus emerged three Tarot decks: The Rider-Waite-Smith
Tarot (supervised by Dr. Arthur Edward Waite and drawn by
Pamela Coleman Smith); The Thoth Tarot (supervised by Aleister
Crowley and drawn by Lady Frieda Harris) and the BOTA
(Builders of the Adytum) deck (supervised by Paul Foster Case).
Each of these decks incorporated to a greater or lesser degree
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symbolism from the primary spiritual currents influencing the
Golden Dawn and formed the foundation for Tarot usage prior to
the computer age and the development of modern graphic and
communication technology. With the emergence of computers that
could calculate complex mathematical formulas and quickly create
on a screen what have taken many weeks for an individual artist to
accomplish by hand in prior centuries there emerged an explosion
of new and ornate decks all of which reside under the general
umbrella of “Tarot”. While some of these decks are faithful to the
Golden Dawn tradition in a greater or lesser degree, many are
solely the creations of the imaginations of
individual authors
whose illustrations along with whatever instructions or viewpoint
underlies their images represent their individual point or view on
the meaning and application of esoteric or occult knowledge. Many
of these decks are of exquisite beauty and rise to the level of
genius in the quality of their illustrations but these decks are not
the focus of our study, which will reserve itself to Tarot decks that
in a greater degree reflect the Golden Dawn spiritual current and
the influences that were acting upon it. The images of the Rider –
Waite –Smith Tarot will be used in this work as these images
provide the greatest clarity when discussing the Tarot spiritual
philosophy and the various correspondences (such as Astrology
and Numerology) that are associated with the symbols and images
on the individual Tarot cards.
THE PRINCIPAL SPIRITUAL CURRENTS
We will first examine the historical spi
ritual influences that acted
upon the Golden Dawn and in whose fires were forged the Tarot
decks that emerged from their work and came forward in time to
our epoch. A broad diversity of spiritual influences and practices
influenced the work of the Golden Dawn and contributed to the
Tarot decks that emerged from their society and an understanding
of them is crucial to forming a solid foundation upon which greater
knowledge and proficiency can be acquired by the individual who
wishes to study and utilize the Tarot in evolving their own life or
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to aid other human individuals with problems encountered along
the path of their own personal spiritual evolution.
Ceremonial Magic
The ancestral practice of divination began as an act of spiritual
magic – a means of entering into a relationship with an unseen
world whose forces influenced the destinies of human individuals
and which was regarded as being as real as the natural world even
though it could only be perceived by those individuals who had
developed their psychic senses and entered into a personal
relationship with it. Since a relationship with this unseen
dimension of existence was vital to their survival, following the
most fundamental law of Nature, the law of self preservation,
primitive and traditional societies evolved rituals surrounding
contact with this spiritual dimension of being. These unseen
dimensions were considered to be of the “Holy”and formed the
one of the foundations of primitive and traditional spiritual
practices. So to in the spiritual practices of the Golden Dawn
magical practice empowered and sanctified the ritual of divination
which was considered to be a method of attaining contact with a
spiritual dimension of the Universe or, from another point of view,
with the Root Intelligence or its Intermediaries (such as Angels).
The Ancient Mystery Traditions
The essential difference between ancient and modern spiritual
practice was that ancient practice was based on the experience of
the “Holy” and modern practice is a faith based belief of the
existence of the “Holy.” The ancient spiritual practices led the
individual to a direct experience of the Divine. This experience
instilled a certainty within the individual that could not be
contradicted by any rational argument. As a practical example
most individuals would consider the act of eating good food to be
pleasurable. If someone attempted to convince them that the act of
eating good food was not pleasurable they would reject this
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argument based on their direct experience of the pleasurable nature
of eating good food. The same principal applies to the experience
of the “Holy” in the mystery tradition. The “Holy” was the
Mystery and once directly experienced was accepted as profoundly
real – as real as any natural experience of the five senses. In the
ancient tradition both the psychic, spiritual and the material were
considered equally real and necessary for life. Unlike our current
culture, whose purpose often seems to be, in the words of Bill
Butler, author of “The Dictionary of the Tarot” “The endless
acquisition of material things far beyond any necessity of survival”
they did not attempt to devalue and undermine the spiritual in the
name of the material but rather revered and valued the spiritual in
its own right and in all its manifestations. There was a suitable
place for both dimensions of being in natural life.
Hermeticism
Some sources trace the origin of Hermetic spirituality back to the
priest kings of the ancient Egyptians while others place its origin in
a semi mythological figure honored as Hermes Trismegistus
(Hermes the Thrice Great) who lived in early Greece. Hermeticism
may be viewed as a natural religion or spiritual path that reflects
living in accord with the principals instilled by the Creator into the
Universe itself and whose principals form the foundation of this
spiritual tradition. A creation story is told by the Divine
Intelligence to Hermes (the mythical founder of Hermeticism) in
the first book of the Corpus Hermeticum. It begins when the
Divine Intelligence, by an act of will, creates out of Itself the
primary matter that was to constitute the cosmos. From primary
matter the Divine Intelligence then separated the four elements of
Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The Divine Intelligence then ordered
the elements into the seven heavens - often held to be the
symbolized by the spheres of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, the Sun and the Moon - which govern consciousness
and astrological destiny. The Hermetic tradition is both a moderate
and flexible path offering a tolerant philosophical viewpoint, an
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omnipresent, omnipotent and Beneficent Divine Intelligence and a
purified perception of the Spirit, the Cosmos and the Self.
The Rosicrucian Philosophy
Rosicrucianism is a religious philosophy whose origin is traced
from the legend of a German doctor and mystic philosopher
referred to as Christian Rosenkruez or "Rose-Cross" The year 1378
is considered to be the date of his birth and he is reputed to have
under various masters possibly adhering to Sufism but was unable
to spread the knowledge he had acquired to any prominent
European figures. Instead, he gathered around him a small circle of
friends and disciples and founded the Rosicrucian Order around
the year 1407. During Rosenkreuz's lifetime, the Order was said to
consist of no more than eight members, each a doctor and a
sworn bachelor. Each member undertook an oath to heal the sick
without payment, to maintain a secret fellowship and to find a
replacement before he died. The principal influence of Rosicrucian
philosophy on the Tarot was the contribution of its rich symbolism
to the Major Cards. The Order is symbolized by the rose (the soul)
and the cross (the body). The unfolding rose represents the human
soul acquiring greater consciousness while living in a body (the
cross) on the material plane.
Angels
“Reality,” in the scientific sense prevalent in the modern world,
could be loosely defined by the statement:”That which cannot be
perceived or experienced by the senses or detected by instruments
(sense extensions) does not exist.”Although this viewpoint forms
the basis of modern science when we really examine it more
closely the utter absurdity of such a statement becomes clear given
the infinite scope and complexity of Nature manifested as the
Universe. It is more conceivable that the Consciousness Principal
itself is empirical and inherent in the Universe and embodies itself
in other forms of life which do not meet our narrow “scientific”
definition of reality, consciousness or of life itself.
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Astrology
Astrology is one of the first spiritual expressions through which
man attempted to discover the meaning of his existence and his
place in the universe and how to relate to the higher dimension of
consciousness that he intuitively knew to exist. The goal of
Astrology is to establish the link between man and this Cosmic
Consciousness through divination based on Natal Charts. It opens
up a channel of communication through which the Cosmic Soul (or
whatever name that might be appended to the living reality of the
Divine Intelligence) so that it can communicate with its own
creations.
Numerology
To the ancients, numbers had a greater meaning than in the strict
mathematical sense and were held to express truths of the
underlying framework and principals which constituted life and
determined its course and outcome. Numbers are very important in
the act of Tarot divination and an exploration of the meanings
associated with each number precedes every numerical division of
the deck within the main body of this work.
The Four Elements
In the study and practical usage of the Tarot many references will
be encountered to the four elements of the ancient world – Fire,
Water, Air and Earth. These elements have several levels of
meaning in their application to the correct usage of the Tarot and a
correct understanding of its spiritual philosophy.
It is therefore
necessary to gain a correct understanding of what is meant by the
“four elements” as the correct application of this understanding
greatly enhances the effective usage of the Tarot in practical
divination. When we speak of the “four elements” we are not
referring to the physical manifestations in Nature - of the active
oxidation of fire; the fluidic wetness of water; the air of the
planetary atmosphere or the earth beneath our feet. Rather, these
terms relate to aspects of our human consciousness in its four fold
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nature – Fire being a metaphor for the Will; Water standing for the
emotions and imagination; Air representing the process of thought