Tarot Life (11 book series)

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TAROT LIFE MONTH 1 DISCOVER YOUR DESTINY Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin

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CONTENTS Introduction Changing Your Life The Key Stones to Tarot Life Discover Your Destiny Card The Destiny Path Method Conclusion Bibliography Websites & Resources

TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE

A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year. Introduction In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given. You can start at any time, although New Year, your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a closed Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

Changing Your Life “When you’re at the beginning, don’t obsess about the middle, because the middle is going to look different once you get there. Just look for a strong beginning and a strong ending and get moving”. Chip & Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard (2010) p. 93. In the practice of change, the most important element is Will. A single-minded direction, focused in laser-like intensity, can carve out a life beyond what you can yet imagine. In this year-long practice, you are going to use the Tarot as a living lens to focus your will, in a series of gates, or spreads, which build and join together to accomplish more than the sum of their parts. However, it also has to be easy and accessible – for some parts of your brain are geared to choose the easiest and most habitual option. So we have designed this practice to be interesting, engaging, and a lot lighter on the surface than the deep changes it will cause. It is also essential to have stepped and possible actions which lead to the desired change – a reason that gated spreads are designed to feed from activity rather than vague questions about an imagined future. The cards will become living signposts and be present in your everyday activity, guiding you and leading you – the very essence of Tarosophy; Tarot to engage life, not escape it. We will also be teaching you some interesting aspects of Tarot along the way, so get ready for something quite special as you follow the spreads every month, taking us from discovering your destiny to the depths of divininty.

Take a moment to think about what you first wanted to be when you were young – whether that was an astronaut or a nurse, an explorer or a lorry driver, a mother, or a businesswoman. What is the essential value of that profession to you – what is at its core? These are the questions we will be asking through the tarot as we progress to create a tarot life for ourselves over the year. You may already wonder which of the Court Cards your early childhood professional ambition belongs to? Did you want to grow up to be a Queen of Cups or a Knight of Swords? These are fundamental patterns written into our very being, and you are about to experience how Tarot can unlock them and open the gates of possibility once more. The Key Stones to Tarot Life “Most of us keep on making blunders, in spite of what we sincerely believe to be our best intentions. What we are really doing, under these conditions, is functioning wrong side out”. Muriel Bruce Hasbrouck, Pursuit of Destiny (1949) pp. 33-4. If you have never read Tarot before, here are some useful keywords with which to build your readings. We will show you how to use these in general readings as well as for Tarot Life itself. If you have any experience in reading tarot, you may like to utilize these particular aspects of the cards, as they may be new to you. We are particularly interested in the way in which the cards describe our personal energies and patterns, so have used the key words provided by Muriel Bruce Hasbrouck (1890 – 1981) in a lesserknown book entitled Pursuit of Destiny, written in 1941. You can find out the details of this book, and others we have referenced, in the bibliography of each pamphlet in this series. Hasbrouck was a student of both Aleister Crowley and Paul Foster Case and her work is dedicated to these two and “Pulch”, Charles

Lazenby – who was associated with the “ten-day cycle” concept of her book. Hasbrouck also had correspondence with Israel Regardie, who provided her Book T Tarot materials and Kabbalah information from the Golden Dawn. She further developed a model of Space-Time Forecasting, which she and her husband utilized to provide stock market predictions. Interestingly, her idea of 36-year cycles of financial turmoil, which she wrote about in the 1970’s, would have planted the next turbulent time in 2009, i.e. the exact middle of the “credit crunch” crisis. As we can now see that happened, we suggest with only a little tongue-in-cheek that we start preparing for 2045, the next financial upheaval predicted in this model. So here are Hasbrouck’s correspondences and key-words, to which we have added Court Cards and Aces for convenience. These were not necessary in her book as it dealt with the Decans only. We have also added keywords for the Majors for beginners who may not have Tarot Flip, which gives keywords for all cards based on a survey of hundreds of experienced readers. The Qualities of the Four Elements/Suits Pentacles/Earth Swords/Air Cups/Water Wands/Fire

Practical Sense Mentality (Thinking) Flexibility (Emotions) Dynamic Energy (Imagination)

The Ten Numbers/Potentials Ace Two Three Four

Inspiration, Innovation, Originality Initiative, Adaptability, Uncertainty Determination, Intensity, pride Stability, order, restriction.

Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten

Activity, power, opposition. Ambition, leadership, egocentricity. Versatility, dominance, fear. Sagacity, prudence, shortsightedness. Forcefulness, capability, obstinacy. Persistence, conservatism, self-will.

The Seven Frequencies of the Planets Mars Sun Venus Mercury Moon Saturn Jupiter

desire for action; energy, impulsiveness. desire to achieve; ambition, pride. desire to create; productivity, extravagance. desire to reason; sagacity, cunning. desire for change; adaptability, instability. desire to integrate; constructiveness, intensity. desire to stabilize; order, caution.

The Four Powers/Energies of the Courts Pages Knights Queens Kings

Crystallizing, Absorbing, Counterbalancing Active, Manifesting Receptive, Fermenting, Transmitting, Enduring Swift, Violent, Transient, Rushing

If you are using a Thoth deck or similar, you may find these cards are labeled in order as above as Princess, Prince, Queen and Knight. We have used the keywords from Crowley in this case to accord with our theme of will-power and the structure from which Hasbrouck was also working. The Keywords for the Major Arcana

I: Magician - Success II: High Priestess - Revelation III: Empress - Cultivation IV: Emperor - Endurance V: Hierophant - Teaching VI: Lovers - Union VII: Chariot - Momentum VIII: Strength - Action IX: Hermit -Solitude X: Wheel - Movement XI: Justice - Accuracy XII: Hanged Man - Surrender XIII: Death - Life XIV: Temperance - Assessment XV: Devil - Withholding XVI: Blasted Tower - Acceleration XVII: Star - Enlightenment XVIII: Moon - Ignorance XIX: Sun - Demonstration XX: Last Judgment - Awakening XXI: World - Beginning 0: Fool - Frivolity A Simple Method for Beginners Throughout the year, you may want to carry out readings for yourself or others. Here is a simple method for general purposes – and we will provide other methods as you progress during the year. Shuffle the deck and select out three cards. Lay these face up from right to left. The first card on your left is what will happen given no

changes to the situation; the second (middle) card indicates something the tarot is telling you that you could do to make changes; the third card on your right is what will happen if you make those changes. That is to say: 1. What Will Happen. 2. What You Can Do. 3. What Will Change. This spread is very suitable for the keywords we are using in Tarot Life and for general readings. Here is an example reading of this spread. Should I do anything about X who may cause me trouble? 1. What Will Happen – King of Wands 2. What You Can Do – 6 of Swords 3. What Will Change – V The Hierophant Here we immediately see that what will happen is that the energy will remain combustive but however be short-lived; a violent and expressive aggression which comes to nothing permanent. What can be done, is balanced reason, movement and exploration. Perhaps expose the situation in clear light whilst moving steadily forward oneself. It should also be seen in the Waite-Smith image of this card that I must tale everyone else with me! If I take the action – which seems advised in this case – the Hierophant will emerge. I will maintain a teaching position and preserve a tradition, perhaps even a sacred trust. This spread can be very useful and very practical. It ensures that one either takes action or not, but even if not, it is a willed decision.

Discover Your Destiny Card We begin our Tarot Life with discovering our destiny card. This is the card which is linked with your birth date. In Astrology, there is a concept known as Decans which splits the year into 36 sets of 10 degrees, making a full circle of 360 degrees. Through the magic of correspondence, we can associate the Tarot cards of the Minors, from Two to Ten in each of the four suits (9 cards in 4 suits is 36 cards) to each of the 36 Decans. We then look at which Decan your birth falls into and discover the associated Tarot card. Whilst this is reasonably common knowledge in tarot circles (see Who Are You in the Tarot in the bibliography) we here give it a new twist and particularly use the aspect of personal will within the cards – to turn your fate into your destiny. Sidenote to advanced students: We have used the Chaldean Decans. The 36 Decans: Zodiacal Signs and Planets Aries 1 Aries 2 Aries 3 Taurus 1 Taurus 2 Taurus 3 Gemini 1 Gemini 2 Gemini 3 Cancer 1 Cancer 2 Cancer 3 Leo 1 Leo 2

Mars Sun Venus Mercury Moon Saturn Jupiter Mars Sun Venus Mercury Moon Saturn Jupiter

21st - 30th March 31st March - 9th April 10th - 20th April 21st - 30th April 1st - 10th May 11th - 21st May 22nd - 31st May 1st - 10th June 11th - 21st June 22nd June - 1st July 2nd - 12th July 13th - 22nd July 23rd July - 1st August 2nd - 12th August

Leo 3 Virgo 1 Virgo 2 Virgo 3 Libra 1 Libra 2 Libra 3 Scorpio 1 Scorpio 2 Scorpio 3 Sagittarius 1 Sagittarius 2 Sagittarius 3 Capricorn 1 Capricorn 2 Capricorn 3 Aquarius 1 Aquarius 2 Aquarius 3 Pisces 1 Pisces 2 Pisces 3

Mars Sun

13th - 23rd August 24th August September Venus 4th - 13th September Mercury 14th - 22nd September Moon 23rd September October Saturn 4th - 13th October Jupiter 14th - 23rd October Mars 24th October November Sun 3rd - 12th November Venus 13th - 22nd November Mercury 23rd November December Moon 3rd - 12th December

3rd

3rd

2nd

2nd

Saturn

13th - 21st December

Jupiter

22nd - 31st December

Mars

1st - 10th January

Sun

11th - 20th January

Venus Mercury Moon Saturn Jupiter Mars

21st - 29th January 30th January - 8th February 9th - 18th February 19th - 29th February 1st - 10th March 11th - 20th March

The 36 Decans: Tarot Card Correspondences

21st - 30th March 31st March - 9th April 10th - 20th April 21st - 30th April 1st - 10th May 11th - 21st May 22nd - 31st May 1st - 10th June 11th - 21st June 22nd June - 1st July 2nd - 12th July 13th - 22nd July 23rd July - 1st August 2nd - 12th August 13th - 23rd August 24th August 3rd September 4th - 13th September 14th - 22nd September 23rd September - 3rd October 4th - 13th October 14th - 23rd October 24th October - 2nd November 3rd - 12th November 13th - 22nd November 23rd November - 2nd December 3rd - 12th December 13th - 21st December 22nd - 31st December 1st - 10th January

2 of Wands 3 of Wands 4 of Wands 5 of Pentacles 6 of Pentacles 7 of Pentacles 8 of Swords 9 of Swords 10 of Swords 2 of Cups 3 of Cups 4 of Cups 5 of Wands 6 of Wands 7 of Wands 8 of Pentacles 9 of Pentacles 10 of Pentacles 2 of Swords 3 of Swords 4 of Swords 5 of Cups 6 of Cups 7 of Cups 8 of Wands 9 of Wands 10 of Wands 2 of Pentacles 3 of Pentacles

11th - 20th January 21st - 29th January 30th January February 9th - 18th February 19th - 29th February 1st - 10th March 11th - 20th March

4 of Pentacles 5 of Swords 8th 6 of Swords 7 of Swords 8 of Cups 9 of Cups 10 of Cups

Based on these tables you can now derive your Decan (Zodiacal + Planet) and corresponding Tarot card. As an example, if you were born January 27th, you would be Decan Aquarius 1/Venus and your Decan Card the 5 of Swords. If you were born on the start/end date of a particular Decan, it may be possible that you fall into the preceding or following Decan. Work through the characteristics/cards of both and judge which is more applicable – you will be clearly in one Decan. If I were born on 31st May, it could be that I am in Gemini 1 or Gemini 2, for example. I might discover that actually the card for Gemini 2, the 9 of Swords, fits better than the preceding 8 of Swords. The Assessment To assess what your correspondences create as a key-stone for your destiny in life, simply place the key-words for your Decan Card together as follows. If you were born on the 23rd of June for example, you would hold the 2 of Cups as your Destiny card. This is read as 2 + Cups, so 2 holds the potentials of; Initiative, Adaptability, Uncertainty and Cups is the Quality of Flexibility and Emotions. Your Frequency is then determined by the planet of the Decan, in this above case, Venus; the desire to create; leading to productivity, and possible extravagance.

Taking these all together, we would see your destiny as extremely creative, taking emotional initiative and adapting to whatever situations you find in life. You may be prone to uncertainty and extravagance in overdoing things when you are unsure. Charting Your Destiny Path In Tarot Life, the twelve monthly steps are based on the twelve zodiacal principles and their corresponding tarot cards. This first step corresponds to Aries and the tarot card of the Emperor. In our Tarot Flip book, we saw the Emperor as Power and Endurance, qualities of Will. However, the Aries energy is basically all “do” and no “direction”. It is like the horns of the Ram pointed forward to butt into anything in its way – although the eyes of the ram are now down to the ground and it cannot see where it is going! So we take these concepts together, with the latest research into successful planning and action, sprinkle a little bit of Thelema (the Greek for “Will” and a philosophy of life championed by the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley) onto the mix, and produce this simple but powerful method. You should practice this method for one month, as it will build up the keystone for following Tarot Life practices. The Destiny Path You will require a deck not used for any other purpose during the month for this method. Any deck can be used, although recommended is a Thoth deck, a Liber T: Stars Eternal or any deck which is direct and straightforward to you personally. 1. Take your Decan Destiny Card out of your pack. Place this someone where you will have space over the month, such as a table or floor area not likely to be disturbed. Place it at the far end away

from you, leaving space below it. This is the card to which we will continually aim over the month. If this is impractical, simply follow the instructions with cards, but draw them as they build up on a single sheet of paper, so you do not have to leave your cards out. 2. Consider your Destiny Card every morning. Research its qualities, perhaps, or allow your intuition to consider the image of the card. Take this card and consolidate it as representing your destiny; your true position and direction in life. 3. At the end of each day, for one month, sit again in front of your card and shuffle the rest of the deck. Reflect on the day and pick two events that represent the most extremes of the “destiny scale”; when you felt most as if what you were doing was what you were uniquely and absolutely born to do, and at the other end of the scale, a moment you would rather have been doing anything else than that particular thing. 4. Take two cards from the deck and place them side-by-side. These two cards give you a message about how you can better meet your destiny the following day; the one on the left signifies how you can avoid being stuck in what is away from your path, and on the right, how you can better gravitate to what is closer to your path. 5. Now for the literal twist in this method. Angle the card on the left to whatever degree you feel that day you were away from your destiny. If for example, you felt stuck in a dead-end job and it had little to do with your skills or ambitions, you would angle the card almost 90 degrees to the left, setting it on its side. If you felt that you had actually managed to walk away from something that was not your path, and done it really well, you would leave the card straight. Similarly, for the right-hand card, do the same, angling it to the right to the extent that you feel you missed out on what felt right that day. Perhaps you turned down something that now feels as if it were a

calling, so you would angle the card at a 45 degree angle, or even a total 90 degree right angle if it were a big miss. If, however, you feel that you stuck to what felt right to your destiny card and calling during the day, you would leave the card straight. Now each day, you are going to repeat this exercise, however, you must lay the next pair of cards to follow the previous ones – life is a continual linked series of actions, and one leads to another. We do not give ourselves the luxury of an imagined reset button in Tarot Life. As you progress, either laying down the cards and leaving them, or angling the pair of the day and drawing it onto your sheet, you will build up a pattern – your destiny path.

If you are pulling a pair of cards and drawing their positions on a sheet of paper, do not return the cards to the pile, leave them separate until the month is over and you can return your deck to one piece. Your destiny path is not just something waiting for you, it is something you are building right now and every moment. This method makes that clear to you and establishes the first lens by which we start to see our Tarot Life in full.

The aim is obviously to create a perfectly straight pillar of two parallel lines. The worst situation would be two coiling spirals of tilted cards, out-of-control and looking like the swirls on the two horns of a ram. In performing this exercise every day for your first month of the Tarot Life, you will gently reprogram your brain and awareness to notice your calling more in every moment. Whether you are truly aware of your calling does not yet matter – we will come to this later. First we establish our keystone, and make steps to notice it and call it to our awareness. Important Note: You will need to record the cards drawn and how they were laid out for further work later in Tarot Life. The pairs of cards for each day can be read with the keywords we have provided here or your usual reading method. If you are an absolute beginner you may like our beginners booklet, Tarot Flip, to provide interpretations derived from hundreds of experienced readers. You can also join the Tarot Life Facebook group to ask questions and discuss this exercise. A link is given in the appendix. An Example Destiny Path Here are the first few days of a Destiny Path towards the Destiny Card of the 2 of Cups as given in the previous example. On Day 1 I did nothing creative or innovative as I kept getting into disagreements at work which came to nothing in the end. I contemplate the day whilst looking at my Destiny Card and shuffling the rest of the deck. I pull two cards and turn my left-hand card on its side completely – as I have not made a promising start. As I did then spend some time in the evening doing some painting, which whilst domestic had some

aspect of creativity, I place the right-hand card just slightly tilted – almost straight. The left-hand card is the Empress and the right-hand card is the 8 of Wands. This leads me to believe that I must cultivate a better attitude to stay away from things that lead me away from my path. I should look to grow my own metaphorical garden and not go trying to weed out others. I resolve the following day to attend only to what I can develop or will lead to something being cultivated. The 8 of Wands suggests that tomorrow I should be far more active and mobile with regard to pursuing my callings – I should communicate, travel, send out signals. I resolve to send at least one email with regard to a trip I have been thinking of taking to an art gallery in the next state. On Day 2, I consider my 2 of Cups in the morning and set off with the advice of the Empress and the 8 of Wands. I have a far better day – in fact, with the time I suddenly have by not interfering with other people’s business, I discover in conversation with a colleague that she also is interested in the gallery exhibition. I send the email not only for the exhibition, but to the local art society of which my colleague told me about, to arrange a group trip. This is far more what I feel is my calling. When I get home I cannot wait to lay out the cards as I feel they can both be laid out straight and narrow. The two cards are the 5 of Swords and the Queen of Wands. I look these up in my Keywords and find that the 5 of Swords is Activity and Power + Mentality. I resolve the next day to do some serious thinking and not leap into any decision without such activity. The card suggests this will pull me away from my path tomorrow. Likewise for the Queen of Wands, I see that I am advised to be receptive in my imagination tomorrow. This will lead me closer to my destiny, if I spend time musing and contemplating. This fits well with the other card.

Each day the pair of cards will advise for the following day, whilst creating a record of how you are keeping on the straight and narrow towards your destiny card. When you have completed a month you should have at most 31 pairs of cards in your journal and a good shape to your path. You will then be ready to take the next gate, which can only be unlocked by the results of having completed this first gate.

Conclusion In the following eleven booklets in this series, we will build on our progress in the first month, next discovering how to remove the blocks that may surface along the way. It is important to the process that you undertake the exercises, and we have an optional Facebook group listed in the appendix where you can share and discuss your experiences, ask questions and gain support. We have also provided in the final section a list of reading materials and website resources to discover more in the very best of Tarot and Tarosophy®. In this series, released monthly over 2013: 1. Discover Your Destiny 2. Remove The Blocks 3. Make Decisions Better 4. Enter the Flow 5. Ride the Lion 6. Connect to Service 7. Find Your Equality 8. Die To Your Old Self 9. Entering Unity 10. Becoming the Real 11. Your Keys to Freedom 12. The Depth of Divinity What Follows Next Month In next month’s Tarot Life, we deal with our blocks, thresholds and buffers – all the dwellers that come to attention when we try and move forward in a straight line. First we awake them, by attempting to steer our course straight, then we incorporate and utilize them, as we will see in the next volume, Remove the Blocks.

Bibliography Assagiolo, Roberto, The Act of Will. Wellingborough: Turnstone Press, 1984. Baumeister, Roy F. & Tierney, John, Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength. London: Allen Lane, 2011. Heath, Chip & Dan, Switch: How To Change Things When Change is Hard. London: Random House Business Books, 2011. Hasbrouck, Muriel Bruce, Pursuit of Destiny. London: John Gifford Ltd, 1949. McGonigal, Kelly, The Willpower Instinct. New York: Avery, 2012. On The Decans, see: http://www.bendykes.com/articles/decans.php

TAROT LIFE MONTH 2 REMOVE THE BLOCKS Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Authors Note: This is Month 2 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Month 1 booklet “Discover Your Destiny” to follow the sequence over the year. Some of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of self-discovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

INDEX Introduction Removing the Blocks A Simple Method for Beginners

4 5 6

The Cards as Blocks The Active Divination Method

10 37

Conclusion

40

Bibliography Websites & Resources

44 45

TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE

A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year. Introduction In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given. You can start at any time, although New Year, your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a closed Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

Removing the Blocks “The first injunction inscribed on the walls of the Institute is ‘believe nothing, not even yourself’”. G. I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World (1984) p. 200-201. Whilst we began to examine the nature of Will in the first booklet, corresponding to the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, and the corresponding tarot card, the Emperor, we turn now to the nature of belief. This corresponds to Taurus, the next sign of the zodiac, and the card of the Hierophant. When we begin to change, we challenge our own beliefs. It was therefore important to spend a month trying to steer ourselves to our destiny, even somewhat blindly, so we could experience the challenges of our environment and beliefs. Too many people start by planning, resolving to do better, having ambitions, and so forth, without ever doing – like the Crayfish on the Moon card – whereas we know that from doing comes everything. So we have spent a month trying to do things that accord with our Will, and now we likely consider ourselves somewhat lacking or perhaps actually content with our progress. Or maybe a mixture. Now we can divine, we can discover more, and begin to set the foundations (Taurus) for a stable growth (Earth) ahead. The secrets of successful action and creation are not only hidden in the cards, but their patterns and sequences, and their correspondences to other systems – including life itself. This is what we mean by Tarot Life. Every day is a “reading”, every event is an “image”. Every decision and thought is an “interpretation”. We are already divining our life – now, with the Hierophant, we will learn what we call “active divination”.

Firstly we will present a simple spread/method based on blocks. A Simple Method for Beginners In our first book of this series, we gave a simple method for reading which could be used for general purposes. In this book, we offer another method for beginner use, based on blocks. It is a useful sixcard reading we have found for people in stuck situations (you can also consider the “Next Step” method in Tarosophy). Ask the Querent, Client or Yourself to consider the situation in which you are blocked. Shuffle your deck. Lay the deck face-down. Take the TOP CARD and turn it face-up. This card is your DISTRACTION card. It tells you how you can overcome the block by distracting yourself in another manner. In distracting yourself away from the current situation, whilst at the same time working cleverly to overcome the block, you avoid self-sabotage. We will see how this works in a real situation shortly. Then take the BOTTOM card and turn it face up, putting it next to the top card (it does not matter how you arrange these two cards). This second card is your UTILIZATION card. It shows you how you can utilize the current block into a powerful spur or starting block for further progress. We do not “remove” the blocks in our life – we have them for a reason – we observe, recognize, incorporate and utilize them! Next take the solid block of remaining 76 cards and consider that these represent the whole block on this situation or aspect of your life. Really get a sense of the block itself, stuck as a solid set of 76 cards stuck together, unmoving and non-resolvable.

Take a deep breath (because the cards are still moving in an infinite number of patterns until you take the moment to lay them out) and split the deck as equally as you can into two piles, lifting the top-half of the deck up and placing it to the left, about two card-widths away. Consider this is showing you that you can indeed do something – you can split your block into two equal piles. Nothing has changed, other than the way you see it. It is now two smaller blocks. Next take another deep breath and – because if you can do it once, you can likely do it again – split the two decks into half again, laying the resulting top halves to the left of the original two piles. You should now have four roughly equal piles of the deck. Turn all four piles face-up to view what is the bottom card of the upturned piles. These four cards represent: 1. How to Partition the Block 2. How to Progress through the Block 3. How to Begin to Change the Block 4. How to Orientate to the Simplest Solution of the Block This spread is very suitable for the keywords we gave in Tarot Life Book 1 and for general readings. I find it useful if I use the Tarot of the New Vision, which has an interesting perspective on the usual tarot images, by drawing the standard Waite-Smith design as if you were viewing the card from behind the subject. This deck is useful for giving new perspectives to even the most jaundiced reader or pessimistic client. Here is a real reading using this spread. How do I work with the block I have about Project X? Distraction: 9 of Cups

Utilization: 5 of Pentacles In these first two cards, there is already a surprise and new information for the querent. The 9 of Cups in the Tarot of the New Vision shows what is going on behind the drapes shown on the usual Waite-Smith card. Three children are seen playing and eating a snack. They are totally lost in the playful moment, secure in the knowledge that everyone has forgotten about them, yet they are safe. This shows the Querent that their distraction is to find the playfulness and enjoyment for its own sake in their work. Rather than face their block as a challenge or obstacle, just ignore it and start playing. You might as well watch the stars when a hole in your roof has just fallen through. This is combined powerfully and elegantly with the 5 of Pentacles, which shows how the Querent can utilize the block. In this deck, the card shows inside the building depicted from the outside on the usual Waite-Smith deck. We see an impoverished figure – perhaps one of those outside in the regular image – caring for a child. His crutch is leaning on the wall. It tells the client that they can utilize their block by demonstrating compassion. If they can hold “grace under fire”, they may earn respect and recognition in some future role or situation. It is a test of their character and their ability to think of others, even whilst their own situation is blocked and they feel “impoverished”. These two cards already start to form an action plan for the Querent, as they formulate a response. In a sense, these cards provide a dynamic pair, leading to empowerment, much like the pairs of cards we saw last month in our Destiny Path method. We now look at the other four positions when we turn the four split piles face-up: Partition: The Empress (III)

Progress: 3 of Pentacles Change: Temperance (XIV) Orientation: 2 of Wands The partition card shows (again) children playing behind the Empress. As we are viewing the card from inside out, we look beyond the Empress to see that she is looking out to an open garden gate and a path leading gently up a hill. It tells our querent that he should “put his house in order” first, as a first step. He should find time to make a partition – a gate as we see in the image – to allow time to play (as we saw in the distraction card). There is a sense that he must cordon off time and gain security in doing so. Perhaps he should tell his employer that he is not working late all the time. The Progress card picks up the theme of work/play, here with the 3 of Disks showing clearly that the Querent must make progress by recognizing what he is learning, the skills and experience he is acquiring. A wagon seen in the distance in this deck shows that his skills may not be used now, but there is another journey to come. In the Temperance card next in the position of Change, we see a symbol of alchemy, the nature of which is also depicted on the Thoth Tarot by Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris – who renamed the card to “Art”. The suggestion of change is that “what does not kill me makes me stronger”, or that the person’s block is actually preparing them for change. This confirms the other cards, and that the block is actually a limited belief that the present situation is an end to itself, not part of a larger situation. To orientate to this new information, the Querent has received the 2 of Wands. This shows the simple task of planning ahead, of utilizing one’s experience to look at the big picture – the figure in the card on many decks holds a globe. The block then, is not thinking big

enough or beyond the present situation. When one orientates to this truth, the block simply vanishes.

The Cards as Blocks in Tarot Life “When we split off parts of ourselves, active mechanisms keep them in places. Gurdjieff called these mechanisms buffers”. Charles Tart, Waking Up (1988) p. 131. To practice active divination this month we are going to use the cards as representations of positive and negative qualities which we block, to our gain or detriment in our daily life. In Around the Tarot in 78 Days, we presented a small section on each card entitled “How You Block This Card”. Whilst only a comparatively small section in that book, it is extremely important in our wider work with Tarot and you’re about to learn why we hid it there. All the “full deck of possibilities” is presented to us every day, however for our sanity we have to block/filter out much of it, both consciously and unconsciously. You may notice your dreams intensifying during this month’s practice, by the way. Some of this “blocking” results in habitual states of thought that limit us, constrain us and cause confusion or conflict. We begin to break up into “different selves” to hold each of these different states. When someone loses their temper and afterwards says “that just wasn’t like me” we are seeing this in action. The “buffers” that hold these blocks and filters in place actually function through well-recognised psychological mechanisms. These are such things as simple lying, denial (“I wasn’t myself when I did it”), suppression, repression, projection (“It’s just authority that annoys me”), and so on.

In our active divination we are going to let the cards teach us how we block certain qualities and energies for both good and bad. We are also going to select which mechanisms are particular to ourselves in keeping these blocks in place. We will then use this information which will be gathered at the end of this month of your Tarot Life, later in the year as part of the whole “gated spread” presented by Tarot Life. Firstly we will provide a version of the blocks appropriate for every card in the deck, which may also be found as part of Around the Tarot in 78 Days. You may also wish to add your own findings over the month to this list as it can never be comprehensive. It will also add depth to your readings for yourself and others as you experience how the cards can indicate blocks. The cards are given in kabbalistic order, i.e. from Tens to Aces, in Suits, with the Majors and Court Cards in appropriate places for their position on the Tree of Life. Page of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. Not paying your bills. 2. Not making fixed appointments 3. Not planning the week ahead 4. Not being fully prepared for an activity Page of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. not watching what you say 2. protesting 3. being irrational over decisions and making snap judgments 4. being foolish in distinguished company Page of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. being crude and boorish in polite company

2. behaving insensitively to those closest to you 3. withdrawing your care and attention from those you love 4. being very extrovert during a social gathering Page of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. Non-reaction when roused to anger 2. hiding your brilliance 3. not owning your own ambition 4. being cowardly and not taking action when wronged 10 of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. being miserly and not treating yourself to the finer things in life 2. not working and cancelling important meetings 3. not visiting close family and friends 4. not dressing to impress

10 of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. looking on the bright side of life 2. achieving aiming to succeed in everything I do 3. treating myself to a healing remedial massage 4. recognizing the joy of being a sentient being 10 of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. being miserable about everything and everyone, being a commitment phobic 2. wallowing in the state of discontent 3. creating ill-feeling and finding fault with your home life 4. falling out with those close to you

10 of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. Being Lazy 2. Avoiding responsibilities 3. Saying no to projects and workload 4. Dropping tasks you do not like WORLD XXI You are blocking this card today by: 1. being narrow minded and judgmental of people 2. stopping yourself from doing what you want to do 3. deliberately avoiding completing a task 4. not co-operating with a team effort JUDGEMENT XX You are blocking this card today by: 1. succumbing to exhaustion and not tackling your responsibilities and duties 2. sticking to old habits that keep you where you are 3. not heeding good advice 4. not answering/responding to communications MOON XVIII You are blocking this card today by: 1. doing a task that is very analytical, such as doing the accounts 2. reading the Financial Times front to back 3. not believing your horoscope in the newspaper 4. joining the James Randi Educational Society 9 of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by:

1. Downsize, give all your worldly possessions away. Go backpacking 2. Doing a dextox- deprive yourself of your favourite treats, such as chocolate, coffee, beer or a glass of wine, so no to the pleasures of life. 3. Let yourself go for the day, leave off the grooming and lounge around in sweats. Say to yourself, “ I don’t care what anyone thinks of me!” 4. Look into starting a whole new career and adopt a whole new lifestyle, take a risk for a change 9 of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. celebrating with all your friends because you are so damn happy! 2. booking that dream holiday you have always put off! 3. volunteering to do charity work 4. being carefree and seeing the best in everyone and in everything. It’s a wonderful life! 9 of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. feeling dissatisfied and finding fault in all that is around you! You’re one miserable dude today! 2. be a miser today and keep your hands in your pocket, let them pay the cheque! 3. sharing your giant bar of chocolate with friends 4. being cold and standoffish 9 of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. giving in to difficulties at the first hurdle 2. being very forgiving of trespassers! 3. taking a duvet day 4. relaxing and letting others worry about possible threats

SUN XIX You are blocking this card today by: 1. being a pessimist 2. being lethargic and very lazy 3. being very cynical and negative 4. suppressing any enthusiasm and joy you feel STAR XVII You are blocking this card today by: 1. keeping your good ideas to yourself and not sharing 2. not supporting your work colleagues 3. repressing your creativity 4. expressing you inner glum TEMPERANCE XIV You are blocking this card today by: 1. going on a binge of self indulgence 2. being very intolerant 3.being very flirty 4. shop till you drop 8 of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. performing an important task in a shoddy way 2. being very careless 3. not being reliable 4. paying somebody to come and decorate 8 of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. by being highly motivated 2. finding solutions to ongoing problems 3. getting out and about go for a long walk or a cycle ride 4. get together with your nearest and dearest friends

8 of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. looking at where you are presently and making the most of all the positive aspects of your life 2. tackling a relationship issue directly, stop avoiding! 3. making the effort to reinvigorate old friendships/relationships from the past 4. stopping moping around and express some joy! 8 of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. meditating 2. slowing down 3. send a letter by snail mail rather that by e-mail 4. taking a gentle approach to communication, avoid heated discussions HANGED MAN XII You are blocking this card today by: 1. standing up for yourself 2. moving onwards and upwards towards your objectives 3. not taking life too seriously 4. being very possessive over your material belongings DEVIL XV You are blocking this card today by: 1. not wanting results 2. being open about your desires 3. being tolerant and forgiving 4. being generous and flexible BLASTED TOWER XVI You are blocking this card today by: 1. making long term plans, consolidating what you have built so far

2. keep to your routine, order the same latte you order everyday 3. not making rash decisions or changes 4. staying in bed with the duvet over your head! 7 of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. taking a day off work 2. just getting on with the task in hand 3. not doubting your abilities and having self-belief by the spade full 4. cancelling the appointment with your bank manager!

7 of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. being open and honest with all your transactions 2. not reacting badly to a person who is annoying you 3. letting old grievances go and stopping bitching 4. facing a problem person head on instead of contriving and plotting behind their backs 7 of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. being practical and working towards completing deadlines 2. by stopping talking about fulfilling your dreams and start living your life for real 3. looking at your financial in-goings and out-goings 4. having your eyes tested and cleaning your mirror, metaphorically and for real! 7 of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. getting off your soapbox and letting someone else have a go! 2. running away when the going gets tough

3. showing caution to the wind and being carefree 4. not being too defensive and paranoid, no one is out to get you! DEATH XIII You are blocking this card today by: 1. making long term plans 2. hanging on to old habits 3. cancelling your gym membership 4. just not going out or doing anything creative and productive WHEEL X You are blocking this card today by: 1. avoiding taking any chances or risks 2. not wearing a watch 3. not buying a lottery ticket 4. over planning 6 of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. being selfish 2. not sharing your good fortune with others 3. not showing appreciation where it is due 4. not spending

6 of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. giving in to circumstances that are not of your liking 2. staying where you are and wallowing in your stuckness 3. seeing things in the same old negative way 4. expecting the world owes you a favor 6 of Cups You are blocking this card today by:

1. being cold and clinical 2. being ruthless in achieving your happiness 3. being destructive and creating disharmony 4. being a commitment phobic 6 of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. by behaving like a loser 2. by not having any ambition 3. by not taking the credit for an important achievement you have made 4. failing to be rightfully assertive when the occasion requires you to be JUSTICE XI You are blocking this card today by: 1. not being judgmental 2. giving a biased response to something which should be entirely objective 3. being unfair and unreasonable without giving the issue at hand proper consideration 4. letting your emotions entirely rule your decision making LOVERS VI You are blocking this card today by: 1. putting yourself first in every way, make it an entirely self motivated day! 2. relating from the head alone not the heart 3. avoiding communicating your needs to a love one 4.not listening to the needs of those close to you EMPEROR IV You are blocking this card today by: 1. not owning your power

2. failing to delegate to those around you 3. not being self assured 4. not being assertive HERMIT IX You are blocking this card today by: 1. being outgoing and leery 2. being arrogant 3. being tactless 4. being very needy and possessive Knight of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. being disorganized, just not thinking it through! 2. behaving in a irresponsible way 3. behaving in a rash manner 4. giving up part way through an important task Knight of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. being a total wimp/pushover 2. being clumsy 3. behaving like a total fool 4. being slow to respond to verbal attack

Knight of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. being sensible and not letting your heart rule your head 2. By showing your affections for your loved one by shopping, cleaning and making dinner 3. looking beyond the superficial 4. spend some time working in the garden, be earthy not watery

Knight of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. being slow to anger 2. being laidback 3. being tolerant 4. not taking any risks 5 of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. speculating to accumulate 2. volunteering for charity work 3. being positive 4. accepting your situation and doing something about it 5 of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. opening channels of communication 2. brokering a peaceful outcome if you have had a falling out with someone 3. by saying sorry 4. watching what you say to others, as these words may return to haunt you 5 of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. being accepting 2. being happy with what you have now, not what may have been 3. not dwelling on misfortune 4. taking action to change your life for the better 5 of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. planning what you do before you act

2. working with others to create a positive outcome 3. recognizing that everybody has their unique talents that can be utilized 4. Learning by doing CHARIOT VII You are blocking this card today by: 1. taking it easy and not pushing yourself to achieve 2. just letting life happen to you 3. letting someone else make all the decisions 4. be all loving like Venus and not forceful like Mars STRENGTH VIII You are blocking this card today by: 1. by not caring too much about the outcome 2. giving into your fears and failings 3. not believing 4. being intolerant 4 of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. getting up and walking away from all that is keeping you restrained 2. giving 3. stopping hoarding, downsize! 4. stopping wanting to have it all 4 of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. getting out and about 2. talking a lot 3. socializing 4. not giving yourself time to relax

4 of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. expressing more enthusiasm 2. sharing your feelings more 3. having faith that you will make the right choices 4. being contented 4 of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. being reclusive avoiding socializing 2. being introverted 3. tightening the purse strings 4. working too hard

HEIROPHANT V You are blocking this card today by: 1. reading celebrity gossip 2. going on a protest march 3. being rebellious 4. speaking your mind regardless of what people may think or feel 3 of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. not reading the instruction manual for a new appliance 2. behaving ditzy 3. just not giving a damn 4. relying on intuition to work a problem out 3 of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. walking away from a verbal disagreement

2. not allowing yourself to being drawn into gossiping about a third party 3. by consulting a therapist and talking over the mental anguish with a professional 4. by refusing to listen to listen to your inner turmoil 3 of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. being boring, boring, boring! 2. shunning your best friends 3. behaving in a jealous possessive manner 4. picking an argument 3 of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. not sharing your experience and knowledge with anyone else 2. being blinkered refusing to see the situation as it really is 3. not surveying a potential opportunity properly 4. not grasping a promising new opportunity EMPRESS III You are blocking this card today by: 1. not being very nurturing 2. not being very sympathetic about a friends problems 3. not caring about the plight of others in the world 4. being entirely motivated by selfish desires

Queen of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. being irresponsible with regards to money matters 2. turning away those close to you who need your support

3. not being so nice 4. letting your heart hold sway over commonsense Queen of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. being touchy feely 2. taking the line of least resistance when someone confronts you verbally 3. being forgiving and broadminded 4. showing a lot of humility Queen of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. closing down your psychic radar 2. being closed down emotionally 3. being aloof 4. expressing little empathy Queen of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. being shy and retiring 2. being slow to anger 3. behaving in a despicable manner 4. being complacent 2 of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. being awkward 2. being totally disorganized with finance 3. totally indulging yourself with no regard to the consequences 4. giving up on your responsibilities for the day, let somebody else take the flak 2 of Swords

You are blocking this card today by: 1. taking control of your life 2. making that decision that you have been putting off, Just do it! 3. face up to your inner demons, release yourself from conflicted thoughts 4. putting your mental guard down 2 of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. turning away a good opportunity of happiness 2. turning your back on a good friend 3. being repulsed by what attracts you 4. not wanting to share with another 2 of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. taking action before thinking about the consequences 2. being closed to new opportunities 3. doing something the same old way because that is the way you have always done it 4. going along with what someone else wants to do King of Pentacles You are blocking this card today by: 1. behaving in a reckless manner 2. going on a spending spree 3. being over emotional 4. not fulfilling an obligation King of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. responding in an impulsive way verbally

2. being receptive to any request regardless how insignificant it is 3. being very trusting 4. being very intuitive in your dealings King of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. by not suffering fools in any manner at all! 2. not bothering to engage emotional sensibility before speaking 3. being impatient and not giving away any of your precious time 4. really lording it over everybody King of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. being ineffectual 2. being apathetic 3. doing exactly as you are told to do 4. not taking the initiative

HIGH PRIESTESS II You are blocking this card today by: 1. being extroverted and forceful 2. gossiping and telling everybody all your innermost secrets 3. being very loud, being discreet today is not for you 4. being really tactless and compromising others by doing this MAGICIAN I You are blocking this card today by: 1. not wanting to learn 2. not making the most of the technology that is at your disposal 3. not focusing on the task at hand 4. being very nervous and ill at ease Ace of Pentacles

You are blocking this card today by: 1. not investing in your future security 2. turning down that lucrative deal you have been offered 3. not buying a lottery ticket 4. refusing the support you have been offered

Ace of Swords You are blocking this card today by: 1. not making clear your future objectives 2. not speaking up for yourself at a crucial moment, remember you only get one chance most of the time 3. just not thinking full stop 4. not being true to yourself Ace of Cups You are blocking this card today by: 1. not letting your emotions flow out/repressing them 2. not using your emotions for the creative process 3. not responding emotionally to the sensitivity of those close to you 4. hanging on to old hurts from the past Ace of Wands You are blocking this card today by: 1. being negative and gloomy 2. not believing in the magic of potentials 3. giving into apathy and weariness 4. giving up when you have only just begun FOOL 0 You are blocking this card today by: 1. being ruthless and calculating

2. reacting in a suspicious or paranoid fashion with no reason 3. not making a decision because you need to think about it for awhile 4. not allowing yourself to dream the impossible dream The Active Divination Method You will require a deck not used for any other purpose during the month for this method. Any deck can be used, although you may find it useful to continue to use the deck you chose from the previous month. We would recommend for this particular exercise a deck that is most familiar and comfortable to you, rather than a new or edgy deck. 1. Shuffle your deck considering what life would be like without constraint, blocks or limitations. 2. When ready, take the top card and turn it face-up. This is your first “Block Card”. Consider the “blocks” given previously for this particular card. 3. For a length of time, which may be instantly, hours or days, observe yourself as you are able, until you exhibit one of the blocks appropriate for this card. It could be a “positive” block, i.e. you have a party, blocking the depression of the 9 of Swords, or a “negative” block, i.e. you feel weary, blocking the energy of the Ace of Wands which you have drawn. 4. Select from the below choices the mechanism by which you feel you are experiencing this block. Make a record of the card, the experience and the mechanism, and then pull another card and repeat. This should be done throughout the month. The Mechanisms A. Lying: did you tell yourself “everyone does it, it is fine”, or “It wasn’t really too bad”, or “I should hold a party for my friends” when

in fact it is a party for yourself? B. Suppression: do you feel but hold back from doing or saying something? If you had pulled the Fool, and two days later should have been ruthless but held back, this is suppression. It matters not the “morality” of the block or event, we are only interested in the card, the event, and the mechanism. C. Reaction Formation: do you find yourself being contrary, doing the opposite, to respond to the block. Like saying you don’t care when you care completely? Do you go to an extreme, like a baby throwing their toys out of the pram? If you had pulled the King of Cups, and that day found yourself berating a student (“not suffering fools gladly”) did you find yourself yelling “I will give up teaching”. D. Repression: do you find yourself feeling an unidentified conflict with your block or card? Did you entirely miss what was going on with the block? Why people reacted in a particular way or the positive opportunity (i.e. to have a party and you just didn’t). E. Introjection: Did you feel as if it were not your authentic, free and actual self at work in the block? Perhaps an old voice of your mother, your father at work, telling you to be polite. Perhaps you even felt as if this were you, although it was blocking you?! F: Isolation: Does the mechanism of the block seem to belong to a different part of you, not as strongly as identification, but still somehow removed from your daily sense of self? Is it something that happens only in specific circumstances? G: Projection: When you experience the block or the arising activity, if there are other people involved does it seem like it’s their fault, or to do with them? If you blocked the 6 of Pentacles by “being selfish” was it because “they didn’t deserve” what you had to offer? Again, no judgment on right or wrong, just observe the mechanism.

H: Denial: Did you simply have no choice? Did you do it anyway. Did you just think, “I’ll forget it ever happened”? We are not attempting to play psychotherapy during this month, we are simply interested in identifying with Tarot in our Life as many blocks as possible, and the way in which we block ourselves.

Important Note: You will need to record the cards drawn and their corresponding experience and “mechanism” for further work later in Tarot Life. You can also join the Tarot Life Facebook group to ask questions and discuss this exercise. A link is given in the appendix. .

Conclusion In the following ten booklets in this series, we will build on our progress in the first two months, next discovering how to make decisions better now we have some material to work upon. It is important to the process that you undertake the exercises, and we have an optional Facebook group listed in the appendix where you can share and discuss your experiences, ask questions and gain support. We have also provided in the final section a list of reading materials and website resources to discover more in the very best of Tarot and Tarosophy®. In this series, released monthly over 2013: 1. Discover Your Destiny 2. Remove The Blocks 3. Make Decisions Better 4. Enter the Flow 5. Ride the Lion 6. Connect to Service 7. Find Your Equality 8. Die To Your Old Self 9. Entering Unity 10. Becoming the Real 11. Your Keys to Freedom 12. The Depth of Divinity What Follows Next Month In next month’s Tarot Life, we deal with our thought process and decision making, particularly as they relate to our emotional and physical feelings. Having set ourselves in motion and started to build

on our blocks, we will see you again next month, when we will learn to Make Decisions Better.

Bibliography Gurdjieff, G.I., Views From The Real World. London: Arkana, 1984. Short, D., Erickson, B. A., & Erickson, R. Hope & Resiliancy: Understanding the Psychotherapeutic Strategies of Milton H. Erickson. Camarthen: Crown House Publishing, 2005. Tart, Charles T. Waking Up. Longmead: Element Books, 1986.

TAROT LIFE MONTH 3 MAKE DECISIONS BETTER Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Authors Note: This is Month 3 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Month 1 & 2 booklets “Discover Your Destiny” & “Remove the Blocks” to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of self-discovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

INDEX Introduction

4

Making Decisions Better

5

A Simple Method for Beginners

7

The Two Minds Method

7

The Sword of Perseus Method The Court Cards as Deciders

9 11

The Cards as Additional Advisors

18

Conclusion

33

Bibliography Websites & Resources

37 38

TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE

A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year. Introduction In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given. You can start at any time, although New Year, your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a private Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

Making Decisions Better “There’s something unsettling about seeing the brain as one big argument. We like to believe that our decisions reflect a clear cortical consensus, that the entire mind agrees on what we should do. And yet, that serene self-image has little basis in reality.” Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide (2010) p. 203. In this third month of Tarot Life we encounter the sign of Gemini in the zodiacal sequence; the third of the twelve signs. This sign corresponds to the Tarot card of the Lovers. It is important that we see in this card a way of making choices and decisions, the key theme of this third month. Whilst earlier versions of this card depicted a man between two women, representing perhaps two different choices – or a choice between vice and virtue – it is to the Golden Dawn variant of this card that we will turn. The Golden Dawn modified this image by depicting the “Lovers” card as the myth of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the Kraken. They described this image as “the impact of inspiration on intuition, resulting in illumination and liberation”. They saw the chains of Andromeda being “habit”, the Kraken being “fear” and the ocean as being “stagnation”. In Kabbalah, this card corresponds to the path between Binah (Understanding) and Tiphareth (Beauty), which in turn equate to the formative nature of our unconscious (Binah) and our sense of selfawareness and centre of consciousness (Tiphareth). In uniting these two aspects of our being, the card illustrates how our conscious mind is impacted by the depths of our unconscious mind. This is no more noticeable than in our habits, routines, automatic nature – and the bursts of clarity that come from nowhere to rescue us from this robotic nature.

Mathers suggested that rather than “proof”, this card signified “wise disposition”. It is certainly a wise disposition which is required when making decisions.

Illus. Perseus & Andromeda (from a woodcut), & ‘Lovers’ from the Golden Dawn Tarot. Firstly we will present a simple spread/method based on decision-making. We will then see how individual cards relate to decisiveness and how to utilize the entire deck to make decisions better.

A Simple Method for Beginners During this month, you will be paying particular attention to your decision-making. There will be a daily practice for you if you wish to use it, but here below is a method which you can apply several times during the month to more significant decisions. The purpose of the daily practice and/or that given below is to provide you experiences which you can examine with the sixteen Court Cards as “Deciders” – which will provide cards for later gates in your Tarot Life journey. This is what we call a split-deck method in Tarosophy and can be used for any decision-making, particularly those where there are two choices or proposals to consider. The Two Minds Method 1. Sort your deck into five piles – placing each of the suits (pentacles, cups, swords and wands) and Major Arcana (22 numbered cards, Fool to World) into each pile. So stack all of the Swords together, all of the Pentacles together, etc. 2. Select out the pile with the Majors. These represent the archetypal forces of the world. 3. Select out the pile which relates to the situation in which you are two minds: Pentacles: A financial or material situation Cups: An emotional or relationship situation Swords: An intellectual or educational situation Wands: A lifestyle or spiritual situation 4. Place these 14 cards (the Ace to 10 and the Court Cards of that suit) with the 22 Major cards and discard the other three piles.

5. Shuffle the 36 cards of the chosen suit and the Majors whilst considering your question. 6. Decide whether the cards you are going to lay out to your left represent one option and the cards to the right will represent the other option (you can do a variant of this with more than two options by having more than two columns for your spread). 7. Lay out SIX cards in a column to your left (representing option 1) and SIX cards in a column to your right (representing option 2). These are your “Two Minds”. 8. Read each column. 9. The column with the MOST MAJORS represents the option with the most energy, whether for positive or negative depending on the reading of that column. 10. Add up the NUMBERS of any MINOR card in each respective column. The column with the highest total of numbered cards is the option which is closer to completion or manifestation. 11. The column with the widest range of numbers is the option most difficult to manage. These methods of reading the two minds should assist you clarify the decision in step with your own common-sense, knowledge, experience and the general reading of the cards involved. You can also consider the top card in both columns to be an additional advisory card, and look up that additional decision-advice in the list we have provided later in this booklet. The decision card on the more positive column will show you how to proceed best with that decision now that it is more likely.

The Sword of Perseus Method For daily use in prompting your decision-making and working out which Court Cards best reflect your style, we also recommend this short reading method. You can use it on a regular basis to hone your decision-making until you get your sword really sharp! For any decision, consider it as the myth of Perseus and Andromeda. Make a note as to how the decision can be broken down into: Andromeda: What would be released by making any decision? Kraken: What is worrying (fear) about making this decision? Ocean: What will happen if you make no decision (stagnant)? Begin to consider all the decisions you have made in the past, and how they appear now time has passed. Consider this current decision in the light of the past and possible futures. Get ready to act. Decide if nothing else that you will make at least one action, one willed decision, based on the card you pull. Prepare to do so, and only take a card when you have determined and have space and time to act immediately on the card. Draw one card as your Sword of Perseus. Consider it breaking the chains and slaying the Kraken. What does it call you to do – how does it help you make that decision to act? Act upon it. Only then, afterwards, go back and pull 3 cards, one each for the Andromeda position, the Kraken and the Ocean: Andromeda: What has actually been released by my decision? Kraken: What can I do in my next decision to face the fear faster and better? Ocean: What activity/approach should I undertake until my next decision to avoid stagnation and be even faster to decide? Then consider which of the Court Cards reflects your own style of decision-making, and repeat this exercise whenever you approach a

decision over this month. You may find that your approach to making decisions changes radically as you pay more attention to this process and engage the cards in this dynamic way. In effect, you are using the cards as a model of better decision-making, which builds over time. As ever, the cards are not the only considerations in making any changes in your life. View them in context but allow yourself to be surprised and challenged by them beyond the obvious.

The Court Cards as Deciders “The other side of her character is that she may have a tendency to brood, come to a wrong decision thereon, and react with great savagery”. Aleister Crowley, on ‘The Queen of Wands’ in The Book of Thoth (1985) p. 152. During this month, whilst you practice with the daily Sword of Perseus or the Two Minds method, you are asked to consider the sixteen Court Cards as Decision-makers. Over the course of the month, we would like you to realize the two or three cards that most correspond to your way of working with decisions in your everyday life. These cards are the outcome of this gate and the keys to a later gate – so it is important they accurately reflect your actual character and personality in this context. If there is one really close card, that will be sufficient, but do not choose more than four – if there seem to be many, choose the two or three that most closely fit your decision-making style. We will then use this information which will be gathered at the end of this month of your Tarot Life, later in the year as part of the whole “gated spread” presented by Tarot Life. We will provide a brief overview of the sixteen Court cards in this light. You may also wish to add your own findings over the month to this list as it can never be comprehensive. It will also add depth to your readings for yourself and others as you experience how the court cards can indicate decision-making strategies. We have given their titles as Waite-Smith and Thoth for convenience. We would recommend the Thoth deck for the exercises in this book, although any deck will suffice.

You can also join the Tarot Life Facebook group to ask questions and discuss this exercise. A link is given in the appendix. Page of Pentacles/Princess of Discs I make decisions by dwelling deeply upon the issue at hand. I am always able to see the beauty and wonder in even the most mundane situation. I possess a down earth mentality that people speak of being my inner strength, for me to make a decision it has to have a very practical element to it. I have to be certain of a decision being right before I decide, as I do not give up easily, once I embark on a venture. However, this resilience/enthusiasm with regards to decisions that I have made, enables me to progress while others fall at the wayside. In decision making I possess equilibrium of mind, body and emotions. In regards to decision making I am far seeing, I plan well into the future. I am a visionary individual. I am able to morph into any situation that arises; this can be seen as a positive or negative trait depending on the situation. It can give rise to people saying that I am inconsistent in my behavior; the truth is that I possess great adaptability that equips me well in life. I avoid decisions by holding back, and procrastinating and by over planning. I can also be difficult to pin down about a decision as I can easily change direction along the way. I have a tendency to bewilder with my changeability. Knight of Pentacles/Prince of Disks I make decisions by taking time out to meditate on the situation at hand and once I have decided upon the course of action I give the very best I can, I imbue it with brute force and energetic vigor. I am make the decision based upon sound practical considerations, there is no half way guess work for me! I have to trust a situation and the people involved before I decide upon an important decision. I avoid decisions by cutting off from the situation at hand. I have a tendency not to act if the outcome of the decision does not interest me enough. I avoid decision making if it is not obvious, I do not like

intangible things, I have to be able to touch something, it has to have a ring of practicality about it, I do not do ‘pie in the sky!’ Queen of Pentacles/Queen of Disks I make decisions by absorbing the information about me, I have to become something before I can be part of something. I make decisions based upon how functional the outcome will be. I make decisions based upon how much good this action will bring to others around me. My decisions are also made on consideration of what my instincts tell me what to do, where I am lacking intellectual acuity I make up for it with intuition. I avoid decisions by becoming too carried away with what is happening around me, I become so overwhelmed with everybody’s stuff I cannot decide what to do. I avoid decisions by becoming too obsessed with how useful something is, thereby disregarding something which has potential at a later date. King of Pentacles/Knight of Disks I make decisions based upon how secure and comfortable it makes me feel. I am often described as being very self-interested. I think as I go along and decide as I go along without too much intellectual consideration getting in the way. I am an instinctual animal, earthy and primitive and I like to be sure of my space. I avoid decisions by distracting myself with material possessions. I plod along avoiding risk taking in order to keep things just as they are; this is safe but ever so boring. Page of Swords/Princess of Swords I make decisions that are influenced by my sense retribution, if something riles me then I am quick to judge and then take action. I like to make decisions that will have an impact on the lives of those around me. I am the sort of person who likes to campaign and be the leader of a protest. I avoid making decisions for myself by constantly involving myself in the causes of others; I am so preoccupied with the external world that I avoid looking within and to my own actions.

Knight of Swords/Prince of Swords I make decisions based upon intellect and reasoning, I have to pick through an issue before taking action. I avoid making decisions by making the excuse that I do not have enough information, the time is never right. My many clever ideas and plans fail to come to realization, I talk more than I do the walk. If I avoid doing, then I avoid failing. Queen of Swords/Queen of Swords I make decisions based on the evidence that I have researched. I need to know the ins and outs of a situation or issue before I act. I am an analyzer of situations and people, I would make a good profiler of personalities. I am a people watcher. I avoid making decisions if I do not have enough knowledge experience behind me. I will not behave in a spontaneous way. I need to feel self assured and confident. King of Swords/Knight of Swords I make decisions based on smart thinking, and subtle consideration. I am not afraid to make a point, or demonstrate my thinking. I can also be considerate with the impact of my decisions on others and will always try and present my ideas with others in mind. If I unable to be spurred on or am bored with an idea I can lack the will to make decisions. Page of Cups/Princess of Cups I make decisions based upon fairness and sensitivity. I like to consider the good of the whole and consider the welfare of others when I take action. I am the swan who appears serene and expends little energy to move along on the surface, yet under the water I work hard to keep going. I avoid making decisions by putting them off until another day. I am able to escape into a dreamy world where unpleasant things do not occur. Knight of Cups/Prince of Cups

I make decisions based upon insider knowledge. It will have to be of foremost benefit to me. I am very self motivated and my actions reflect this. I will not act and make a decision if I feel that the action will result in me being compromised and end up owing a favor. Queen of Cups/Queen of Cups I make decisions by becoming a channel and being receptive to the needs of others. I am emotionally motivated. I avoid making decisions by going with the crowd and ‘toeing the party the line’. The line of least resistance can be the easiest route. King of Cups/Knight of Cups I make decisions by what seems to be the most attractive option. I can be easily swayed to the opinions of others, and this is a strong factor in my decision making. I avoid making decisions by not committing to anything too concrete. I make excuses that I have to consult with others before I can commit and it is not unknown that I will scuttle off and wallow in my indecisions and thereby not stand by anything of any substance. I will avoid signing a contract. Page of Wands/Princess of Wands I make decisions based upon retaining my individuality. I thrive on excitement and experiencing a thrill, so if the result of my decision yields a bit of a ‘thrill’, then it is likely I will embark on this particular path. This energy is one of a lust for freedom and liberation; I must not be inhibited in anyway. I avoid making decisions by filling my life with superficial distractions. I will create drama to off-load any real issues that need confronting. I believe my myth so much that it overshadows reality itself, leaving me unable to see any other way of being. Knight of Wands/Prince of Wands I make decisions based upon the mood I am in at the moment; I can be volatile, open to the influence of the mood of the crowd. I can decide on something and not really care for the outcome; it may be

that I am just putting on a show for the crowds. You tell me not do something and I will want to go ahead and do that very thing! I do not make decisions because I cannot be bothered to do so. I am lazy and indifferent. Let someone else make the decision is what I am often heard to say. Queen of Wands/Queen of Wands I will make a decision based upon what I feel rather than what others think. I use my all my skills of seeing the best in a situation and how it can be turned round. I show great initiative in decision making, if there is best to be seen in any situation than I will see it and will see to it! I do not make a decision well if I am in a depressed state, this state leaves me incapacitated and unable to decide, if I do make a decision while I am in this state of mind, it may be one that I later regret. King of Wands/Knight of Wands I make decisions based upon wanting to get a situation sorted out quickly; I do not like to hang around. I can be quite reckless in my decision making. I do not make a decision if the outcome restricts my lust for life in anyway. It is either all or nothing for me!

The Cards as Additional Decision Advisors. In the Two Minds method, or any general reading, you can consider a single card to be an additional decision advisor. This reading of each card shows how it provides real-world advice for enacting a decision – once the decision has been made. We list here all the cards and give some suggestions for their role as decision advisors. You can read for the particular card at the top of your preferred decision column in the Two Minds method, or the card which comes up for your Sword of Perseus in that method. The cards are given in kabbalistic order, i.e. from Tens to Aces, in Suits, with the Majors in appropriate places for their position on the Tree of Life. The Court cards have been described in the previous section, and can be applied to decision-advisors, as well as being used to assess your own style of decision-making. 10 of Pentacles The decision that you have made will place you in a position that could be considered favorable. The productivity created from your past endeavors will place you in a situation that is secure and safe. You may find that all the work is you have put in is now appreciated and recognize by your peers. This could relate to a work pension or bonus scheme that is ready to come to fruition. As they say “by the fruits of your labors you will be known”. 10 of Swords When you’ve nailed your colors to the mast, stick with it. It is hard to commit yourself, maybe put an end to indecision, but you can “nail it” if you now fix yourself to the task in hand. 10 of Cups Whatever now happens, with this decision, enjoy what is closest to your heart. You may not need all those shiny things – that can come

later. Act, and enjoy what delights you and those closest to you. Let everyone else go-get “stuff”, you rest in joy. 10 of Wands When you grab hold of something and make it yours, you take responsibility and often a heavy load. Own it, carry it, and march forwards – don’t shirk anything and before long you will arrive at your destination, everything intact and well. WORLD XXI Any decision brings together all four elements of life – the trick is marrying them whole. As you work forwards, keep everything together, ensure you are making the most of your resources. In this way, your decision will make the world your oyster. JUDGMENT XX Arise! Answer the call! Decisions made when Judgment beckons are hardly decisions, they are imperatives. “That, Mr. Anderson, is the sound of inevitability”. So get going whilst the energy is on your side, and you may achieve a whole new resurrection and life beyond the decision. MOON XVIII In terms of decision-making this card advises you to walk slowly and carefully forwards no matter how fearful you may be, or how little you think you know about the situation. Take one careful step at a time and ignore everything other than your decided course. 9 of Pentacles This card has a realistic attitude to decisions, in that it suggests that we often get trapped by our decisions, if we do not remain open to change. So when this card shows in a decision-spead, you may wish to consider what parts of your decision will bind you for the longterm, and will not be able to be changed once enacted. It advises building more flexibility into the situation as you go forwards. 9 of Swords Whilst often taken as a card of grief, this image suggests to us that the person who regrets all their decisions may no longer be seeing things clearly. They can literally no longer see the point (of the

Swords). So it warns us that we must face up to our fears – that the future can indeed be different to the past – and that those mistakes may create a ladder by which we can ascend to a totally new situation. 9 of Cups You may be self-assured in making this decision, but this card is a warning about complacency too. Keep an eye on everyone now that you have made your decision, don’t leave anything to chance. It may be that not everyone is behind you. 9 of Wands In this case, your decision may incite argument and opposition from others – either explicitly or less obviously. So prepare for a bit of a battle, and stand your ground. If anything, it will demonstrate that you have earned the success that comes from your decision, despite what others may think – or try and do to stop you. Fight that good fight. SUN XIX Happy times! One of the most favorable cards to bless a successful decision and a positively shiny outcome. It does suggest too that you “make hay whilst the sun shines” and truly enjoy your moment. Be happy that you have made the decision and live it through.

STAR XVII Whilst one may live in “hope” which this card signifies, it may be better to forget hope and get on with living. Sometimes hope can be used as an escapist fantasy, and sometimes as an excellent driver for positive goals. Which is it for you in this decision? Get real. TEMPERANCE XIV The alchemical allegory of this card is encapsulated by “what does not kill me makes me stronger”. In decision-making, it illustrates that every decision becomes part of us – it creates us and makes or breaks us. Sometimes a decision goes through all those processes. So if this card has shown up in your decision-making method, it says that you will be changed by the decision, and to incorporate and utilize the lesson and the change itself. 8 of Pentacles Take the opportunity to work on this decision, and keep going for it even if there appears to be no immediate response. It is like building for a rainy day – it will take time and be unrewarded in the shortterm. The advice of this card is that your decision should be accepted on its own terms, and time allowed for its ramifications and rewards to become more obvious. 8 of Swords Decisions can bind us with their complexity, yet sometimes we have simply allowed things to become more convoluted than they are. Take a cold hard look at what is actually the essential of your case, and work out where you are holding yourself back. This card suggests there is no-one to blame but yourself – or at least, that’s the most effective way of working with your decision for now. 8 of Cups Walking away is always hard, and many decisions take us away from what has become comfortable – or stagnant. We may have to walk our own path for a while, with no other destination other than “not back there”. In doing so, we gain strength – eventually. This card suggests to you that there is a long way to go, but you can make it.

8 of Wands This is a fantastic card to get following a decision, for it signifies that the stars are aligned and everyone is singing off the same hymn sheet – everything – and we mean everything – will get with the program. Your ducks are all lined up, that sort of thing. There’s energy and excitement, so go with it, and don’t stop until you land exactly where you want. Good news and good times follow this decision. HANGED MAN XII A troublesome card perhaps for decision-making, usually this card signifies a suspension – but there is deeper meaning. The card asks us to take another look at what happens when we “turn everything upside down” with a decision or action. Sometimes we are simply being truer to ourselves – closer to our authentic source. And everyone is going to have to live with that, even if it appears we are no longer who we used to be. This is a powerful decision-advisory card and should be contemplated at length should it be the top card in your “Two Minds” spread or Sword of Perseus. DEVIL XV In decision-making terms, the Devil is one of those cards we would prefer not to see. However, he must be faced on some occasions. Here he suggests that we may be avoiding difficult decisions due to fear, or not facing all the facts – a willful ignorance. This is pride in its worst sense. So bring light to the situation, open it up to others, cast a spotlight upon it, and don’t hide anything. Only in this way will your decision bring about the change that is required.

BLASTED TOWER XVI Another “change” card, as is the High Priestess, Wheel and Death, the Tower signifies abrupt and unexpected change. So with making a decision it shows that it will have immediate and perhaps unanticipated consequences of change. That is probably a good thing – it just may not feel like it at the time. Get ready for a shock. 7 of Pentacles Having patience to await the results of your decision is suggested by the 7 of Pentacles. It shows that you will perhaps also be disappointed by how much you get back for what you put in. So make a realistic assessment as to the results of your decision and bide your time – this card shows you will get out of this a little less than you might expect. But that may be no bad thing. 7 of Swords When you make a decision, you act with the evidence to hand. It may not occur to you that someone or something (even oneself) is obscuring the true situation. So having made this decision, check it through – ruthlessly. Assume the worst, be pessimistic. Check every last detail for the spy in the camp, the possibility of sabotage. It could even be self-sabotage. Is this decision just an excuse to set yourself up for a fall? Or has someone suddenly (and suspiciously) recently changed their tune? Check it all out before you really extend yourself from this decision. 7 of Cups Simply, don’t get distracted with the “maybes” or “might haves” in this decision. Move on. It’s done. 7 of Wands This card, much like the 9 of Wands, shows opposition to your plans. Here it may be more obvious and dynamic – in the open. So prepare yourself to prove yourself, your idea and your reasoning. Have everything prepared and to hand when the challenge starts. DEATH XIII

The card of transformation, in a decision context it illustrates how decisions are predicated by all that has gone before. No decision stands alone, it becomes part of a chain of events beyond itself. So observe how your decision fits into the past and is likely to fit in with the future changes you seek. What will be different – transformed – about yourself as a result of this decision? And will you live with it? WHEEL X Every event is a complex arising of activity in time. Even a thought is composed of tens of thousands – millions – of electrical and chemical combinations. The Wheel turns the entire Universe, and to some extent, makes things unpredictable, down to “luck”. Perhaps your decision is a case of “right time, right place” and it is important to recognize that. As one wise man said, “I’d rather be lucky all the time than right some of the time”. 6 of Pentacles In every decision there has to be a give and take, for any decision moves our attention and resources in one particular direction rather than another. This card calls this particular aspect of decisionmaking to our attention. It asks, what can you reasonably give to further your decision, without losing your centre? 6 of Swords This card shows that your decision will take you places, however it is also advises the importance of not changing course along the way. It is like having a business strategy and then sticking to it despite later attacks and diversions. Suddenly dropping your whole plan midstream is as if you were to take those six swords out of the boat in the Waite-Smith image. It might appear to make the load lighter, but the boat will soon sink as the holes are unplugged! So, stick to your guns having made this decision. 6 of Cups Our decision-making ability is forged in childhood, of which this card is a reminder. So it is a call to suggest that your decision may not be the most adult or mature – and whilst this may be liberating, it may not be entirely practical or realistic. So, take another look as you

enact this decision – ask yourself, “how old am I?” and be more reasonable if necessary. 6 of Wands The decision-maker has triumphed, and all is well. So far. This card warns you to “bring everyone with you”. You will need everyone “on side” to champion this decision to its final manifestation. Don’t be too proud, you can also take this card as advice to “stoop to conquer”. Even if you have to lower your sights, a small victory is better than a great loss – for this decision, at least. JUSTICE XI One of the most obvious advisory cards for decision-makers, this card simply says, “justice”. Perhaps we can add that Crowley renamed it “adjustment” in the Thoth Tarot. It means that we must apply our reason, weigh up the evidence, and ensure fairness is enacted as a result of our decision. Simply say, “is this fair?” and go with it – justice will always prevail. In the ancient Egyptian mythos, Justice was represented by “Ma’at”, and even the Gods themselves were under her rule. LOVERS VI Following on from the previous card, one might suggest that this card signifies “All is fair in love and war”. It is the primary card of decision-making, though – and when it turns up, it means a big choice is to be made. You cannot have it both ways. Once the apple is eaten, there is only one way to go – out of the garden. So perhaps you should ask yourself “am I willing to pay the price of this decision” for it will have long-term consequences and be a one-way ticket. EMPEROR IV The zodiacal sign of Aries which corresponds to this card advises that energy must be given to your action. It is a “big push” that is required to further your decision, and it is all “front loaded”. So make the effort now, it will result in better returns later. But for now, “All hands to the pump”. HERMIT IX Being at peace with the decisions you have made is the mark of wisdom and a sign that the Hermit is present. He has not only

walked his way, he has become his way. Totally congruent, utterly authentic, he advises that if you have any doubts, it is better not to act at all, and withdraw from the situation. However, when you are sure – decide – and go. There is no pause in the Hermit’s journey. 5 of Pentacles This card suggests that whilst your decision may be difficult, it is best for long-term gain. You may suffer from “deferred income”, whilst you work towards your destination. So wrap up warm and prepare for the long slog, the long haul. These decisions are never easy, and may involve activity you would rather avoid, but for now, it must be endured, for that is the shortest route to your final destination. 5 of Swords Putting away the internal arguments and doubts is difficult, when trying to make a rational decision. These various parts of ourselves rarely agree, and all seek their own aims. When this card surfaces, we are told that we must settle on the best option – for now – and let everything else get shelved. Even if we are attached to some possibilities and choices, they must be put to one side for now. A decision must be made, the best under the circumstances, a compromise, even, an uneasy truce – and then acted upon with good grace. There will come time later to re-evaluate. 5 of Cups This decision is one that may involve regret, this card illustrates. It is important then, on receiving it, that you shake yourself out of grief and cross the bridge to a better place. It will be hard in the moment, but easy once you have made your decision. 5 of Wands Any decision can disturb our values and our beliefs. We must come together internally and marshal our varying opinions to decide on one particular course of action. This card shows that these energies are very vibrant and active in this decision, and so you may like to play them out a bit more. Do a bit of bonkers brainstorming, think outside the box, take things to their extreme. Then bounce back to a more realistic plan and make it real. CHARIOT VII

The card of “getting out of your own way”, this image shows how perfect calm can generate intense and rapid progress. It is the zen of tarot; the art of working “without lust of result”. When it appears in a decision-spread, then it suggests that once the decision is made, you must surrender entirely to it, and let actions lead your way. Respond to the world as it arises, go with the flow. We will return to this more in the next book. STRENGTH VIII Right relationship is illustrated by this card. In Kabbalah, it shows the relationship between Geburah (Might) and Chesed (Mercy), the constraining and liberating principles, the active and passive, the creating and destroying – form and force. There needs to be a dynamic balance in the activity that follows from your decision. A bit like the porridge in Goldilocks – not too cold, not too warm. It is important that you avoid extremes in this decision and keep to what can be managed and maintained. 4 of Pentacles Keep an eye on your resources and do not over-extend yourself now that you have made your decision. Keeping everything close to your chest is a good approach now, and don’t involve others unless you really must. 4 of Swords Taking time out and letting your decision make its own way in life is a potential solution to give you space. Let go of it and remove yourself from the drama – it will ride itself out without taking you with it. 4 of Cups Even though this has been an emotional decision to make, you may be offered support in dealing with the consequences. Don’t get too self-involved or absorbed in the impact of your decision – shake yourself out of it and go take a hand from someone who can help. 4 of Wands It is time you know? Time to get back out there and accept invitations to a new way of life. There’s more than just you and here – there’s a whole world out there to explore. Now that you have made your

decision, this card advises extending yourself, exploring new social spaces and just hanging out for a bit. Go do it! HEIROPHANT V As the revelation of all that is sacred, the Hierophant counsels us to take advice, seek assistance from those with experience and expertise, and let go of our pride to hear higher advice. There is perhaps more to this decision than meets the eye – you are advised to get more information and insight from someone who can offer it. This will ensure your decision goes the right way for all involved. 3 of Pentacles When you are building your life, there are times when you need to take pause and assure that you are working to plan. This is such a time – the decision having been made, you can now take a moment to consider how this will fit in your life plan. Discuss it with others, get the general opinion. There is time. 3 of Swords Making a tough decision can be cutting – we must separate out what we do not want and what we want. It is a harsh process, particularly when it involves emotional content. You are advised with this card to be ruthlessly clear, and accept that there will be a loss. We are naturally geared to avoid decisions that result in loss, but often this is a necessary step to greater long-term gain. “This too, will pass”. 3 of Cups There is time to celebrate your decision – go share it with others. They may not totally understand your decision, or your situation, but you can afford to lose yourself for a while and let things take their own course – the decision is done. 3 of Wands This decision has long-term consequences that perhaps it is difficult to presently see. Take time now to watch carefully how your action impacts on others and changes their direction. It may be a speculation on your part, so you are advised to keep watch on how things set off from your decision.

EMPRESS III Allow time and have patience is the message of this card in a decision-making context. To all things there is a season, and your decision and action may be part of a larger, more organic, situation. Let things take their course, nurture them and nourish them, but do not take such an active role. Allow your decision to birth its own state in the world. 2 of Pentacles When a decision results in action, there are always adjustments to be made. These may be communicated quickly, but beware of false visions – these are early days. Take everything in hand and weigh the positive against the negative. There is juggling to be done until the action that you have decided upon starts to settle down and manifest more fully. Have patience. 2 of Swords When one decision is made, another can still follow. Sometimes you have to get to B from A in order to see C. So take a quick breath and having made your decision, consider what other opportunities are now open to you that were not before – they may be quite obvious. 2 of Cups Working with others is an important consideration in any activity or decision-making. How do they contribute to the situation? Do they not only add their own essence, but in conjunction with you, do you create more than either of you could do alone? See what arises from your mutual decisions. 2 of Wands When you make a decision, it is always part of a bigger ambition. In what way does today’s decision add to your long-term destiny? Does it move you away or towards your desired life? Take your decision and examine it more closely in the wider picture – then tweak it further whilst it is in its first stages of action. A gentle nudge now in the right direction can make all the difference at the end of the day. HIGH PRIESTESS II

The card of mystery and intuition, this image relates to the fact that most of our desires are behind closed doors. That is to say, we are often unaware and unconscious of our deeper motivations. In a decision-spread, the High Priestess informs us that there is more to this decision than we consciously know, and we should consider the deeper situation from which we are acting out. Perhaps we should meditate, be aware of our dreams, and seek some symbolic signal of our deeper motivation here. MAGICIAN I When we created Tarot Flip, the keyword that most experienced readers unconsciously gave us for this card was “success”. It is thus a wonderful card to get with decision-making. It implies that Mercury is smiling upon us, we have the resources required, the magic is in place, and success is assured. Who knows, even a miracle may be at hand if we allow it to happen. Expect magick! Ace of Pentacles The Aces are the ultimate seed of every decision. Here with the Ace of Pentacles you are reminded that your decision is the essential seed of all that follows – so an important one. Yet it may not yet be clear what will grow. Allow it time, tend the ground and the space – clear the weeds (old expectations) and put a net down to stop the birds pecking (negative words) and eventually this seed will grow. Ace of Swords The Ace of Swords allows us to be assured that our decision, whether positive or negative, is an act of clarity. It is an incision into real life – a willed, creative ambition made real by action. This immediacy is the advice of the card in any decision-making. Do this, or do not. Either is a decision. But do it. And now. There will be time for reflection later. Ace of Cups On the other side of the Ace of Swords, the Ace of Cups counsels deep reflection following your decision. Allow time for contemplation, meditation, consideration. Let yourself listen to your inner voice, your intuition, and your physical body. These deep wells of experience have advice for you, but you must be still to hear it clearly. This

decision was not made lightly and must be brought forth into the light most carefully, and with tender compassion. Ace of Wands The Ace of Wands is the ultimate arbiter of decision – the rod of action based on ones highest values and principles. It is simply “doing the right thing”. The Ace of Cups may be the “best considered thing”, the Swords the “correct thing”, and the Pentacles the “most practical thing”, but the Ace of Wands indicates we must do the “right” thing. So take time to consider how this decision and its arising consequences reflects upon your spiritual and psychological development as a whole being. FOOL 0 The Fool tells you that once a decision has been made, we are free of it – we have nothing to fear, nothing to regret. It is done and we are liberated from its concern. So if you have this card as your top advisory card, your decision is to be released – it no longer has anything to do with you. Let it go and step forwards, with faith that angels indeed will bear you up before you fall.

Conclusion In the following nine booklets in this series, we will build on our progress in the first three months, next discovering how to enter the flow before we start to connect the previous exercises together. It is important to the process that you undertake the exercises, and we have an optional Facebook group listed in the appendix where you can share and discuss your experiences, ask questions and gain support. We have also provided in the final section a list of reading materials and website resources to discover more in the very best of Tarot and Tarosophy®. In this series, released monthly over 2013: 1. Discover Your Destiny 2. Remove The Blocks 3. Make Decisions Better 4. Enter the Flow 5. Ride the Lion 6. Connect to Service 7. Find Your Equality 8. Die To Your Old Self 9. Entering Unity 10. Becoming the Real 11. Your Keys to Freedom 12. The Depth of Divinity What Follows Next Month In next month’s Tarot Life, we deal with our creative space and the creative flow of the Universe itself – and learn to become co-creators in real time, the “moving likeness of eternity”. As we develop our

decision-making and destiny-seeking skills, observe and harness our own blocks, there is then nothing like being able to enter the flow.

Bibliography Crowley, A. The Book of Thoth. York Beach: Weiser, 1985. Freeman, W. J. How Brains Make Up Their Minds. London: Phoenix, 1999. Lehrer, J. How We Decide. New York: Mariner, 2010.

TAROT LIFE MONTH 4 GO WITH THE FLOW Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Authors Note: This is Month 4 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Months 1, 2 & 3 booklets to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of selfdiscovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

INDEX Introduction Going with the Flow A Simple Method for Beginners Untwisting the Tree The Sephiroth Positions Going with the Flow The Flow Cards Conclusion Bibliography Websites & Resources

TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE

A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year. Introduction In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given. You can start at any time, although New Year, your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a private Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

Going With the Flow I AM THE CHARIOTEER, THE CHILD OF THE POWERS OF THE WATERS AND THE LORD OF THE TRIUMPH OF LIGHT, TAKING MY PLACE UNDER THE CANOPY OF THE STARRY NIGHT SKY. I SAY TO YOU THAT THE WAY IS LIKE WATER, FLOWING THROUGH YOU, AS THE HORSES DRIVE YOUR CHARIOT AHEAD. ACHIEVE VICTORY BY ATTUNEMENT, AS THE RIVER RUNS TO THE SEA, DAY BY DAY, MAKING ITS COURSE WITHOUT CONTENTION AGAINST THE EARTH. KEEP YOUR GOAL ALWAYS IN SIGHT, AND YOUR WAY WILL BE CLEAR AHEAD. FIGHT NOT WHAT IS ABOUT YOU, BUT RATHER LIVE IN THE HERE AND NOW TO FACE THAT WHICH IS BEFORE YOU. ONLY THEN WILL YOU KNOW ME IN YOUR WORKS. ‘Speech of the Chariot’, The Zodiacal Rituals (Forge Press, 2008) In this fourth month of Tarot Life we encounter the sign Cancer, corresponding to the Chariot card of the Tarot. The card represents the stage where the work proper begins, and the journey is set out upon, after the previous gates of gathering together the necessary requirements and information. The Tarot card attributed to the path of Cancer is the Chariot (VII), depicted commonly as a chariot with a starry canopy, pulled by twin horses or sphinxes, sometimes colored one white and one black. The Chariot signifies "Victory", but is also attributed to the Magical Grade of Magister Templi and is taken by both the Golden Dawn

magical order and even more emphatically by Aleister Crowley as a symbol of the “Great Work” itself. We have chosen to focus in our gated spread for this month on the "attunement" nature of the card, where the Charioteer flows with the world around him, and thus achieves a constantly adjusting path of non-conflict. The “Great Work” is to unify ourselves into the flow of the cosmos, and the “Magister Templi” is someone who has surrendered themselves to this flow and achieved this high initiation. In Kabbalah, this card corresponds to the path between Binah (Understanding) and Gebruah (Might). The Charioteer utilizes his understanding of the patterns of life to drive towards his destiny with might and power. There is no-one in their way for they are aligned with everything that arises. In this manner, the flow is found. You may be interested to know that early Kabbalah was termed Merkavah, or “chariot riding”, because its mystics spoke about riding Ezekiel’s chariot to the divine in their visions. In our previous gates, we have already opened the gates of destiny, blocks and choice, so we can utilize these parts of ourselves to guide us forwards in the flow. It is often the case that we are “in the flow” when we are least aware of it. It is always the case that when we are fully enjoying ourselves, immersed in something, it is “over before we know it”. The Charioteer has to become aware of this immersion and surrender to it, whilst retaining some self-awareness. In the method we present for this month, we will provide several levels of performing the gated spread, each of which is suitable for the amount of time and resource you would like to invest in the exercise. We will also look at how the Aces of the Tarot are the most powerful cards when considering flow, and give an indication of how certain major cards in a reading can indicate someone’s defense

mechanisms and blocks. It is another purpose of this series to teach tarot for reading for others as a consequence of your experience. We will progressively deepen our experience of the cards through our engagement in real life, which will radically empower our readings for others. Before we commence the Gated Spread, as in each of these books, we will provide a stand-alone method for general usage throughout the exercise or whenever you may find it useful. This is based on a Kabbalistic principle but you do not need to know Kabbalah to use it in your life.

A Simple Method for Beginners In the Tarot, we can choose to see a flow of energy cascading down the cards in a kabbalistic sequence. We can take this as simple numerology also, starting with the Aces kick-starting the energy flow and imagining the energy becoming more structured as it works down to the Tens of the deck. This is the Lightning Flash of creation, as shown on the illustration. To discover where your “flow” is blocked in any activity, where you have met difficulties or troubles that feel unnecessary, or out of balance, you can use this method. It uses reversed cards to locate where your flow has been “twisted” or “turned”. Untwisting the Tree 1. Take the forty Minor cards from your Deck (Aces to Ten in all four Suits; Pentacles, Swords, Cups and Wands). 2. Shuffle whilst considering how your present situation is perturbed, diverted, blocked, twisted or turned. Turn cards the other way as you shuffle, reversing some cards (upside down, not face-up). 3. Lay out the cards in the Tree of Life pattern as illustrated, facedown, placing the first card in the first position, the second card in the second position, to the tenth card at the bottom, then repeat again (four times in total) until all forty cards are laid down. You should have four cards in each position. 1 23 45 6 78 9

10 4, Turn the cards up and see which positions on the Tree of Life have most reversed cards. If there is a position where all four cards are reversed this is the one which requires most attention. 5. Rather than read the reversed cards (which you can do using our quick reference book, Tarot Flip or the in-depth Tarot Turn in 3 volumes) you will read the upright cards from the “balancing” position. 6. The “balancing” position is listed below: Position with Reversals 1 (Ace) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Balancing Position 10 3 2 5 4 9 8 7 6 1 (Ace)

If the “balancing” position has all reversals, then at this time the spread has no possible advice for you and you should try again the following day. Otherwise, take the upright cards in the balancing position and read these as the required action to free the flow, right the imbalance, smooth the twist, resolve the problem, or break the block. If you are comfortable with reversals, you can also read any reversed cards in the balancing position as advisory cards.

As an example, if I laid out the cards in all ten positions, turned them up, and saw that I had lots of mixed cards upright and reversed throughout the layout, but in position 8 I had three reversed cards (and other positions only had two at most), I would read the position 7 cards as balancing. In position 7 I might have the 8 of Wands and the 3 of Cups upright, and two reversed cards, which I can ignore for this example. I would read the 8 of Wands and the 3 of Cups together as suggesting “taking new ideas to a group of friends”. This would untwist the situation and restore the flow of the creative process. For advanced Tarot Living, you can consider the nature of the Sephirah in which your “balance” is to be found, here in position 7, Netzach, the Sephirah of nature and cycles, and corresponding to Venus. So there should be more delight in the project!

The Sephiroth Positions If you would like to consider the nature of the position in which you have twists to your flow, here are some basic keywords for the Sephiroth on the Tree of Life. The word Sephirah (plural, Sephiroth) means a “numerical emanation”, indicating that it is part of a divine flow in a numerical sequence from One to Ten – just like the Tarot Minor cards. We give the title of the Sephirah, the main translation into English (in bold) and other alternative translations. Then we offer a brief idea of how this position plays out in our lives. 1. Kether Crown, diadem, to surround, beseige, wait, encompass. This is the position of your highest spiritual goals and the source of all creation. If your main twists in the flow are here, consider your spiritual life, your core, your highest values. You are already going the wrong way, go further and deeper to discover what has twisted your flow so highly. 2. Chockmah Wisdom, experience, knowledge, intelligence, insight, judgement, science, midwife. This area of your life is that of the father, authority and energy. You may be wasting energy, or forcing yourself in the wrong direction. This will cause turbulence in the flow and disrupt your plans. Consider how the cards in Binah show how to bring balance and structure to your energy. 3. Binah

Understanding, insight, prudence, reason, discernment. In this Sephirah, we have the mother and all structure, all form – the matrix of life. If your cards are twisted (reversed) here, then you are looking at life in the wrong way – you are missing understanding the situation and big picture. Take time to try and formulate your plans in more detail, see how one thing is connected to another. 4. Chesed Mercy, grace, piety, beauty, good-will, favour, benefit, love, kindness, charity, righteousness, benevolence, to do good. The position of “loving kindness”, this Sephirah is the big burst, the big bang, the constant outpouring of love and energy into the universe. It can also be blind and ruthless - love can be harsh. So if your twists are here, you may wish to consider how you are expressing yourself and expanding into the universe. Are you sure you are being selfless in “helping” others? 5. Geburah Strength, power, force, valour, courage, victory, might, God, hero The position of might, power and constraint – also known as Pachad, meaning “fear”. A more challenging Sephirah in which to have blocks to your flow, you need to really look at the cards and see how you must face up and be brave in meeting these challenges. 6. Tiphareth Beauty, splendour, magnificance, ornament, honour, glory, boast. When cards are twisted here, you are out of balance. You should consider the cards in position 9, Yesod (“foundation”) to get grounded and take a step back. You may be experiencing some

great times and energy in your flow, but it may come toppling down without a solid foundation. 7. Netzach Victory, splendour, glory, truth, power, firmness, confidence, eminence. Duration, perpetuity, eternity, lasting, enduring. To excel, be superior, strength, blood, to be chief. Music-master, precentor, to sparkle, shine, win. Netzach, in our own being, is the realm of the emotions, compared to Hod, the realm of thought. Netzach is the position of habits, routine and cycles. If your twists are mainly here, you are in a bad cycle and need to look over to Hod to gain clarity and work your way into a new way of being. Turn the cycles in your life into spirals upwards. 8. Hod Glory, splendour, majesty, renown, ornament, beauty. Hod, compared to Netzach, is the realm of thought and clarity. When your reversed cards are mainly here it is a sign that your thinking needs to be better aligned to the reality of the situation. Try writing it all out, journaling, consulting – take rational and logical steps. 9. Yesod Foundation, base, ground, principle, compilation. As a mirror of Tiphareth (6) above, when cards are twisted here and reversed, it shows you are in a position where things are upturned generally. You have got things the wrong way entirely. Look to the upright Tiphareth cards to gain clarity. If those cards are also reversed, things are wildly out of centre – look to the cards in 7 & 8 to regain balance at this time. 10. Malkuth

Kingdom, dominion, realm, reign. At the base of the Tree of Life, if your cards are reversed here, the flow has been blocked before it can finally manifest. There may be great strain and stress in your life – in fact, the blocks of our previous Gate 2 exist in Yesod above, stopping the flow. Look to the cards in Kether to return to your source and power, then make a new start and initiate a totally new current from those cards. At the end, we begin again..

Going With the Flow Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity. Real calmness should be found in activity. Ram Dass. In this month’s gate, we pull together our previous gates and use them as material for this exercise. We provide a few different levels to perform this exercise, depending on how much time you would like to invest in it. At every level this month’s gate is to be attempted as a constant practice. That is to say, you should aim to be doing the exercise as often as you can for as long as you can every day during the month. It is a simple practice, but the challenge is keeping it constantly in your mind. In this sense, it is a practice of mindfulness. A. Simple Version Take out your Destiny Card from the first Gate exercise. Take the forty Minors from the deck and shuffle them (minus your Destiny card). Select one card for the day and hold it up in front of you. Consider it as a mirror of yourself. Consult the suggestions hereafter for how this card can align you to the flow of the day. Attempt to hold this image of yourself as often as possible during the day, from moment to moment. Do not allow anything to distract you from considering that you are reflecting this card.

As you may forget during the day, each time, remember again and continue for as long as possible. Obviously you may need to balance this exercise if you are undertaking dangerous or risky activities requiring your attention. Make a note of the card, and any feelings which arose during the day, and particularly any synchronicities, “strange” occurrences, coincidences, lucky events, etc. Anything happening “out of the blue”. These are all signposts of flow. The following day repeat the exercise, having returned the previous days card to the pile. You may have the same card for any number of days across this exercise, which should also be noted. As the month progresses, you may find yourself entering the flow in all its currents with increasing ease. This is “chariot riding”. B. Intermediate Version In this version, you perform the exercise as given in version A, however, with consideration to the blocks which you worked with in the second gate. 1. Go back to your notes on your blocks and mechanisms from Gate/Book 2. You should have recorded your most common blocking mechanisms out of the list of 8. 2. Take the following cards from the Majors to represent each block: A. Lying B. Suppression C. Reaction Formation D. Repression E. Introjection F. Isolation G. Projection H. Denial

Devil Strength Hanged Man Moon Last Judgment Hermit Sun Chariot

You will also see now we have given these correspondences that when you carry out a Tarot reading for someone, these cards can indicate their deeper mechanisms holding them in particular patterns. 3. Take the one or two card(s) that represent your most common blocking mechanism(s) and each morning, when you hold up the MINOR card for your flow, hold up the blocking card(s) in front, and then move them out of the way so you can see your flow card. Repeat this several times, then continue the constant exercise with your flow card. This will signal to your unconscious that those blocking mechanisms are put to one side when you find flow. As a result, you may find significant shifts in personality and behavior as your align yourself to your flow card for each day. Repeat this exercise daily throughout the month, with the block card(s) and you should notice that its power reduces as you easily remember each day to align yourself with the flow card. This encourages you to “remove the blocks” by simply making them obsolete. C. Advanced Method In this method, you follow the same practice as A & B, with the addition of your decision-making Court Card from the third Gate. In the morning exercise which opens this gate for the day, you move your block cards out of the way so you can see your flow card, and you also place your decision-maker Court Card at your feet. As you move the block cards to see your Flow card, you also briefly gaze down at your decision-maker Court card. Take in the qualities of this card, and consider how you then see your flow card for the day, beyond any blocks. Enact this ritual several times.

In all three versions, the important thing is to keep the flow card in mind, as you are intending to reflect it as often as possible, during the day. Notice when you suddenly remember that you have forgotten to think about the card!

General Practice This practice can be quite profound, and will change as you progress over a month. If you do find yourself forgetting too many important things, getting confused or other unwanted issues, abandon the practice – or take a card for the day, and journal upon it as a “flow” card at the end of the day. At the very least, you can accomplish this gate by performing the practice for a day just once a week, for example, making Wednesday’s your “Flowday” and practicing with four draws/days over a month. Do not force the flow!

The Flow Cards 10 of Pentacles Reversed, this card indicates a lack of return on investment, in all its guises. So to go with the flow of this card, we must ensure that we are getting out what we put in, to all practical matters. As we progress through the day, we should take constant note of the purpose of our activity, and its reward, whether immediate or delayed. Keep it in balance all day, and waste not one moment. 10 of Swords In terms of flow, the 10 of Swords brings avoidance of being pinned down, mentally, figuratively, metaphorically, in an argument or discussion – or point of view. Feel free to change your mind to suit the circumstances today, as you reflect this card in every moment. Be as free as the wind to go whence and whither. And don’t let yourself get typecast or anyone take you for granted – you may shock, surprise and be inconstant, to follow this flow. 10 of Cups The ecstasy and the heartache of the 10 of Cups, upright and reversed, tells us to reflect our feelings fully and wholly all day. Our flow is to attend our emotions, as we constantly observe this card today. Become a wholly emotional being, intuitive and sensitive. You may not “get real” or be as “sharp as a razor” today, so long as you immerse in the emotional flow of your soul. 10 of Wands The flow of today is all about pulling it together – your ambitions, work, and values. Bend your arm to what is most important to you, realize your vision and make it real. Carry the load forwards, even if it is a push. Going with the flow can sometimes mean pushing against resistance – but it is only the resistance of a mountain to a river; eventually it will be worn away, it is only a matter of time. 9 of Pentacles Going with the flow can be tricky – we may not know what to surrender and to what we must hold. It is like going down a river

clinging to a branch; it may keep us afloat but we may wish to let go and wade for shore when the waterfall is ahead! So when we get the 9 of Pentacles as our flow card, we must be aware during every moment of the day that we are either attached to something or letting go – from moment to moment, our attention, resources and being are fixing and releasing from one attraction to another. Watch. Learn. Are you the bird flying free, or hooded and chained to someone’s wrist? 9 of Swords Doubt can be a hindrance to flow, and in faith its freedom. When we have this card to reflect, moment to moment, we must hold our head up, eyes forward and keep going. There should be no doubt, no pause, no deviation – just forwards motion. We may not even see the aim, but this does not matter – we go forwards. Don’t stop today, and today won’t stop you. 9 of Cups In the meaning of “fulfillment” and its reverse, “disappointment”, this is a card of emotional accountancy. Take your fill of love, it suggests, and indulge in the flow of all good things. Find yourself today moving always to what delights you, and away from anything or anyone who seeks your despair. You are a jolly green giant today, a clown, laughing at everything, taking time to enjoy everything, and reflecting the sheer happiness of being in flow. 9 of Wands Taking care of yourself and others is your entry into flow with this card. At every point of the day, ask, “is this care?” Show compassion and a respect for others, let them know they are valued, and value yourself too. It is all about the people today, their views and opinions, and recognizing the importance of acknowledgement. 8 of Pentacles This is a card of work for its own sake, the zen of work. Whatever you do today, do it for its own sake. Focus on just the moment, the connection with what you are doing. Take an Asana (position) of immediate focus, to everything. Take each moment as it comes, this is perhaps a more spiritual flow card than you may have thought.

The answer lies in every detail, pay attention and don’t be concerned about planning or the big picture. 8 of Swords Trust. A small word for a difficult concept. How do we trust to the flow? How do we know what is right for us and what is a trap? If we surrender, will we be abused by time itself? Today, if you have this card, is a test of your trust. Do not do anything. Wait. See what happens. And go with it. Imagine you are floating back into the world, and it is guiding and supporting you. Where do you go? It doesn’t matter – let go to it. This is one of the more challenging flow cards, for its image (for example on the Waite-Smith card) is usually taken as the opposite of flow, i.e. constraint. Yet it is far from it. 8 of Cups Moving to another place is often seen as stressful, and yet we do it every moment. How do we know what the world holds in store from us, from minute to minute? In the 8 of Cups, we step forward into the unknown. So, today, to enter the flow, from moment to moment, consider that anything could happen next – and now, anything could happen again, and so on. Take every moment as a step into the unknown, and wake up from boredom, expectation and complacency. Just because the sun appears to rise every morning does not stop it from being a holy miracle. 8 of Wands Management and ambition appear to be somewhat removed from “flow” however there are many books on attaining flow-like states of employment, direction and management. An effortless handling of every situation, with full awareness and appreciation of all the factors at hand, is how you want to reflect this card today. Deal with every matter as if you were in charge of a computer game set way below your ability. Act with confidence and assuredness and find the flow of a senior executive – or an angel. 7 of Pentacles What you reap, you sow. So today, “sow in flow”. Plant seeds, nurture, assist everything to move on a step, with gentle nudges, patient advice and a helping hand. Become a secret agent of change

– using every second of the day to invisibly assist in the divine master plan of everybody reaching for their highest aspiration. This is your flow – get to it. 7 of Swords A devious little card, to gain flow from it we must tread carefully. Today, make the obvious, well, obvious. State out loud what is what and who is who. Do not be afraid of stating the obvious. I said that again, didn’t I? Can I make myself any clearer? This is the flow for today – get all the skeletons out of the closet, hang the dirty laundry out and get it cleaned. Don’t hide, don’t hold back, don’t beat around the bush. The flow is pure and clean, don’t muddy the waters. You are a crystal beacon of radiant light when you reflect this card, so stay with it all day. 7 of Cups This card of imagination (run wild) tells us that our flow today can be found in creativity and a little wild ambition. Dream, play and create a little. Do something quirky or out of the box – but do it all the time. You may want to wear something a little unusual to try and keep this in mind as often as you can today. Like a quirky button or scarf. See what happens when you enter an off-beat flow, how it turns everyone else, directs attention to new thinking. You may even make something original happen today in the flow. 7 of Wands To go with the flow today you need to defend your space regardless of how other people prod and poke you. If you feel embarrassment this is a sure confirmation that you are being called to stand up for who you truly are meant to be. The process of standing one’s ground and protecting your personal space whether it is emotional or physical will bring about transformation - which will position you back in your rightful place in flow. Do not let anyone stand on your toes today! 6 of Pentacles To go with the flow today you need to stop giving it all away, for there is a tendency for you to give to others at the expense of your own welfare. If you feel the desire to spend money on yourself today go

ahead and treat yourself, indulge in your indulgence, others can take care of themselves. Today is a day of being self-centered and self motivated, every moment. 6 of Swords To go with the flow today you need to put yourself on hold, you need to stay put, hold back, do not venture too far. This could be in the context of verbal debating, do not let yourself get too carried away with a disagreement - you will be lured into waters too deep. You cannot hold back the river, but this does not mean you have to get your feet wet! Find higher ground and maintain it all day. 6 of Cups To go with the flow today you need to be ‘future orientated’ rather than present/past orientated in your approach to life. You must ‘imagine the unimaginable!’ Today is the day that you should plan out your life and focus on long term goals. Ask yourself where will I be in 5 years time if I carry on doing the same old negative things I have always done? The chances are that it may not be a desirable place to be. It is all very well being sentimental about the past, and hanging onto worn-out patterns of behavior and tolerating people in your life who are working against rather than for you. Stop playing it safe, and speculate on a better future - one of your own making. Shun the tendency to dependency. Today is the day to get real and put aside childish ideals and focus on creating your future every second! 6 of Wands To go with the flow today take time out from wanting to be in the proverbial driving seat - being in charge is not all it is cracked up to be. This could be in your home life or the workplace. Surprise the people in your life, let go, change your mindset, change your position, be a passenger in the back of the vehicle for a change. Just for today let others experience what you have to carry off from day to day; they may find that ‘success’ has a constant companion called ‘responsibility and hard work’. Can you let go all day? 5 of Pentacles

Give into the flow by celebrating the good fortune you have in your life at this time, however small it may be, it is worth being thankful for. Today is a day to live for the moment and enjoy the fruits of your labors - after all, you have worked hard to get this far. There is a school of thought that teaches that the act of celebrating the positivity in your life attracts more positivity. Have you noticed how easy it is to elicit a smile from others if you are wearing a smile yourself. It may be hard to wear the smile all day, but why should this be so difficult? May good fortune smile on you today as you let extravagance have its way!

5 of Swords Go with the flow today by accepting ‘loss and failure’ in equal measure to ‘gain and success’. As the poet Kipling advised ‘meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same’. Keep this quote in mind all day if you can as you reflect this card in constant mindfulness. 5 of Cups Give into the flow by bathing in glorious joy; today is the day that you convince yourself you possess the cup that holds the holy grail of sweet happiness from within. Drink, drink deep - have the courage to believe it is possible to behold. Put aside the glass that is forever bitter and half-empty and put to your lips the glass that is half full and optimistic. Make a toast to the return of old hope renewed. Can you do it? Look deep into this card all day. 5 of Wands Give into the flow by courting harmony in your life. It is the time to put aside past grievances and actively promote concord in all relationships. Be receptive to rebuilding situations that you believed to be beyond repair. Consider death and rebirth in nature, like the rotting plants that die to create the soil, nothing is waste or wasted during this process. Regeneration is the name of the game today in flow. 4 of Pentacles Give into the flow by taking a bit of a gamble, experience the thrill of not being held down by playing it safe. The act of desperately holding onto security can become stultifying and stop you enjoying what you do possess. Be spontaneous every moment as you can and do not restrict yourself. Life is far too short to be ruled by restriction. 4 of Swords

Go with the flow by being the one to agitate situations that have become stagnant. Be the one to speak up to promote change, it could be that you have been biting your lip for far too long in order to keep the peace. Sometimes to achieve genuine long-lasting peace we have to stir things up a little initially. Keep an eye out all day for your opportunities to accelerate and perturb the flow. 4 of Cups Go with the flow by putting your emotions into action. There is a lot for you to achieve if only you would put aside the habit of procrastination. If you have a gut instinct that you should act then follow up on it. Put all your ambitious plans into action. It is really that simple. 4 of Wands Go with the flow by withdrawing from social activities. There could possibly be an opportunity today to turn down one of those invitations to a social event that if you are true to yourself you will turn down. How many occasions have you said yes to an invitation when you would rather say no. Give it a go today go with the ‘flow and say NO’. 3 of Pentacles Go with flow by dropping the desire to achieve perfection. We live in a world that is pre-occupied with the ideal. We feel that our best can always be bettered, if not by ourselves but by others. Be a little blasé, and do not become too obsessed with detail and thereby never finishing what you started out to do. It is better to create something that is imperfect than not to create at all. As Quentin Crisp said ‘If at first you do not succeed, failure may be your style’. Embrace it - after all it may be the very thing to make you unique. 3 of Swords Go with the flow and release your inner chaos-devil, surprise those you know by doing something most irregular and out of character. You may find that you rediscover a side to your personality that is

very special and unique – and that you have denied yourself for far too long. As Friedrich Nietzsche expressed “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star”. 3 of Cups Go with the flow today by being aware that congeniality is not always possible. Those old friends of yours may be stressing you out a little; it may be that they feel they know you so well they are taking you for granted. The intimacy you once shared is now beginning to feel intrusive, you may find yourself wanting to tell them to ‘butt out of your life!” 3 of Wands Go with the flow by accepting that something that you have invested time and energy in creating might not be the success you believed it to be. It may be advisable to cut your losses and reserve your energies and focus on a new project. The advice is not to speculate, take nothing at face value, and keep this in mind all day. 2 of Pentacles Go with the flow by letting go of commitments that have become too much effort to maintain. You may be trying to manage too much at one time in your life. Take time out and re-evaluate what is really of importance to you. Look for chances to do this all day in case you miss something obvious. 2 of Swords Go with the flow by just letting go, relax and give into the very thing that should be the easiest thing in the world. If only we could remember a state that once came naturally to us before we became bound by our severe and restrictive thought patterns. The desire to protect ourselves by being self-defensive has become oppressive and in turn is effectively a burden in itself. Watch out from moment to moment when you tend to contract, and let go at that time instead of flexing inwards. What is the worst that can happen? 2 of Cups

A simple card that is truly all it appears to be. Go with the flow by reevaluating relationships in your life, it could be that emotionally you are bearing too much and need to recalibrate your relationship. It may be that on the surface all appears well, so put down the emotionally full cups and start to communicate on another level. Today is about asking, from moment to moment, “avoiding relationship?” as a constant mantra. You may be surprised by how powerful this observation can be. 2 of Wands You can go with the flow by maintaining faith in what you have materialized in your life so far. Do not give in due to feel of failure. The only loss you will have is by not knowing what you could have gone on to achieve if only you had believed in yourself. Stay today by looking forwards and building on your past – refer to your experience at all points of the day. Let others know.

The Aces Please note that the Aces – when it comes to their correspondence to the cosmic flow – are the very source of that flow. They correspond to Kether on the Tree of Life, the root of all creation. As a result, they are the most powerful and challenging cards to attempt to hold in constant mindfulness for an entire day. Ace of Pentacles All that is real and material belongs to this card, that is to say, everything. Today is the flow of sheer sensation. Take every moment to feel, to touch, to taste, to see and hear, and smell everything possible. Become a fully sensing human being, a creature of flesh and bone, of blood, and immerse yourself in the physical flow of all creation. Can you exist just like this for an entire day? Ace of Swords In our beginner’s book, Tarot Flip, we give the oracular image of this card, “light streaming through a library window”. This is the light of knowledge, of clarity, and the source of the flow of the mind. All thoughts originate from this singular point and cascade into the world. So your task today – to enter the flow – is to become fully aware of the stream of your thoughts. Direct your attention inwards and observe how your thoughts flow. From where do they come and where do they go? Can you do this all day? Ace of Cups The penultimate flow card, this card is about movement and natural flow. Let everything happen, encourage and celebrate it. Go with the flow as if there were nothing else in life other than the sheer joy of every breath, saying now “I’m alive” and again, “I’m alive”. Be awed at the sheer incredulity of life and creation, overact, be large, be bold be bountiful and beautiful. Every minute. Can you last the day like this? Ace of Wands

The ultimate flow card, this is the seed of ambition. It is where all flow begins, so is the source of our wisdom. Imagine today from moment to moment that you are bearing a wand, and that everything is emanating from it, and everything being drawn to it. You are the sole centre of everything, and everything is dancing in a vast cosmic spiral around you. As you move, you move everything. Yet you are a still centre of all things. Can you hold this centre all day, where the flow is born from your very being?

Conclusion Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times – although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind are stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult or worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something we make happen. M. Csikszentmihalyi, Flow. p. 3. In the following eight booklets in this series, we will build on our progress in the first four months, next discovering how to ride the lion; a profound exercise of self-discovery. It is important to the process that you undertake the exercises, and we have an optional Facebook group listed in the appendix where you can share and discuss your experiences, ask questions and gain support. We have also provided in the final section a list of reading materials and website resources to discover more in the very best of Tarot and Tarosophy®. In this series, released monthly over 2013: 1. Discover Your Destiny 2. Remove The Blocks 3. Make Decisions Better 4. Enter the Flow 5. Ride the Lion 6. Connect to Service 7. Find Your Equality 8. Die To Your Old Self 9. Entering Unity

10. Becoming the Real 11. Your Keys to Freedom 12. The Depth of Divinity What Follows Next Month In next month’s Tarot Life, we ride the Lion; a deep method of incorporating and utilizing our personal relationship to the divine. We will see how we can harness the everyday events of our lives and our own reactions to them to perceive the hidden relationship between ourselves and the cosmos. We will then be able to connect to service in the following gated spread and enter into a more spiritual tarot life as we progress through the sequence. These gates may take you further than you recognize when you learn to ride the lion. A Final Note on Constant Prayer In this book we have utilized not only the latest findings in how we achieve “flow” in our lives but also a fragment of method from western mysticism called “constant prayer”. Whilst this is somewhat similar to repeating a mantra in the eastern traditions, it is actually closer to a form of directed or themed mindfulness. In this, it is also different to contemplation or other methods, in that it is carried out in daily life. It does not require a hermitage or monastery! We have given in the bibliography the classic text in the Christian tradition for this process, and a contemporary book on living a spiritual life within an everyday life. We encourage you to go beyond these exercises in Tarot Life to further discover how Tarot can open gates to many practices and approaches to living a deeper spiritual life in the western traditions.

Bibliography Brianchaninov, I. On the Prayer of Jesus. Boston: New Seeds Books, 2006. Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Sinetar, M. Ordinary People as Monks & Mystics. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1986.

TAROT LIFE MONTH 5 RIDE THE LION Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Authors Note: This is Month 5 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Months 1-4 booklets to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of selfdiscovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

INDEX Introduction

4

Riding the Lion

5

A Simple Method for Beginners

8

The Seven Days of Cybele The Secret Tarot Agent

9 13

Your Mission Cards

15

Conclusion

29

A Reading List on Alchemy

30

Bibliography

34

Websites & Resources

35

TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE

A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year. Introduction In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given. You can start at any time, although New Year, your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a private Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

Riding the Lion Hic Leo, quas plumas non habet, alter habet. ‘This Lion has no feathers, the other has”, Michael Maier, Emblemata XVI, Atlanta Fugiens, 1618

Illus. Plate XVI, Atlanta Fugiens

In this fifth month of Tarot Life we encounter the Lion of the Strength card corresponding to the astrological sign of Leo. It is at this stage we take a moment to establish the strength to continue on with our great work of transformation. We will accomplish this by acts of secret service in a form of living alchemy. By working for the greater good, we will strengthen our own inner reserves. As we have made good progress through our gates so far, and are approaching half-way, we also provide as our “beginners method” a gated spread in itself – the Seven Days of Cybele. This can be performed during this month or as a separate exercise.

Illus. Strength card from the Waite-Smith Tarot (1909)

In the card of Strength we see a perfect balance of energy between the woman peacefully holding the Lion and the strength of the animal. There appears to be two forces at work – the active and passive, the male and female, and the symbolic colours of white and red. This is a notion from alchemy, as we saw in our first illustration of two lions, taken from Atlanta Fugiens, a series of alchemical images. In Alchemy, the prima materia, the “first material” was put through a series of processes or stages in order to refine it, spiritually. This is the equivalent of the so-called “Fool’s Journey” to enlightenment in the Tarot major arcana. There were various descriptions of this alchemical process, sometimes with 7, 12 or more stages. We are working through that same process in Tarot Life, with the advantage of using our tarot sequence to bring in other systems, such as numerology, psychology, astrology, and mythology. We will also see in this month how we can produce a method from the correspondence of the Strength card with a goddess.

Illus. The Goddess Cybele, on a Chariot pulled by Lions.

For this purpose, the goddess of the Strength card and Leo is Cybele. Whilst there are other leonine deities, such as the lionessheaded Sekhmet of ancient Egypt, we use Cybele for two specific reasons. The first is that she was often depicted as being drawn on a chariot by two lions, which follows on from our previous zodiacal card of the Chariot (Cancer). The second is that she was a goddess associated with mystery religion, sometimes in association with Attis, so provides us a model for our mini-gated spread following.

A Simple Method for Beginners When you find yourself in a situation of great emotional impact, whether positive or negative, we have provided here a method to discover the higher aspects of the situation. If you are working this for yourself, you can conduct it over a seven-day period as given, or for a client you can lay it out at once, requesting they contemplate it further for a full week. The method is based on the festival of Cybele, which was conducted over seven days. It also uses as a template the shape of the Naiskos, or temple – in which Cybele was worshipped and often depicted in sculpture.

Illus. Naiskos Method (“The Temple of Cybele”)

The Seven Days of Cybele

To perform this tarot working, take a Court Card to represent yourself – one of those you have determined for yourself from month three of Tarot Life. This working can also be considered a mini-Gated Spread, for yourself or to use with a client. Place this chosen court card (C in the illustration) down in a place where it will be undisturbed for at least one week. This is the Candidate Card. Contemplate your question or situation, and shuffle the rest of the deck. Lay out two cards either side of the Candidate Card (Cards 0 & 0 in the illustration). Read these in the light of the context given below for Day 1 of the ritual. You may decide to take a small action (devotion) in response to these two cards as suggested in our text. Do not disturb or shuffle your deck further. The following day, lay out the next two cards (1 & 1) above the first pair, and move your candidate card upwards to be level with this second pair. It is as if you are walking as a candidate up between the pillars of the temple of Cybele. Read these two cards again in the context of the second day, and again, you may wish to take action during the day to respond to or honor these two cards. Repeat this for all seven days of the working until your candidate card is placed at the top of the temple, between the final pair of cards (6 and 6). If you feel that you have met the words of the Goddess, and your Candidate card is purified, you may turn over a final card as the Initiatory card (position I). This will provide further resolution to your situation.

If you feel that the Goddess is not answering your call, simply abandon the reading until another time. Day 1: Canna Intrat – The Reed Enters (cards 0) The two cards in this position dictate how your situation appears to be on the surface. It shows the reason it has entered your life on the most obvious level. In response to these two cards, you may wish to do something active today which reduces their negativity, or promotes their positivity. These are the foundations of the pillar. In the ancient mystery, the “reed enters” meant that offerings were brought to the temple entrance in preparation for the festival ahead. Day 2: Arbor Intrat – The Tree Enters (cards 1) These two cards give us the deeper elements of your emotional situation, the roots of your response. Perhaps they tell you what old wounds or gratitudes the present situation is calling up. They may suggest how you can face up to the situation in real action today. In the days of the festival, “the tree enters” referred to the cutting down of a tree which symbolized death and rebirth. These two cards show the “switch” in your life which you can accomplish through this time. Day 3: Tubilustrium – Beating the Shields (cards 2) This third day was sacred to Mars, and celebrants of the rite would blow horns, beat their shields and make noise in any way they could. These two cards show what you can demonstrate outside about this situation – what you might say, protest, or shout to the rooftops! These two cards really do require action today! Day 4: Dies Sanguinis – the Day of Blood (cards 3)

Whilst not wishing to revive the original whipping frenzy of the mystery schools of antiquity, this day should involve a form of sacrifice. The two cards in this part of the reading show the nature of that sacrifice – something to let go in response to your situation. Day 5: Hilaria - Rejoicing (cards 4) Following sacrifice, we may move onwards a day with our next pair of cards. These two cards show the best elements of the situation – something to re-joy, to recognize as joyful. You may wish to make time today to reflect upon these cards or engage in an activity which invokes the nature of these two cards. Sometimes, the Hilaria cards may not be obviously related to your issue, but the activity which they suggest may lead to surprising outcomes, or synchronicities. They may be so far-fetched as to be literally “hilarious”. Day 6: Requietio – the Day of Rest (cards 5) The two penultimate cards site just underneath the room of our temple so must not be disturbed. You may see in them suggestions for how to best recover in times of emotional upheaval, but allow them to sit in your mind, do not do anything active. In fact, in resisting the urge to activate the cards, you will evoke a unique response. Day 7: Lavatio – Washing (cards 6) The final two cards reflect the first pair, in that they suggest how you can “wash yourself” finally of the situation – given that you now understand why it was present in your life from the first pair of cards. As you have moved your Candidate card up through the two pillars of the temple, you might be surprised just how powerful a working this has become. Take action with these two cards demonstrating a method of thinking about or resolving in behavior, the situation with which you entered the temple. Then you will be purified.

Outcome: Initium Caiani – Initiation (card I) As your Candidate card reaches the uppermost part of the Temple, you may draw a final initiation card. This shows how you can now – having learnt the lessons of the two columns and taken action on each day – initiate a new current in your life. This initiation is possible as you have used this gated spread to elegantly incorporate and utilize a significant event in your life. Having presented this method, we now move on to the core work of this month’s gated spread, in which you will start to “ride the lion” by becoming a Tarot Secret Agent.

The Secret Tarot Agent The Tarot shows not just how, and who, we are, but also tells us something of what we have been and what we will become. This is actually beyond the scope, remarkably, of many theories of personality, as we shall see. Carl Sargent, Personality, Divination and the Tarot (1988), p. 6. In this month’s gate, we draw on the results of the third gate to provide an alchemical balance in your life. We incorporate the idea of Strength/Leo as right relationship to others, and strengthen our dedication to the great work of transformation by providing service to others. We do this by taking on secret missions throughout the month, guided by the Court Cards. The first card you should take on as a mission suggestion is simply the one you felt most closely resonated with you during the third gate – your decision-making Court card personality. Accept the mission of that card from the descriptions which follow, and perform it as a “secret change agent”. You may of course share it with your fellow secret tarot agents on the Tarot Life group at any time. If you need ideas with regard how to go about your mission, consider the keywords below. The Knight of Wands will perform his mission with active energy and imagination. The Queen of Cups will go about her mission with enduring flexibility – perhaps performing her task slowly over a longer period of time. Pages Knights

Crystallizing, Absorbing, Counterbalancing Active, Manifesting

Queens Enduring Kings

Receptive, Fermenting, Transmitting, Swift, Violent, Transient, Rushing

Pentacles/Earth Swords/Air Cups/Water Wands/Fire

Practical Sense Mentality (Thinking) Flexibility (Emotions) Dynamic Energy (Imagination)

When you are satisfied that you have carried out a mission in the guise of your main decision-making card from the third gate, you must then look up the OPPOSITE card in the table below and conduct a mission according to that card. These opposites are chosen based on the respective energies of the cards. If you wish to take on other missions during the month – you only need to perform the first two to continue to the next gate – then choose the next card as the one somewhat in-between your original and opposite cards, or select from any of the sixteen Court Cards. Page of Pentacles … Knight of Pentacles … Queen of Pentacles … King of Pentacles … Page of Swords … Knight of Swords … Queen of Swords … King of Swords … Page of Cups … Knight of Cups … Queen of Cups … King of Cups … Page of Wands … Knight of Wands … Queen of Wands … King of Wands … General Practice

King of Swords Queen of Swords Knight of Swords Page of Swords King of Pentacles Queen of Pentacles Knight of Pentacles Page of Pentacles King of Wands Queen of Wands Knight of Wands Page of Wands King of Cups Queen of Cups Knight of Cups Page of Cups

This practice can be conducted over the month with just one or two missions, although you may see more dramatic changes in your life if you are conducting missions almost all the time throughout the month. The practice is one of directed change, for no other reason than to work to a card and a script. This will have its own subtle change as you engage with the exercise, which, as all those in Tarot Life, is deeper than it might first appear. Your Mission Cards In performing these secret missions, you will come to experience the nature of the Court Cards in real life. In doing so, you will recognize their activities in other people more in future – and their relevance in a reading. This exercise brings the Court Cards to life and you will also see further patterns; the Wands for example work by motivating using values and beliefs towards ambitions; the Pentacles work through various levels of practical assistance. Each of the cards contains a slightly tongue-in-cheek mission name, a code-word for clarity as to the objective of the mission, a briefing and a de-briefing. The de-briefing question provides a prompt for your personal Tarot Life journal and/or for discussion on the Facebook group. We hope you enjoy this gate, which is one of our personal favorites. The King of Pentacles Your Mission: Operation Magnanimity Code-Word: Dignity Briefing Your mission as an emissary for change for yourself and others is to embody the positive qualities of the King of Pentacles; you will be courageous and forthright, you will be a natural at looking after the security of others. You may find yourself in the situation where you are able to help out a person; it could be in the workplace where you are presented with the opportunity of mentoring a new work colleague and to assist them in realizing their true potential.

Do you have skills and the wherewithal that you could share with others? In this mission you will show a generosity of spirit, and maintain composure and calm in situations that would normally overwhelm you. In this you will lead others. You will learn to rule yourself and be generous to others. The essence word for you to enable change is ‘Magnanimity’. If the gentleman/Lady has ability,/she is magnanimous, Generous, tolerant, and straightforward, through which he/she opens the way to instruct others. - Xun Zi It is your mission to become a facilitator for the practical success of another person, it must however be done in such a way that it is not obvious that you are assisting them to achieve success, it is a secret mission. As Crowley puts it, as a King of Pentacles, you are “a producer of life” (Book of Thoth, p. 164), you possess the ability to create and influence outcomes for the good of the whole. If you have the tendency to be impatient with others, and not allow them to make mistakes without drawing attention to their shortcomings, now is the opportunity for you to embody the “laborious and patient” traits of the King of Pentacles (Crowley, p. 165). Stand back and allow them to make mistakes; correct them in a manner that is discreet and noble. During this mission time, hold back on the desire to express the ‘petty’ side of your nature and the temptation to put the proverbial boot in! This attitude of putting the boot in, is as Crowley says again, the ill-dignified aspect of the King of Pentacles (Knight) “yet they are always irritably meddling about petty matters; they interfere with, and inevitably spoil whatever comes their way” (Crowley, p. 165). So the test of this secret mission is to be kind and noble of spirit, and to be guided by your higher self. You must go easy on the jealousy or resentfulness of others, it should always be a case of “I’ve had one motto I have always lived by: Dignity: Always dignity” (Don Lockwood, Singing in the Rain).

Shine your brightest light upon the world! Emanate wisdom and cultivate an enlightened state. Be aware of your power to make changes and this will change others. Unlike any other of the Court card missions, this one is actually all about you. In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. Eric Hoffer. Debrief: What does dignity mean to you and where did you tend to lose it most during this mission? The Queen of Pentacles Your Mission: Operation Liberty Code Word: Understanding Your mission as an emissary for change for yourself and others is to embody the positive qualities of the Queen of Pentacles. You will harness a force of power that will conjure up changes around you that will release a flow of information, that will ‘liberate’ and shake up the stagnation in your life and the lives of those around you. There is very much a teacher energy at play here, you are a catalyst of change, you are the ‘hand’ (yod) that is open and receptive, to give and receive and to liberate, to assist in the release of something, yours is the hand that unties that rope that binds. Make it your mission to be active in the community, take part in any voluntary work connected to improving the amenities where you live. Flashmob activities such as planting flowers, and clearing rubbish (safely and within the law of course)! Check out online groups and see how you can make a difference for the good of the whole. Use social networking to bring people together. “What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” Albert Pike Hold back on the feelings that arise when you find yourself becoming over-possessive and territorial. The negative aspects of the Queen

of Pentacles energy is to protect and see off anyone who is a threat to a loving community. This matriarchic behavior could spiral out of control, and the need to control could become a problem. We all know of people who head a committee and become over-protective of what they see as their baby. They then have a reluctance to allow new blood into the system. Beware of becoming the committee of one! Your secret mission is to promote diversity and understanding, to speak up if the opportunity arises against bigotry and prejudice. Make it your business to welcome outsiders into your space, into your life. Do your upmost to highlight ignorance and promote awareness of inequality. It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen Hold back on the negative aspects of the Queen of Pentacles, the dangers of being servile, and following the group-think. Debrief: Discuss what you felt most resistance to during your mission. The Knight of Pentacles Your Misson: Operation Service Code Word: Beauty As the Knight of Pentacles your mission is to become involved in as many projects as possible that will actually create something that is tangible and have lasting results. It can be a small thing such as planting flowers in the garden or even feeding the birds in your garden on a regular basis, something that contributes positively in a practical, earthy way. Throughout this mission, you are serving nature and the natural order of the planet, you will be putting back rather than taking away. Think about being of service in the most natural way.

There is little more to say of the Knight of Pentacles mission – he is the mainstay of the court cards, and just gets on with getting on. Go and make a real and practical difference in the lives of others. Debrief: What stops you from doing things? The Page of Pentacles Your Mission: Operation Application Code Word: Learning Your mission is to apply yourself to something that you have until now never been able to do. It could be that you have always wanted to learn to play an instrument. The important thing to remember that the mission is not to excel at this task, in that you do not have to become a talented musician overnight, and it is important to remember you may be lousy at it. The mission is to apply yourself to something and give it a go. This mission is about discovery, and that discovery could be that you are not suited to a particular thing, but it is the ‘Application’ that matters. Your service to others comes in the form of challenging yourself, starting something new – this will inevitably bring you into contact with new people, to whom your requirement to learn will in return, draw out their ability to teach. Debrief: What was the most unexpected thing you discovered about how others respond to you doing something new? The King of Swords Your Mission: Operation Shining Sword Code Word: Candid Your mission is to be assertive in communication, especially where it is for the good of another. If the opportunity arises for you to speak up for someone who is not as able to express themselves, then make it your mission to take command and stand up for them. If something appears to be unfair then try to take the upper hand. Do more than try – succeed. As the King you will not accept failure, in yourself or others – you will keep going until the task is done. This is the harshest of task masters to have running your mission, but rewarding when complete.

Debrief: What did it feel like to be brave? The Queen of Swords Your Mission: Operation Clear Skies Code Word: Decision Your mission as the Queen of Swords is to promote calmness at all times. Take a week, meditate, and contemplate. In this sense, you are a secret agent of change by becoming a role model. In other cards we have to take action, or permeate our energy; in this card we must simply be the person that others can hold as an example. So, you are the Queen the Swords. Here is how Aleister Crowley describes her in the Book of Thoth: “… intensely perceptive, a keen observer, a subtle interpreter, and intense individualist, swift and accurate at recording ideas; in action, confident, in spirit, gracious and just. Her movements will be graceful, and her ability in dancing and balance exceptional.” (p. 161) This is your role – you are playing an undercover part in this mission. Your success will be measured by how much other people learn from your stance, how you help others aspire to calmness and clarity, good decision-making, and equilibrium. You may notice when taking on this role how other people begin to change their attitude towards you, how you notice certain things more than others, and you may even start to make changes in your environment. This is a powerful archetype to embody in this manner and a challenging mission to accept, particularly if it is your “opposite” card. Debrief: How do people learn from a role-model? What is the process by which this “satsang” happens? The Knight of Swords Your Mission: Operation Swift Strike Code Word: Accelerate Of all the Court Cards, this is one mission where secrecy may not be the prime concern. The only concern is cutting to the chase, and getting there – wherever there is - as swiftly as possible. Your job

with this card as your mission description is to hasten someone along their way. However you need to put it, however harsh it may sound – words are our best weapon. Just get on with it, just do it, enough already. Your mission is to charge in and say what no-one else will say, so long as it helps someone gain clarity. At least they will know where they stand. So, your mission will be measured by how radical a change you can effect with just a few words – but the right words, at the right time. Debrief: What was the worst thing that happened when flinging yourself into this mission? The Page of Swords Your Mission: Operation Overlook Code Word: Survey The Page of Swords, much like his cousin the Page of Wands, could be the ultimate superspy. In his case, he is the reconnaissance expert – always casing the joint, reviewing the schematics, scanning the battlefield, before committing any action. Your mission with this card is to plan something for somebody. Make an elaborate or layered series of events, and then act them out during the time you allocate for your mission. Think it through – how can you act at various points during a day to help someone? It could be (like any of these missions) as simple as planning to make someone breakfast, bring them a cup of tea, go out and buy something for them, put their night clothes out! And then, go and do it. Ensure that every step is as you planned it, or change the plan as it happens. The trick with this mission is in planning in advance – so that everything happens for the other person exactly as you envision it. Your success is measured by how perfect a plan you create, in comparison to its reality. Debrief: What is the difference between a plan and reality? The King of Cups Your Mission: Operation Paradox Code Word: Dive

This mission is a strange one, as the King of Cups provides the paradox of masculinity and emotional depth. Or is it a paradox? Your mission is to assist a man – and this is the only mission that has to be undertaken with a man – discover more emotional depth. Without manipulation, this could be to simply ask him about his feelings. We are not asking you to be a pop psychologist or part-time and totally unqualified counselor, just to provide a friendly space for discovery. Dive as deep as you can into a male emotional space, see what you can draw out – it may be as enriching to you as to them. This mission requires a suitable space and time, and maybe planning in advance. Or it can happen across a canteen table. The successful outcome of Operation Paradox is a certain knowing on the face of a man when he connects to his deeper emotions. Debrief: Is the stereotype of masculinity such a paradox to emotional depth? The Queen of Cups Your Mission: Operation Harmony Code Word: Connect There are some situations in life that need healing, that need the bits to be connected to make sense, to be moved on from, or celebrated. With this card as your mission, you should look to help someone – or more likely a group of individuals – get connected. Putting people in touch with each other for long-term support is a task that fulfils the mission of the Queen of Cups. Her oracular nature should be drawn upon to tell you what is missing in a situation – draw cards, do readings for people, help them put something together. This mission is complete when something broken is fixed. Debrief: What did it feel like when the broken thing was fixed? The Knight of Cups Your Mission: Operation Galahad Code Word: Quest With this card as your mission, you must take someone’s quest and help them upon it. You must be their “wing-man” and side-kick in all

that they do towards their goal. Who do you know who has an ambition? Offer them support, be there for them. If there is no-one close to hand, as there may be for some missions, then adopt a charity or noble goal for a while, give them anonymous support in any way you can – be a guardian angel. This mission is accomplished when you see someone (or a group or organization) assisted by your secret efforts. There is no reward in this for yourself, just the knowledge and experience of moving the universe towards its accomplishment. Debrief: Do people have quests? If so, what are they? The Page of Cups Your Mission: Operation Fish Cup Code Word: Surprise Your mission as this youthful energy in the world of emotions is to bring curiosity and surprise into someone’s life. When acting as this secret tarot agent, expect the unexpected – turn things on their head for others. Make random acts of kindness, show spontaneous flair and exuberance. Let others get caught up in your love of life. Unlike other missions, this one is infectious – you are not a Wand who brings their whole will to bear on the task, nor a Pentacle who works concretely and up-front. You are more like the puck or pixie who adds glitter until everyone is smiling! You get mission accomplishment points for every time someone laughs, smiles or does something goofy with you. And on a more serious note, from curiosity and novelty, from feeling, comes creativity – this mission should bring new creations and emotions. Debrief: How did it work for you to be the centre of attention? The King of Wands Your Mission: Operation Hyper-Motivate Code Word: Responsibility Your mission as the King of Wands is to be more motivated in order to improve the lives of those around you. The tasks that you have promised to fulfill for other people but have been putting off until

another day need blitzing. You will do these tasks with an enthusiasm that will be contagious. You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. Abraham Lincoln You are the one who will step up and put order/structure into your home/work life. At home you are going to clear out the detritus that has accumulated to make way for a ‘new order’, as it is only possible to create new by clearing out the ‘old order’. You are going to be the ultimate organizer and fixer. This will be done is such a way that you will lead by example. Where you go others will follow. You will however have to hold back from becoming overbearing, as this is the drawback of the above, you may be perceived as a busybody, control freak. So it is very important that you keep a check of how others are responding to your newfound zeal on being the one to get things done. You conjure fire and light the way. This mission is about you re-assessing your life. You must have an action plan. You must decide on what you want in the future now. Debrief: What would it be like to be like this all the time? The Queen of Wands Your Mission: Operation On the Rails Code Word: Enthuse With the Queen bringing her more subtle energy to this mission, albeit in the suit of fiery wands, you must tread deliberately but gently. Your mission is to put someone on the rails to their stated outcome – in a long-term and sustainable manner. You may have to hold their hand; you may have to keep checking on them – all the time whilst encouraging their independence. The balance of this mission is a difficult one – the Queen of Wands is always an interesting character, and card in a reading. You can generate the required state by being enthused, and helping the other person (or group – these missions can apply to a group) see the benefits of something, so they move towards it.

Stay with it, and when they accomplish some step towards their contentment, you will have done your job. Debrief: What has this mission taught you about how this card works in a reading? The Knight of Wands Your Mission: Operation Go For It Code Word: Charge When the Knight of Wands is on task, watch out. Your mission is to simply get others to do what they say – when they say it. Take no prisoners, let no-one escape their own ambitions. When you are on this task, listen for someone to state a goal, plan or merely wishful thinking, and then move them a step towards it. You can ask, “What are you going to do to get closer to that right now?” and then act upon it. You can make sure something happens for that person which activates their goal – take them to a website with travel options if they have expressed an interest in travel, for example. Your goal is accomplished if the person takes concrete action to accomplish their ambition – even if it is to say, not now. Debrief: How do people react when you constantly call their words to action? When does it help, when does it hinder? The Page of Wands Your Mission: Operation Encourage Code Word: Push The Page of Wands is the ultimate secret tarot agent. He or She pushes others into new endeavors, to take the initiative, and to put their best step forwards. When given this mission, you should secure your target and help them discover something new to do. Take them some place they have never been before, to a new genre of entertainment, or simply play them some new music. The encouragement you provide as a Page of Wands should be child-like and honest – you take this task as a mission of joy in the discoveries of others. You accomplish this mission when you see someone else have a novel or new experience. Debrief: Did you enjoy this mission? Why or Why Not?

Practice Note For all missions, accept a time-frame of your own devising. You must accomplish your Gate Three main decision-making Court Card mission and its opposite mission for use in further gates, but other than that the further missions are optional. We usually allow a few days for a mission, sometimes a week or even more if the mission requires it for success. Remember these words, “Your mission, should you decide to accept it …”

Conclusion These higher meanings are, however, matters of inference, and I do not suggest that they are transparent on the surface of the card. They are intimated in a concealed manner by the chains of flowers, which signify, among many other things, the sweet yoke and the light burden of Divine Law, when it has been taken into the heart of hearts. A. E. Waite, Pictorial Key to the Tarot, pp. 102-3. Throughout this series, we are gradually elevating the tarot into a spiritual tool for ongoing work in real life. The cards can be used to engage in activities, stretch your boundaries, and respond to significant life-changing events – or prepare for them. The Tarot Life is a life which uses the cards as gates between the spiritual and mundane aspects of our experience. In the following seven booklets in this series, we will build on our progress in the first five months, next extending this present work into connecting with service. First we ride the Lion, then we let the Lion take us for a ride – as we will see in month six. It is important to the process that you undertake the exercises, and we have an optional Facebook group listed in the appendix where you can share and discuss your experiences, ask questions and gain support. We have also provided in the final section a list of reading materials and website resources to discover more in the very best of Tarot and Tarosophy®. In this series, released monthly over 2013: 1. Discover Your Destiny

2. Remove The Blocks 3. Make Decisions Better 4. Enter the Flow 5. Ride the Lion 6. Connect to Service 7. Find Your Equality 8. Die To Your Old Self 9. Entering Unity 10. Becoming the Real 11. Your Keys to Freedom 12. The Depth of Divinity What Follows Next Month In next month’s Tarot Life, we flip the work done in this month by connecting to service – offering ourselves up through our tarot to everyday moments. In doing so, we begin the spiritual arc beyond the psychological arc already experienced in the prior months. As we approach the final three months, we then connect all these gates together to effect radical change and transformation. A Reading List on Alchemy We have provided a number of references to alchemy in the reading list below, which may assist anyone looking to further their studies in this fascinating field. The tarot contains many thematic and symbolic similarities to the process of alchemy, and study of either can illuminate the other. Tarot Life will return to Alchemy in later gates and these books may provide optional preparatory reading. We have also included one of A. E. Waite’s books on Alchemy, which may assist you understand how he incorporated alchemical designs in the Waite-Smith Tarot. This is a theme picked up by Campbell and Roberts in their book, Tarot Revelations. The Golden Game, Stanislas Klossowski de Rola. London: Thames & Hudson, 1988.

Transformation of the Psyche, Joseph L. Henderson & Dyane N. Sherwood. London: Routledge, 2003. The Alchemy Reader, Stanton J. Linden. Cambridge: Cambridge Press, 2003. Alchemy, E. J. Holmyard. New York: Dover, 1990. Alchemists Through the Ages, A. E. Waite. New York: Rudolph Steiner Publications, 1970. Tarot Revelations, Joseph Campbell & Richard Roberts. Palm Harbor: Vernal Equinox Press, 1987.

Bibliography Crowley, A. The Book of Thoth. York Beach: Weiser, 1985. Greer, M. K. & Little, T. Understanding the Tarot Court. St. Paul: Llewellyn, 2004. Hamaker-Zondag, K. Tarot as a Way of Life: A Jungian Approach to the Tarot. York Beach: Weiser, 1997. Sargent, C. Personality, Divination and the Tarot. London: Rider, 1988. Waite, A. E. Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: Rider, 1974.

TAROT LIFE MONTH 6 CONNECT TO SERVICE Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Authors Note: This is Month 6 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Months 1-5 booklets to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of selfdiscovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

INDEX Introduction Connecting to Service A Simple Method for Beginners Lighting Your Hermitage

4 5 7 10

The Service Cards

13

Conclusion

44

Bibliography Websites & Resources

48 49

TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE

A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year. Introduction In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given. You can start at any time, although New Year, your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a private Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

Connecting to Service In this sixth month of Tarot Life we encounter the Hermit, corresponding to Virgo. It is at this point in our zodiacal journey that we create an uplift of our work, for the Hermit represents a higher service. He stands aloft and distant – he is “in the world, but not of it”. In this way a ‘hermit’ can be in the midst of activity, of population, of business, yet remain their own self; the Hermit in a reading can stand for self-sufficiency, inclusion, and solitude. So when we consider the Hermit in the stages of the Work – the Tarot Life – we seek what he seeks; an enlightened perspective of the World. The Hermit is neither the Fool, leaping of the cliff, nor the Magician, performing for the crowd. He is one and alone; yet utterly content – in fact, so much so that his light, his example, serves as an example to others. This idea of becoming the way so that we may serve it through our own example is the core concept of this month’s Tarot Life. We build upon our “secret mission” of the last gate and now take it a step further. We take three aspects of the Hermit: The Path: How do we make our way in the world? The Light: Where do we place our awareness to see the Path? The Quest(ion): What enquiry leads us to the Light? You can see that these three faces of the Hermit are one and the same; the questions we ask open our awareness, which leads us to asking better questions. In this sense the Hermit is philosophy; our guiding principle of life. So what do you serve in life? The word service comes from the Latin for slave – yet the Hermit seems free and far more so than the

figures on the Devil card, or the dilemma in the Lovers card. How do we achieve freedom in service? We serve many masters in our daily life – the necessities of social life, our inner drives and impulses (often unconscious in their source, history and ambition), our family, beliefs, culture and employment. They all present us opportunities to serve – to work for others - as well as serving ourselves. Yet there is a difference between “serve” and “service”; the latter is often used in a sense of maintenance and repair; to service a vehicle, or a washing machine for example. This regular servicing of our self can lead to better service to others. So this month’s stand-alone practice is based on a simple idea of serve and service. Then the main Tarot Life exercise is an extension of last month’s secret missions, to take our life deeper towards our ultimate goal in living a Tarot Life.

A Simple Method for Beginners The Hermit is one who has walked the path of life. He may have withdrawn from its activities and attachments, but he is still able to shine a light upon life. There are many situations in life that appear to be without reason. We can take these as part of our life, and learn from them. The following spread allows us to begin to utilize past or existing situations for our self-development. Whilst this is not a “predictive” spread or method, it can be used to assist friends, relatives or clients into gaining insight. Serve And Service Consider a situation in your past or present which appears to be outof-the-blue, or without reason. Shuffle the entire deck. Turn the deck face up and carefully locate the Hermit. Locate the two closest MAJOR cards above and below the Hermit. If there are none above/below (depending on his position in the deck) then select the two closest above/below. Take out these two cards and place them above/below each other, leaving a single card-space in the middle. Consider these two cards as the above and below of your “serving”. The above card is what you serve, and the below card is what serves you, in that particular situation.

Shuffle the rest of the deck again (without those two Major cards), still with the Hermit inside, and again, search for the Hermit. Take the two closest MINOR cards above, and the two closest MINOR cards below, the Hermit. Lay these out in a row between the two above/below MAJOR cards. These Minor cards show you how the present/past situation provides/provided a “servicing” to your soul. They explain the mechanism by which you were taught something, between the higher principle of service (the Major above) and the resources that served you at the time (the Minor below). As an example, considering a present situation. The Serve Cards Major Above: DEATH (XIII) Major Below: THE BLASTED TOWER (XVI) As the actual situation is very dramatic and life-changing, it is no real surprise these two cards were the closest majors to the Hermit. The Death card shows that I am serving “transformation”, that is to say, I have to follow a path of change and renewal - initiation, even. The Blasted Tower tells me I can use an ability to “restart” everything; this is a resource that serves me. The constant destruction and rebuilding of the Tower is what serves Death. I actually get from this the statement, “Change serves Initiation”. The Servicing Cards The four Minors I find (two each above and below the Hermit after a reshuffle) are: 9 of Wands + 8 of Cups + 5 of Pentacles + 4 of Cups

These, briefly, signify that the servicing I am receiving is being carried out by testing what I can remove myself from, and what I can go without. Furthermore, the 4 of Cups shows that the situation is constantly turning my attention away from what I think I possess and towards a higher principle or quest.

Having presented this method, we now move on to the core work of this month’s gated spread, in which you will practice a daily journal exercise based on two cards chosen at the start and end of each day. We introduce this month an exercise where we are pairing cards for contrast, rather than previous months where we have usually focused on the meaning and message of one card. As we move on, we are now at the stage where it is the meaning that arises by comparing and contrasting cards that we will experience and learn.

Lighting Your Hermitage In the Tarot Life practice of this month, you are going to turn the whole world into your personal hermitage, and walk through it every day with a card drawn at sunrise and a card drawn at sunset. As such, you will keep a journal (ideally) of your hermitage, although you can share it with other hermits on the Tarot Life Facebook group. General Practice Whilst it is ideal also to draw the cards at the dawn and dusk of the day, you can do this on awakening and before retiring, or whenever is most convenient to you. Note: You will be pulling two cards, and following the path on the first, and observing the “light shines” prompt on the second at the end of the day. These will be different cards, creating a contrast. The prompt for “the light of the Lantern …” belonging to the first card can be ignored – it is the second card to which you should refer. Similarly, the “path” text for the second card is to be ignored – the second card at the end of the day gives the “Lantern” prompt and the “Card asks” prompt. Each of the 78 Tarot cards can show us how we can connect to service. We have here presented each card in this context, also providing an attention point and journal prompt. We have given the cards as usual for Tarot Life in the order of their progression up the Tree of Life. The reason and importance of this will be seen in the following books in this series. In connecting to service we are building a sanctuary of activity. In journaling, we invite the cards into the seed of our own contemplation. In the morning the card will give you a path to walk, and in the evening another card will give you a light in which to see that activity;

that is, the Lantern of the Hermit. In comparing and contrasting these two cards, you will also be asked a question from the second card. As an example, you may select in the morning the Queen of Swords. When reading about this card, we see that she does not suffer fools, and bears a stony silence. Her service is in presenting a cold face in order to convey the ridiculous of someone’s plan or action. This may be all it takes to put a silly suggestion out of the window before it causes problems. So during the day, we connect to this service, we maintain the Queen of Swords demeanor when it is necessary. In turn, this ‘services’ that part of ourselves and keeps it running. In the evening, to continue this same example, you might then draw out of the deck the 3 of Pentacles. This would bring its light to the day by bringing our attention to the importance of using our own talents. It casts a light on whether as a Queen of Swords we were able to draw on our own experience (world-weary cynicism or worldly common-sense) to improve the work of others. As a journal or sleep contemplation, the 3 of Pentacles asks, “Did you shine a light on the creative skills of others today?” We may see that by maintaining some distance (Queen of Swords), we are able to observe and appreciate more the efforts of others. Whilst not trying to create ourselves, living solely in the world of the Mind (Swords) we are far more able to witness clearly (and appreciate) the practical efforts of our peers. The many combinations of paired cards available in the deck may bring surprising and insightful experiences in your month, connecting to this service. You may find the same card appearing a number of times, but paired to different cards producing different angles on the same lesson. As is fitting for its correspondence to the Hermit/Virgo, this is more of a journaling exercise in preparation for a far more activity-engaged exercise in the following month. It is also a lesson in pairing cards for your readings. The “Serve and Service” method is also a teaching method of pairing cards to create meaning. In Practice

We recommend this as a daily practice over the month, or you can perform it weekly, or every few days. It is important to establish a routine, rather than “just when you want”, even if that routine is only 4-8 times during the month. Note that the “Card Asks” exercises of this work are perhaps more powerful than they first appear, particularly when taken as prompts for consideration after a day of service. They will build up over the month to provide you a potentially life-changing realization or new insight. We recommend thinking about these (and journaling them, even briefly) seriously for about 5-10 minutes at the end of each day in which you have engaged with the daily service.

The Service Cards Page of Pentacles Today your path is to contemplate what brings you genuine security in life, such as a contented family life, or good relationships with friends. What do you value most, and how can you use your own advantages in life to help those who are less fortunate? Your service is to take action to assist somebody in managing their financial or material affairs better. This could be as simple as helping them tidy up a place of work or play. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the importance of having a good value system to live your life. When today did you apply yourself to work of value? The card asks: “At the end of the day, what is important to do?” Page of Swords Today your path is to act as an advocate for somebody, speak out and look after the interests of somebody who needs it. Look out for the welfare of others. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to when you were being alert and ready for any eventuality. Did you feel today that you were equipped with a quick brain and a feisty sword? Did you use your skills wisely? The card asks: “What do you see?” Page of Cups Today your path is to encourage somebody to live out their aspirations and for them to assist others in doing so. Your enthusiasm and vision needs to be communicated very openly, a good place to do this would be on Facebook or via your blog. The Page of Cups delights in connecting and surprising on social media. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to wherever you were making dreams come true. Did you make an ideal become a reality today? The card asks: “What use are your dreams?”

I would spread the cloths under your feet; But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. Page of Wands Today your path is to be forthright and deliver the news that most people avoid relaying. Think of the maxim “do not shoot the messenger”, it is well-known that it is not the most desirable of duties to be the one who delivers news of change. Today your service is to be that messenger. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to wherever you showed the way forward. Were there points today where you were the first one to stand up and express yourself? The card asks: “What message do you carry to the world?”

10 of Pentacles Today your path is to bring your family together in one place. Family does not have to be blood family, it could be very close friends that you have known for a long time but have neglected in recent years. There could be an elder member of your family that you have not visited for a long time, make an effort to reconnect with them. This is a service in bringing others together. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the wealth of friends and family, and the security and happiness it may have created today. The card asks: “What is finished?” 10 of Swords Today your path is to encourage somebody to let go of negative thinking that has held somebody back but has now run its course. The end is here and now, and you can show them how to bury the hatchets. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the dangers of overly critical self-talk. Whilst you were engaged in your service today, did you tell yourself anything negative? The card asks: “How does the world disappoint you?” 10 of Cups Today your path is to heal divisions in relationships, and bring harmony into your own and others life. Now is the time to stop fighting and start loving. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the power of love. How was this manifest during your service today? The card asks: “When is joy to be found?” 10 of Wands Today your path is to help somebody who is overworked to delegate responsibilities and take a rest. If it is in the home environment, it could be as simple as taking over the cleaning and house

maintenance for a time. In the workplace it could involve you helping somebody with their workload. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how easy it is to be burdened down with our life and the desire to do it all. Think about how easy it is for somebody to ‘make a rod (rods) for their own back’. How did you see this today? The card asks: “What are you carrying through life?” WORLD XXI Today your path is to help someone bring things together. Allow them space and time to get their act together, to finish something and complete it. Even if it is a small task, the aim is completeness. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where today you finished things. Is service ever finished? The card asks: “What is ever complete?” JUDGEMENT XX Today your path is to help another to accept that which they cannot change and to come to a state of acceptance. To let go of one state of being to welcome in another. There is a reckoning that could bring transformation. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the importance of knowing what we have influence over and that which we do not. The card asks: “What calls you to service?”

MOON XVIII Today your path is to be sensitive to the feeling of others, to be receptive to their needs, to feel their joy, their fear their pain, to connect to the divine in another. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to being connected to all and everything, the good, the bad and the downright ugly! Were you plugged into the spiritual mainframe today? The card asks: “What is reflecting all this light?” 9 of Pentacles Today your path is to be content with your achievements, and to enjoy life to the full. Now is the time to slow down and spend quality time with your nearest and dearest. Invest your time and energy at home. Serve by spreading a sense of contentment, in any way you can. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where today you were able to find contentment. The card asks: “What is the secret of contentment?” 9 of Swords Today your path is to think back to a time when you found yourself in a place of absolute desolation and despair, the brutal thinking that compounded that state of turmoil. We will all recognize the image that Waite and Smith conjured of the tragic figure sat bolt upright in bed weeping and cradling their head in their hands. We can experience this state time and time again, and each time we feel we suffer as much as the time before. Yet rather than wallowing in this well of deep despair we find ourselves with the strength to swim out of it towards a brighter place. It is a far less lonely place where if we are fortunate we have the support of friends and loved ones. So your path today is if at all possible to reach out to someone who is hurting and give them your love and support.

The light from the Lantern brings your attention to focusing on the road ahead. Where did your service do this today? The card asks: “What keeps us awake?” 9 of Cups Today your path is one of contentment verging on pure joy; there is something very contagious about joy and a genuine smile, so your path for today is to go out there into the world, the real world or online social media world and spread this happy little contagion. “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” The light from the Lantern brings your attention to being content with what you have accomplished in your service today. The card asks: “Where is the edge of joy?” 9 of Wands Today your path is to protect someone’s best interests; if you know that somebody is feeling vulnerable and under attack offer your support. We all need somebody to look after us now and again. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where you were a tower of strength to another. “All species capable of grasping this fact manage better in the struggle for existence than those which rely upon their own strength alone: the wolf, which hunts in a pack, has a greater chance of survival than the lion, which hunts alone.” Christian Louis Lange The card asks: “What are you protecting?” SUN XIX Today your path is to get creating, to be as creative and productive as you possibly can, and to share this energy with others - give out like the sun! Make it playful as a child would. It is a doing and giving sort of a day. You are going show positivity and being full of energy is a combustive thing, go and set the world alight with your pure joy.

"There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward” Kahlil Gibran The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the pure innocence of doing for doings sake. When today in service did you lose yourself into the moment? The card asks: “Where do you go when you are not yourself?” STAR XVII Today your path is to recycle as much as you can, not just material objects; recycle ideas and dreams. Resurrect an old project you had put on the backburner and turn it into something totally new. Hope is the message that comes with this Star, your path may take a whole new turn if you follow its shining beacon. Your service is to bring a new hope to others, by setting this example. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to rejuvenation and hope. What came back to help you find your way in service today? The card asks: “What does the Universe envision?” TEMPERANCE XIV Today your path is to curb the extreme parts of your nature, if you speak too much speak less, if you think too much, think less, if you hate too much, hate less and vice versa. You will discover a realigning of yourself and the influence this has on those around you. Your service is to bring your centre to everything around you today. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where today you had to be most extreme in your service? What pulled you most from your centre? The card asks: “What is the alchemy of your life?” 8 of Pentacles Today your path is to carry on carrying on learning! Learn all there is to learn, and teach by example as you do so. Be a showcase of your skills and talents, demonstrate and allow others to witness. Do it for the sake of service, not showmanship.

The light from the Lantern brings your attention to practice, and how that makes perfect. What were you improving today? The card asks: “What do you do for its own sake?” 8 of Swords Today your path is to release yourself from the ties that bind you and in doing so you will be in charge of yourself. In this, you will also able to help others out of a bind. A victim cannot liberate the oppressed, when they are frozen by their own fear. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to empowering yourself. How today did your service empower you? Where did you break free of an old way of thinking? The card asks: “What stops you?” 8 of Cups Today your path is to take respite for a period, to walk away in order to gain a new perspective. Let somebody else take over from you for you whilst you spend time alone. This could be as simple as letting your partner take over managing those tasks in your life that you see as your responsibility alone. This service allows others to take that responsibility. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to knowing when to move on. Contemplate today where you felt most insecure in providing service. The card asks: “Where are you going?” 8 of Wands Today your path is to keep all your enthusiasm up in the air, do not give up now. Just ensure that when it lands that there is somebody with you to share the results! Provide service by rushing things on, giving someone a kick on the proverbial, or delivering something from one place to another. Get moving! And fast! The light from the Lantern brings your attention to movement in all its meanings. Where were you most moved today in offering service? The card asks: “When does the universe move us?” HANGED MAN XII

Today your path is to suspend your disbelief, look at the World in a different way. Take every step as if the World is its own miracle, and you are yet to discover its magic. An alien view to be sure, however, one that can be held if you fasten yourself to your highest Angel and let your feet not touch the ground. Provide service by thinking outside of the box, suggesting the unthinkable, brainstorming, offering someone a totally radical or obscure perspective. They need not take it, just offer it to stretch them a little. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how every small thing and event in life is intimately connected to the higher world; as above, so below. A message that can be lived, when you seek to connect everything to everything else. What did you really see today? The card asks: “How does the Divine see everything?” DEVIL XV Today your path is to live your life without recrimination, cast aside the regret, and any guilt that you may have stored up. Remove the chains which hold you back, they are chains that have been constructed from the conditioning that has shaped you. In acting freely, you will encourage others to do so – Your mantra of service today is “feel the fear and do it anyway” (Susan Jeffers). The light from the Lantern brings your attention to living life without limitations especially the ones that we design ourselves. Where today did you feel chained or bound? Where most free? The card asks: “Who set the limits on your life?” BLASTED TOWER XVI Today your path is to clear your space. Take on nothing new, dispose of what weighs you down. In service help other people do likewise. Take a load off somebody else’s shoulders, remove an obstacle for them. Even opening a closed door for someone is a Blasted Tower clearance. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the space inbetween all things. Make a moment to clear your mind. Where today did something new emerge from the ruin?

The card asks: “What is there to be lost?” 7 of Pentacles Today your path is to offer service by patiently nurturing others in their creations. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to what required maintenance or tender care. When today did your service have this quality? The card asks: “When will you know it is time?” 7 of Swords Today your path is to stop working against others and work with them. Cast aside the voice of doubt that may get in the way of progress. A quarrel that may have created disharmony at home or in the workplace needs to be talked through and a compromise carved out. Your service is to be frank and forthright. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the dangers of disharmony within a home or at work or within a community. How did your service work with others today? The card asks: “What is being taken?” 7 of Cups Today your path is to actively connect with your fey side, and give yourself license to commune with the Faeries at the bottom of the garden. Be open to any possibilities where you believe that anything is possible. The world of the Astral is left ajar. It could be that you access this opportunity through a door such as meditation, especially one, such as the Inner Guide Meditation could be embarked upon. The power of your own imagination and what you do with it is to be your guiding light today. Your service is to awaken the obscure in others – ask them about their dreams. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the unseen realm. What was assisting you invisibly today in your service? The card asks: “What is your wildest dream?” 7 of Wands

Today your path is to face your fears, and see off the foe, real or unreal; you will test your true metal by taking on the very things you are normally drawn to avoid. You are going be swallowing a pond full of proverbial frogs today. So get ready, get brave and swallow your medicine - you know it will do you some good in the long-term! You will be ensured the high ground. Provide cover for others, take the bullet, serve by putting yourself in the firing line or going over the top first! The light from the Lantern brings your attention to facing your fear and doing it anyway. When today did you accomplish this? The card asks: “What would you accomplish if there was no fear of failure?” DEATH XIII Today your path is to begin to let go of the self that is not really you, the self that you show to the world in order to attain acceptance. You can forego the small talk, say, if somebody asks you how are you, only respond with “Very well thanks” if you truly are so. There are a number of stages of this dropping of the self, it is a gradual change. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to speaking your truth and letting go of niceness for the sake of it. Renewal can only come with letting go of the old and outworn. How did your service today bring transformation? The card asks: “What is death?”

WHEEL X Today your path is to be aware of the forces at work in our existence, which in a moment a whole life can be turned around for good or for bad. We are all connected as each thread on a spider’s web is interrelated. Any action (force) is followed by a reaction; you tug one part of the spider’s web and it has a reaction in another part. Think today about what we do and how we live as an influence on our reality. Waite writes in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, “Behind the general notion expressed in the symbol there lies the denial of chance and the fatality which is implied therein”. Waite was aware that in the universe nothing is down to chance, all actions have a relative response. Isaac Newton (who secretly studied Alchemy and believed in a substance called aether or ether that connected all things in the universe), could have given us some insight on the Wheel of Fortune. In fact, he did … Newton's third law is “For every action force there is an equal and opposite reaction force.” The light from the Lantern brings your attention to taking responsibility of the consequences of your actions. When you look back at your service today, do you take responsibility for everything? The card asks: “What impact did you make in the world today?” 6 of Pentacles Today your path is to help others with charity; give of yourself, your resources and serve fairly those who you feel deserve your attention. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how others receive your service. How did today go with regard to reactions to your offering? The card asks: “Who benefits from your life?” 6 of Swords Today your path is one of action. To stop the constant theorizing and start doing. You will put into practice a skill/interest/hobby/calling which has up until now been mainly theory. All the preparation you

have put into this area previously will be of benefit to you and others. You are adept at this and because of this you will be able to lead by example, show the way for others. Do not give in to doubts of failure that often come when we have still to finish our journey. Be assured all will be plain sailing regardless of your mental uncertainty. Waite wrote in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, “The course is smooth, and seeing that the freight is light, it may be noted that the work is not beyond his strength” this could imply that you can handle yourself and the burden that others put upon you, the conditions are favorable. Again it is go for it! It is within your capabilities to handle the situation. Maintain your balance, work with the flow not against it. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” — Warren Bennis- Pioneer of leadership studies The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the direction in which you are moving. As you consider all you have done today, have your thoughts and actions been united in taking you towards a clear destination, or are you aimlessly paddling? The card asks: “Where are you going?” 6 of Cups Today your path is to take time out to look back on your life, to recapture hope, dreams and vision that you once had. It never too late to resurrect a discarded longing. As they say take time to stop and smell the flowers, slow down and enliven all your senses. It is better to dwell upon happy memories rather than bad ones, try to recall your happiest memories and let these memories light up your whole being like a beacon. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the positive power of memory. What do you remember most about your day? The card asks: “What will you remember most?” 6 of Wands Today your path is to believe in yourself, and congratulate yourself on coming this far! It will be a day of you making of making it happen. A day of positive thinking, ‘a can-do sort of a day’. Take the

doom and gloom of a negative self-fulfilling prophecy and turn it on its head! You can and will do no wrong if only you believe it enough. The Laurelled horseman on the Waite-Smith Tarot, sits astride his horse confidently, he is totally in charge of himself and his horse, his body language oozes a state of assuredness. It is important that you embody the energy of the ‘Victor triumphing’, of Waite’s vision for the 6 of Wands. Lead others today, to victory! The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the importance of seeing yourself in the best light. How did your service today set you above your old self? The card asks: “What will you do when you win?” JUSTICE XI Today your path is to adhere to the natural order and service of the world. To be mature enough to accept our lot in life. We must take the rough with the smooth, and be aware of the consequences of our actions. If for today we could be truly honest with ourselves and take responsibility for “where we are now”, it is very much down to “what we did to get here”. Imagine today that your service is to serve the natural order of the universe. How will you go about doing that? The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how today you balanced everyone’s expectations, including your own. In providing service, do you serve yourself? The card asks: “What is the Measure by which we live?” LOVERS VI Today your path is to kindle a relationship which brings creativity. Do something with someone else – whatever that may be. Make a choice and serve someone by being with them. Make a free gift of your time and attention. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the division that comes between the states of union. How today did you avoid letting go into the other? The card asks: “How do you choose to be more than yourself?” EMPEROR IV

Today your path is to bring order and structure into a disorderly environment. Try to cultivate focus and thoughts which are not clouded by futile emotions. Assist someone find their own power, control and voice. This is the card of service by empowering others. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to control issues. When there has been control today, what are the elements – what controlled what? How does power transfer in such circumstances? The card asks: “What is in control?” HERMIT IX Today your path is one of being yourself and keeping to yourself. Be purely self-attentive today. This is the only card in the deck for this month’s work and context that has no service other than to be your own self. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how your own light shines. As Crowley said, “Every man and every woman is a star”. The card asks: “What is the light of the world?” Knight of Pentacles Today your path is to take control of the aspects of your life that are out of control, disorganized, feeble or fluffy. By doing this you will be naturally be of service to others. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the value of being in charge of your life. Where today did you feel most grounded? The card asks: “What is most real?” Knight of Swords Today your path is to be like the Knight of Swords and take the high ground for the benefit of another, perhaps somebody is not very clear about how to plot their life forward. Help them to see strengths and enable them to overcome their weaknesses. “All for one and one for all, united we stand divided we fall.” Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers The light from the Lantern brings your attention to cultivating a “Noblesse Oblige” attitude, to use the skill of clarity of mind and

decisiveness to guide others. You have a duty to fulfill – how did this duty manifest today? The card asks: “For what will you fight?” Knight of Cups Today your path is to deliver the message in a medium which is highly sensitive; any communications to others should be calm but charged with emotion. Try to avoid sending an e-mail or by texting (messaging) convey it in person or over the phone. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to harnessing emotions. How did your service today call out your emotions and how were they expressed? The card asks: “What is your true quest?” Knight of Wands Today your path is to take someone a step closer to their ambition, their goal or a long-held wish. Serve them with some practical assistance, for example, if they long to travel, buy them a travel book – or a ticket! The light from the Lantern brings your attention to your travel and movement. How is it that you have come to dwell where you are presently? Think on today, and consider if you are here for a reason. The card asks: “How do I make my way in this world?” 5 of Pentacles Today your path is one of putting aside instant reward in favour of a long-term project. Offer service only today to big picture projects – humanitarian goals, ambitious plans, or year-long activities. Support something which has no immediate gratification or reward. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how we reward ourselves; whether we require material return, recognition or award. Did you offer your service today without thought of recognition? The card asks: “Who sees you?” 5 of Swords Today your path is to assist in resolving conflict. Be there for people, but try not to get involved. Be a listening ear, a supportive shoulder,

but no more. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how you get pulled into the life of others. As a Hermit, consider today and how others demand of your time and attention. The card asks: “What are you witnessing?” 5 of Cups Today your path is to move people from negativity. Every time today someone focuses on past regret, unpleasant memory, something best left where it is, then move them on. Take them in thought or by deed to a more positive place. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how people sometimes become fixated on the past. Where today in service did you move better into the future, and how did the past affect you? The card asks: “What is best left behind now?” 5 of Wands Today your path is to take charge when people show confusion. Where there is no plan, or clear goal, stop everything and provide service by setting an outcome. As they say, “you have to know it when you see it”. Do some clear organization, martial your forces. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where chaos and order compete. How today did planning, chance, structure and disorder all play roles in your service? The card asks: “What are you building with the Universe?”

CHARIOT VII Today your path is to let the universe move through you into the lives of others. Imagine for a moment that you could fall back safely and crowd-surf the entire wave of the universe. Clear your mind, be still, let every moment take you forward. See that the universe is passing though you, and let it. Your service today cannot be dictated, it will be what the Universe wills it to be. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how things happen when you are not in the way. Could your service today have been changed by letting go more? Where did you try too hard? The card asks: “What happens when you get out of the way?” STRENGTH VIII Today your path is to tackle someone about an issue that has been burning away for some time. Do them the service of assertively handling it so that its energy can be best utilized, or put away. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how you manage your fear and courage. How today did you embody your passion, and where did you shy away from expressing it? The card asks: “What is the nature of your struggle?” 4 of Pentacles Today your path is one of assisting others find security and peace of mind. There should be no major changes or new initiatives today, just battening down the hatches and helping people consolidate what already exists. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where you have been able to hold your own space, and not budge – particularly when others try to take time or energy from you. The card asks: “What do you value most?” 4 of Swords Today your path is to provide service by giving people a space to retreat, to retire, to recuperate. Allow others the space and time to

recover themselves. Set up a time for someone to just unwind, rest and get away from stress. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where you rested today. What is the nature of your energy, and how do you find respite? The card asks: “What if I do nothing?” 4 of Cups Today your path is to offer new opportunities to someone, even if they do not see it. Your offer of friendship, support, or even of making someone a drink, is enough. There is no need for the person to accept – so long as your service is offered. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where you may be feeling weary of the world and its delights. How today, in providing service, did you feel that you were enjoying yourself? The card asks: “What if there was nothing else? What would we do then?” 4 of Wands Today your path is one of making invitations to others – to celebrate whatever has been achieved. Say to someone, in service, “remember when you did …” or “well, you’ll have always managed to …” and invite them to celebrate their accomplishments. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to all that invites you to engage with life. Where today did you see opportunity and invitation? The card asks: “What does the universe invite you to do?” HEIROPHANT V Today your path is one of teaching and advice. Offer your service where possible as an intermediary or teacher, based on your experience. Provide some new information for someone to help them on their way – even if it is only street directions! The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where you teach, where your experience today has been of benefit to others. The card asks: “What is life teaching us?”

3 of Pentacles Today your path is to share with others the talents you have perfected. If you have a talent for writing offer to write an article for someone. There are so many skills and talents that are not shown the light of day, for fear of exposure - the 3 of Pentacles calls for you to showcase your talents. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the importance of using your talent for the greater good. Where did you most diligently apply yourself in service today? The card asks: “What are you being taught to create?” 3 of Swords Today your path is to work to resolve any disputes that you may be trapped in, you and only you alone can make the first move. If you have spoken in haste and have spoken words that have caused ill feeling, now is the time to retract the words and reconcile. “You cannot disown what is yours. Flung out, there is always the return, the reckoning, the revenge, perhaps the reconciliation. There is always the return. And the wound will take you there.” ― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? The light from the Lantern brings your attention to separation. What was separated today in your service, and was this a good or bad thing? The card asks: “What separates you from everything?” 3 of Cups Today your path is to see the best in everyone regardless of the cynical voice within. Do your best to see everyone you come into contact with as a friend. Make an effort to welcome a newcomer into a group. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to appreciating friendship. How did your service work with small groups today?

The card asks: “If you could see everyone as the shadow of their angel, what would change?” 3 of Wands Today your path is to be enterprising. This could relate to brainstorming ideas with work colleagues or it could just be you sorting through your home accounts and making them more cost-efficient. The whole family can work together to make the family budget go further. The simple awareness of turning off electrical appliances, and lights when not in use can help to save money in the long-term. The 3 of Wands is a card that embodies practical success and is always on the lookout for a better way to turn a buck. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the attainment of ambition. How did today’s service move you towards your own personal goals? The card asks: “Is everything going somewhere?” EMPRESS III Today your path is to be bountiful for the day. You will be generous at every opportunity, if a favor is asked you must do your best to fulfill their request. You will spread your ‘can-do’ magic where ever you go, you are the creator of creators. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to doing for doings sake without lust of result. How did your garden grow today? The card asks: “Does Nature take its course?” Queen of Pentacles Today your path is one of contemplation of the inner world and to appreciate that this is the only mastery that you need to perfect. To explore your inner life and find wisdom that lies within. Waite writes “she contemplates her symbol and may see worlds therein”. This symbol, the Pentacle, when used as a magical tool, has the power according to Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa to “Foreknow all future things & command whole nature”. It is the key. Provide others the key – see into their life as deeply as you can and offer well-founded and grounded advice, relevant to their next step.

The light from the Lantern brings your attention to mastering the skills of introspection in order to see what is really there. How did this improve with your service of today? The card asks: “What is really going on?” Queen of Swords Today your path is one of drawing on your life experiences in relating to others. You are wise beyond your years because life so far has taught you many lessons. What some people may perceive of you being a miserable old cynic, you know to be the savviness developed from having been there and done it all before. It could be said of the ‘Queen of Swords’ if ill-disposed that she is partial to a bit of ‘schadenfraude’ for breakfast, it is as Waite says of her appearance “It does not represent mercy”. So your stance today is not to suffer fools gladly. However, refrain from saying Alice in Wonderland style “Off with your head” with too much abandon. It may just require a stony silence to express your inner feeling of derision for a situation or a person in your royal presence. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the empowerment of not having to be nice all the time. How did you state the obvious today? The card asks: “Is it too sharp, the world?” Queen of Cups Today your path is to follow your intuition all day long. If you have a gut instinct then follow it, you have today the ability to tap into the realm of the unseen. Waite in the Pictorial Key to the Tarot, writes of the Queen of Cups as “Beautiful , fair, dreamy – as one who sees visions in a cup’. He attributes the ‘Gift of vision’ to the ‘Loving Intelligence’ (Binah) on the Tree of Life. Knowledge comes from the depths of emotion. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to your intuitive side, the voice that speaks quietly within. Did you hear that today? The Card asks: “What is the Vision?”

Queen of Wands Today your path is to be a channel for positive energy and light the way for others to follow you. You will be a magnet for success, you are the ‘Power behind the Throne’. You will naturally utilize the resources around you. Take note of the Sunflower depicted on the Waite-Smith Tarot card of the Queen of Wands. It is known that the Sunflower in bud-stage tracks the sun as it moves through the sky. It eventually opens to its full glory facing the east. Be as the Sunflower and follow the light, follow the power of the sun – your self. Be today as the ‘Queen of Wands’ in all her glory, and guide others in service to be close to themselves. Remind others to be true to themselves. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to being more in tune with your own nature – when today did you feel most in touch with yourself? The card asks: “What is guiding you?” 2 of Pentacles Today your path is to put pen to paper; you need to have a plan of action, gathering information and making practical decisions. Forward planning, write down a list of objectives that you wish to achieve and weigh up the pros and cons. Help others do likewise. Like the figure on the Waite-Smith Tarot card you will actually have to juggle your expectations and only act on realistic objectives. Ask your self does this feel right or not? Have you got the resources to carry this through long-term? See how the movement of the young man is perfectly balanced to achieve a state of concordance. You walk a fine-line, one false movement could throw you off balance. Waite in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot speaks of the card indicating ‘news and messages in writing’. You could be ‘embroiled’ in a difficult situation arising from a misunderstanding, your own words could be used to work against you. This is a card of cause and effect; one thing touches another,

and life is perfectly orchestrated. Serve others by bringing this dynamic balance to their work. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the dangers of not balancing your situation and future resources properly. How today did your service balance out to your future goals? The card asks: “What is the universe doing?” 2 of Swords Today your path is: To steer clear of unrest, maintain neutrality, tact and composure especially in areas of possible conflict. Do not allow yourself to be drawn into the affairs of others. Do not be lured into giving an opinion that is not one of impartiality. Keep your words and thoughts close to your chest! Serve others by not getting involved. A day of actually keeping a “blind eye” to whatever transpires. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the dangers of careless words. What today could you have said better, or not at all? The card asks: “What if nothing was ever decided?” 2 of Cups Today your path is: to seek reconciliation of polarities (opposites), during this process you will go out of your way to bring together the differences that keep you and others apart. You need to remember that we are all come from the same source, we are all seeking union. Serve others by bringing different views together, creating harmony, and reconciling differences. Keep the peace. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to healing rifts in your relationship to the world. How today did your card service bring you into relationship? The card asks: “What is your relationship to others?” 2 of Wands Today your path is to take time to stand and stare, to contemplate your life, and look at what you have achieved rather than that to come. It is an appraisal of where you are at now. It may be that you look around and compare your progress with others and find yourself lacking. Waite comments in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, about the myth of Alexander being overwhelmed by the ‘grandeur of the

world’s wealth’. Whilst nobody knows for sure the whether Alexander uttered such words, but we do know Plutarch’s essay in Moralia titled “Contentment of the Mind”. There he writes that “Alexander cried when he heard Anaxarchus talk about the infinite possibilities of the world in the universe. One of Alexander’s friends asked him what was the matter, and he replied. “There are so many worlds, and I have not yet even conquered one’”. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to the folly of comparing yourself to others. The card asks “What is the comparison you are making?” King of Pentacles Today your path is to remain earthy and practical. A path today not one of fancy or of contemplating your own navel! Assist others negotiate for a better deal in their life. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to keeping it real. Where today did you really get your hands dirty? The card asks: “What is the easiest thing to do in life?” King of Swords Today your path is one of intellect and reason, you need to follow the rhetoric road! You can literally do no wrong verbally, intellectually you are to be razor sharp and as quick as a shark. It is an opportunity to fight all those battles you have avoided, especially if they are intended to address malpractice or injustice. Serve others by cutting through anything in their way. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to saying what needs saying. How did you do that today in your acts of service? The card asks: “What is being communicated by the world?” King of Cups Today your path is to be assertive but not domineering, and to be guiding but not controlling. Help serve someone with “tough love”. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to wherever today you got results through understanding the feelings of others. The card asks: “Who is pleasing who?”

King of Wands Today your path is to go out of your way to shake up stagnant states. You will make dynamic changes that will bring stability and success to a situation, serving others. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to whenever today you let things go that should have been actioned. The card asks: “What is leadership?” HIGH PRIESTESS II Today your path is the path of divine silence. To remain tranquil amidst a sea of noise, enabling you to be receptive to your innermost wisdom. The aim is not to be distracted by outside interference and to maintain passive. Just be as is. You are able to float not drown in its depths. Serve others as a vessel of intuition, of wisdom, and revelation. Be mysterious. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where you were able to listen to your own inner voice. The card asks: “Where is the secret sanctuary?” MAGICIAN I Today your path is to be resourceful and to make the most of your analytical skills. You will plan out your day down to the smallest detail. The Infinitesimal will become the bigger picture. Help someone by talking them through their ambition or plan. Today is about serving as a communicator of ambition and Will. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how today you improved your organizational skills and planning. The card asks: “What is Magick?” Ace of Pentacles Today your path is to be creative and practical. Help someone build or create something real. Apply common-sense, down-to-earth reality. Offer service by being real or bringing someone down to earth. The light from the Lantern simply brings your attention to your income and value during the day.

The card asks: “What you have earned for us today?” Ace of Swords Today your path is to be thoughtful/rational and decisive in your interactions. Your service is to help someone make a clear decision or bring clarity to a confused situation. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how you have made decisions during today. The card asks: “Did you think of anything new?” Ace of Cups Today your path is to be generous, authentic and pure of heart; to be receptive; to love and loving. To be forgiving! Your service is to help others explore the depths of their feelings. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to how open and flexible (of nature) you have been in your relating/relationships today. The card asks: “Do you love unconditionally?” Ace of Wands Today your path is to be industrious and inventive; help others to seize opportunities as they arise. ‘He who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise’ (Blake). The light from the Lantern brings your attention to where today you lived in the moment and started new things. How did this help others? The card asks: “What is being created?” FOOL 0 Today your path is to venture forth without a care in the world; you feel no fear and think not, you are not held back by responsibility. Your service is to help someone make a choice, find freedom, or take leave of an unwanted responsibility. The light from the Lantern brings your attention to experiencing for experiencing sake, and having no plan; where today did you experience freedom? The card asks: “What is freedom?” Conclusion

Throughout this series, we are gradually elevating the tarot into a spiritual tool for ongoing work in real life. The cards can be used to engage in activities, stretch your boundaries, and respond to significant life-changing events – or prepare for them. The Tarot Life is a life which uses the cards as gates between the spiritual and mundane aspects of our experience. In the following seven booklets in this series, we will build on our progress in the first six months, next moving into a new phase of engaging ourselves with the universe in a co-creative mannner. It is important to the process that you undertake the exercises, and we have an optional Facebook group listed in the appendix where you can share and discuss your experiences, ask questions and gain support. We have also provided in the final section a list of reading materials and website resources to discover more in the very best of Tarot and Tarosophy®. In this series, released monthly over 2013: 1. Discover Your Destiny 2. Remove The Blocks 3. Make Decisions Better 4. Enter the Flow 5. Ride the Lion 6. Connect to Service 7. Find Your Equality 8. Die To Your Old Self 9. Entering Unity 10. Becoming the Real 11. Your Keys to Freedom 12. The Depth of Divinity

What Follows Next Month In next month’s Tarot Life, we reveal more about where this work is heading, as we take an innovative and daily activity in finding our equality. However, this “equality” is perhaps a different experience than you may presently expect! We also work with the Court Cards again and provide more examples (but less instruction) as you should now be at the stage of seeing how these exercises are being constructed. And if not, we will guide you in the next book to show how you can create similar engagements with your Tarot. And ss we balance the scales of our life, expect major shifts and revelatory insights! As we begin our second half of the year, and start to approach the final three months, we connect all these gates together to effect radical change and transformation.

Bibliography Waite, A. E. Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: Rider, 1974.

TAROT LIFE MONTH 7 FIND EQUALITY Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Authors Note: This is Month 7 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Months 1-6 booklets to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of selfdiscovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

INDEX Introduction 4 Finding Equality

5

A Method for Beginners

6

Court Cards Revisited

9

The Sixteen Judges of Justice

19

Regrets and Recognitions of the Courts 23 Conclusion 39 Bibliography 44 Websites & Resources

45

TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year. Introduction In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from our other tarot books, such as the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire, to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given, although there are many methods you will learn that can be used simply by themselves, for yourself or others. You can start at any time, although New Year, your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a private Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

Finding Equality Numinous experiences occur in some dreams and seem capable, if assimilated, of producing deep and lasting alterations in the personality structure, an effect parallel to some religious conversions and to some peak experiences in waking life. James M. Hall, 1983 In this seventh month of Tarot Life we encounter the card of Justice, corresponding to Libra. We are now over half-way through the sequence, and we might seemingly come to a “plateau point” at this stage. You may be experiencing a sense of weariness and habit with even the change process itself. This is entirely to be expected, and is comprehended within the system itself – hence, the scales of Libra. Within the context of our “Tarot Life”, we reach this point when we have extended ourselves in the outer world as far as we can go. We now turn to our inner world, to create some powerful changes by using dream-work. Whilst the outer process balances itself from all the work we have done in previous gates, we adjust our inner world through a simple system of checks and balances. This in itself may catalyze dramatic experiences in your “outer” environment and produce numinous experiences in your “inner” world. Sometimes the balancing act may be more subtle, so it is good to continue your journal or make a few notes as to your daily feelings, thoughts and key events, for review at the end of your Tarot Life year experience. In order to find equality, we use the sixteen Court Cards. As these represent the four elements and aspects of our personality, they are used in pairs to achieve balance. In turn, this should lead to far deeper readings when the court cards appear. We have taken the

liberty of repeating here in this booklet for context and completeness an extended version of our free article, “Why You Can’t Read the Court Cards (And How To)”. A Method for Beginners In the stand-alone method for this month, we present a useful journaling exercise which can provoke deep insight from the Court Cards. You can also apply this to regular readings. It uses Court Cards and also introduces reversals. You may find this method breaks through any previous concerns you may have held with using reversals or Court cards! When you use this method you should take out the 16 Court cards and shuffle them in such a way that some cards get reversed; either by manually reversing stacks as you shuffle or by circling them around face-down on a table – being aware of any dust on the table which may scratch cards face-down. The Court Q&A Method Shuffle the 16 Court Cards, allowing for reversals, and consider any situation in your life (or of your querent) which requires a new view. Perhaps it is something where you cannot even think of the right questions to ask for a solution. Take out a Court Card and look at its suit (Wands, Cups, Swords, or Pentacles) and consult the list below, and select the appropriate question, depending on whether the card is upright or reversed. Wands Upright: What has been achieved? Reversed: What is there still to achieve? Cups Upright: What do you feel about the success of the past? Reversed: What has been learnt from the failures of the past? Swords Upright: How do you overcome the obstacles? Reversed: What are the opportunities?

Pentacles Upright: What are our resources? Reversed: What are our requirements? Then consider the rank of the card (ignoring any reversal) and add the following consideration to your question. King: In the long-term for my own good. Queen: In the long-term for the good of others. Knight: In the mid-term for the best possible outcome. Page: In the short-term. So if you drew the Knight of Swords reversed, your question is “In the mid-term for the best possible outcome, what are the opportunities?” Then draw another card and consult the relevant response, which uses reversals, taking the rank first and then the suit: King (upright): Move slowly but steadfastedly and take control. King (reversed): Stay absolutely where you are and wait. Queen (upright): Develop and nuture whatever is already happening. Queen (reversed): Cut back and be ruthless, aborting what is not working. Knight (upright): Take action swiftly. Knight (reversed): Let others run this one. Page (upright): Make a first step, for the sake of it. Page (reversed): Keep everything close to home and risk-free. And then the Suit: Wands (upright): Towards your ambitions and vision. Wands (reversed): Within the bounds of what others have done. Cups: In the depths of your feelings and intuition. Cups (reversed): Without muddying the waters. Swords: In the light of your mind, and common-sense. Swords (reversed): Taking it way out of the box. Pentacles: In the sense of your gut feeling.

Pentacles (reversed): Not making any changes at all. So if you drew the Queen of Pentacles (reversed), the response would be: Cut back and be ruthless, aborting what is not working, not making any changes at all. If that were the response card to the first example question, the Knight of Swords (reversed), we would see that in the mid-term, all we can do is cut back and not make any new progress, just clear the ground by ejecting whatever is not presently working for us. You can continue to pick out pairs of cards in this prompt/response manner for so long as you find it useful to explore your situation – although we usually find four pairs (8 cards) is sufficient and avoids overload or conflicting messages. We will now give a section on the Court Cards from our free downloads on www.tarotprofessionals.com for convenience and context. The Court Cards Revisited As many students and professionals will testify, the Court Cards are the most troublesome to learn and interpret in a reading. It seems that everyone asks the same question – do I read this card as a person, an event, an energy, or part of the personality of the Querent? In Tarot Life, we have seen how their living energies manifest and fluctuate through our own personality. There are whole books written on the subject; Kate Warwick-Smith’s The Tarot Court Cards (Destiny Books, 2003) and Mary K. Greer and Tom Little’s Understanding the Tarot Court (Llewellyn, 2004). The popular beginner books devote sections to the Court cards, noting they may be read in as many as seven different ways, even as a time of the year (see Anthony Louis, Tarot Plain and Simple (Llewellyn, 2003)) without giving much indication of how the Reader is to know which of those seven ways to choose. In Joan Bunning’s Learning the Tarot (Weiser, 1998), an example is provided where the Queen of Pentacles may be the environment of a house, another person in that house group, or yourself. Bunning calls this the “subtle play of the Tarot” but offers no real conclusion to

which interpretation to follow in this example or any other reading where a Court Card appears. The Court cards are also certainly an area where we may project our own opinions of our fellow creatures. In Sally Gearhart and Susan Rennie’s A Feminist Tarot (Persephone Press, 1977), we see the Knight of Swords as “heavy police or military action repressing minority elements”. The Court cards are also particularly time-fixed, both in their hierarchical nature and their possible interpretations as roles and relationships; in a 1930’s cartomancy book by Zodiastar, 30 Different Ways of Card Fortune-Telling (Universal, 1936), we read that the advice for a Queen of Hearts person-type is “you ought to marry a strong-willed person, since you need guidance”. People Are Strange The main issue with Court cards, as Jim Morrison sang, is that “people are strange”. When we are presented with the Court Cards, we immediately see a person, and more so, a person in a role. These are not just anybody – they are people in positions of power or service. Here we see an immediate issue; how do you personally relate to hierarchy? The rigid structure of the Court is defined by notions of control, rulership, and in many cultures, divine right. You cannot look at the King without having to access your own unconscious associations with kingship. So you may wish to take a moment to think of what comes to mind when you think of a King (or Queen). To which periods of time do you travel? If you were a King or Queen, how would you feel? What would you feel about your role in society? How would it influence your actions as a person? These are some of the many immediate yet consequential thoughts that arise when we are presented with this apparently simple and straight-forward image. But people are strange. We know that from working on the Major cards, these cards, such as the High Priestess and the Hermit, are not people, are not the archetypes, but arising images constellating from an unknowable archetypal field. Thus they remain ultimately indefinable and it is in this that resides their power to offer multiple interpretations within a reading. This is essential for Tarot to work.

The same goes for the Court Cards. They are not the pictures that are depicted. They are not roles and they are not people. They are symbolic place-holders for energies in relationship. They are examples – or more specifically – exemplars, of how the Universe holds together and reflects itself through our perceptions and awareness. However, because they are easily depicted as people in roles, our attention is held by this presentation, and remains at that level. We must learn to look deeper – this is what Tarosophy teaches us. When we look at a person, especially ourselves, we access the whole realm of the archetypal. We function in the mundus imaginalis of Henri Corbin, the imaginal world. It is here that true divination originates, if such could be said. The whole spectrum of experience is accessible to us – and anyone else. So when we look at a Court Card depicting another human being, we cannot help but wonder what the Knight of Wands does on his day off – whether he lays down his wand and takes up his cups, perhaps? We cannot and do not see them fixed in their role. This is why we cannot read the Court cards. We try to fix them and they cannot be so fixed whilst we maintain them as people in roles. At least the Minors depict tableaus which we take as applying universally and the Majors as images of archetypal patterns that cascade into our reality in any manner of different fashions. With the Court Cards, we immediately get locked into seeing them as personages, roles, even personality-types. And given that people are strange and infinite, we bounce between simple limitations; the King of Swords “is personified in successful investors or business persons …” (Paul Quinn, Tarot for Life (Theosophical Publishing House, 2009)) and their infinite possibilities as people within the archetypal realms. Infinite Strains of the Loom If we go to the highest and most universal reading of these set of sixteen cards, arrayed in a four-by-four loom, we can see that they are composed of a warp and weft created by four levels in four worlds. This is particularly appropriate to a Kabbalistic correspondence of four elements in four worlds as used by the

Golden Dawn and subsequent esoteric groups such as the Ancient Mystical Order of Seekers (AMOS), whose Path of Light teachings, vol. VII cover the Tarot. The Rosicrucian teachings of AMORC and BOTA also make this correspondence between the Court Cards and the Kabbalistic model. So we should perhaps consider the nature of these sixteen cards as primarily an elemental nexus – a knotting of raw energy in a particular form, held in a tapestry of sixteen squares. As this energy is in motion, it strains against the other knots, pulling our array out of shape. We might think of this like gravity – a number of objects in space all invisibly shaping what passes between their influences. When a court card or two turn up, they are gravity wells in your reading, bending the other cards around it! As the four levels of energy also have their elemental correspondences, we can further follow the Golden Dawn (and Crowley) in creating a matrix of elemental mixtures. The Suits have their standard elemental correspondences, such as Earth corresponding to Pentacles, and the four levels have their correspondences of Fire (King), Water (Queen), Air (Knight) and Earth (Page). Thus we start with the Page of Pentacles being the Earthy part of Earth, all the way to the King of Wands being the Fiery part of Fire. You might like to fill in the gaps below with your own analysis, reflections and keywords for these elemental nodes:

These will give you the elemental essence of these sixteen cards, whether they manifest that essence through a person, event or characteristic. You may also now be able to make sense of the Golden Dawn titles of these cards, such as the Knave of Pentacles (Page of Pentacles) being entitled “The Princess of the Echoing Hills: Rose of the Palace of Earth” as she is the Earth of Earth. The Knave of Cups (Page of Cups) is called “The Princess of the Waters: The Lotus of the Palace of the Floods”, being the Earthy part of Water.

Elemental Court Cards I (Marcus) would personally redesign the Court cards as more ethereal or abstract images to reflect those elemental essences. In a sense, the work of Ithell Colquhoun on her Tarot deck mirrors perfectly how I would cast the Court. The card illustrated here is the Ace of Pentacles. The colours and shapes would refer to the correspondences of the elements, for example, a simple key of Red for Fire and Blue for Water would give us a King of Cups card merging those two colours. Illus. Limited edition Artwork Tarots No 19. Tarot by Ithell Colquhoun. Working within the colour correspondences of the Golden Dawn, I would have the Air suit of Swords drawn as blue/yellow rays, in patterns according to their level: Page: Unformed blue/yellow swirls, as unmixed gases, layered Knight: Directed rays as if sunlight through clouds Queen: Long uniform curves of curling shapes and morasses King: Stable lines and shapes, fixed in position like lasers (“coherent light”) This would then avoid me reading the cards as people or being stuck with outdated notions of courtly hierarchy. However, I would still be interested to know if I should read this energy as coming through into manifestation as a person, a part of myself or my Querent, or as a general summary of a particular process or complex situation. Knowing How to Read a Court Card If we accept the sixteen Court cards as dictating the nature of forces and their levels in a reading, we can use experience to determine how they are most likely making themselves manifest. A single Court card in a spread would indicate that energy taking centre stage, bending the cards around it, influencing and impacting upon them. Likely a particular individual then! A large number of Court Cards for me signify a tension of energies, particularly if they are varying

suits, indicating the levels are also widely variant. This more often than not signifies aspects of the Querent’s personality at conflict. Just two or three Court cards in a typical spread tend to indicate the environmental forces for me – the levels and energies at work in a project, relationship or ambition taken as a whole. This system makes it far easier and more accurate (in my experience) to read the Court Cards – if it is just one card, you will be seeking to identify a person who fits that nature, if two or three, it is a summary of the events taking place, and if more – they are aspects of the person involved, making it more practical to explore with the person present. Court Cards Old Style Another older method of interpreting the Court Cards may give you an interesting variation in your spread reading. This is from the time of Papus and Etteila. Whilst they certainly confused the origins of the Tarot, making links to ancient Egypt and beyond, they were adroit at making systems of divination based on correspondences. More so, they were fond of systems that “weary not the memory”, something we are also keen to attain in our own teaching! They therefore built up from simple principles,. In Papus, we read that the Court Cards stand for Man, Woman, Young Man and Child. These correspond to the nature of – and here we have rephrased slightly for contemporary usage – Creativity, Union, Conflict and Transition. We can then apply these correspondences in the World (Element/Suit) in which they find themselves expressed. Thus a Page of Swords would simply represent Transition in the world of finances and material matters – a very uncertain position! A Queen of Swords would be union in the world of intellect and knowledge – perhaps a sudden insight, new item of information, or agreeing to learn. The Knight of Wands is a conflict in ambitions and lifestyle choices – perhaps even a sudden overturning of values. You may like to complete the table below with your own interpretation and experience of these keys.

Are You Lookin’ at Me? Finally, buried in Etteila, there is an interesting idea which may be used successfully for readings and seems to work very well. This is a simple rule – the Kings and Queens are other people, and the Knights and Pages are how those other people see (or respond to and project onto) the Querent. This is a nice simple idea loaded with psychological implication when used in a reading! If you have a few Court cards in a spread, this is a fascinating exercise, as you identify the people involved, and then divine how they are responding to the Querent from their own positions in the situation, represented by the spread itself. Thus you may have a Queen of Pentacles and a Knight of Swords in a reading for a male Querent. The former is in the “crossing” position of a Celtic Cross reading, and the latter is in the “resources” position. The Queen would represent a real person, obstructing the Querent in some way, and the Knight would show how she was viewing the Querent – as being too ruthless or quick to make decision perhaps – not as a “resource” then, but as a threat.

Sometimes the question may be about a family situation or complex workplace environment and hence the Court Cards may all represent actors in that dynamic. In this case, I would be tempted to do a reading with the Court Cards alone, to place them in relationship to each other and explore how they relate. You could also perform an interactive reading where the cards are split into Majors, Minors and Court Cards. The Querent selects out the Court Cards to represent the people involved, and lays them out in the most appropriate pattern. You then shuffle the Majors and place a Major card against each Court card on the table, to divine which archetypal force that player is working through (or being worked through). You can then shuffle and place from the pile of Minors cards to divine what the relationship is between each player – and even better, another card for how to resolve that relationship. The following illustration is an example free-form spread using this method, which we call “All The World’s a Stage”. You may wish to explore it and determine your own interpretation. All the World’s a Stage Reading

Tarot Lovers images copyright © Karyn Easton.

In this reading, the Querent selected the Court Cards and placed them in those positions. The Knight of Wands was riding away! The Majors were placed above and below the Court Cards, and then two cards selected from the Minors also, to divine the relationship and its resolution between the King of Cups and the Knight of Wands. These cards were the Three of Swords, showing the current relationship, and the Two of Pentacles showing a means of resolution. What do you think those two cards suggest together? Whilst there are many interesting aspects of this reading, what might you also make of the Hanged Man working through the Page of Coins? Having presented this method, we now move on to the core work of this month’s gated spread, in which you will practice a nightly dream exercise based on a single card chosen at the end of each day. We continue this month with an exercise where we are pairing cards for comparison, rather than previous months where we have usually focused on the meaning and message of one card. As we move on, we are now at the stage where it is the meaning that arises by comparing and contrasting cards that we will experience and learn. After the next gate, we will be performing “living spreads” which is a practice unique to Tarot Life and Tarosophy. The Sixteen Judges of Justice In the Tarot Life practice of this month, you are going to use the sixteen court cards as gateways to your inner world. In recognizing your own actions and decisions during each day, you will make associations with various court cards and then balance each one with its opposite nature. As this will happen in your sleep, it is an easy exercise to carry out and very suitable for this stage of the process. Whilst having a rest and letting our previous work settle, we are still working within the process!

To work with the method, follow these steps: 1. At the end of each day, make a note in your journal under two column headings; “REGRETS” and “RECOGNITIONS”. This is a variation of an esoteric journaling method called ‘The White and Black Mirrors’. 2. Under the column of ‘regrets’, write down 2-3 things during the day which you would have rather done better, differently or not at all. If you have no regrets, that is fine, move on to the next step. 3. Under the column of ‘recognitions’, note where you feel good in review and retrospect, of things you did well or came out good. You should have at least one thing in one of the columns, even if you slept all day – that might be a regret! 4. Compare your regrets and recognitions with the various descriptions and suggestions of the sixteen Court Cards and judge ONE court card which reflects the main theme of your columns for that day. It does not matter if you have a “mixed” day, use your intuition to pick one appropriate court card out of those that might correspond to your regrets and recognitions. You may find this becomes strangely easier and you being to experience far more “one card days” as the month progresses – one of the hidden miracles of Tarot Life. 5. Then also select out the “Balance” card from the list below, which you will recall from Month/Gate Five: Page of Pentacles … Knight of Pentacles … Queen of Pentacles … King of Pentacles … Page of Swords … Knight of Swords …

King of Swords Queen of Swords Knight of Swords Page of Swords King of Pentacles Queen of Pentacles

Queen of Swords … King of Swords … Page of Cups … Knight of Cups … Queen of Cups … King of Cups … Page of Wands … Knight of Wands … Queen of Wands … King of Wands …

Knight of Pentacles Page of Pentacles King of Wands Queen of Wands Knight of Wands Page of Wands King of Cups Queen of Cups Knight of Cups Page of Cups

6. Take both these Court Cards and place them either side of the JUSTICE card from your deck, close to where you can see them before sleep or bed. If you do not wish to have the cards in your sleeping area, simply take them out to look over them in another room before you retire at night. 7. At night, before sleep, look over the three cards so you can retain a clear idea of their images – as much as possible, even if only a vague recollection of their key features. 8. As you go to sleep, perform the following visualization - or as closely as possible, aiming to get more detailed over the month. Stand in front of a large door, upon which is painted the JUSTICE card image. On either side, on large pillars, plinths, drapes or wall carvings are seen the two Court Cards. They may all (or some) be animated, even living. Allow them to be represented however they come to your mind at this time. This is the portal of Justice. Consider the ideas of reward and retribution, held in the scales of Justice herself. Perhaps you may see her as Ma’at, the ancient Egyptian deity of ‘measure’ and ‘law’ beyond even the gods themselves.

Step forwards and saying to yourself in a clear voice “I am both [Court Card 1] and [Court Card 2] as I enter equality within” enter through the door (or portal) of justice. For example, you may say, “I am both the Queen of Swords and the Knight of Pentacles as I enter equality within”. You may continue a creative visualization beyond that point, or simply dwell and consider the equality of the two cards until sleep. On awakening, make a note of any dreams. In Practice We recommend this as a daily practice over the month, or you can perform it weekly, or every few days. You can derive a pair of cards after a few days self-observation, and then work with them in dreaming for another few days until you feel as if they have shifted something (equilibrated) in your sleep. If you are unsure as to which Court Card to represent your regret and recognitions of the day, select one from the sixteen as an act of divination, or choose one which seems best to capture the overall feeling you have for the day, or the theme of the major events of the day. It is important in this gate not necessarily to establish a routine, but rather at least work with four or more pairs to get the best out of the gate. You can add lucid dreaming methods to this practice, or work with the Inner Guide Meditation – if the Guide agrees. Another addition is to visualize yourself exiting the door/portal/gate each morning as you awake. At this stage of Tarot Life, you should be more confident about developing the gates to suit your own way of working. You can always ask in the Facebook group if you are unsure. Note that it can often be powerful to simply write down some notes when you awaken, even if they are only “I can’t recall my dreams, but I woke with a feeling of bemusement”. The act of writing dreams out and then reading them provides a recognition to the unconscious that you are responding to it, which will encourage further dreams.

The Regrets and Recognitions of the Court Cards The King of Wands The King of Wands rules with brilliance; he possesses vision and is a natural innovator, he is the live-wire that takes risks. He likes to conquer and to spread his ambition far afield. The harder he works the more he can do and he truly lives up to what a wise lady once said “The more you do, the more you can do!” This ruling energy is truly a dynamic force. He is passionate and dedicated to his cause/causes and leads the way for others to follow. Waite says of him “he connects with the symbol of the lion, which is emblazoned on the back of his throne”. This power behind the King is all Leo-energy, he is supported by this force. The word throne can be traced by to early Greek, Dio thronus, and was said to mean “Support of the heavens”. The King of Wands shares the traits of the astrological sign of Leo; generous and creative, open, extrovert, a bit of a performer, and very extravagant. He loves the spotlight on him. He is noble (or thinks he is) through and through, but this can come across as downright arrogant. An example of this type of character would be Donald Trump, the American business magnate. The only time you can walk all over him, is on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one at a time please! It has to be said about the King of Wands, they know how to leave their mark! His negative traits are being bossy, overbearing and he never knows when to shut up. A character shown by this card would also be a little unforgiving at times. REGRETS: Giving up on something. Being overbearing.

Stealing the spotlight from others. RECOGNITIONS: Powering something through. Meeting a target, goal, vision or ambition. Acting as a role-model for an individual or group. Queen of Wands The Queen of Wands is the power behind the throne. She is the one who rules growth and movement. She is dynamic by nature and inspires those around her to create - she herself is a trail blazer .It was this sort of energy that ignited the industrial revolution. Waite says of the Wands suit, it is “Life and animation”, amd its court embodies the creator energy in four aspects. The Queen of Wands personality is, again according to Waite, “ardent, lithe, animated, impassioned, noble”, however she has an added quality, that of being “magnetic”, she attracts people to her presence like a bee to a honey pot. She is an extrovert; the natural social networker who excels in business, and is the life and soul of any party. REGRETS: Not following your own decision. Not showing enthusiasm. Avoiding a challenge. RECOGNITIONS: Getting people inspired as a group. Showing vision and energy. Encouraging a task with passion. Knight of Wands The Knight of Wands, like all four Knights he is effectively the right hand man of his King, in this case of Wands. He does his bidding

and serves as a representative for the King’s intentions and values. He physically and emotionally thrusts his way through a situation. There are certain similarities to the King of Wands but the Knight is more at home seated on his horse than he would be on a throne. However, a Knight is not above wanting to depose a King, especially where there is a Queen involved! Like the King he is all male energy. In fact, the Knight is driven by conquest and aims to overcome any oncoming force - or anybody who gets in his way. Waite remarks that “the motion of the horse is a key to the character of his rider, and suggests the precipitate mood”. Therefore our Knight is one who throws himself forward into life almost with no care to what lies ahead or below. He is fearless and he is ready to handle anything that comes his way. He is a mover and shaker, one who makes it happen or paves the way for others. REGRETS: Not taking an active part in a situation. Giving in to someone else’s intentions. Staying in all day. RECOGNITIONS: Undoing a bad situation or decision. Standing up for yourself or others. Promoting somebody’s ideas or actions. Page of Wands The Page of Wands is an envoy, a deliverer of news. Characterwise, he can be considered a whipper-snapper! His energy is one of enthusiasm but at times can be misguided, due to his immaturity. He is prone to believing that he knows it all, even though he has only just begun. This can mean that what he speaks of is not always to be taken as the gospel truth. He can be seen as being connected to the Page of Swords, in that the Page of Wands delivers news and the Page of Swords makes the news.

REGRETS: Not speaking up. Missing a message or communication from someone. Being boring. RECOGNITIONS: Delivering the truth in an effective manner. Getting word around. Going the extra step in something for the joy of discovery. King of Cups With the King of Cups we have one who is able to connect to their emotional world, no matter its condition. They are able to somehow connect to it, yet not be overwhelmed by it. This is signified in the card by the chainmail armor of the king and his foot hovering over the depths. Waite says of him that he is likely to be a man of “business, law or divinity”. These careers perhaps are all the more successful where one is able to harness emotions and intuition in practical service. In terms of Kabbalah, this card is the image of the highest level of Briah, the world of creation. In essence, it shows how creativity arises; and we see the “leaping dolphin” that Waite describes in the card (Waite-Smith Tarot) appearing again out of the Chalice held by the Page of Cups. In the description of that card, Waite suggests it is “the pictures of the mind taking form”. So these two cards together suggest “imagination”. When considering equality, the King of Cups is one who will come up with visionary and imaginative means of balancing the calm and the turbulent, the slow and the rapid. He is one who takes imbalance as an opportunity to create elegant solutions. REGRETS: Getting carried away emotionally.

Being overwhelmed by someone else’s emotions. Being too cold to someone or responding inappropriately. RECOGNITIONS: Taking charge in an emotional situation. Recognising someone’s emotional state and acting on it. Being wise in some way. Queen of Cups “The only gift I have to give, is the ability to receive. If giving is a gift, and it surely is, then my gift to you is to allow you to give to me.” ― Jarod Kintz. The Queen of Cups rules emotions, she does not hold back in giving out favours to those who she considers to be in need. She is perceptive and receptive to the feelings of others and works hard to bring people together, especially if this is towards a good cause. The Queen of Cups is vocationally driven and can be seen working her magic in the caring profession - she is often the healer of all that is sick and in need. A person who is very much tuned to her psychic side, she was described by Waite as “being one who sees visions in a cup”, and this ability is not hampered by a dependence on reason. She is empowered by her intuition and this allows her to glimpse what came before and what will follow. She is a true visionary, who knows, simply because she does. “Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.” James Allen, British Philosophical writer. (1864- 1912) Her communication style is purely emotional. She is the diametrical opposite to her sister, the Queen of Swords. This latter is the Queen of wise-cracks, who will give you a “piece of her mind”. Whereas our Queen of Cups will “give you a piece of her heart” instead. She does

not hold a grudge and would never wage a vendetta. In a reading she represents a very fair-minded person and is full of commonsense. REGRETS: Being selfish. Holding a grudge and making it known. Withdrawing from social contact. RECOGNITIONS: Where you put the emotional needs of another before your own. You were a shoulder to cry on. You acted as a peacemaker and helped to resolve a conflict. Knight of Cups The Knight of Cups bears his chalice as a proposal, a proposition, an opportunity to go on a quest, perhaps one of high vision or romantic idealism. He is not quite in touch with anything real, and totally “head in the clouds” – although he does get through life on this basis, if he has supporters. The ideal card for the songwriter, artist or poet, the “messenger” nature of the Pages is here brought out in communication by ones art and craft, in any shape, manner or form. In its most mundane sense in a reading, it can show an invitation to do something not connected with financial reward. A party, perhaps, depending on other cards – a charity event, a helpful task, even. In righting wrongs and finding equality, the Knight of Cups has idealism and will protest if he finds his sense of fair play offended in any way. REGRETS: Not being creative. Not being imaginative or playful. Not seeking a solution out of the box. RECOGNITIONS:

Being surprising. Being open to spontaneity. Creating something new. Page of Cups A studious youth is how Waite sees the Page of Cups, and imaginative, creative, and reflective. Also a bearer of news. Crowley, on the other hand, sees the romantic in the card; his Princess of Cups is “infinitely gracious. All sweetness, all voluptuousness, gentleness, kindness and tenderness are in her character”. The character of this card is best, he says, in fact, “unsurpassed” as a “helpmeet”, a support person, a group worker, dependent on those around them. As the earthy part of water, in terms of elemental characteristics, the card is one of crystallization, as Waite describes it, “the pictures of the mind taking form”. In fact, imagination and visualization. If asked about fairness, balance and equality, a person who embodied the purest nature of this card would likely take the most optimistic, romantic, and probably most unrealistic position on the matter. REGRETS: Not supporting others emotionally. Not being a team-player. Failing to help. RECOGNITIONS: Helping others emotionally or otherwise. Being romantic. Being hopelessly optimistic despite the odds King of Swords The King of Swords rules with absolute conviction, he uses his words as a weapon to meter out justice and demonstrate his power.

He is not one who opens the door - he is the one who knocks and moves in! He makes decisions with military precision, he is a strategist, and nothing is ever left to chance. A methodical man, he plans and then he executes, and nothing will stand in his way of progress once he has his mind set upon it. So woe betide anyone who attempts to cross him, in a personal way, such as love or relating, or in affairs of work or business - for he will surely cut them down. In a conflict he will not show any hesitation or give way, he knows that to show signs of uncertainty would leave him and those close to him open to attack. He certainly espouses the maxim “He who falters is lost”. His pride is in teaching by example, he will not expect others to do that which he is not prepared to do himself. And where he leads the way others will follow. REGRETS: Not acting decisively. Being wooly-minded or confused about something. Not defending yourself. RECOGNITIONS: Acting with pure intent. Being strategic. Planning. The Queen of Swords “A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing”. Queen Elizabeth I of England The Queen of Swords is formidable and one who does not suffer fools gladly. When it comes to injustice she may be as cutting as Lewis Carroll’s The Queen of Hearts; who in the tales of Alice does not shy from saying “Off with their heads”. However, please do not condemn her as cruel and uncompassionate, for hers is a tough kind of love and like Solomon,

who may appear ruthless on the surface, she is in fact deeply compassionate and wise. In a time of crisis, she has the capacity for great understanding that has been accrued from sorrow and hard experience. The Queen of Swords, will carefully weigh up what has gone before. Then will save the day with the quick wit and verbal acuity of a barrister and the emotional calm and dexterity of a surgeon. The Queen of Swords is a keen researcher and curator of facts and figures, and she can be heard using the homily “A place for everything and everything in its place”. Nothing is ever left to chance with this imperious lady, as she is a planner, a promoter and ever so proud of the fact. The Lady is fearless and has nerves of steel, she is able to keep calm when all around her are “losing their heads”. This comes from her ability to keep her conscience free from unprocessed emotion, nothing is absorbed into her being without being screened, worked through and disseminated into its rightful place. She is the great thinker, organiser and academic. REGRETS: Negative aspects of the card, expressing the qualities to the extreme. Using sarcasm for the sake of it. Being too obsessed with order and regime. Being intolerant of somebodies shortcomings. RECOGNITIONS: Keeping your head in a stressful situation. Speaking up to right a wrongdoing. Counselling/advising somebody who needed good advice. Knight of Swords The Knight of Swords is “air of air” in the elemental associations of the cards, and whilst he is of the mind, he is also active – a Sir Galahad of the tales (as Waite describes him), charging forward with vision and courage.

This Knight takes a pro-active stance on equality and fairness, although whilst he is keen to wave his sword about, he must be sure that he is aligned to a truly noble purpose. He can forget himself. REGRETS: Getting out-of-order. Stepping on someone else’s toes. Breaking privacy or someone’s space. RECOGNITIONS: Volunteering yourself – putting yourself forwards. Doing the job first. Exploring something scary and new. Page of Swords The Page of Swords is a skilled communicator who screens his thoughts well before he speaks. He is a spy in the making! He is quick of tongue, and this makes him able to extricate himself from a difficult situation. Waite’s divinatory meanings of the character describe his qualities as “overseeing, secret service, vigilance, spying, and examination”. On a mundane level, he is the person in the office who is always hanging around to pick up juicy bits of gossip. Perhaps this is so he can communicate to a Page of Wands type character who will pass on the news! The immaturity of the Pages is liable to bring out the negative aspects of the suit energy. He is ruled by his impulsive nature, and being immature, he believes that he knows it all and lets all know that he does. In truth he has only just begun. This attitude could be called ‘youthful folly’ or ‘plain arrogance’. He loves to take the intellectual high ground. He has vision and bright ideas, but little practical skills to actualize them. He lacks structure and cannot stick to any single project, he will flit from one idea to another.

You could say his head is firmly in the clouds of theory. The energy is one of escapism; he is a verbal Houdini and he is liable to become involved in distraction strategies. This could include gambling, or dependence on drink or drugs, according to Crowley. REGRETS: “I’ve had a few”. Showing off. Becoming fixated on one idea. RECOGNITIONS: Being right. Being diplomatic. Being ready. Being all of the above. King of Pentacles The Taurean (bull) correspondence of this card provides much of its qualities and meanings; wealth, comfort, stability and generosity or largess. This is the card of financial accomplishment and structure, the fire (ambition) of earth (money) in this sense. It is a card which denotes funding, a kingdom (wholeness) and rest from struggle – the final outcome of all the work of the pentacles. REGRETS: Wasting money or time. Not making the most of an investment. Not seizing a chance to grow or develop something. RECOGNITIONS: Saving or budgeting.

Making a long-term decision. Sitting still and having patience in a situation. Queen of Pentacles “Vision is not enough. It must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.” - Vaclav Havel The Queen of Pentacles is a practical ruler. She is a doer, not the ‘talker or thinker’ like our Queen of Swords or the ‘dreamer of visions’ like the Queen of Cups’. She is a sculptor who takes all the elements needed to manifest and bring forth form. She is the individual amongst us who carries on regardless, rolls up her sleeves and does the dirty jobs that others avoid, and she is the worker who knows that duty keeps the whole show on the road. Her mantra is ‘a good work ethic in order to maintain security’. This sort of quality would have been seen in the early female pioneer settlers who would have had to work towards building and maintaining family security and independence in a whole new world. Duty is everything to her. REGRETS: Not being productive enough. Never seeing a project through to the end. Not saving enough. RECOGNITONS: Paying back the interest on your credit card in time. Competing unfinished tasks Tending to the garden Knight of Pentacles The card of the “long plod”. The Knight takes his time, has patience, and whilst he may not get going immediately, he is almost unstoppable once he is underway. This is the card that signifies “patience” when it turns up in a reading; you will have to buckle down and wait your turn. It is the card of the “long haul” so unfortunate if you are hoping for fast results.

When working with this card, take time to appreciate your environment, hone your senses, and generally recognize the simple equality of all things in their natural state. REGRETS: Doing something in a hurry. Being impatient. Not appreciating your environment. RECOGNITIONS: Working steadily on a long-term project. Being patient with somebody. Allowing time. Page of Pentacles On Crowley’s version of this card, the Princess of Disks, we see clearly what he describes as “the Chinese ideogram denoting the spiral force of Creation in perfect equilibrium”. This yin/yang symbol of the Tao he further goes on to explore as being captured by the card as “rest”, for it corresponds to the hexagram in the I-Ching of a “mountain”. So the most earthy part of earth in Tarot and Kabbalistic attributions fits perfectly with its eastern equivalent in the system of the I-Ching. The Page in Waite’s version is depicted as being studious and focused entirely in his subject and not his surroundings. It is a card that shows deliberate study, the taking of a course, new information and messages. REGRETS: Not looking before you leap. Doing something hastily. Being distracted.

RECOGNITIONS: Studying. Keeping to one thing. Being practical and using common-sense.

Conclusion What happens within oneself when one integrates previously unconscious contents with the consciousness is something that can scarcely be described in words. It can only be experienced. Carl Jung, quoted by Faraday, p. 256. Throughout this series, we are gradually elevating the tarot into a spiritual tool for ongoing work in real life. The cards can be used to engage in activities, stretch your boundaries, and respond to significant life-changing events – or prepare for them. The Tarot Life is a life which uses the cards as gates between the spiritual and mundane aspects of our experience. In the following five booklets in this series, we will build on our progress in the first seven months, next moving into a new phase of engaging ourselves with the universe in a transformative manner. It is important to the process that you undertake the exercises, and we have an optional Facebook group listed in the appendix where you can share and discuss your experiences, ask questions and gain support. We have also provided in the final section a list of reading materials and website resources to discover more in the very best of Tarot and Tarosophy®. In this series, released monthly over 2013: 1. Discover Your Destiny 2. Remove The Blocks 3. Make Decisions Better 4. Enter the Flow

5. Ride the Lion 6. Connect to Service 7. Find Equality 8. Die To Your Old Self 9. Entering Unity 10. Becoming the Real 11. Your Keys to Freedom 12. The Depth of Divinity

What Follows Next Month In next month’s Tarot Life, everything changes. We work with the force of Scorpio and the card of Death, bringing our cards to life in our daily surroundings. This will be a radical transformation – as one might expect at this stage – taking everything you have done to this point up a level. We also work with the “living spread” method which will form the basis of our concluding gates to Tarot Life. Much of the work before will now be fed back into the gates/spreads to ensure that your path is uniquely geared to your own personal experience.

Bibliography Bunning, J. Learning the Tarot. Weiser, 1998. Faraday, A. Dream Power: The Use of Dreams in Everyday Life. London: Pan Books, 1972. Gearhart, S. & Rennie, S. A Feminist Tarot. Persephone Press, 1977. Greer, M. K. & Little, T. Understanding the Tarot Court. Llewellyn, 2004. Hall, J. A. Jungian Dream Interpretation. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1983 Louis, A. Tarot Plain and Simple. Llewellyn, 2003. Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians, ed. A. E. Waite. North Hollywood: Wilshire, 1973. Quinn, P. Tarot for Life. Theosophical Publishing House, 2009. Waite, A. E. Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: Rider, 1974. Warwick-Smith, K. The Tarot Court Cards. Destiny Books, 2003.

TAROT LIFE MONTH 8 DIE TO YOUR SELF Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Authors Note: This is Month 8 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Months 1-7 booklets to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of selfdiscovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

INDEX Introduction 4 Die To Your Self The Tarot Life Method The Living Tarot Cards

5 7 9

Conclusion 30 Bibliography 34 Websites & Resources

35

TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year. Introduction In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from our other tarot books, such as the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire, to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given, although there are many methods you will learn that can be used simply by themselves, for yourself or others. You can start at any time, although New Year, your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a private Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

Die To Your Self Thence the human being rushes up through the cosmic framework, at the first zone surrendering the energy of increase and decrease; at the second evil machination, a device now inactive; at the third the illusion of longing, now inactive; at the fourth the ruler’s arrogance, now freed of excess; at the fifth unholy presumption and daring recklessness; at the sixth the evil impulses that come from wealth, now inactive; and the seventh zone the deceit that lies in ambush. The Hermetica. You may recall that the very first quote we presented when we started Tarot Life in book 1, was “when you’re at the beginning, don’t obsess about the middle, because the middle is going to look different once you get there. Just look for a strong beginning and a strong ending and get moving”. At this stage, as we have passed the middle of the process, you may look back at that quite and see how things have changed since you began. You may wonder if you can recall how you thought things would be by half-way, and how they were. This power of retrospect is a fundamental practice to learning “predictive hindsight”, a way of reading tarot which is extremely powerful. Predictive hindsight is a skill simply acquired by practice; by journaling your readings and your initial interpretations, but then reviewing them after the situation has unfolded, you calibrate your readings. As you continue to do this, you find your readings change – what “first” appears in your mind is replaced by “what you would probably say looking back at these cards after the event”. Eventually, this latter predictive hindsight simply becomes the first thing that

appears in your mind. You just “know” how you would read these cards from the future, because you have been learning how to do just that by journaling, calibrating, and reviewing. In this month, we are actually going to prepare to learn a similar ability – not just for reading, but for life itself - but first we must remove ourselves from our own way. In effect, we will gracefully let go of blocks and obstacles, of expectations, and more, as we “die to our self”. The quote from the Hermetica – a keystone of western magical philosophy – with which we began this section shows this process of recognition and abandonment. As we bring all our patterns to the surface, they become “inactive”, until we reach the terrifying final “deceit” that awaits; that we were never who we thought we were in the first place. To make this a painless process, we play it as a game. Throughout this month you will be checking off aspects of your real everyday life with the cards – but then removing them from play. As the month progresses, a magical “funnel” will be formed, which will focus your attention on fewer cards and fewer events in your life. You may find strange synchronicities and other mysterious events occurring as this method is based on a powerful magical ritual. You are free to consider the remaining cards as you approach the end of this working and try and actually “create” the events that they depict, as if you were ‘cheating’ to finish the exercise sooner. It will actually not matter by then, as what is ‘controlling’ this process may be a little blurred at that point. There is no stand-alone or beginner method in this month’s work, as this is an advanced working suitable only for Tarot Life practitioners.

The Tarot Life Method In the Tarot Life practice of this month, you are going to reverse all our previous methods by reading the Tarot from life, not about life. The aim is to make your tarot deck a passive reflection of life, and read life – as tarot. To explain, it is very straightforward. Every day you will select TWO notable events in your daily experience, and correspond those TWO events to TWO specific cards. However, the Tarosophy Twist is here that you will then take those two cards OUT of the deck, and NOT be able to choose them again as the method progresses. As you reduce the deck of possibilities, exhausting different experiences, you will find yourself gravitating to the experiences of the remaining cards, in a strange and subtle manner. It is something that has to be experienced to be understood, as it is somewhat magical. You may even find that life becomes a living tarot reading all around you, with you as the signficator – or perhaps the Fool on a journey through the deck. We have given for each card a range of examples at different levels of what that card may correspond to in your daily experience – at a mundane, emotional/psychological or spiritual level. As ever, you are freely encouraged to use your own correspondences, interpretations and meanings of the cards. Here are the instructions for the method. You must have a deck that will not be used for any other purpose for a month or more: 1. Take out the 22 MAJOR cards from your deck. These are not used in this method.

2. Shuffle the remaining deck of 56 cards fully, considering all that you have done so far. 3. Lay the shuffled deck face UP. 4. At the end of each day, select TWO cards OUT from the deck (keeping the deck in order all the time) which correspond to the two most significant experiences of that particular day. 5. As the practice continues, you may find it harder to choose cards – this is part of the process. If you really feel that no two cards meet two significant experiences of your day, pass over the deck until the following day and see if something happens that corresponds to two of the remaining cards, either together or individually. 6. Continue this practice for a lunar month of 28 days or until the deck is depleted. 7. Towards the end of this practice you should begin to more naturally see events during your day in terms of tarot card equivalents. 8. Maintain a record of the pairs of cards you have selected for each day. Also make a note of any particularly significant events that occur, particularly as the practice develops. There is no other observation or practice required. This is a method that uses “installation” to prepare for a later gate, although it may in itself bring about some significant changes as you exhaust the deck of possibilities. In Practice During this exercise, and particularly towards the end, consider how this method is working. Are the cards reflecting life, or life reflecting the cards? What remains when you exhaust all the cards? This process is a tarot equivalent of the via exhaustio, or “path of exhaustion”. It is also a subtle mechanism of examining attachments

and “dying to your self”.

The Living Tarot Cards Page of Pentacles You may have had a business proposition today, and it is something which you seriously considered. You may have a felt a sense of confidence in starting a practical project. Something that had a spiritual significance for you manifested in your life, albeit in a very mundane way. Page of Swords You may have found yourself eager to thrust your fresh ideas and communications out into the world. You may have found yourself on the defensive saying what you feel with conviction- very strong self-belief. You have come into possession of something which is written or recorded, that has manifested a synchronicity. Page of Cups You found yourself in the position today where you were moved to be compassionate and felt impelled to move it from a feeling of compassion to an actual act. This could have manifested as you making a donation to charity or you may have offered your services to another. You found yourself overwhelmed by emotion, you have been able to see beyond yourself self and feel the pain of others, and you have been acutely empathetic towards others. You have been very tuned into the spiritual world. A perfect meditative state of being for divination. Page of Wands You may have found yourself having to be the only one being productive and creative today while those in your work space have taken it easy leaving you to deliver the goods! You are the creator and the messenger of good ideas.

You have been an emotional keg today ready to combust at the smallest slight you perceive to come your way. You have felt energetic and moved to harness energy to heal and spread light around to all those around you. You felt moved by spirit. You were indeed a bright spark in a dark space with the soul purpose to illuminate. 10 of Pentacles You may have found yourself making a life-changing purchase, such as signing the final contract for your dream home. You made yourself secure in a practical way today. You may have had moments today where you have fantasized over what it would be like to obtain your dream lifestyle, you pictured the perfect scenario, no longer having to work, no longer having to scratch about for money. You may have come to the realization today that you are content with your lot in life, you have your family, your security, good health and wellbeing. You are now focusing on the wealth of spiritual attainment. 10 of Swords You may have had to tell associate you are calling it a day, that you quit - the proverbial falling on your own sword. You may have found yourself removed from a project. You found yourself at the very end of your over-thinking-things rope today- there is no solution to a problem mentally, you have exhausted this route. This final realization may have prompted you to end an ongoing disagreement/feud. You may have found yourself hitting rock bottom, but realizing that we have to exhaust something to the very end before we can finally let go. This letting go may have felt like a release from the binds that have held you. You feel like a free spirit again. 10 of Cups You took time out today literally to ‘smell the flowers’, and appreciate the sheer magic and beauty of nature. This could have simply been

time spent in your own garden, or a stroll through your local park with those you love. In doing so you were at one with nature. You expressed to your nearest and dearest how much they mean to you, and you savored this moment as if it was the first and the last and forever. You became aware today that you are not merely “I” but the greater “One” and in doing so you were able to leave behind fear of being alone. 10 of Wands You lightened your load today. You stopped yourself from taking on extra work that you knew you could not manage easily. Well done for saying no. You said no to taking on someone else emotional baggage when were emotionally fraught yourself. Well done for putting your wellbeing first this time. You came to the realization today that you do not have to carry a heavy burden 9 of Pentacles You were very self-sufficient today and actively rejected assistance in doing something. You said NO thank you to the person who offered to lend you some money or buy something when you knew it would have strings attached. Today you found your power by saying NO to something you did not really want to do. Autonomy was the power word for today- you know your own will better than anyone! You stuck to your principles and ethics of what you believe in rather than being swayed by the aggressive will of another. You realize that convictions worth having are worth sticking to especially so under duress. 9 of Swords You refused to face up to a dilemma that has been troubling you for a long time. You put a trouble aside, you allowed yourself to be in denial over a pressing issue.

You stopped yourself over-analyzing a problem, and in doing so you overcame the fear itself, for as Franklin D. Roosevelt so wisely said. “All we have to fear is fear itself”. You battled your biggest fear, and in doing so you were able to leave behind a part of you that no longer served you well. 9 of Cups You really should have spent time today enjoying what you have worked hard for so far. Perhaps this was spending time at home with your family, enjoying a good meal and good company with those you love. You found yourself feeling a bit smug with the advantages that you possess. Perhaps you came across an old school friend on Facebook and could not stop yourself from letting them know how well you have done in the intervening years. You found yourself wondering whether it was worth being on the ‘hamster wheel’ to maintain your current lifestyle. 9 of Wands Today you found yourself being over wary of a situation. Perhaps the last time you found yourself in the position you experienced a bad outcome. You were tempted to bail out to run away, but in the end you stood your ground and faced any eventuality head-on. You experienced a situation where your wariness and paranoia of a situation brought upon the very thing you dreaded. You felt under attack from negative forces and had to take action to psychically protect yourself. This could have been as simple as burning a smudge stick around your home. 8 of Pentacles You worked diligently today on a project that will reap rewards personally and professionally or somebody close to you such as a child or partner has succeeded in an examination. You found yourself appraising your progress in life so far, this is in a very material area, and you may have considered that it is time to move on with a particular skill that has taken you years to excel in. You felt that this skill needs to be recognized and rewarded.

You came to the realization today that to move beyond the physical and master the spiritual world rather than creating in the material. 8 of Swords You were put in a position today where you were put on the spot by an aggressive inquisitor, it could have been in a job interview situation. You found yourself unable to formulate and answer something that you knew inside out! You were your own saboteur. You felt yourself today crippled by over-analysis and a reluctance to express to others your inner thoughts. You realized today that you are the jailer of yourself, and that your prison is a construct that you erected to protect yourself from being hurt from others. 8 of Cups Today you made a clean break from a comfortable but limiting relationship, be it a personal one or a workplace contract. It may be that you had a big clear of all the sentimental stuff in your life that keeps you stuck. You found yourself today able to walk away from your comfort zone, and the support of those who are there to love and support you, and into the wilderness of uncertainty, and in doing so you were no longer dependent, and fearful of the support being taken from you. You embraced a change and survived. You may have taken time out today to mediate upon where you are in life, emotionally and spiritually and come to the realization that you need to let go of those things you feel most attached to in your life. It could be that you realized you are too sentimental, and this sentimentality binds you to past experiences, that are depleting you in the now. 8 of Wands If you have been on the go all day, without a rest, a break, not a single stop, this is your card. It is constant activity, news, events, all going somewhere fast but not settling to rest. If you have been acting swiftly, smoothly, and without pause, this is your card.

A dart from above, a message from the divine? This is the card that you should choose if you have experienced something from “out there” today – a break-through of the mysterious world into the mundane. 7 of Pentacles Having an anxiety about work and money is indicated in this card, so if that is your unlucky state for the day, this is one of the cards to choose. If you have felt like your work has been in vain, or ill-rewarded, the 7 of Pentacles pictures this unhappy state. As a spiritual card, this image is difficult, but perhaps it shows that what we treasure turns out to be not worthwhile in the greater scheme of things. If you have transcended something today which was once all-important to you; riches, fame, success, you can remove this card. 7 of Swords The card of design, in its sense of plotting, scheming and planning. However, it is often unawares. If you have seen evidence of a ploy, a scheme, a plan, perhaps being carried out in secret, this is the card. Uncertainty in who is supporting you is also part of the nature of this card – like the feeling that if you go for something, no-one will follow you! If you sense this uncertainty, it is this card in action in your life. Remove it. In a reversed sense, and suitable for a more spiritual interpretation of this card, here we see a situation of good counsel. If someone has seen you truly, and where you are, and then advised you accordingly, this is one of your cards for today. 7 of Cups A day pictured by this card is a day in which something has evaporated – poof! Something that you were sure would happen, even made changes in plan for – has vanished. A cancelled appointment is the most mundane example. A politician disillusioning an entire nation is another example of the false hope of this card. If you have experienced an example of this, select this card.

Contemplation, dreams, hopes and wishes. If you feel that you have been dwelling in these visions, this is the card. Remove it. If you have experienced a creative vision, one far removed from the everyday and somewhat fantastical, you can select this card. It is a card of some spiritual progress in widening your imagination of the divine, even if not yet realized. 7 of Wands Holding your own today? This is the card! Victory against overwhelming odds, winning out a discussion, argument or just your own view. It has to involve direct attack, though, the situation which references this card for you. On a more abstract level, this is the card too of barter, negotiation, discussion, and competition. If you are experiencing these states, or being called into deal with such things, this card is active. Holding the courage of your spirit against all the odds is the highest nature of this card. If you are walking your talk, no matter what others may do, this is the card. 6 of Pentacles You may have found yourself today giving money out to somebody on the street begging for money. It is a case of having actively redressed an imbalance which you felt was unfair. You may have found yourself today troubled by the unfairness of the world, how the few has so much, and the many so little. On the way to work each day you see the extremes of this, the expensive flash cars, a woman who has it all and ‘lives the dream’ carrying a $6000 handbag, and then you see the ‘down and out’ on the street with very little, ‘living a nightmare’. You may have resolved to make a difference, to try to help the many in your community. At a more spiritual level, if this has been a day of weighing up your affairs and balancing out your energies, this is a suitable card. 6 of Swords A simple journey is enough to match this card, although one by water is more appropriate. If someone takes you somewhere, or you

ferry someone (to school, to work, to the shops) these activities all accord with the sense of this card. Doing what is within your limits is also another interpretation of this card for your day. Just doing enough, not extending yourself, and still getting somewhere? This is your card. In a higher sense, this is the card of transition, of knowing you are going through change for a spiritual purpose. Whether you can see the destination or not matters not with this card; it is 6, the Tiphareth of the Tree of Life, and half-way between the most divine and the most manifest. So if this is how you feel, you can select this card. 6 of Cups If nostalgic and childhood things have arisen during your day, this is the card to take out of play. Perhaps you saw an old photo on Facebook, smelt a scent that took you way back, or heard an advertising jingle from your past. Emotionally, this card is present in your tarot life if you are overtaken by memories, regrets or even happy reminiscence of the past. A new sense of belonging in the spiritual realm is prefigured by this card; an emotional contentment that you are doing the right thing. 6 of Wands You can choose this card if you have achieved a success in your day. Especially one that was supported by others. It may even be news of success or accomplishment, such as the passing of a test, a grant, or other recognition. Internally, it is a card of victory and a sense of inner accomplishment, although the card itself always warns of pride. If you have gained something as expected, this is the card. On a spiritual plane, this card signifies events in the day that have functioned as couriers of the divine plan – little nudges in the right direction, coincidences or synchronicity. Knight of Pentacles Being of practical use is the nature of this card, in any guise. Opening a door for someone, helping them carry something.

Pointing the way, giving practical advice – or better, doing something. A sense of responsibility will have been on your shoulders today if this is one of the cards you choose. Aligning your everyday work with your spiritual nature is the core of this card. It may be slow going, but bringing everything together to be truly authentic is the lesson of the Knight of Pentacles. If you have done nothing more than be solidly yourself, this is the card. Knight of Swords Direct action was taken today, swift and sudden, if you see this card as embodying an event of the day. A person who went off the rails, suddenly charged forward, or yourself. An event that happened out of the blue, but then swiftly passed. All these flashes in the pan are of this card. Bringing yourself to bear to a pressing issue and charging into it may also be the state that leads you to select this card today. Being the prototype of romantic chivalry, as Waite sees this card, is the spiritual lesson here. Doing what is noble, what is right, what is the duty of all who put their highest angel first, are all encouraged by this card. If you have lived up to these lofty notions, then this is your card. Knight of Cups Getting a message is the simplest way to see this card as an event in your daily activity. It is the card to chose if something was brought to you – particularly if it is a romantic gift! Someone arriving to visit, whether at work or home, can also be associated with this card. Emotionally, this is following your feelings, even if they feel a little at odds with what appears to be going on. Trusting your instinct. If you’ve done that in some notable way today, this is one of your cards. Today have you been totally concerned with your spiritual health and quest? Select this card. Knight of Wands

This card shows that things have moved on today, and started to “fall into place”. It is a card that shows the performance of an errand, a favour. It could have been something as simple as moving a box from one place to another, or delivering something. More substantially, it is a card that means that you decided today to take something in hand, and get a move on. A spiritual emigration is signified by this card; a metanoia, a total change of perspective. If something has swiped you into taking a whole new course, this is the card. 5 of Pentacles Hardship, financial issues, a pause in income, or deferring it for a later day – these are all aspects of this card in tarot life. Feeling left out or in the cold, in a social sense, is also a reason to choose this as one of your cards in a day. The idea of the “mendicants” that Waite describes in this card is that of voluntary poverty in pursuit of a spiritual goal. If this has been your path today, you can select this card. 5 of Swords An argument, saying something you regret, something you cannot take back, or watching the same, is the nature of this card. You may feel too like you are just putting an argument or conflict aside for later, storing it up – that is this card. Gaining disdain for such pettiness is a sign of progress on the spiritual path, and relates to this card. 5 of Cups If you have experienced a bitter result today, something that was spoilt against your expectations, leaving you sorrowful, this is the card. It is a card of regret, which can be removed today from the pack of possibilities for the rest of the working. Feeling frustration is the hallmark of this card, it leaves you feeling that you are not getting anywhere at all. Everything is just out of reach. If you feel that, this is the card. In a more enlightened view of this card, it shows that we must learn to leave the “spilt milk” behind, on move ever onwards. If you have

moved beyond something ruined, you can select this card. 5 of Wands You found yourself at loggerheads with a group of people who all wanted to perform a task ‘their way’. You felt emotionally overwhelmed today by too many choices that came your way, a sort of emotional ‘choice overload’. You feared taking action in case it was the wrong choice, so much so you were hindered by the indecision itself. To gain growth you need to be able to make mistakes without fear of failure. 4 of Pentacles You may have found yourself today resisting the temptation of spending money on a frivolous purchase. That’s this card! If you have felt that you have held onto what is your ground, that’s this card! If you have simply been sure about everything you have done, that’s this card! 4 of Swords For this stage of Tarot Life, we would like to fill in what YOU think this card is all about in life, and use it in the exercise accordingly. As you progress through this sequence of workings, you should be able to more confidently interpret cards in many different contexts. 4 of Cups Called by the Golden Dawn, Crowley and Waite, the card of “blended pleasure”, this card can be appropriate where you have mixed feelings about a situation. It is as if you have partly-achieved something, and remain discontent. You may also have felt loss, or simply want to get away from it all. On a deeper level, this is a card that reflects the turning away from the emotional turmoil of the world to accept the singular path of the divine. 4 of Wands

Getting a break, a respite, a home away from home, these are all events that meet the joyous invitation of this card. Feeling loved amongst ones friends and peers is also a sign that this card is active in your life. The “perfected work” is that you are uplifted in the presence of those who are in accord with your spirit. If this has been the case today, you can certainly select this card to represent that experience. 3 of Pentacles You may have found yourself playing at being the apprentice today to a person who knew better. You were humble enough to realize that you do not know it all and there is still much to learn and plenty of room to grow. This could have been at home or in the place of work, you may have started a new course full of how much you knew, but when you got there you recognized you have only just begun. You learnt the lesson of the importance of co-operation. Did you today let go of the desire to live up to others expectations of you? If so this would have enabled you to perform a task with love rather than out of fear. Did you today accept that you cannot always achieve perfection and that it is through, practice, practice that we get better at doing something. It is the doing not the end result that is goal. 3 of Swords You may have fallen out with someone today and this left you feeling totally bereft and unable to function. It felt totally betrayed and wounded by somebody who you totally trusted. Emotionally today you felt paralyzed and unable to get out of your mind a hurt that had been perpetrated against you. Perhaps you feel that you have not been given a fair explanation for this behavior. 3 of Cups Being in the company of others, a celebration, an agreement that brings happiness – these are all of this card. In the emotional realm, this card can be applicable in a day where you have felt merry, and fulfilled.

The solace of finding the true joy of the world is the spiritual aspect of this card. 3 of Wands For this stage of Tarot Life, we would like to fill in what YOU think this card is all about in life, and use it in the exercise accordingly. As you progress through this sequence of workings, you should be able to more confidently interpret cards in many different contexts. Queen of Pentacles A woman of depth and a certain sense of solid common-sense may be represented by this card, if she has been prominent in your day. Or it may simply be that you have seen through something into what is actually going on, and acted upon it. Being generous of your time, resources or energy is a mark that this card has been part of your character during the day. Waite says this Queen may see “world’s within” her Pentacle. In a higher sense, this is the card of divination; by seeing in small things the greater and secret patterns that bind the universe. Queen of Swords Keeping yourself separate or dealing with a cold person, means this card can be chosen to represent that part of your day. Or perhaps you had to make a cool decision. Emotionally, this is a card to choose if you felt like you were repressing something. If you were withholding judgment in a situation, this is the image. Holding oneself “in the world but not of it” is perhaps the best reflection of this card in a spiritual sense. Queen of Cups For this stage of Tarot Life, we would like to fill in what YOU think this card is all about in life, and use it in the exercise accordingly. As you progress through this sequence of workings, you should be able to more confidently interpret cards in many different contexts. Queen of Wands A good woman, honest, authentic and true will have been present today, when you chose this card to represent her. Or you could have

been such a character yourself. If you have provided a service to others, this is a suitable card to choose for the day. The Queen of Wands also represents being true to your values and sticking with them. 2 of Pentacles Taking things as they come today? Has it been a day of spinning plates, juggling, just keeping up with nothing actually getting done? This is one of your cards! If you’ve felt somewhat off-balance internally, like you constantly have had to shift from one state to another all day, like different personalities, this card can be chosen. A strange card for spiritual affairs, this represents a view in which everything is seen as equal to everything else – which can be quite depressing, in a certain sense. If there is nothing more important than anything else, what should one do? This ennui is embodied by this card, and can be removed from the pack as one of the two cards of your day if you have really felt it so. 2 of Swords If you have a deck in which this card is shown by a woman balancing two swords, you will know the situation it can represent – the holding of opposites, not committing, conforming. Biting your tongue or refusing to see what is going on. These are all conditions and situations which are pictured by this card. If you have felt equilibrium has been reached with something that has troubled you, a state you can support, this is the card. A certain contemplative balance in spiritual affairs is indicated by this card. It is hard to describe, but you will know it if you are experiencing it. 2 of Cups The card of affinity and accord, this can be chosen if you have met with someone special today, met a like mind and soul, or shared something of yourself with another. It can be a moment of intimacy,

or simple sharing with a relative stranger – all that gives rise to the unique feeling of sympathy or empathy. If you have felt more balanced today, in love with your own life, this is one of the two cards for your day. In the spiritual realm, this is the card of divine love, by which, as Waite suggests, “Nature is sanctified”. If you have felt the outpouring of union with all that is not yourself, this is one of the cards you can remove for today. 2 of Wands If you have something in planning today, this may be the card to choose. On the absolute literal level, it is the card of looking from a higher place – getting a good view. If you feel that you have grasped something, but it is not yet what you wanted, this is also the card to choose. It is the problem of achievement; that it is never quite what you thought. On a spiritual level, this is the card of comparing your model of the world with the reality as it is presented to you. If you have found yourself adjusting your world-view, this is one of today’s cards. King of Pentacles The hard-headed man, down-to-earth, calls a spade a spade, this is our King of Pentacles. If you have bumped into a straight-forward kind-a-guy, you know you can pull out the King of Pentacles for sure. He may be a manager, a farmer, a fixer, a mender, a banker. But he is just as he is. If you’ve had to think practically, work out what is the real deal, build something, or do some maths, geometry with a practical result, this is one of your two cards for the day. It may even be quilting, or working out how much your cat weighs for his tablets – this is as down and dirty as the card gets. When something manifests, right there before you, something real that was only visioned, then at a spiritual level, this card is active and can be drawn from the deck. King of Swords

If you have used a knife today, to cut through something, then this is one of the easiest and most literal events that correspond to our King of Swords. Of course, you may have been involved in a cutting decision, an act of command, or exercised authority. You may have received a parking ticket – all of these fall under the King of Swords. Internally, this card is active when you are considering or acting in your own decision-making. Any tough call is under the influence of this card, which also reflects the Justice card in the Major Arcana. At its highest level, far above the bread-knife, this card can be chosen when you have received insight into the mysteries of life and death. If you have felt cut-off from life, or singularly separate in a spiritual sense, this is the card. King of Cups An example of creative thinking today can be assigned to the King of Cups. His foot hovers above the waters of the unconscious and can produce intense inspiration from the deep. You may have met someone who has shown themselves to be emotionally experienced and wise. If you have held your temper and been responsible, this is one of your cards for today. You may have counseled someone in a spiritual concern or deep dilemma. This is also the way of the King of Cups, who can be a man of “business, law or divinity” according to Waite. King of Wands An honest man who sticks by his word – maybe hard to find, according to the songs, but is here found with the King of Wands. An “ardent” man, who is passionate about his values and beliefs, whatever you may think of them. If you have strongly encountered a King of Wands today, this is the card to choose. It may also be that you have been a bit of a “King of Wands” yourself; sticking to your guns. This is not the same as some of the other Wands cards, where you take to the fight, struggle, or defend your position (can you name those three Wands cards?) but rather you sit in your own conviction. Waite says this card, and the other Kings, all wear “what is called a cap of maintenance” beneath their

crowns. This is a sign of special honor, and mentioned in Freemasonic lists of symbols, from which Waite would have taken it. So, in a spiritual sense, if you maintained your spiritual dignity today, you have been a King of Wands, and earned your cap of maintenance. Take this card and remove it. Ace of Pentacles The seed of Gold, and all that glitters in the material world, this is the financial invitation, the start of a practical idea, even a decision to sort out ones house or garden. Practical, down to earth sort of days, even DIY to some extent, will all be your living tarot version of this card. It can literally mean a seed, or a coin, so any day in which a coin appears by itself in some significant way, particularly if it is given to you, can reflect this card. In a spiritual sense, this card is that of just being – in the right place, the right time, and having that honest and authentic sense of contentment. Ace of Swords The card of the winner – either you or someone else today triumphed, scored, won an award or recognition, money, a competition, or other conflict. Perhaps someone tried to fight you in some way, in an argument, debate, or persuade you of their way of thinking. If you felt somewhat out of control mentally today, as you were overcaffeinated, manic, or obsessed with one particular thought, this is also a suitable card to chose to represent the day. This is also at its highest the card of the source, Kether, the crown, in the Tree of Life. It is the lightning flash of creation. You will have experienced this as an overwhelming connection to the creativity of the divine. If you had a sudden illumination today, this is your card. Ace of Cups The card of high emotions, and suitable to chose for the day in which emotions have indeed “run high”. Particularly when they have been close to the heart, unbound, either for good or bad.

This card is of the “house of the true heart” as Waite calls it, and is spiritually the card for when you have felt your vision, your quest, your calling, overwhelming you with love. Ace of Wands This card can be chosen if today you experienced a new beginning, a birth, a project launch, or were given new impetus to start something. It is also applicable for days in which you felt a sense of power, creativity and enterprise. At a spiritual level, you may find this card appropriate for days when you totally felt aligned to your will and purpose in the world.

Conclusion The Corn was Orient and Immortal Wheat which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from Everlasting to Everlasting. The Dust and the Stones of the Street were as precious as Gold. The Gates were at first the end of the World, the Green Trees when I saw them first through the Gates Transported and Ravished me; their Sweetness and unusual Beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with Ecstasy, they were such strange and Wonderful Things; The Men! O what Venerable and Reverend Creatures did the Aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And the young Men Glittering and Sparkling Angels and Maids strange Seraphic Pieces of Life and Beauty! Boys and Girles Tumbling in the Street and Playing, were moving Jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die…. Thomas Traherne. In the final four booklets in this series, we will use the living tarot method installed in this month to work through – in real life - all the information we have gathered in our previous gates. At this stage of the process, corresponding to Death and transformation, our magick turns inside out – from here, we use real life as our spread, our cards, and our place of change, not our “inner” world. In doing so, we may find that there is less difference between the “inner” and the “outer” than we ever thought previously. We have also provided in the final section a list of reading materials and website resources to discover more in the very best of Tarot and Tarosophy®.

In this series, released monthly over 2013: 1. Discover Your Destiny 2. Remove The Blocks 3. Make Decisions Better 4. Enter the Flow 5. Ride the Lion 6. Connect to Service 7. Find Equality 8. Die To Your Self 9. Entering Unity 10. Becoming the Real 11. Your Keys to Freedom 12. The Depth of Divinity What Follows Next Month In next month’s Tarot Life, we draw together all the preceding gates within the context of the living tarot method you have practiced in this month. In “entering into unity” we will consolidate four aspects of our life into one whole, in the process of which we will see gaps, cracks, holes, contradictions, and more. In having a full map of our being – through the tarot – we will weave these aspects into a more harmonious and luminous self; a self entering into unity. .

Bibliography Copenhaver, B. P. Hermetica. Cambridge University Cambridge, 1992. Traherne, T. Centuries of Meditation (c. 3rd C) Waite, A. E. Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: Rider, 1974.

Press:

TAROT LIFE MONTH 9 ENTERING UNITY Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Authors Note: This is Month 9 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Months 1-8 booklets to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of selfdiscovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

INDEX Introduction 4 The Escape & Engagement Method The Unity Cards

6 19

Conclusion 29 Bibliography 33 Websites & Resources

34

TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year. Introduction In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from our other tarot books, such as the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire, to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given, although there are many methods you will learn that can be used simply by themselves, for yourself or others. You can start at any time, although New Year; your Birthday; or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a private Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

Entering into Unity

“By this month, the energy of Sagittarius – an uncomfortable alchemy - makes itself evident, with temperance being required to hold events together. Not necessarily the temperance of peaceful harmony, but quite often the tempering of steel, heated and then quenched in cold water many times. Although this makes us sharp, it can also make us brittle. Julie stands by herself for this stage, and makes her individual choices, by herself for herself, holding to the aims she has developed so far. She must draw on all the previous currents, from the energy of Aries to the intuitive leaps of Gemini, but more than anything she must remain true to her own aims, and invoke her own unique energy and apply it to the work in hand” The Zodiacal Rituals.

The Escape & Engagement Method THOU HAST NO RIGHT BUT TO DO THY WILL. DO THAT, AND NO OTHER SHALL SAY NAY. FOR PURE PURPOSE,

WILL,

UNASSUAGED

OF

DELIVERED FROM THE LUST OF RESULT, IS IN EVERY WAY PERFECT. Aleister Crowley. In the Tarot Life practice of this month, we begin to enter our final phase of this 12-month practice, bringing together the cards from previous gates/months into the Tarot Life approach you installed in the previous month. We bring together the work of months 1-3 and the sense of flow from month 4, to create a “temperate” environment in which we can enter into unity. We then work easily to unify our sense of relationship to the universe, through a sorting process based on the alchemical version of the Temperance tarot card. We have now reached the ninth sign of the zodiac, Sagittarius, corresponding to the tarot card of Temperance, so it is her to whom we look to find the method and practice of entering unity – and the lessons of that experience. As a result of this month, you will divine your personal UNITY card. This is a card that represents a key spiritual method and lesson for you at this time, and we have listed a simple key sentence for all 78 cards in the body of this present booklet. We can discuss these in more detail on the Facebook group as you discover your own Unity Card.

It is the Unity and your Destiny card (from month 1) that will take you into the next stage, “Becoming the Real”. Here is a summary of the stages of the zodiacal sequence.

We will now show you how to discover your Unity card, using three preparatory steps from previous gates and a fourth step which is a month-long simple practice. STEP ONE: ESCAPE ILLUSION & ENGAGE UNITY 1. Go back to Gate/Month 1 and your Destiny Path. Select out the two cards (from either the left column or right, one from either, two from either, it doesn’t matter) that were most prominently ‘AWAY’ from your destiny, and the two cards that were most prominently ‘TOWARDS’ your destiny. That is to say, out of all the cards on that path, which two did you move/angle most away from your path, and most back towards?

These are based on your choice to angle those cards, and the cards themselves were taken out ‘at random’ by your divination. Both ‘away’ or ‘towards’ cards may have happened on the same day, if that day was particularly a significant day on the path. One may be on a day when you twisted the left card away, but not the right. In which case, select the left card. And so on. If there seem a number of cards that could be chosen, go for the Majors, or where both cards come from the same day, or where you recall that something significant happened to move you away or towards the final destiny card. The two cards that represent your most “away” are hereafter your “Escape Cards” and the two cards that represent your most “towards” are hereafter your “Engagement Cards”. Also take out of the pack your destiny card. If you really have no journal of that first month, nor can recall the cards, you must re-divine them by shuffling your deck and select out two cards for your escape cards, and two for your engagement cards. This is appropriate, but may not prove as powerful as using those divined and chosen from your original practice. STEP TWO: REMOVE THE BLOCK TO UNITY In month 2, you identified a series of “blocks” and divined cards in the active method which then became associated with a block experience and a mechanism. These are listed below for reference. The Mechanisms A. Lying: did you tell yourself “everyone does it, it is fine”, or “It wasn’t really too bad”, or “I should hold a party for my friends” when in fact it is a party for yourself?

B. Suppression: do you feel but hold back from doing or saying something? If you had pulled the Fool, and two days later should have been ruthless but held back, this is suppression. It matters not the “morality” of the block or event, we are only interested in the card, the event, and the mechanism. C. Reaction Formation: do you find yourself being contrary, doing the opposite, to respond to the block. Like saying you don’t care when you care completely? Do you go to an extreme, like a baby throwing their toys out of the pram? If you had pulled the King of Cups, and that day found yourself berating a student (“not suffering fools gladly”) did you find yourself yelling “I will give up teaching”. D. Repression: do you find yourself feeling an unidentified conflict with your block or card? Did you entirely miss what was going on with the block? Why people reacted in a particular way or the positive opportunity (i.e. to have a party and you just didn’t). E. Introjection: Did you feel as if it were not your authentic, free and actual self at work in the block? Perhaps an old voice of your mother, your father at work, telling you to be polite. Perhaps you even felt as if this were you, although it was blocking you?! F: Isolation: Does the mechanism of the block seem to belong to a different part of you, not as strongly as identification, but still somehow removed from your daily sense of self? Is it something that happens only in specific circumstances? G: Projection: When you experience the block or the arising activity, if there are other people involved does it seem like it’s their fault, or to do with them? If you blocked the 6 of Pentacles by “being selfish” was it because “they didn’t deserve” what you had to offer? Again, no judgment on right or wrong, just observe the mechanism. H: Denial: Did you simply have no choice? Did you do it anyway. Did you just think, “I’ll forget it ever happened”?

Select out again the cards (or card) that represented the most common mechanism you discovered passing through that second month’s gate. If you identified “denial” as your most used mechanism, select out from your deck the cards which were pulled ahead of the blocking experiences they asked you to observe. You may also chose at this time to journal any similarities in the experiences you recorded at the time, in this context: “How did these experiences shift me from a state of unity?” The blocking mechanism are also buffers from experiencing a state of unified relationship within ourselves and with the environment, mundane and divine. They are patterns that reflect our “field, form and fate” according to Michael Conforti – see his book in our reading list. So, take a moment to identify your most common mechanism and the cards or card associated with it. There may be 1-10 cards, and some of them may be the same as those already selected out from the previous step. These are your removal cards. STEP 3: UNLOCKING UNITY In month/gate 3, we discovered together 1-4 cards from the Court cards which acted as representatives of your most common decision-making strategy. Take out these cards and for reference we include the descriptions from Book 3 below. Again, some of these cards may already be out from the previous two steps. These are your unlocking cards. Page of Pentacles/Princess of Discs I make decisions by dwelling deeply upon the issue at hand. I am always able to see the beauty and wonder in even the most mundane situation. I possess a down earth mentality that people

speak of being my inner strength, for me to make a decision it has to have a very practical element to it. I have to be certain of a decision being right before I decide, as I do not give up easily, once I embark on a venture. However, this resilience/enthusiasm with regards to decisions that I have made, enables me to progress while others fall at the wayside. In decision making I possess equilibrium of mind, body and emotions. In regards to decision making I am far seeing, I plan well into the future. I am a visionary individual. I am able to morph into any situation that arises; this can be seen as a positive or negative trait depending on the situation. It can give rise to people saying that I am inconsistent in my behavior; the truth is that I possess great adaptability that equips me well in life. I avoid decisions by holding back, and procrastinating and by over planning. I can also be difficult to pin down about a decision as I can easily change direction along the way. I have a tendency to bewilder with my changeability. Knight of Pentacles/Prince of Disks I make decisions by taking time out to meditate on the situation at hand and once I have decided upon the course of action I give the very best I can, I imbue it with brute force and energetic vigor. I am make the decision based upon sound practical considerations, there is no half way guess work for me! I have to trust a situation and the people involved before I decide upon an important decision. I avoid decisions by cutting off from the situation at hand. I have a tendency not to act if the outcome of the decision does not interest me enough. I avoid decision making if it is not obvious, I do not like intangible things, I have to be able to touch something, it has to have a ring of practicality about it, I do not do ‘pie in the sky!’ Queen of Pentacles/Queen of Disks I make decisions by absorbing the information about me, I have to become something before I can be part of something. I make decisions based upon how functional the outcome will be. I make decisions based upon how much good this action will bring to others

around me. My decisions are also made on consideration of what my instincts tell me what to do, where I am lacking intellectual acuity I make up for it with intuition. I avoid decisions by becoming too carried away with what is happening around me, I become so overwhelmed with everybody’s stuff I cannot decide what to do. I avoid decisions by becoming too obsessed with how useful something is, thereby disregarding something which has potential at a later date. King of Pentacles/Knight of Disks I make decisions based upon how secure and comfortable it makes me feel. I am often described as being very self-interested. I think as I go along and decide as I go along without too much intellectual consideration getting in the way. I am an instinctual animal, earthy and primitive and I like to be sure of my space. I avoid decisions by distracting myself with material possessions. I plod along avoiding risk taking in order to keep things just as they are; this is safe but ever so boring. Page of Swords/Princess of Swords I make decisions that are influenced by my sense retribution, if something riles me then I am quick to judge and then take action. I like to make decisions that will have an impact on the lives of those around me. I am the sort of person who likes to campaign and be the leader of a protest. I avoid making decisions for myself by constantly involving myself in the causes of others; I am so preoccupied with the external world that I avoid looking within and to my own actions.

Knight of Swords/Prince of Swords I make decisions based upon intellect and reasoning, I have to pick through an issue before taking action. I avoid making decisions by making the excuse that I do not have enough information, the time is never right. My many clever ideas and plans fail to come to realization, I talk more than I do the walk. If I avoid doing, then I avoid failing. Queen of Swords/Queen of Swords I make decisions based on the evidence that I have researched. I need to know the ins and outs of a situation or issue before I act. I am an analyzer of situations and people, I would make a good profiler of personalities. I am a people watcher. I avoid making decisions if I do not have enough knowledge experience behind me. I will not behave in a spontaneous way. I need to feel self assured and confident. King of Swords/Knight of Swords I make decisions based on smart thinking, and subtle consideration. I am not afraid to make a point, or demonstrate my thinking. I can also be considerate with the impact of my decisions on others and will always try and present my ideas with others in mind. If I unable to be spurred on or am bored with an idea I can lack the will to make decisions. Page of Cups/Princess of Cups I make decisions based upon fairness and sensitivity. I like to consider the good of the whole and consider the welfare of others when I take action. I am the swan who appears serene and expends little energy to move along on the surface, yet under the water I work hard to keep going. I avoid making decisions by putting them off until another day. I am able to escape into a dreamy world where unpleasant things do not occur. Knight of Cups/Prince of Cups

I make decisions based upon insider knowledge. It will have to be of foremost benefit to me. I am very self motivated and my actions reflect this. I will not act and make a decision if I feel that the action will result in me being compromised and end up owing a favor. Queen of Cups/Queen of Cups I make decisions by becoming a channel and being receptive to the needs of others. I am emotionally motivated. I avoid making decisions by going with the crowd and ‘toeing the party the line’. The line of least resistance can be the easiest route. King of Cups/Knight of Cups I make decisions by what seems to be the most attractive option. I can be easily swayed to the opinions of others, and this is a strong factor in my decision making. I avoid making decisions by not committing to anything too concrete. I make excuses that I have to consult with others before I can commit and it is not unknown that I will scuttle off and wallow in my indecisions and thereby not stand by anything of any substance. I will avoid signing a contract. Page of Wands/Princess of Wands I make decisions based upon retaining my individuality. I thrive on excitement and experiencing a thrill, so if the result of my decision yields a bit of a ‘thrill’, then it is likely I will embark on this particular path. This energy is one of a lust for freedom and liberation; I must not be inhibited in anyway. I avoid making decisions by filling my life with superficial distractions. I will create drama to off-load any real issues that need confronting. I believe my myth so much that it overshadows reality itself, leaving me unable to see any other way of being. Knight of Wands/Prince of Wands I make decisions based upon the mood I am in at the moment; I can be volatile, open to the influence of the mood of the crowd. I can decide on something and not really care for the outcome; it may be

that I am just putting on a show for the crowds. You tell me not do something and I will want to go ahead and do that very thing! I do not make decisions because I cannot be bothered to do so. I am lazy and indifferent. Let someone else make the decision is what I am often heard to say. Queen of Wands/Queen of Wands I will make a decision based upon what I feel rather than what others think. I use my all my skills of seeing the best in a situation and how it can be turned round. I show great initiative in decision making, if there is best to be seen in any situation than I will see it and will see to it! I do not make a decision well if I am in a depressed state, this state leaves me incapacitated and unable to decide, if I do make a decision while I am in this state of mind, it may be one that I later regret. King of Wands/Knight of Wands I make decisions based upon wanting to get a situation sorted out quickly; I do not like to hang around. I can be quite reckless in my decision making. I do not make a decision if the outcome restricts my lust for life in anyway. It is either all or nothing for me! These decider/unlocking cards, showing how you make decisions, are deeper indicators of your values and belief systems, your history, ethics, family background and much more. We have evoked them by use of a simple observation during gate 3 and can now use them to unlock unity in combination with the other steps. STEP 4: ENTERING INTO UNITY 1. Arrange the cards now selected out from the previous steps as follows, in a place where they cannot be disturbed. You can alternatively lay them out, take a photo, and then place the image somewhere (a screensaver, wallpaper background, etc.) where it can be readily accessed.

Place your Destiny card in the centre. Place your 2 Escape Cards either side of the Destiny Card. Place your 2 Calling Cards above and below the Destiny Card. Note: You can use your intuition to select which card of those pairs goes where, i.e. left/right, top/bottom. Any Removal (formerly block) Cards not included in the five cards now out can be placed in a triangle, square, circle or simply around the cross made by the previous five cards. Finally place any Unlocking Cards like the spokes of a wheel inbetween the central cross and the outer Removal Cards. Note: You can arrange this Tarot Mandala in a manner that seems most suitable for the number of cards present, so long as it follows the basic pattern given here, moving out from the Destiny Card in the centre. 2. You will now have a Mandala which should be viewed every day, and contemplated upon. The unique arrangement of these cards carries high significance to the fundamental patterns and drives of your spiritual life – and its mundane equivalent. 3. For the month, shuffle the remaining cards every morning or evening, contemplating your Mandala. Place the shuffled deck into two piles, left and right. Now visualise the Temperance card, and shuffle the right deck into the left deck, as if you were pouring water into wine. Contemplate your Mandala and then select out the top and bottom cards from your deck, face-down. Consider that you are slowly entering into the flow of being (as we did in Gate 4) and to some extent, removing various possibilities (as

we did in Gate 8). Repeat this for 7 days until you have 14 cards (the number of Temperance) selected out. Discard the remaining cards and take the 14 cards now selected. Next, for 14 more days, shuffle that stack of 14 cards whilst continuing to contemplate your Mandala and each day select out one card face-down and discard it. Repeat this until on the 28th day (a lunar month) since starting this method, you have one remaining card. This is your UNITY CARD. You can now contemplate this card, look up our brief sentence starter given here for its spiritual lesson, and place it – if you wish – in the centre of your Mandala on top of your destiny card. In the following month, we will see how using these two cards together can help us unlock our experience of reality. You will notice how this practice for the month is now moving us towards contemplative practice rather than external observation and experiment. In Practice You may wish to add this small elemental prayer to your practice as you engage with the Mandala contemplation and shuffling throughout the twenty-eight days. It is from the rituals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and calls us to unify the four elements of our nature. LET US BE AS PATIENT AND LABORIOUS AS THE GNOMES OF EARTH, AVOIDING GROSSNESS AND AVARICE. LET US BE AS FLEXIBLE AND ATTENTIVE TO IMAGES AS THE UNDINES OF WATER, AVOIDING IDLENESS AND CHANGEABILITY.

LET US BE AS ENERGETIC AND STRONG AS THE SALAMANDERS OF FIRE, AVOIDING IRRITABILITY AND FEROCITY. LET US BE AS PROMPT AND ACTIVE AS THE SYLPHS OF AIR, AVOIDING FRIVOLITY AND CAPRICE.

The Unity Cards Page of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape obsession and to engage in true acceptance. Page of Swords Your path of unity is to escape debating and to engage creating. Page of Cups Your path of unity is to escape endless questing and to engage in emotional testing. Page of Wands Your path of unity is to escape bearing the beliefs of others and to engage with bringing forth your own message. 10 of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape the binds of security and to engage with securing your boundaries. 10 of Swords Your path of unity is to escape a fixed state of thinking and to engage fluidity. 10 of Cups Your path of unity is to escape resentment and to engage contentment.

10 of Wands Your path of unity is to escape carrying the burdens of others and to engage in caring for yourself. WORLD XXI Your path of unity is to escape responsibility and to engage in being frivolous. JUDGEMENT XX Your path of unity is to escape accountability and to engage indifference. MOON XVIII Your path of unity is to escape over-sensitive responses and to engage with rational thinking. 9 of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape the need for security via money and to engage in a simpler way of living. 9 of Swords Your path of unity is to escape resolution and to engage dissolution. 9 of Cups Your path of unity is to escape pomposity and to engage in modesty. 9 of Wands Your path of unity is to escape defensiveness and to engage in trust.

SUN XIX Your path of unity is to escape naivety and to engage reality. STAR XVII Your path of unity is to escape the darkness and to engage the path of vision. TEMPERANCE XIV Your path of unity is to escape moderation and to engage in innovation. 8 of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape perfectionism and to engage in recuperation. 8 of Swords Your path of unity is to escape self-hate and to engage in self-care. 8 of Cups Your path of unity is to escape disengagement and to engage in engagement! 8 of Wands Your path of unity is to escape rashness and to engage in steadfastness. HANGED MAN XII Your path of unity is to stop hanging and to engage in standing.

DEVIL XV Your path of unity is to escape pride and to engage your true state. BLASTED TOWER XVI Your path of unity is to escape the unpredictable and to engage the obvious. 7 of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape perfectionism and to engage the joy of creating. 7 of Swords Your path of unity is to escape insecurity and to engage in ensuring your support. 7 of Cups Your path of unity is to escape the illusion and to engage in the reality. 7 of Wands Your path of unity is to escape those who stand against you and to engage with those who do. DEATH XIII Your path of unity is to escape fear and to engage life. WHEEL X Your path of unity is to escape the rotation and to engage in the revolution.

6 of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape being drawn out and to engage in drawing yourself in. 6 of Swords Your path of unity is to escape relocation and to engage in being here now. 6 of Cups Your path of unity is to escape memory and to engage in creating legacy. 6 of Wands Your path of unity is to escape pride and to engage in leadership. JUSTICE XI Your path of unity is to escape the straightjacket and to engage in what is out the box. LOVERS VI Your path of unity is to escape choice and to engage consequence. EMPEROR IV Your path of unity is to escape every impulse and to engage in cultivation. HERMIT IX

Your path of unity is to escape being an example and to engage in climbing higher yourself. Knight of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape predictability and to engage in caprice. Knight of Swords Your path of unity is to escape rushing into the world and to engage in holding back. Knight of Cups Your path of unity is to escape your own quest and to engage in assisting others. Knight of Wands Your path of unity is to escape your own surety and to engage in open learning. 5 of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape poverty of spirit and to engage the richness of experience. 5 of Swords Your path of unity is to escape holding your thoughts and to engage your thoughts into action. 5 of Cups Your path of unity is to escape the waste of the past and to engage in the potential of the future.

5 of Wands Your path of unity is to escape conflict and to engage construction. CHARIOT VII Your path of unity is to escape the rush and to engage the ride. STRENGTH VIII Your path of unity is to escape the struggle and to engage the right relationships. 4 of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape withholding and to engage in treasuring. 4 of Swords Your path of unity is to escape withdrawal and to engage with challenges. 4 of Cups Your path of unity is to escape boredom and to engage opportunity. 4 of Wands Your path of unity is to escape distraction and to engage by following up invitation. HEIROPHANT V Your path of unity is to escape the rules and to engage your own faith. 3 of Pentacles

Your path of unity is to escape proving yourself and to engage in your own construction. 3 of Swords Your path of unity is to escape the pain of loss and to engage in the joy of connection. 3 of Cups Your path of unity is to escape abandon and to engage with others. 3 of Wands Your path of unity is to escape risk and to engage patient investment. EMPRESS III Your path of unity is to escape waiting and to engage all that is naturally yours. Queen of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape smothering and to engage mothering. Queen of Swords Your path of unity is to escape the battle and to engage the goal. Queen of Cups Your path of unity is to escape the dream and to engage the vision. Queen of Wands

Your path of unity is to escape being forceful and to engage being fearless. 2 of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape trying to do everything and to engage in simplicity. 2 of Swords Your path of unity is to escape deliberation and to engage activation. 2 of Cups Your path of unity is to escape separation and to engage mutuality. 2 of Wands Your path of unity is to escape procrastination and to engage activity. King of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape complacency and to engage gratuity. King of Swords Your path of unity is to escape ruthless and casual disregard and to engage your intelligence. King of Cups Your path of unity is to escape half-measures and to engage your heart-depths in totality. King of Wands

Your path of unity is to escape abusing power and to engage the power of wisdom. HIGH PRIESTESS II Your path of unity is to escape concealing and to engage revealing. MAGICIAN I Your path of unity is to escape deception and to engage perception. Ace of Pentacles Your path of unity is to escape attachment and to engage in the simple pleasure of creation. Ace of Swords Your path of unity is to escape your own mind and to engage in simple clarity. Ace of Cups Your path of unity is to escape endless giving and to engage in endless flowing. Ace of Wands Your path of unity is to escape holding fast to outworn beliefs and to engage a new future. FOOL 0 Your path of unity is to escape living on the edge and to engage with all that is front of you.

Conclusion Est una sola res [there is only one thing] A. E. Waite [also written on his tombstone] The unity card contains much within its symbolism that can advise you on your own spiritual path. The simple sentences we have given above are merely starting-points for your own understanding of this card and its purpose in your spiritual life. In the final three booklets in this series, we will continue to deepen this practice into our spiritual and magical lives, finding even further insight to the manner in which the Tarot reflects our inner being and what Waite calls, in his brief description of the Ace of Cups, “the true house of the heart”. We have also provided in the final section a list of reading materials and website resources to discover more in the very best of Tarot and Tarosophy®.

In this series, released monthly over 2013: 1. Discover Your Destiny 2. Remove The Blocks 3. Make Decisions Better 4. Enter the Flow 5. Ride the Lion 6. Connect to Service 7. Find Equality 8. Die To Your Self 9. Entering Unity 10. Becoming the Real 11. Your Keys to Freedom 12. The Depth of Divinity What Follows Next Month In next month’s Tarot Life, we enter the “real” by using the Tarot to remind us constantly of our relationship to the Universe, as one combined and consistent experience. We celebrate that experience and dwell in it, generating a profound sense of our own existence. This we call, “becoming the real”. .

Bibliography Conforti, M. Field, Form and Fate. New Orleans: Spring Journal Books, 2003. Waite, A. E. Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: Rider, 1974. Waite, A. E. The Way of Divine Union. London: Rider, 1915.

TAROT LIFE BOOK 10 Becoming the Real

Authors Note: This is Month 10 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Months 1-9 booklets to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of self-discovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

By Tali Goodwin & Marcus Katz

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Contents WHAT OUR STUDENTS SAY … About the Authors Contents Introduction The Real Chapter 1:

Becoming the Real

Chapter 2:

Riding the Tarot Currents

Chapter 3:

Tarot Everywhere …

Chapter 4:

Every-Day Tarot List

Conclusion Bibliography Websites & Resources Kindle Tarot Books & Series

Introduction Tarot to Engage Life, Not Escape It. Marcus Katz In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from our other tarot books, such as the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire, to offer a unique practice of our work. You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given, although there are many methods you will learn that can be used simply by themselves, for yourself or others. You can start at any time, although New Year; your Birthday; or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times.

The Real I’m embedded in this world, yes – but I am not bound, not imprisoned. David Abram In our previous gate 9, we brought together gates 1-4, and now we bring together gates 5-8. We then bring gates 9 & 10 together in gate 11, and wrap up the entire experience in gate 12. If you are a fan of the TV series, “Breaking Bad”, which recently concluded at the same time as the editing of these final Tarot Life booklets, you will see a similarity between this present book and ‘Ozymandias’ in that TV series. That was the third but last episode, and brought everything from the whole of five series together, before the penultimate and concluding two episodes, which almost served as epilogues to the main storyline. In a sense, we can compare such epic story-telling and tarot as they both – at their best - follow the structure underpinning our life. A good tarot reading reflects the querent’s life story and provides a “chapter” for them to consider as a context for their situation. It provides “teasers” and back-story, it provides characters, conflicts and resolutions – all essential to plotting. We have provided these tools throughout this present series of gates.

We can now, at this climatic stage, reveal where we have been heading for so long over this year of Tarot Life. It goes far beyond the usual spreads and games involved with tarot cards. All the exercises have been leading to install a certain type of awareness in anyone progressing through all the gates. An awareness that tarot – and life – are constructed of hidden (“occult”) patterns and relationships, bound together – and made visible - by correspondence. It is this magical mindset that the Tarot Life gates are primarily designed to initiate in the journeyer. A Tarot Life is a constructed narrative to recognized patterns, archetypes, events and situations – which, in its construction, turns our fate into destiny. So we have become story-tellers of our own life, enriching our experience, deepening our understanding and developing our wisdom, through the Tarot. This is Tarosophy – the living wisdom (Tarot + Sophia) expressed in tarot life. As our life is unified with our experience, our actual life starts to change as we build a stronger narrative; more consistent, comprehensive and congruent to whatever reality may actually be, underneath and beyond our perception. Your Tarot Life is about to get even more powerful …

Becoming the Real In Gate 5, we saw how we can embody “secret missions” in our daily lives, and practiced delivering these missions. In Gate 6 we then took this practice and extended it to offering “service” by ‘lighting our hermitage’, which was in effect our daily life. Gate 7 then presented us a balancing mechanism within a duality in our experience (‘regrets and recognitions’) and Gate 8 delivered us into the Tarot Life method; of experiencing real life as a reading, using all of the previous learning. Gate 9 located our Union card, Gate 10 now provides us our Cascade card. We then join these together (equating to Sagittarius/Temperance and Capricorn/Devil, or the Angel and the Devil) in Gate 11 as ‘Keys to Freedom’, leading ultimately to the tarot initiation into the path of “Deep Divinity/Divination” in Gate 12. These gates are all modeled on the 12-month astrological progression through the signs of the zodiac, ritualized to everyday life through their tarot correspondences. We hope too that you have come to experience how powerful any every-day event in life can be when viewed through the lens of tarot. We have indeed travelled a long way together, and we hope that you are still with us down the rabbit hole signposted with nothing more than a tarot card! We now see how we can use Tarot Currents in our life to become the real …

The Tarot Currents Riding the Tarot Currents There are two parts to this month’s gate; the first is optional but may provide interesting structure to the constant practice of the second part. In this first part, we consider aligning ourselves to the Tarot Currents, fastening ourselves to “reality rails” that hide just beneath the surface of perception. Through correspondence, the Sun and Moon relate to the Sun and High Priestess cards in the Tarot. These represent the pairing of the conscious and unconscious minds; the obvious and the subtle; the seen and unseen; the awakening and the dreaming; the day and night. As the real Sun and Moon travel through space, and in relationship to the Earth, we see that they pass through the zodiacal sequence every year and every lunar month. In doing so, the currents of the Sun and Moon pass through the signs in which they inhabit for that window of time, and these invisible currents provide powerful energies of which we can take advantage. Even if you do not believe in any particular energies or correspondences, you can use this exercise as a means of providing helpful “random reminders” along your journey. Who knows, you may find that they turn out to be nor so random after all!

So during this month of tarot life (and here is where you get to do work for yourself) you should consult an online almanac or ephemeris and discover where the Sun is placed during the month, and through which signs the Moon is passing – and when. In the Sun’s case, over a month, it may be passing through one or two signs, depending on your chosen start and end time for the gate. In the Moon’s case, it passes through each sign every couple of days. Here are two sites that provide Lunar information:

http://www.lunarium.co.uk/calendar/universal.jsp http://www.cafeastrology.com/thismonthsephemeris.html

In each case, you will see the zodiacal sign into which the Moon is passing, and the time at which that occurs, and then a couple of days later the next sign, etc. For this exercise, use the approximate times as they generally apply to each day, i.e. dawn to sunset, when you are likely most active. So if the Moon is in Scorpio from 8 am of one day, and leaves it the following day at 9pm, then Moon in Scorpio is chosen for your Tarot Current of those two days. If you need any assistance or want to check your choices, just ask in the Tarot Life Facebook group.

You will then have the Sun and Moon signs for every day over a month-long period. Obviously, you can make this even easier by starting the exercise when the Sun moves into a sign, say Aries at the Spring Equinox of March 21st, etc. However, that will limit the potential of discovery which is opened by another Solar current and its combinations with the Lunar currents.

Interpreting the Tarot Currents Once you have discovered the Solar/Lunar positions in the zodiac over your chosen month, you can then interpret them – in advance, or ahead of each particular 2-3 day period. Simply lay out the Sun and High Priestess cards, and then underneath them place the corresponding pair of Zodiacal cards to the signs of the Zodiac in which the Sun and Moon (High Priestess) are placed in the heavens. So if the Sun was in Cancer, and the Moon in Scorpio for two days, we would take the Sun and High Priestess, and place below the Sun, the Chariot Card (Cancer), and the Death card (Scorpio) below the High Priestess. This gives us our Tarot Current layout for those two days. We take the current as a push-me/pull-me type of energy circuit. The pair of Sun and zodiacal card create a positive pole, and the pair of Moon and zodiacal card create a negative pole. This is in the sense of energy rather than “good” and “bad”. So we read the Solar Pair and the Lunar Pair, and then see how they may be providing us an opportunity to harness their energies – much as we have done in previous gates. However, here, we are connecting ourselves to the very heavens.

We have provided several examples of interpretation below, for a sample period of the 6th July – 29th July of a particular year, and another period of 10th August – 16th August, so we can show how interpretation of the Solar cards changes as well as the Lunar cards. You may also consider adding this consideration into your readings with friends, clients or for yourself. You can work magick or perform readings at particularly favorable Tarot Currents (windows of 2 days) or advise timings based on considering these currents. In effect, it is a tarot shortcut equivalent to looking at astrological solar and lunar transits! First, here are the Zodiacal Cards as a reminder.

Zodiacal Correspondence Cards Aries

Emperor

Taurus

Hierophant

Gemini

Lovers

Cancer

Chariot

Leo

Strength

Virgo

Hermit

Libra

Justice

Scorpio

Death

Sagittarius

Temperance

Capricorn

Devil

Aquarius

Star

Pisces

Moon

Sample Tarot Currents 14-16 Aug: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Death: Whilst you make progress, something is letting go inside. By your work you are changed. 12-13 Aug: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Justice: Are you sure you want to do that? Take a moment to reflect and balance before charging forth! 10-11 Aug: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Hermit: From a still voice inside comes all the power you need. Breathe in. Breathe out. Silent Going. 28-29 July: Sol/Strength+Luna/Moon: Reflecting on the strength of fear, you find the fear strengthens your resolve to fight. 25-27 July: Sol/Strength+Luna/Star: During the Full Moon on 25th, be brave & listen to dreams. They are YOURS, align to them! 23-24 July: Sol/Strength+Luna/Devil: A tough time revealing what you cannot let go off – yet. A clue to a better relationship. 20-22 July: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Temperance: Things combine together in front of you - bind them to your cause. An alchemical time! 18-19 July: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Scorpio: Ditch the emotional baggage & transform to an urge of joyful innocence. Project yourself! 16-17 July: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Libra: You'll need to balance work/play for a couple of days after recent activities! Play fair! 14-15 July: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Hermit: Drive forwards but ensure you are setting a good example by being true to your own vision 12-13 July: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Strength: Two days to harness your drive to what feels intuitively to be the right relationship.

10-11 July: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Chariot: Two days of power, make every act of might and courage, true to yourself and your aims! 8-9 July: Sol/Chariot+Luna/Lovers: Plan ahead to rein your forces in reflective partnership with others who share your joy. 6-7 July: Sol/Chariot + Luna/Hierophant. This time is good for gaining control of direction with intuitive advice of an expert.

The Cascade Card Tarot Everywhere … In the living tarot practice for this gate, we accelerate the process of mapping real life to the tarot cards in everyday experience. This is essential to build up the velocity for the initiatory two gates to conclude this experience. You will need a notebook, or a mobile phone/tablet equivalent, or voice memo system, to carry about with you during this month. Your exercise is to see as much tarot in your moment-to-moment experience as possible. Everything and everyone should be converted via correspondence into a tarot card equivalent. You can note down any particular insights, peculiarities and obvious (or not so obvious) correspondences as they occur, or try and write down everything as it happens, if you can. You can see these cards enacting themselves through subtle or obvious ways, or on TV or through film. I (Marcus) was joking with Tali that her suggestion of “Volcano” was somewhat obscure for the Blasted Tower, as how many people would be likely to experience a volcanic eruption (literally, not symbolically) in their lives over an average month?

The following day – literally – I was flicking through the film channels and saw that the film “Volcano” was just ending. I laughed and said to my wife, ‘I don’t believe it’ and clicked on the channel. You can see that of course, as ‘selective bias’ (I just happened to notice it because I was looking for it), but that would not explain what then happened. The ending of the movie was just happening on the screen, as Tommy Lee Jones raced away from a TOWER which was being blown up to divert the lava threatening the city. As I watched, the tower started to collapse, and the camera – just to ensure that I was aware of the truly powerful magic of Tarot Life – panned to the explosive charge switchbox, which was labeled TOWER. I was literally looking at a Blasted Tower in the film Volcano. We cannot promise such literal and strange magick during your own month, but you may actually experience even more weird synchronicities than this! As we bring vision and reality together at this stage, the “veil becomes thin”. You should also note any dreams during this time, which may intensify as you drop down into this constant practice. We have listed just a few of the infinite possibilities that you may use for turning the tarot inside-out into your life.

Selecting Your Cascade Card

The Cascade Card is simply the card which either turns up most during this practice – or most strikingly. At this stage of the gates we cannot possibly predict your personal cascade card, not its manner of communication – if you have been working through all the gates so far, you will be attuned enough to know it when it happens. It could be any one of the 78 cards, not just a Major card, as the Tower in the real-life example above. It is this Cascade card that you will then pair with your Union card in the penultimate gate to follow next month.

Every-Day Tarot List Page of Pentacles Making a small deposit, paying for something, starting a small piece of work. A young child with a coin. Page of Swords A child with a pretend sword, someone looking out, spying. Page of Cups Puppy, kitten, child’s temper tantrum, taking the last cake off the plate, fashion designer. Page of Wands Walking staff, young person setting off on a journey. 10 of Pentacles Busy marketplace, lottery win, bank, stock market trading floor, family gathering, reading of a will, retirement party. 10 of Swords Acupuncture, going into rehab, sudden redundancy, doing a de-tox, backstabbing at work. 10 of Cups Moving into your new home, seeing a rainbow, coming home, appreciating the beauty of life. 10 of Wands

Carrying heavy luggage, having to push a car to get it going, painting/decorating the ceiling, cooking food for a dinner party. WORLD XXI Giving birth, a death, embarking on a journey, child leaving home, a reiki healing treatment, charity work, singing in a choir, facebook, initiation, learning to speak a foreign language, a globe. JUDGEMENT XX Calling a meeting, being accountable, calling in a debt, appraisal, putting in a tax return, watching a zombie film, admitting you are in the wrong/owning up. MOON XVIII The moon, dreaming, sleeping, hypnotherapy session, consulting a medium, menstrual cycle, watching the movement of the tide, madness, genius, mysterious moment, liminal experience, a vision, a sleeping cat, seeing an apparition, a drunk person, alcohol, medications, being intuitive. 9 of Pentacles A falcon/bird of prey, a walled garden, a wealthy woman, the gardens of a stately home, independent person, relaxing in the security of your garden, being in charge of your finances/resources, eliciting loyalty/respect, attaining respectability. 9 of Swords Sleepless night/insomnia, nightmares, horror film, depression.

9 of Cups

An indulgent dinner out, interaction with a self-satisfied person, a shopping spree, drinking too much, eating too much, saying too much, being the cordial host. 9 of Wands The installment of a security system, guard dog, big fence, lock and key, paranoia. SUN XIX The Sun, waking up, taking a vitamin D pill, turning light on, roaring fire, positivity, warmth, friendly person, friendly dog, everyone is your friend, positive people. STAR XVII A celebrity, a ray of hope, a bright thing in the darkness, a star. TEMPERANCE XIV Controlling ones temper, walking on a tightrope, spirit level, barometer, recycling - sewage treatments (possible to convert into drinking water), ice skating. 8 of Pentacles Work in progress, stonemason, craftsman, hardware, shop, perfectionism, concentration.

hammer,

chisel,

8 of Swords Trying to walk in impossible killer heels, stuck for words, being paralyzed by fear, public speaking phobia, passive-aggressive behavior. 8 of Cups

Walking away from a situation, a sense of movement, watching someone leave. 8 of Wands A post card from a friend, throwing javelins, casting sticks. HANGED MAN XII Bungee jumping, deep sea diving, cycling without holding onto handlebars, flying in a plane, sky diving, using a zip wire. DEVIL XV Chains, dog leash, collars, darkness, ignorance, fear. BLASTED TOWER XVI Volcano, breakdown of a relationship, something toppling or falling over, a sudden surprise or shock, a balloon bursting, stick snapping. 7 of Pentacles Gardening, a complaint letter or call, disappointment, waiting to choose something at the market. 7 of Swords Carrying a few bags but not all of them from your car to the house. 7 of Cups A display, window dressing, being distracted. 7 of Wands Play-fighting, keeping a group of people in place, standing your ground in an argument. DEATH XIII End of a relationship, Winter and Autumn, a skeleton.

WHEEL X Car wheel, washing machine, Ferris wheel, Catherine wheel, Cart wheel, recycling logo, steering wheel. 6 of Pentacles A charity donation, equally dividing something, being fair, a fair division of labour. 6 of Swords Rowing a boat, crossing over water, taking people somewhere, taxi. 6 of Cups A childhood gift, playing, flowers in pots, tending a small courtyard garden. 6 of Wands A man on a horse, being on one’s “high horse”, crowd-funding, rallying the troops, call to arms, victory celebration, return of soldiers. JUSTICE XI Weighing scales, see-saw, thermometer, Sword, calibrator, pendulum clock, a judge, referee, TV program ‘Undercover boss’, policeman, jury, an adjudicator, examiner, Work-appraisal, advocate, peace worker, caped crusader. LOVERS VI Engagement ring, wedding ring, kissing gate, loving cup, Valentine’s Day card, Love-letter, dove, love song, Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 ‘shall I compare you to a Summers day’, Romeo and Juliet, a rose, candle-light, love nest, a case of lust or jealousy. EMPEROR IV

House, Palace, ram, horns, throne, lions, banquet, soldiers, army, country, law, crown, scepter, gold, coins, boss, argument, rules, rule book, whip, dictator, bully. HERMIT IX A torch, a single lit lamp at the end of a subway tunnel, homeless person, somebody standing at the top of a ladder, mountain climber, astronaut, night-watch man, Sherpa/mountain guide, Lighthouse keeper, desk lamp, compass. Knight of Pentacles A shire horse, suit of armor, insurance broker. Knight of Swords A barrister, solicitor, war/news correspondent, writing a defensive email/letter. Knight of Cups Cocktail-maker, new boyfriend, seductive man/womanizer. Knight of Wands A patriotic soldier, a young man holding a ski-pole. 5 of Pentacles Church stained-glass window, homeless person, hospital crutches, seeing somebody with no shoes on, hole in your shoe, snow-storm. 5 of Swords Cloudy sky, burglar alarm, surveillance systems, auditor. 5 of Cups Three spilt cups, a waste, something knocked over, a bridge, a mourning figure.

5 of Wands Men on a building-site arguing or discussing whilst holding scaffold poles, five sticks or matches fallen on a table. CHARIOT VII A horse-rider, rollercoaster, airplane, using the brakes on your car, rowing a boat, Husky dog driver (Dog sledding). STRENGTH VIII Boiling an egg, Dog-training, taming nature (creating a dam), tug-ofwar, petting a cat/dog, Horse-whispering. 4 of Pentacles Full piggy-bank, four coins, city skyline. 4 of Swords A tomb in a church, a man pretending to be a statue in a park. 4 of Cups Someone offering you a drink, accidentally ignoring someone for a moment, being lost in your own thoughts, being interrupted, sitting under a tree. 4 of Wands Invitation to a party, wedding reception, camping trip, gazebo, garden party, bandstand, bus stop shelter. HEIROPHANT V Teacher; school, college, churchman, ritual celebration, christening, wedding, priest, shaman, religious event, book, bible, professional, doctor, lawyer. 3 of Pentacles

Apprentice, student, place of learning, university, college, school, pupil, work in progress sign, learner driver and instructor, somebody holding a ladder for somebody, architect drawing up a design, being in a meeting at work. 3 of Swords Crossed words, three people arguing, three knives on a table, a heart in surgery on a TV show. 3 of Cups A party with women, three women meeting for lunch. 3 of Wands The coast-line, getting a good view from the top of a building. EMPRESS III Fertility clinic, maternity ward, female head teacher, female head of state; Queen, female gynecologist, generous party host, mother, older sister, aunt, mother of all mothers-grandmother! Mother’s Day, pet giving birth, gardening. Queen of Pentacles A rich woman, with pets. Queen of Swords A woman with a quick wit, telling a joke, making a fast decision. Queen of Cups A poetic or dreamy woman, a woman day-dreaming, a woman holding a large cup. Queen of Wands

A strong woman with clear values. A woman making a stand, a call, a campaign, a woman holding a walking-stick. 2 of Pentacles Juggling, dancing, plate-spinning, waves, a man making narrowly avoiding a fall. 2 of Swords Frustration, not being able to get your jumper over your head, getting lost, not being able to locate your car in a car park, problems driving out of a car parking space (blocked in), caught in a traffic jam, a bad hangover, in two minds, writers block. 2 of Cups Asking someone out on a date, reunion, reconciliation. 2 of Wands Two pens, surveyor at work on road, planning a vacation. King of Pentacles A rich man, a man holding money bags at a bank. King of Swords Argumentative old man, control freak, a man holding a sharp weapon, a sword expert. King of Cups A deep and emotional man, a man reading poetry, a man holding a cup. King of Wands A strong and decisive man, a man holding a scaffold. HIGH PRIESTESS II

Nun, female priest, priestess, silent place, veil, prayer book, law book, cave, well, moon, Venus. MAGICIAN I Film director, cooking, TV Chef, Gambler/Hustler, Card-sharp, Magic trick. Ace of Pentacles Farmer, planting seeds, spade, coin, large golden plate. Ace of Swords A sword, knife, letter-opener or other bladed object. Ace of Cups Cup, tear jerker (books/films), love at first sight, setting up a profile with a dating agency. Ace of Wands A stick, a walking stick, a lit match, a single tree. FOOL 0 Mountain climber, astronaut, shoulder bag, dog, puppy.

Bibliography Waite, A. E. Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: Rider, 1974

TAROT LIFE BOOK 11 Your Keys to Freedom

Authors Note: This is Month 11 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Months 1-10 booklets to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of self-discovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

By Tali Goodwin & Marcus Katz

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Contents WHAT OUR STUDENTS SAY … About the Authors Contents Introduction The Key Chapter 1:

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT

Chapter 2:

The Ladder of Stars

Chapter 3:

The Tarot Keys to Freedom

Chapter 4:

Creating 78 Keys

Conclusion Bibliography Websites & Resources Kindle Tarot Books & Series

Introduction Keymaker: [Shows a key on a chain] It's a very special key meant only for The One. Will you bring it to him? Ghost: What does it unlock? Keymaker: The future. Enter the Matrix, 2003. We recommend that unless you have already worked through all the previous 10 books, you do NOT read through this booklet, in preview or by purchase, until you worked through the 10 month experience to date. We warn you there is a MASSIVE SPOILER ahead, and we would ask you that you do not share it on any Facebook or social media group until as many people as possible have concluded the first year’s run of Tarot Life between 2013-2014. Once the “cat is out of the bag” it won’t matter, as everyone will then know what this series of books leads to, and that will be made explicit in our marketing – however, in the meantime, let’s keep it between us, those who have actually lived the Tarot Life to now! In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from our other tarot books, such as the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire, to offer a unique practice of our work.

You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being. This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given, although there are many methods you will learn that can be used simply by themselves, for yourself or others. You can start at any time, although New Year; your Birthday; or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times. This series is accompanied by a private Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life. Before you begin, you may wish to join our Tarosophy Tarot Association Facebook group if you have any questions about Tarot, and you can also download our free keyword guide to all 78 tarot cards and 12 standard spreads from our site: www.mytarotcardmeanings.com The private Facebook group for Tarot Life students is given at the end of this booklet and at the conclusion of all booklets in the series.

Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

The Key Trinity: Where are you going? The Keymaker: Another way. Always another way. The Matrix Reloaded, 2003. As we revealed in the previous booklet, a Tarot Life is a constructed narrative matched to recognized patterns, archetypes, events and situations – which, in its construction, turns our fate into destiny. So, over these ten books to date, we have become story-tellers of our own life, enriching our experience, deepening our understanding and developing our wisdom, through the Tarot. This is Tarosophy – the ‘triumph of living wisdom’ (Tarot + Sophia) expressed in tarot life.

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT We now come to the big reveal, the final twist of our process – and the one which depends most truly on all that you have done so far. However, we will not yet share this with you, as these first pages go on the Kindle ‘preview’ section and we do not want to spoil the twist for other readers! If you are reading this in preview, ahead of reaching this stage, we warn you that there are MASSIVE SPOILERS ahead. Furthermore, if we can ask readers to not mention the specific task of this present title, which will be made clear in the next chapter, that will add to the impact of this work to those following in our wake! We will first provide a stand-alone method to use Tarot for the “Ladder of Set and Horus”, as this eleventh stage of twelve corresponds with the Star card (Aquarius) in the Tarot sequence. The Star equates with Sothis, a Star/Goddess in Ancient Egyptian mythology, and we visualize a “ladder” held up by the deities Set and Horus, to attain that Star. This image is then used as a spread by which we can formulate our vision.

As we have reached the penultimate stage of Tarot Life, we should know that all life is a spiral, and that in fact, at this point, just before we complete our present work, we must take opportunity to visualize our next goal, our next ambition, our next project. This new “star” that we set before us (pun intended) is perhaps more clearly visible at this late stage, because we can contemplate all that we have learnt in the attainment of our present Tarot Life, all that we would change, correct, improve, do better, develop, etc. So we take a moment, if you will, to create a new vision.

The Ladder of Stars At Gate 9 we located our Union card, and Gate 10 provided us our Cascade card. In this method, we return to Gate 1, carrying these two cards, where we charted our destiny path, but now we can create our vision ladder – a ladder to the Star of our own future. We can take our fate and turn it into our destiny. 1. Take out the Star card from your deck - if this was your Union or Cascade card, take out instead the High Priestess or Hierophant as revealer cards in its places. Place it somewhere where you can see it, with a space below it to arrange at least 5-6 pairs of cards. 2. Shuffle your deck considering your experience in Tarot Life to now, and how that has informed your knowledge of the “invisible knots that bind the universe”. In what way do you feel “guided” throughout life? When have you felt close to “being connected”? When has something happened that has revealed your part in a bigger cosmic story? 3. Now turn the deck face-up and go through and carefully locate your Union Card and your Cascade Card. Take the card directly underneath each one, laying them side by side, the card underneath your Union card to the left, and the card underneath your Cascade card to the right.

If either of the cards underneath are actually your Union or Cascade card (i.e. they are together in the deck, next to each other) then this signifies an immediate conclusion to the method, and you should leave at least one lunar month before repeating it. 4. Lay this pair of cards out a few spaces below your Star card. They represent the first rung of a ladder, leading up to that Star. There will be about 5-6 rungs to your ladder in this method, so leave a gap for further pairs between this first pair and the Star above. 5. Consider the two cards as paired together to direct you on an activity that must be taken to align yourself with your destiny. Here we are building our own destiny, rather than simply charting it as we did in the first gate – we have come a long way! All the experiences mapping tarot to life you have practiced over the last ten months should now be turned on its head, so you should be able to easily see what actions these two cards suggest to you. This will also now be showing you how much this experience over the whole of Tarot Life will apply to your tarot card readings for other people. You have condensed a lifetime of readings and feedback into a year of your own life! 6. When you have carried out the action(s) signified by these first two cards, repeat the process (do not return the cards to the deck) and create another rung. You can aim to complete 5-6 rungs across a lunar month (28 days) by which time you should feel as if you are connecting to a powerful current sweeping you, with your own co-creation, towards your destiny.

The creative process given in this Tarot Life book may also be undertaken at the same time for maximum effect. Often, people who engage in the “process” we are about to reveal, find strange things happening in their life anyway, as they come to implicitly live a “tarot life”. We have simply reverse engineered the process to present it to you over a year, and now you are going to see why …

The Tarot Keys The Tarot Keys to Freedom The Keymaker: I've been waiting for you. Matrix Reloaded, 2003 Tarot cards are often called Arcana, ‘secrets’, or ‘Keys’, such as in the Golden Dawn tarot reading technique called “Opening the Key”. We might wonder at this gate what the “keys” are for – which doors, puzzles, locks, gates do they open? We answer that the keys open our soul – our divine relationship to the universe, which emerges in what we call “everyday life”. In the turning of a card, in the turning of a key in a car engine, in the turning of the vast wheels of the galaxies beyond imagination, the divine relationship is being expressed, in a never-ending creation. So in this penultimate gate, we give a massive twist to your work, and show where our gates have brought us – you are going to create our own Tarot Deck; your own Keys to Freedom. All the experiences you have been led through over the previous eleven months have been not only to encounter various aspects of your relationship to the divine, but also to create a living journal, a notebook, a sketch pad, of a complete tarot deck – YOUR tarot deck.

Do not be concerned if you feel you have no creative or artistic ability; the aim here is to create a set of Keys, not a fully publishable tarot deck! You will learn with us now how to create your deck, and who knows, in the future you may meet an artist who can realize the designs for you, or you may find a way of self-publishing your own work and sharing it with others. In the following sections, we will take you through the process of creating your deck from all the previous gates. If you cannot recall your previous experiences in detail, simply get creative, and fill in the blanks. If you come up with a better idea than we suggest, particularly one from your personal work during these last ten months, then always go with YOUR idea. We will give suggestions, but your gates will lead to your keys, and your keys alone. We cannot now be prescriptive, as it is your experience that will make for a unique and individual “deck”. In the final book 12, we will then show you several ways in which you may use these keys to provide deep readings for your spiritual life; and of course, you may choose to use your own newly-created deck to repeat the entire TAROT LIFE series, refining your deck in a second version. Finally, even if you do not produce a set of all 78 cards, you should work with whatever aspects of this exercise you can, to get the most out the final gate; as ever, it is the process which is important, the results may not be obvious.

The Key-Maker Creating 78 Keys The Keymaker: Only the One can open the door. And only during that window can that door be opened. Niobe: How do *you* know all this? The Keymaker: I know because I *must* know. It is my purpose. It is the reason I am here. The same reason we are *all* here. The Matrix Reloaded, 2003. In the following fourteen stages, we will take you through the process of creating your own draft tarot deck from your experience of Tarot Life these last ten months. The stages are provided in a suggested order of completion, but consider them cyclic and generic; you may find yourself returning to some stages several times in the overall process. The rule is to trust your own experience above any suggestions at this point of the overall Tarot Life process. We would recommend that you find a notebook with 78 blank pages – with perhaps other pages for general notes and sketches. Then take 78 blank pieces of paper, separately, or cardboard, cardsized (or buy several blank card decks available online) on which you can write (or sketch) the “draft cards”. You may replace these often as you go through and refine the deck, so make sure you have spares.

It is these 78 pieces, whether they end up as simple text descriptions, cartoons, stick-figure sketches, collages, or a mixture, that will become your final working deck for the last stage of Tarot Life, book 12: Depths of Divinity. If you do not complete your draft deck, or wish to skip this stage entirely (in terms of completing a deck, you should at the very least work through the design process in your imagination) then you can use any other deck for Book 12. The important thing is to engage with the process in some way, which will consolidate your experience of the last ten months, even if it does not produce a draft deck. Step 1: THEME In the first Gate, we discovered our Destiny Card; a card corresponding to the astrological Decan in which we were born during the year. As this card provides a symbol of life’s challenges, solutions and our ultimate realization, we use it to shape the “theme” of our deck. Whilst not every deck will have a clear theme; the Waite-Smith deck for example has an overall air of medieval theatre, whilst the Zombie Tarot is themed on zombies, consider starting with a theme for your deck. The theme is not necessarily the style, by the way – in the Zombie Tarot, the style is of 1950’s infomercials and adverts, giving the whole deck a surreal and disturbing edge. So, take your destiny card and look at it, taking particular notice of any symbols that could dictate a theme – or use the keywords or correspondences to the card to suggest an overall theme. Here are some suggested questions to ask yourself;

1. Is your deck going to be dark/light? 2. Is it themed in some particular place? 3. Is it themed in some particular time? 4. Is any symbol on the Destiny card used in virtually every deck? So for example, if your Destiny card was the 5 of Wands, your theme could be ‘chaos’ or ‘practice’. This could lead you to decide that your deck is going to be called the “Chaos Deck” or the “Deck of Practice”. In the latter case, you might decide that each of the cards would picture someone practicing something appropriate for that card – that would actually be an entirely novel deck! Or, you might go with the 5 staves; the deck could be called the “Deck of Five Staves” and the theme would be jousting – or a medieval town; again, a deck themed on a Joust would be entirely new, as far as we know. In this way, you can allow your destiny to shape your deck, and hence, your keys to freedom. If you do not feel so strongly about your theme, go through your notes of the entire Tarot Life process, and consider if another theme emerged; were you actually concerned about something else throughout most of the process? This is where journaling, or a good memory, becomes useful; you may now see in review that you were often worried about time, for example, in completing a stage, or in other areas of your life. In which case, time could be the theme of your deck; the Tarot of Time, the Timeless Tarot, the Tarot of Clocks, even the “Deck of Rushing Hours” etc.

If you truly have no idea on a theme, play a game we use on some of our courses, and take a book at random, and find the first verb (action/doing word) in it, and then another book, and take the first noun (object, thing) you find. Put them together to create a title for your deck, which should also indicate a theme. As a couple of examples chosen just now: 1. The Walking Soul deck. [We get the idea this would involve a symbol for the soul, for example, a spiritual figure, depicted on a journey in every card. It would follow the deck would be quite abstract and ethereal in style]. 2. The Helpful Angel Tarot Deck. [This one would be pretty straightforward, it could have an Angel depicted in the top half of every card, trying to “help” an everyday person depicted in a situation in the bottom half of the card. It could be quite an amusing deck, as the figure(s) in the bottom half of the deck would be blissfully unaware of the Angel above. Sometimes we guess the Angel would have a very exasperated expression or posture]. Finally, for the theme – again, do not be concerned about your own artistic or creative ability; work through this process as if you had no limits on your imagination, and a team of thousands of creative people waiting to turn your notes into reality.

Step 2: Reversals and Shadows in Your Deck

In Month 2, we learnt that every day is a reading, and every event an image. We were teaching you back then to start to see life and tarot (tarot life) as one and the same; you will now see how this teaching was developed across the gates that followed, culminating in the previous gate. We then saw that each card could depict a block, and categorized these blocks to particular mechanisms of behavior as given by Gurdjieff as “buffers”. The main mechanism you experienced should now be used as the manner in which you will treat REVERSALS in your new personal deck. That is to say, if your main mechanism to block your experience was “Suppression”, each of the cards in your deck should be designed to show some element of suppression, so it can be read as such if it appears reversed in a reading. You can do this most simply by having one item in each card as “upside-down” so it appears right-way-up when the card is reversed. Or you can place something in a mirror – or even have half of the card in reverse, or able to be read so in a reading; like Zach Wong’s brilliant “Revelations” Tarot. As we keep saying – DO NOT HOLD BACK in your design because of any perceived limitations in your own artistic ability. This is presently a deck in draft, a sketch of a deck, a dream deck, and an imaginary deck. You can do with it everything and anything you want.

If you wish, you can simply consider how you would read each card as manifesting that mechanism should it appear reversed in a reading – start to make notes for your own LWB (Little White Book) to accompany your new deck. You will now see too how those “blocks” in Tarot Life 2 give ways of considering the cards when they are reversed.

Step 3: Court Cards & Suits In Month 3, we saw how each Court Card could be used to indicate decision-making; the absolute measure of activity and motivation in the world. When you now look back at those Court Card descriptions, start to get a sense of how they would be best depicted within the theme of your deck. If we were going with the Joust example, we could perhaps see the Court Cards as a panel of judges in the Joust itself, arbiters of good conduct, like a court. In fact, as we picture that in our heads, we might see them all as if in an Arthurian mythic film, or book illustration, all lined up in a row with a medieval canopy overhead. It is a sunny day, there is the smell of life and roast hog, and a lute playing somewhere as the clash of swords and wooden batons float from the practice field. Don’t limit your imagination to one sense when designing your deck!

So, we could put the Court Cards as one entire scene, and then “cut” each personage out to make an individual card. When those 16 cards are arranged in Suit and Rank order in a long line, they would form the entire tableau as one seamless image. How cool would that be? Again, a first for a deck – now imagine something equally interested for your Court Cards within your overall theme! If any stage of this process does not immediately fit for you, leave it and return to it later, when you have completed a few of the other stages. There is no single right way of doing a deck! You might also want to consider the description of the four suits given in Book 2 and throughout the Tarot Life series, and start to consider how these four aspects of existence can be divided within your chosen theme for the deck.

Stage 4: Activity on the Cards Take a look now at the way in which the Minor Cards also suggest decisions in Book 3. Your own cards can be designed to show activity which suggests these decisions. If you had a “numerology” theme, for example, and were working on the 6 of Swords, in Book 3 we see the decision-making aspect of that card is to “stick to your guns”. We could then show the 6 Swords as being bayonets, fastened to guns, glued or bound together – a literal symbolic representation of “stick to your guns”. As our theme in this case is numerology, we could show the guns forming the figure 6 in some way, or being carried by 6 people each with a number on their back, etc.

In the jousting example, the activity would be perhaps a person carrying 6 Swords to the jousting field, ignoring all the buskers, stalls and entertainment either side of him in the faire. That would show him focused on the task – being in the right place at the right time (we should perhaps then decide to show a Knight waiting patiently for him at the end of the aisle of stalls) – and so on.

Stage 5: The Aces and the Structure of the Minors In Book 4, we considered the Kabbalistic structure of the Tarot, and you may choose to use this in your own deck design. Consider how the sets of Twos, Threes, Fours, etc., in each of the suits shows a progression. How might you show this in your own deck? If we give another new example, suppose our Destiny card had been the 4 of Pentacles, and we had decided that as that card showed our destiny as tending towards ‘conservation’, as a better way of putting grasping or hoarding! We had then decided that our deck indeed should be conservation-themed, in our personal case, for the habitat of the rain-forest, as that is something in which we had an interest.

So, we would want to show the progressive stages of the rainforest in each of the numbers of the Minors. We might decide that the Pentacles were going to be trees, and the Cups, rivers; the wands would be animals and the swords would be mankind. In each suit, we would then sketch out concepts from the Ace - the first appearance of a seedling in the Pentacles, as a tree) to the Ten – a full Forest, brimming with life, but perhaps overly so, with some trees (ten in total) being logged and piled in the front of the image. That would start the whole cycle again, and also we could put on the Ten of Swords an image of ten axes or chainsaws, packed away at the end of a day, with the ten logs in the background … By playing with ideas across all four suits and along ten stages of creation, we can soon build within our theme a powerful deck of Minors, which symbolically will resonate with any question asked of them – for everything is a creative process that can be modeled in this manner.

Stage 6: Connecting the Cards Together (Flow) In Book 4, we also consider the “flow” of the cards, and this is now the experience you can draw upon to decide how your own cards in your own deck will flow together. First, connect again to the Aces – how do they appear in your minds’ eye when you read the description in Book 4, re-connect to your experience, and then consider your theme? What music do you hear, what sounds, what feeling? How would that appear in your deck?

Then consider how these Aces pour into and through the rest of the Minors all the way into the Ten, and how that energy then kickstarts itself or returns to the source of the Ace in an eternal creation. Is that how it feels? Or does it feel like a plummet, or a swirling chaos of noise feeding back on itself? This feeling of flow will dictate how your cards work together, so take time to connect to it and then review your previous notes for your deck and add any comments as to how you would want them pictured to capture this flow.

Stage 7: Refining the Court Cards In Book 5, we returned to the Court Cards so you can refine your images at this stage. Take another look at the keywords for the Court card suits and ranks: Ranks Pages: Crystallizing, Absorbing, Counterbalancing Knights: Active, Manifesting Queens: Receptive, Fermenting, Transmitting, Enduring Kings: Swift, Violent, Transient, Rushing Suits Pentacles/Earth: Practical Sense Swords/Air: Mentality (Thinking) Cups/Water: Flexibility (Emotions) Wands/Fire: Dynamic Energy (Imagination)

You can now integrate these energies into your personal deck by picturing these forces as backgrounds, or within the scene of your Court Cards in some other manner. As an example, back to our Jousting Deck, we could give every Court Card a dress, tunic, robe or other item of clothing that embodied these energies. So the Queen of Cups would be pictured having something embodying “fermenting flexibility”! Hmmm … perhaps rather than dress or clothing, how about jewelry? I would give her a pendant or brooch that had a snake with an egg in the middle of it; that would capture that slightly brooding and even oracular nature of the Queen of Cups. It is also a very alchemical symbol, now I think of it. We would then repeat this for the other court cards, refining their personality, dress and activity – even their facial expression or body language – as we go along. So the Page of Wands, “dynamic crystallizing” I would have wearing a ring that somehow captured sunlight. Don’t forget - as we will keep saying - keep your imagination limitless, this is your dream deck! Also now re-consider your secret missions in that Gate; how does this now inform the activity of your various Court Card images? We have been training you for this design task for almost a year now – you should find it easier than you ever imagined!

A final thought at this stage is to lay out the opposites of the Court Cards, as given in Month 5; refine them further in these complementary pairs. If I had the Page of Wands wearing a ring absorbing sunlight, the King of Cups (see table in Book 5) may need an open chalice in which sunlight is being reflected, or which seems to glow of its own accord. It is neat when you lay out a deck’s Court Cards in a zodiacal circle, and see the patterns that a designer and/or artist have woven into them according to that layout.

Stage 8: Individual Cards There are several cards that require individual thought – in fact, all of them, but we will mention several specifics. As we saw in Tarot Life book 6, the Hermit card represents our “Way”. So when designing your deck, consider how you see someone who embodies your ideal spiritual path; what would they be doing, how would they look? They can be male or female, young or old – there are many ways of being a Hermit. The concept of service should also be present in this image; how did you show service in your experience of gate 6 – in what way would you picture this idea? As with all these considerations and exercises, we are gently reprogramming your brain to appreciate tarot totally differently. When you now look at any Hermit figure – or any other card from any deck – we trust you will be appreciating the image in a new way. You may have more empathy with the designer and artist of the deck, as you will have experienced what they experience in creating these images. This in turn will make you a far more flexible and powerful tarot card reader.

Now consider in turn the following cards – how will you have them designed in your deck? Death – What do you consider about Death as a result of your experiences in Tarot Life? How would you picture this? Fool – What is Freedom to you? What exists outside of every experience? What is beyond? Blasted Tower – What did you experience when you were surprised or shocked by something in Tarot Life? What image came to mind? Hierophant – When you experienced breakthroughs understanding, how will you now create an image of this?

of

And so on …

Stage 9: The Cards Ask Questions In Gate 6, we also presented questions applying to each card. Go back now and refine your cards to ensure they carry a sense of these questions. This stage may take a little more time, as the questions can be worked into the design in quite subtle ways. Also consider how other decks use images to provoke a question, even one as simple as “what is happening in this picture?”

Can you make some of the images in your deck provoke questions? In our own Tarot of Everlasting Day, our Hanged Man (Union Deck) provokes many questions – why is it not a hanged man, why is the angel going up to the ark, what is the angel turning to look upon, why is the angel carrying his own wings, what is falling from the sky … this ambiguity makes the card far more evocative and engaging, and opens it up to many interpretations for study and within a tarot card reading.

Stage 10: Giving Your Cards a Voice We now consider what we learnt in Tarot Life book 7, and you will see that we gave each court card a voice, to ask two questions. Can you now go back through your own conception of the Court Cards and hear them asking the relevant two questions from book 7? If they don’t seem to fit, either ignore them, if you are happy with your Court Card anyway, or tweak the Court Card figure in some way to sit better with someone who would ask those questions. To hear the right tonality, speed, pitch, volume of the voice of your Court Cards is a powerful method of “hearing” their message. When you look at your Court cards, in your own or any deck, you should hear them speaking as they would – communicating their message in the reading.

You may also wish to apply your experience of regrets and recognitions to the Court Cards. Do they now seem like the sort of characters who would indeed have such regrets and recognitions? Do not apply this stage until you have fleshed out your Court Cards enough so that you can at least imagine what the card images would look like.

Stage 11: Checking the Minors This stage should be done towards the end of your creative process, and derives from book 8. In that book you will now see that we ensured you experienced all of the Minors in full, so that when you got to this stage, you would have a full set. Go back now through your Minor card designs and refine them further with your experiences from “dying to yourself” against each card. Do the designs you have decided upon map to the real-world experiences you encountered in that month or so? If not, tweak and refine again, and keep smoothing the whole set of images until they map to your experience, and keep to the design structure of the earlier gates (i.e. Ace to Ten, Suits, etc.)

Stage 12: Checking the Correspondences

Again, you can safely skip any or all stages of this book and simply go and design your own deck from scratch, based on your experience. If that is your calling, go for it! Otherwise, we provide these stages as optional suggestions – our worst fear is that we produce “cookie-cutter” decks all of the same structure and pattern. Although of course, we do have a reasonable model in place; 78 cards, 4 suits, etc. Some people have re-jigged that model; adding a fifth element of spirit, playing with the number of Court Cards, changing “Hierophant” to “Faith”, or any number of changes and innovations. We do encourage you to use your experience and create your own innovations, within this process. So now go through the 12 Major Arcana that correspond to the zodiacal sequence we have given throughout this experience (and as given in the table in Book 9) and see if they fit this zodiacal sequence, and are a good picture together of your experiences throughout all twelve stages (including this one and the next, when you get to it). You can also now go back through your almost complete deck and check that the cards work with regard to the Solar/Lunar pairings you may have experienced in Book 10. When you lay out your draft cards in zodiacal pairs that you experienced during the “Riding the Currents” optional exercise, do they fit what happened or can you tweak them even more?

Stage 13: Unifying Your Deck

At this stage, which should be done towards the end of your creation process, consider your Unity card and message, which you discovered in Book 9. The Unity card should carry that message clearly, and your own experience and response to that message. It should be considered your “signature” card and most personal card in the deck – many creators do actually feel as if one card is particularly significant to them in their own deck. If, for example, your Unity card was the 9 of Pentacles; “Your path of unity is to escape the need for security via money and to engage in a simpler way of living”, then you should concentrate on designing the image (given what you have already done) to embody your concept of ‘a simpler way of living’. When you discovered your Unity card, recall how you responded to it, whether it made sense or otherwise, and embody all of that in the design of the image. If we use the example given earlier of the Ecology Deck, and our 9 of Pentacles was already sketched out as being a wooded area, but with a clearing in it, in which 9 trees grew in a circle, then we could add some notion of “simple living” into that design. Perhaps we could have the trees bending in towards the centre, forming a shelter, in which sat a figure by a fire? We would show that there were berries, animals, and other essentials available within reach of the glade, so the figure was entirely self-sufficient. In fact, as we designed the card, we might show sunlight shafts making 9 circles on the forest floor, in each of which were “9 essentials” of simple living … and so on. We can create whatever we want – it’s our card!

Now take that Unity card and pair it with every other card in your deck, and see if it casts a final light on their designs. You can engage in a final smoothing out (unification) process, to align the cards as a whole – find anything that sticks out too much like a sore thumb, or other card images that are too weak and need highlighting in some way or another. The aim is to have a “level” deck, like having a sound mixing desk and bringing all the cards to a harmonious sounding final piece of work.

Stage 14: Completing/Cascading Your Deck In the same way that the Unity card is your own personal signature and something that ties together the theme of your deck, the cascade card (from the previous Book 10, last month) should be the “cover card” or “headline” card of your deck. Together, the unity and cascade cards should be the ones most often shown as representing your deck; perhaps on the front and back of the box (imaginary at the moment!) of your complete deck. Take a look at the cascade card and re-shape it in terms of your experience of the previous month. Make something in it stand out as the magical and unique representation of your whole Tarot Life experience.

If our Cascade Card was the Blasted Tower, as we mentioned the strange synchronicity in Book 10, then we might add to the design a whole number of TV screens, instead of the windows of the Tower, all showing the image of the Blasted Tower, each of which of course would have screens showing images … in an infinite regress. This might symbolize that everything is interconnected, and every “shock” or “surprise” that happens, is reflected in a greater story. Sometimes, we can develop symbols and only later we realize their deep significance! That is one of the joys of developing your own concept deck; you may surprise out of yourself the deeper layers of symbol and interpretation. And this will be reflected in your readings, even when using all those tarot decks designed by other people. You should now be able to initiate your deck by comparing your finished Unity card and Cascade card, the overall theme of your deck, and imagine how it would look on the shelf of a bookshop, on your reading table, or in a publisher’s catalogue. You are done – you have created, from 10 month’s preparation and experience, your own deck, your own Keys to Freedom. In the conclusion of Tarot Life, next month, book 12, we will take those Keys (or any other deck if you decide to skip this stage), to dive into the depths of divinity, where we finish this journey together.

Bibliography Waite, A. E. Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: Rider, 1974

TAROT LIFE BOOK 12 The Depth of Divinity

Authors Note: This is the concluding Month 12 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Months 1-11 booklets to follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of self-discovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.

By Tali Goodwin & Marcus Katz

You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Contents WHAT OUR STUDENTS SAY … About the Authors Contents Introduction The Divine Chapter 1:

Building a Tarot Temple

Chapter 2:

Into the Kabbalah

Chapter 3:

The 10 Divinations

Chapter 4:

Divine Door 10: Malkuth

Chapter 5:

Divine Door 9: Yesod

Chapter 6:

Divine Door 8: Hod

Chapter 7:

Divine Door 7: Netzach

Chapter 8:

Divine Door 6: Tiphareth

Chapter 9:

Divine Door 5: Geburah

Chapter 10:

Divine Door 4: Chesed

Chapter 11:

Divine Door 3: Binah

Chapter 12:

Divine Door 2: Chockmah

Chapter 13:

Divine Door 1: Kether

Conclusion Bibliography Websites & Resources Kindle Tarot Books & Series

Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist & Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot

The Divine At first sight one would suppose this arrangement [of the Tarot] to be arbitrary, but it is not. It is necessitated, as will appear later, by the structure of the Universe, and in particular of the Solar System, as symbolized by the Holy Qabalah. This will be explained in due course. Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth, p. 3 In this booklet we will use the Jewish mystical system of Kabbalah as a map of the “divine”. As the word “divination” comes from that source, we must not be afraid to contemplate its meaning to ourselves. The Kabbalah has been utilized –as we will see later in this booklet – by many esotericists, and forms the basic structure for many of the major decks, such as the Waite-Smith and the Thoth. Rather than provide any prescriptive definition of the divine, though, we would rather ask you at this concluding gate to consider how the divine works in relationship to ten aspects of life. Find twenty minutes, and then shuffle and pull a card for each of the following questions: 1. Where does everything come from? 2. How does it all keep going? 3. How does it stay together? 4. What is love? 5. What is fear? 6. Where do I fit in?

7. What could I do? 8. What could I think? 9. What could I dream? 10. Where is everything going? When you have considered these questions and the cards that have answered you at this time, you might like to know that this sequence of questions is based simply on the “functions” of the Sephiroth in the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is the fundamental diagram of Kabbalah, and the Sephiroth are the ten aspects of the divine drawn as circles on the diagram. Each of those questions represents an aspect of the universe, as seen through the ten stages of the Tree of Life. Kabbalah teaches that the divine emanates through these ten “numerical emanations” (Sephiroth, plural, one of them is a Sephirah). In terms of this map, we must tread the way back to the divine by ascending up the Tree, going through each stage and answering each question. The answer to those questions, ultimately, is in the experience of the Divine itself. The Tarot, meanwhile, allows us to connect to that divine source through images – if everything is connected, then the Tarot is connected to everything.

ILLUS. Tree of Life with the Sephiroth You can lay out your ten cards in order from top to bottom in the pattern of the Tree of Life given, and see if there are interesting comparisons between pairs of cards across the Tree, or in the three vertical Pillars, or between cards 1 and 10, etc.

We next deepen our study here by presenting the names of the Sephiroth and their spelling in Hebrew letters (transliterated into English). This is something we are going to use to conclude our Tarot Life and set the groundwork if you wish to enter the Tarot Temple experience in a following year. Sephirah

Hebrew

Translations

Kether

KThR

Crown, diadem, to surround, beseige, wait, encompass

Chockmah

ChKMH

Wisdom, experience, knowledge, intelligence, insight, judgement, science, midwife

Binah

BYNH

Understanding, insight, prudence, reason, discernment

Da'ath

DA'aTh

Knowledge, insight, wisdom, understanding

Chesed

ChSD

Mercy, grace, piety, beauty, good-will, favour, benefit, love, kindness, charity, righteousness, benevolence, to do good

Geburah

GBVRH

Strength, power, force, valour, courage, victory, might, God, hero

Tiphareth

ThPhARTh

Beauty, splendour, magnificance, ornament, honour, glory, boast

Netzach

NTzCh

Victory, splendour, glory, truth, power, firmness, confidence, eminence. Duration, perpetuity, eternity, lasting, enduring. To excel, be superior, strength, blood, to be chief. Music-master, precentor, to sparkle, shine, win.

Hod

HVD

Glory, splendour, majesty, renown, ornament, beauty

Yesod

YSVD

Foundation, base, ground, principle, compilation

Malkuth

MLKVTh

Kingdom, dominion, realm, reign

Table. Names of Sephiroth and English Transliteration & Translation.

So the Hebrew for Malkuth are the characters which transliterate to Mem, Lamed, Kaph, Vau and Tau. These are represented as M, L, K, V, Th and pronounced as “Mal-kooth” or “mal-khut”. The word means “kingdom” and it is the title of the lowest Sephirah, the one in which all manifestation is finalized, and is the world of activity. It is also furtherest from the divine source, Kether, yet at the same time, one and the same in divine union. This is the paradox of the paths – if everything is one, why do we feel separate? Before we continue, we will provide an optional Tarot Ritual, which you can perform with your new personal deck, or with any deck. [Advanced Students: It is based on the Tarot cards that correspond to the first letter of each of the Sephiroth, so is a shorthand ritual that brings the light down the entire Tree].

The Tarot Temple Building a Tarot Temple Each card is, in a sense, a living being; and its relations with its neighbours are what one might call diplomatic. It is for the student to build these living stones into his living Temple. Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth, p. 48 The following ritual is a short-hand way of working to draw the divine light down the Tree of Life. It requires:

A table/altar Incense, placed on the table to the south A candle, placed on the table to the east A Tarot deck, placed on the table to the north A cup or chalice with drink; water or wine, placed in west An active imagination! First we take the short-hand first letter of each of the Sephiroth, in order from Kether to Malkuth. We then use the meanings of the letters themselves and/or their Tarot correspondences to create ritual action.

So for example, Chockmah, the second step, begins with Ch, which corresponds to the Chariot card (strangely, another Ch word, in English – “just” a coincidence). So that is the step that we involve the movement around the Temple, based on the chariot as representing movement. In the first step, we took Kether beginning with K(aph) which means “hand” in Hebrew, so we used that as an action. As a result, our ritual accords with reality, and a vibration or resonance is established (one can picture it like this) which in turn creates change to occur in conformity with will – Aleister Crowley’s definition of “magick”. Here is the ritual: The Drawing of Light 1. Point Kaph; Point hand towards altar, palm up and state aim of working. 2. Point Cheth; Draw a circle about the Temple. 3. Point Beth; Elevate a chalice filled with wine and visualize light descending into it from above. Return it to the table.

This completes the first triad above the Abyss. The elevation of the chalice is symbolic of the creation of Da'ath, or 'knowledge', from the union of Chockmah and Binah.

4. Point Cheth; Draw the double-cube of the quarters and crossquarters. You do this by visualizing cubes of light extending out of the faces of the table, above, below, and all four sides. Imagine a dice, and then getting six other dice and gluing each one to one of the faces of the first dice. Visualize these cubes as boxes of pure light. If you want to be more advanced, you can create them in your imagination as colored; white above, black below, red to the south, green to the north, yellow to the east and blue to the west. Activate the Quarters. You can do this simply by saying out loud, “I activate the power of the East …” [and focus on all the qualities of the East/Air energy that you know]. Repeat for the South/Fire, West/Water and North/Earth. We start in the East as it represents the rising of the sun. 5. Point Gimel; Light incense. You can optionally state “I light the fire of intuition” [Gimel corresponds to the High Priestess of the Tarot]. 6. Point Tau; Hold out arms in form of cross and visualize two pillars either side of you. To your left is a black pillar, to your right a pillar of light.

This completes the second triad above the Veil, which prepares the place of working.

7. Point Nun; You can now carry out a Tarot reading, write an Oath, create a sigil or perform any sort of magical working as appropriate. You can also simply sit and meditate or contemplate a piece of sacred writing, or writing on the Tarot. 8. Point Heh; Light candle in the East, visualize the light blessing your working and then drink wine/water. 9. Point Yod; When you are ready, hold your hand back over altar and slowly make a fist, visualizing the sealing of the working.

This completes the third and final triad, bringing about the actual conclusion of the ritual. That is to say, by the time a process has reached Yesod, it is virtually unstoppable, aside from perhaps the way in which it manifests. All that remains is to state that the Work has been completed.

10. Point Mem; Say; "I have entered by the Gate, I have Initiated my Will, I leave by the Gate".

You can now safely blow out the candle and dispose of any remaining water/wine. If you conduct this ritual in the same place over a length of time, you will notice – and others may – an increased sense of peaceful stability in the room. As one person once said, totally innocent of my magical working, coming into a room for the first time after I had conducted this working for several weeks, “Hey, I like what you have done – have you re-decorated?”

The Tree of Sapphires Into the Kabbalah So, now that we have seen a little of how we can use Kabbalah through Tarot and correspondences, why should we actually learn any more about the Kabbalah? It is usually seen as an extremely dense and diverse subject, and often associated with dry intellectual practice and obscure terminology. However, in actual practice it is an incredible way of learning to see the patterns of the Universe and engaging in structured mystical experience. It is so widely used in the Western esoteric initiatory system, through the Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn which flourished in the 1890-1910 period, that its learning leads to a deeper appreciation of ritual, esoteric psychology, and Tarot, amongst many other subjects. In this section, originally published as one of our many “FastTrack” guides in Tarot-Town (also including Numerology, Astrology, Alchemy and more) we will introduce you rapidly to some of the key concepts of Kabbalah, point you in various directions of study, and give you an exercise to explore Kabbalah as part of your Tarot studies or in its own context. Do enjoy the discovery, and feel encouraged to continue your journey in this fascinating subject.

If you wish to explore the Kabbalah more fully, you might consider our online self-study Kabbalah Course which is available for only $12 at www.kabbalahcourse.com or purchase the Magician’s Kabbalah from that site by Marcus Katz, a detailed 142pp book (to be published Spring 2014). Key Concepts in Kabbalah The Kabbalah is an oral (spoken) tradition of Jewish Mysticism

The Kabbalah is a system of Jewish Mysticism that arose in the early first century at the same time as Christianity. There are many aspects of Kabbalah that are still debated by scholars, but it can be seen to play an important role in the western esoteric tradition, historically and in contemporary forms of magical practice. Although originally an oral tradition, a number of books were published and widely circulated between students and teachers throughout the early development of Kabbalah. The most important books (in Hebrew, Sepher) are usually seen as: Sepher Yetzirah

Formation

Sepher Bahir

Illumination

Sepher Zohar

Splendour

Kabbalah is a Hebrew word from the root meaning, ‘to receive’ spelt in Hebrew: HLBQ (read right to left)

Hebrew has no vowels, and the letter ‘Qoph’ (Q) is pronounced as a hard ‘K’, so when written in English, the word is often spelt as Kabbalah, Qabalah, Qabala, Kabbala, etc. It is often seen that Cabbalah relates to “Christian Cabbalah”, Kabbalah relates to “Jewish Kabbalah” and Qabalah relates to “esoteric or new-age Qabalah” but these are not rigid or consistent labels. Early Kabbalah involved Mystical Experience

Early Jewish mystics in Palestine, during the first half of the second century, developed a visionary system which precedes the Kabbalah. There were two major trends or schools, namely the heikhalot (palaces) and merkavah (divine chariot) classes of experience, relating to the visions of the supreme halls of the divine, and the means of ascent to those halls - the chariot, as described by Ezekiel (1:4-26). These early versions of Kabbalah were far more akin to shamanistic practice than many realize, with ecstatic visions, vision quests, practice in remote places, etc. This was before the Kabbalah became a complex codified system of interpretations of the first five books of the Bible.

Renaissance Scholars introduced Kabbalah into the West

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) is credited as introducing Kabbalah into Europe. Pico also argued that Magic - ‘the perfect and highest wisdom’ - led to God in that it disclosed the wonders of creation by ‘assiduous contemplation’. He utilized specifically Kabbalistic concepts such as the four worlds (in Heptaplus) and classical Gematria(letter analysis and numerology) analyzing the first Hebrew word in the Bible, Beresit ‘in the beginning.’

llus. Gates of Light, the first published image of the Tree of Life (1516). It is actually Kircher’s later version of the Tree of Life from 1652 that is the more commonly used diagram - through the Golden Dawn.

In Germany, over 1400-1700, Khunrath, Reuchlin, Agrippa and Rosenroth picked up the threads of Kabbalah, Magic and Alchemy and published works which would form the basis of contemporary magical practice. Magicians have used Kabbalah as a map of the Universe

Eliphas Levi (1810 - 1875) suggested that there are three sciences: ‘the Qabalah, Magic and Hermeticism’. His definition of Magic was ‘the science of universal equilibrium’ and in this Levi made a new emphasis on the syncreticism of Magic, Kabbalah and Alchemy. He went on to define Kabbalah as ‘the mathematics of human thought.’ However, his understanding and presentation of Kabbalistic principles was often inconsistent! It was Levi who most popularly suggested that the Tarot – in the form of the deck of 78 cards – symbolized the ‘Keys of Solomon’ and as such corresponded to the paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. In this he led the way for Mathers, Waite, Crowley, Regardie and Fortune (all members of the Golden Dawn) in grafting Kabbalah to other traditions and creating the syncretic Western Esoteric Tradition. However it was The Comte de Mellet who first made this suggestion in publication, in his article included in Court de Gebelin's Monde primitifin 1781 . Kabbalah is a Model of the Universe and the Soul

Kabbalah is a system which is based on four worlds through which the Universe manifests in ten emanations. The four worlds are placed in descending order, or outwards order: Atziluth Briah

The world of emanation The world of creation

Yetzirah

The world of formation

Assiah

The world of action

These four worlds hold the manifestation of all creation through ten “numerical emanations”, which is the literal meaning of the Hebrew word Sephirah (plural Sephiroth) as we introduced earlier in this booklet. These are often drawn as the “Tree of Life” diagram, as spheres or circles, but they should be considered abstract concepts rather than solid objects. The Sephiroth have channels for the light of creation to manifest (and through which we can learn and ascend back up the Tree of Life) which are called paths. There are twenty-two paths corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. These are the same paths which are then corresponded to the twenty-two Major Tarot cards. The human soul is also seen in terms of these four worlds, with different parts of our being corresponding to different worlds or Sephiroth.

It is important to stress that Kabbalah states we cannot know directly the Sephiroth, because they are part of the divine emanation from the unknowable source, but we can deduct their activity and nature through the paths, through the letters, and of course through the Tarot. This is a philosophy of exemplarism, where the world and nature teach us as a living example of the reality from which all arises.

10 Things to Further Your Study

Buy and read the Way of Kabbalah by Zev ben Shimon Halevi. This is one of many contemporary takes on Kabbalah, and influential in my own work. Refer to the Zohar [there are different versions in English, often over many volumes, you may need to shop around for a good set] and the Origins of the Kabbalah by Gershom Scholem for the core of Kabbalah. Buy The Kabbalah Decoder by Janet BerensonPerkins which is a great introduction. It may be out-ofprint, but is worth finding second-hand if you can. Read the Sepher Yetzirah, particularly the titles of the paths. The one used by the Golden Dawn was translated by W. W. Westcott. Learn the names of the Sephiroth, their meaning, their attributions and the correspondences of the Tarot Majors to the paths. Apply everything, see everything in relationship to the model you are learning. Practice analysis and synthesis of other systems (i.e. Tarot) using the Tree as a guide. Learn basic symbology, particularly biblical (see Hidden Wisdom of the Holy Bible by Geoffry Hodson, which is from a Theosophical perspective). Discuss with others – Kabbalah is an oral tradition.

When you are ready, practice letter permutation meditations (see Meditation and Kabbalah by Aryeh Kaplan) which is a good practice for Tarot readers.

The Key-Rites The 10 Divinations Having looked over the basics of Kabbalah, in this final section we will provide the ten divinations to take your personal deck into the depths of divinity. These ten methods are based on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, as we have briefly introduced in the previous section. You do not need to know anything about Kabbalah to use these spreads, nor do you need to have fashioned your own deck from the previous gate – although those two factors will obviously provide the most powerful and personal experience of what follows. You can perform these readings within the ritual we have given earlier, over a period of ten days. You can alternatively simply use these spreads as methods for yourself or clients with any deck.

Divine Door 10: Malkuth Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, how does my present situation show me where I am already closest? Shuffle your deck and take out 10 cards. Arrange them in a Tree of Life pattern. Consider the cards in answer to the following aspects of your question, starting from Kether, the top position and first card: 1. What is the simple truth of my situation in terms of divinity? 2. What should I do? 3. What is the lesson I should demonstrate to others? 4. What must I push? 5. What must I repel? 6. Where is the moment in which my centre is truly divine? 7. What must I stop repeating? 8. What must I learn? 9. What is the illusion that I must go beyond? 10. What should my world be if I hold the simple truth?

If you (or a client) are conducting this as a gated spread, then you should take these cards and consider them, and perform at least one significant decision or activity, or modify your behaviour based on this reading before entering the next door. If you only allow one day for each door, this will create a more intense and effective practice.

Divine Door 9: Yesod Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, how can the Tarot teach me to dream? Shuffle your deck and take out 9 cards.

At night, shuffle those 9 cards and turn them up one at a time, making a story out of them. Repeat this several times before sleep.

Record your dreams or simply note if there are any mood changes, sudden insights or intuitive senses the following day.

You can repeat this exercise throughout the other Doors.

Divine Door 8: Hod Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, where does my thinking get in the way? Shuffle your deck and take out 8 cards. Take the top two cards and place them next to each other as a pair. Repeat this for the other cards, placing each pair below the other until you have 4 rows of 2 pairs.

Make notes as to what conflict exists between each pair.

Then consider how you have projected these conflicts into the pairs, and what significance does that have for the question of this door.

Divine Door 7: Netzach Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, how do I open my heart? Shuffle your deck and take out 7 cards. Arrange them in a triangle, of 1 card, followed underneath by 2 cards, followed by 3 cards. Place the final card to one side, face-down.

Read the cards as follows:

1. The activity in which you can reach the divine heart. 2 + 3. How you can come together with others in divinity. 3 + 4 + 5. How your personal history affects your heart.

Turn over the final card only once you have interpreted the others in some detail or consideration.

The final card is:

“What is the message from the divine to my heart?”

Divine Door 6: Tiphareth Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, how do I come to myself most truly? Shuffle your deck and take out 6 cards.

Arrange them in a triangle, with 1 card at the top, then 2 cards below, then 3 cards at the base (as Door 7).

Read as follows:

1. What is my authentic self? 2+3. How does this separate itself into many parts? 4+5+6. What behavior most keeps me in those parts?

If you are following these as a gated spread, then the following day should include some remedial behavior based on the reading, avoiding being “broken down” into a separate and non-authentic self.

Divine Door 5: Geburah Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, what should I face? Shuffle your deck and take out 5 cards.

Arrange them in Pentagram, starting with card 1 at the top and working clockwise.

Read the five positions as follows:

1. What resource do I have hidden to face the fear? 2. What emotional state do I need to face fear? 3. What passion is mine most truly to overcome any fear? 4. What behavior is my best to enter the divine in love? 5. What is the thought on fear that the divine holds for me?

Divine Door 4: Chesed Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, how do I open to love? Shuffle your deck and take out 4 cards.

Arrange them in a two pairs, one above the other, as a square.

Contemplate the four cards but say nothing.

Try to think nothing.

Just contemplate them. And open.

Divine Door 3: Binah Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, how do I let go? Shuffle your deck and take out 3 cards.

Lay them in a line, left to right.

Create a sentence of them in sequence as a mantra, in answer to the question.

If you are following this as a gated spread, repeat the mantra/affirmation as often as possible the following day before conducting the next spread.

Divine Door 2: Chockmah Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, how do I return? Shuffle your deck and take out 2 cards.

Lay them out next to each other.

One is the path of your return, the other is the path of distraction.

We do not give here which is which – you will have to know.

Divine Door 1: Kether Consider the question: To enter the depths of the divine, how do I take the final step? Shuffle your deck and take out 1 card. It is finished.

Recommended Kabbalah Reading There are many books describing the development of the Kabbalah through the Renaissance, its introduction to the esoteric traditions of Europe and from there it’s integration into modern occult theory and practice. For a wide and scholarly overview, I would refer you to Kabbalah (Scholem, G.) pp. 8-86. The most popular introduction to Kabbalah as it was seen by the Golden Dawn and similar western mystery schools is that written by Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah (Fortune, D.) pp. 13-18. I would particularly urge you to read Chapter III, The Method of the Qabalah, and Chapters XVIII and XIX, on Chesed and Geburah. Although many of the ideas may be unfamiliar to the newcomer to Kabbalah, Fortune’s work has a habit of unfolding itself over time. A key point in my teaching is to emphasize the concept of emanation as a key idea to unlocking the heart of Kabbalah. This concept is at the root of the tree and it is useful to start to contemplate it from the beginning of your studies. There is a useful extract and notes to the Zoharic commentary on “In the beginning…” in The Essential Kabbalah (Matt, Daniel C.) pp. 52-53 & 173-176 (notes). This book can also provide a useful source of quotes for study, clarification and meditation, and is organized into essential themes of Kabbalistic thought.

There are two modern introductions to Kabbalah, being The Elements of the Qabalah (Parfitt, W.) and The Principles of the Qabalah (Jayanti, A.). Both cover in readable brevity the basics of Kabbalah from a modern perspective. I find the Jayanti book to be lighter, whilst Parfitt’s book takes a more practical tone. Another popular modern book is A Kabbalah for the Modern Age (Gonzalez-Wippler, M.) although I find this one is quite dense and perhaps is more useful as a reference guide later on in your studies. Finally, I should point out a final book which is a useful guide at the introductory stage of your studies, namely A Kabbalistic Universe (Halevi, Z.) There are many other books by this author, and all are interesting reading, but this one makes a good introduction text to his writing style and approach. I have found his work on Psychology and Kabbalah and Group Dynamics and Kabbalah (School of the Soul) to be particularly fascinating. Although there are now more works on Psychosynthesis and Kabbalah, (A Psychology with a Soul by J. Harding) and probably a lot more in group theory to be discovered through Kabbalah.

Bibliography Waite, A. E. Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: Rider, 1974