Tarot"Of this I am certain; that I know nothing for certain."Tarot is a book that is not a book. When the scholars of Alexandria first invented it, they were writing of the problems of the day. Here it is important to note that the more rational among the readers will point out that scientific and historical authorities place the origins of the Tarot in the fourteenth century of the common era. But a closer look at life will teach you that there are no absolute truths -- just half truths and lies and the facts continuously move from the realm of fact to the realm of fiction and vice versa. If you believe this, we could read this enduring book together. If not, I guess quantum physics will open the gateway for you, should you choose to knock on that door. In every century, and in every universe, men live through a pattern. The more enduring a book is, more likely it is that it holds the key to a grand pattern that underlies all patterns. Tarot is one such book, torah is another. Modern readers struggle to find the truth because there are so many books out there these days that were either written by conmen to take your money and lead you into emotional mayhem, or were written by honest men trying to pull a veil on the divine light so that the money-monkeys can't get their dirty paws on them. At any rate, there is too much rot and not enough seed and this should be enough to put people off reading or looking for enlightenment.If you are a serious seeker, your days are spent looking for the reason behind everything. Not content to just taking things for their face value, you dig deep into the mystery of the life, the universe, and everything as Douglas Adams puts it. There are two ways to go about it. You could ask how things work and you can ask why things work the way they do. Both ways have their merit. The "how"people eventually end up learning how the universe was built and the "why" people end up learning why it was built the way it was built. Sometimes if you are careful enough to give yourself a well-rounded education, you can figure out both. Now wouldn't that be worth celebrating.This path isn't easy. It involves a lot of work. The first thing to lose is the mundane craving for money. There will be celebrities and there will be kings and men will always hold the winners in high esteem. You must firmly decide to abandon that path. Because like an airplane taking off, you need to pull in the wheels to finally take off from this reality. Most people think that this step is trivial. "I'll just shutdown the part of me that thinks about money for an hour," they tell themselves. They imagine that they are probably at some yoga retreat near the beach where some instructor will tell them to hold their breath for four counts until they zone out and feel blissful. Let this be a fair warning to the reader; this path isn't blissful at all -- if anything it will bring along much sufferring.I tell you this upfront because I have been there. When I first started reading up occult, I approached the books like a bounty hunter. I was doing it because I wanted to write about it someday. I wanted to sell the carcass of wisdom to whoever was buying. Six years into the study, I realized something. if I have to climb a building and get to the second floor, I have to take my feet off the first floor. There is no way I can put my feet on the first and the second floor at the same time. I have to let go of the mundane desires if I have to climb up to the next level of spiritual attainment.There are other ways of doing this. I have a friend who said that she could do both the floors together. She'll do this plane and copy my notes to know about the other plane. She is very successful. But I still think my way leads to the truth. I talked about there being sufferring and pain on this path. My family abandoned me because my father thought I was wasting too much time reading about things that don't bring concrete results -- like fame, money, or glory. My mother said if I can't monetize it, I am merely being foolish and retarded. I love them, but I know that if I can't do what I set out to do, I will never find the true nature of things.There are ways to monetize this. Read ten books on occult and you will have material for at least one book. So those who are looking to serve reheated leftovers will not be dissappointed either.So this is where I come from. I have no special skills and no special agenda. Think of me as your partner while you go mountaineering. I carry some of your stuff and when we are at the summit, I tell you that this is what I was talking about. But Tarot isn't anything like mountaineering at all and there are no summits to be conquered. It is a journey into your own mind and eventually, at the end of the day, you will realize that except for a vague sense of fullness, you have achieved nothing profound and that tomorrow you will again have to sit in your office and type out that memo. Nothing will change, except perhaps the way you look at things.Tarot is an old story. It is not the story of kings. It is the story of everyman. The peasant who works the fields, the woman who raises kids, the child who dances in the moonlight. If you came looking to find something exotic, be warned. This is the ordinary -- the life pattern of the common man.The big truth is that if you can use anything for divination, it is probably something mundane. Because kings do not have access to the painful states of despair, a tarot that would work only for kings will never have cards for pain and will therefore be useless for divination. This is the book of the ordinary people, who despair just as much as hope. They smile through their tears; they laugh through their fears.I tell you this now because many come to this place to find advanced magick tricks that will make them super wealthy or super successful. It doesn't work that way. Or maybe it does -- but only for charlatans.Magick as it is sold now is only necromancy. Light this incense, burn that rose. It is generally assumed that the magus is a man who has a definite idea of who he wants to be and wants to make sure that nothing in the universe ever hurts his sense of self. This is the magick of a dead lifeless way of living a life. This is necromancy. The true magus or shaman lets nature teach him. He humbly listens to the universe and corrects himself. He is forever changing -- he doesn't have a fixed idea of Self. He is a cat one day and a mythical dragon another. Everchanging like a flowing river.Many men who dabble in Magick of this day, end up being cruel to others and making bad karma for themselves. This is a path of high despair as much as it is a path of bigtime glory. Hitler walked this path. He knew success like no other. But he also knew infamy like no other. It is a fair gamble for a charlatan or a man inclined to doing evil. My father, a good man, says, that if you do nothing, you gain nothing. Fair enough, but you can choose the level on which you work. And I prefer to work from atop the rosy cross.I won't be hard selling you the religion. The reason for this is that I believe in all the religions of the world. As an occultist, you learn to play with Gods and symbolism early on. If you somehow skipped that step and got here - you would do well to go and pick up the works of Joseph Campbell and others. Tarot is a book of twenty two trumps and fifty-six suit cards. The trumps are numbered zero through twenty one. The suits are divided into four -- wands, cups, swords, and pentacles -- just like an ordinary playing card deck. The twenty one mystery"three sevens lead to thirteen."To a neophyte, the number of trumps seems positively mystical. The suits are fine -- they look just like the ordinary playing cards. Familiarity breeds complacency. If I asked you why must there be fifty four playing cards, you couldn't answer me, but you will never notice the presence of the question until I put it up to you. This is a trick of the mind; show me something often enough and I'll take it to be the objective truth in the matter. The trumps on the other hand are somewhat different. For one, they have weird images. Meditate on the cards and find out which ones do you like the most. Also find out which ones do you dislike the most. Every mind reads them differently -- that's precisely why there are so many versions of these decks out there. I want to talk about perceptions here. I was looking through decks on some website or the other and here was a high priestess card that looked extremely weird. The high priestess was dressed in a beggar's rags and had no hair on her head. She was distinctly ugly too. There was a veil on her face. It was an ugly brown. Traditionally, the high priestess is a pretty woman adorned with a sun and moon crown and has a scroll of torah in her hands. She is usually dressed in blue. The High priestess stands for our subconcious mind -- what it looks like if we peer inside. The other beggar type depiction made me wonder about the author -- Did he hate himself so much that he thought his subconcious looked like that? We let in the world to our secrets when we create art. They can read our minds when they see our artwork. That is why I am hesistant about creating art even though my father, an artist, pushes me to do it.Let me bring you back on track. You picked your favorites and the least favourites. What impression do they give to you? Do you fear the tower card, like I once did? Do you love the star card like I once did? By the way, the tower card has positive associations on other spiritual planes and the star card will not make you a movie star. On the other hand it might make you a lowly hermit, if you are lucky. But in other minds these cards will bring up other associations and other futures and somebody might even become a movie star if the fortune-teller pulls out this card for them. The cards have their own magic and trigger different states of mind in different people.Write down the associations in a new diary. When you peruse through your notes years later, you will either surprise yourself with your insight or smile about your foolish fancies.