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The Spirit of Tarot, by Kristoffer Hughes

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Materially and superficially, the Tarot appear as a set of images printed with ink onto slightly stiffened paper or card; to all sense and purposes, they appear as simple pieces of art. However, the Tarot is significantly more than just pretty pictures; they are a treasure house of images that express a profound connection to a mystery school that was centuries in the making. Elements hid within the Tarot reflect a truth that was old when the world was new. The school of Tarot emerged from an Occulture that was intent on creating a tool that would transform the lives and spiritual wellbeing of its users. They succeeded.

As a fledgling Tarot reader, I often felt out of my depth, isolated from my teachers or those who inspired me. Cut off from the guide books and the information therein that, my fallible memory failed to recall clearly and succinctly. With the eyes of the Querent upon me, I cannot begin to tell you how often my breath would catch in my chest, as pearls of sweat broke out on my forehead to glisten and betray my lack of confidence. Thankfully, most querents were patient and willing to allow a young person to simply have a go, and I am grateful to them for their tenacity and encouragement during my studies. And yet, I often felt so alone in my quest to understand and move into deep relationship with the cards.

That is, until one fateful day when I was to meet the most influential person in my magical life. Her name was Myfanwy Davies, and she hailed from the green valleys of South Wales. For decades she had resided in the North Wales coastal town of Rhyl. She was profoundly crippled by consequence of a road traffic accident; she wore glasses as thick as milk bottle bottles, and I would jest that she could still see Haley's Comet through them things. Short in stature yet huge in heart and magic, she told of me something inherent within the Tarot that I had yet to consider or contemplate—the Spirit within the Tarot.

Aleister Crowley explored this spiritual principle hid within the Tarot in his seminal work The Book of Thoth. In it he discusses the animistic principle held within the cards and stated that the cards themselves are living beings. They appear on the surface of to the untrained eye as inert and stationary and yet they crackle with a life-force and a vitality that is accessible to any student or adept of the Tarot. It was of this that my teacher Myfanwy referred to and then encouraged me to expand on that thought and explore the nature of the Tarot as a landscape of living, spiritual entities. My relationship with the cards were never to be the same again.

It is easy for us to consider that the nature of consciousness only applies to that which we consider as kin or near-kin, fellow humans, our pets, other animals, trees and rocks. We can identify the consciousness in others because we may share a similarity of awareness. We may not immediately consider this when we look at a deck of cards, and yet we would be foolhardy—as students of the occult sciences—to dismiss that the cards themselves reflect a consciousness. As I learnt that day, all of those years ago, as the western winds brought hailstones to beat at Myfanwy's windows: the Tarot are pictorial representations of the natural forces of the universe, and they contain within them the very principle of existence and all of its glorious expressions.

Tarot functions through the occult hypothesis that consciousness is not local, and it is not confined to specific points in space, or places like our brains. But in turn, our brains coalesce that consciousness, like a receiver, into a moment in time, and like the opening of a book and the turning of its pages, consciousness reveals itself in the here and now. This is precisely what the Tarot does: it opens the book of consciousness and coalesces material and information relevant to a precise moment in time (the reading), and reveals it.

It is able to do this because of the immense psychic energy that went into its creation.

In truth, each time you take to your decks, you are accessing a storehouse of wisdom that is more than the sum totality of its creators. For instance, if your deck is one inspired by the Rider-Waite-Smith system, a plethora of energies and influences went into the making of that tradition. From the Kabbala to the complexities and magical endeavours of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, to the profoundly powerful images of Pamela Colman-Smith, to every student and reader of that particular system. All have fed and nurtured a mystery school that is complete in 78 branches of wisdom. This magical heritage gave breath and life to the thought-forms that would eventually rise as living beings in their own right, as the spirit within the Tarot.

If your deck is inspired by the Rider-Waite-Smith system but has another overlay, take for instance my own Celtic Tarot. I have retained the primary symbology and system of the Rider-Waite-Smith but overlaid it with the magic of Celtic mythology. This adds another spiritual dimension to the cards; it does not detract from what is already present in the symbols themselves. By proxy of this, using a modern deck connects you to its creator and artist and the spiritual work that was necessary for them to perform to bring their decks into being.

Tarot is revealed to both reader and querent simultaneously, as each card is turned the spirit within that card sings of its heritage and the connection it has to all that has gone before it. The reader interprets the meaning of the card based on its position or value within a spread, and reveals this vocally to the querent. The most effective of readers are those who can sense and work with the spirits that inhabit their decks.

With this in mind, when one takes to a deck, one is in actuality never alone, for the spiritual beings that inhabit the Tarot are your constant guides to their revelation and inspiration. I sit here now, on a night not dissimilar to that which I enjoyed decades ago, the winds blow and hailstones stammer at my window demanding attention. But in my office, I am not alone, I have a number of decks, too many to admit to, and I sense their companionship. For within these decks are the wonders of the universe and of all life and living, of things seen and unseen and things betwixt and between sense and sensibility. In them are the efforts of occultists and artists and magicians long since dead, the mighty ones of the Tarot. It is the company of Tarot that I share this space with, and the comfort and stability that they offer my adventures into the magical world of Tarot.

Next time I will share some of my techniques for accessing the spirit within the Tarot.

Until then, fare thee well, and keep reading.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2021. All rights reserved.

I recently met this woman through an internet dating site who seemed really wonderful, but in time, she revealed more and more of what I consider to be a really strange belief system. I'm open to most spiritual paths and lean toward New Age thinking myself, but she is way out there. For example, she believes that if you are totally right with God (she's a devout Christian), nothing bad will ever happen to you; you can take all sorts of risks and will never be harmed. For example, you could walk through a slum by yourself in the middle of the night, and no harm would ever come to you. She also believes that if you're totally right with God, you can live forever - PHYSICALLY. (I'm not sure why one would even want to live forever, but that's beside the point here.) She says you'll actually never grow old and die. I think she's sort of off her rocker, but I'm wondering what you think about these ideas. Thanks for your consideration.

- Randy

Astrea:

I applaud your friend's idealism, but I urge you to take what she says with a grain of salt. It sounds like she needs to study her Bible a bit more closely. There isn't a single phrase in the Old or New Testament that promises absolute safety to anyone. In fact, there are warnings throughout the Bible regarding what happens to people who don't take normal precautions in life.

The Bible tells us to care for our bodies and take care in the decisions we make for ourselves and others. It's filled with tales of people who go where there is danger and what happens to them as a result.

I see what she is saying IN THEORY. She feels that if she is perfect (and who among us is?) she will become like Jesus - but even He was made flesh. The Bible urges us to use common sense; in fact, many of its stories are designed to teach us this very thing.

While I applaud her faith that if she lives a perfect life, she'll be invincible, it's just not true. Walking through a dangerous neighborhood in the middle of the night is something that the Christians I know would heartily discourage as being downright foolish. While we have been given free will to act in our lives as we choose, we are also given the responsibility to make wise choices. I believe God expects us to have good sense and not to take unnecessary chances.

The human condition is frail. Someone who eats themselves into diabetes and heart trouble certainly isn't living any kind of Christian principles, and will end up dying at a relatively young age. Drug addicts who are driven by the need for a fix allow unclean substances to control their lives; they certainly aren't living right either.

Even people who basically take good care of themselves aren't perfect. Some sin with needles and others with a fork, but we all have weaknesses that we try to overcome during our lives. The body functions properly when it's at an optimum weight and level of physical fitness. Taking care of our bodies will lengthen our lives, but nothing is going to make us immortal.

Even when a Christian is right with God, their immortality is promised to them in Heaven - not here on Earth! Eternal Life is sought through Christ's Resurrection and from being the best person we can be. The basics, of course, require us to love one another and do no harm to others. In a perfect world, this way of life would be embraced by everyone, but it's not. That's reality. As a devout Christian, your friend should know the difference between fantasy and reality and find a way to accept the way things are.

*****

Susyn:

It sounds as if your friend has gotten some unusual ideas from her Christian affiliation. Religions of this type do tend to come up with some pretty interesting interpretations of the Bible. They propagate certain edicts that their members are prone to embrace without question and to express with certainty even when they have never experienced these miracles themselves.

I believe just about anything is possible in our world these days, and there are many miracles occurring every day, so I wouldn't rule out the premise that your friend could walk through a slum at night unharmed. However, wouldn't that be testing God?

It sounds as if she's been taught that she can do almost anything in the name of God or Jesus and it will turn out fine if her heart is in the right place. However, the dangerous part of this kind of thinking is her assumption that she is getting these messages from a higher source. I'm wondering about the true nature of whatever is encouraging her to walk dark paths at night.

As for the idea of living forever, I'm all for it if it's a fulfilling, purposeful and joyful life. However, it sounds as if your friend is saying that if anyone dies or experiences misfortune, they simply weren't right with God. As for anyone who is harmed, they must have put themselves in a bad position due to a lack of faith.

What she is forgetting is that because we have free will, there are many choices we make that can bring us misfortune. On an up note, most of those experiences are designed to teach us - not to indicate whether or not we are right with God.

A belief is simply something we hold until life experience teaches us differently. We are all on different paths and exposed to many beliefs, doctrines and assumptions. If we don't do the research, examine our own feelings on the subject, or take personal responsibility for our spirituality, we become as vulnerable as your friend to believing whatever anyone tells us.

When reading the Bible, I've found it much more enlightening to take the words at face value. The same religions that decry metaphysical practices (based on two popular verses in the Bible that are read out of context), conveniently ignore endless chapters and verses that support these abilities as God-given and available to us all.

I would encourage you to stand by your own beliefs, trust your instincts, and if you're so inclined, do some research on your own. Spirit gave us common sense, brains and free will; if we choose to ignore these gifts, we're vulnerable to being misled by all sorts of misconceptions.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.