The Hermit and Mysticism
Mystical experiences using the Tarot are actually quite easy in my experience, but the Royal Road is not the way you might expect. For example, you are unlikely to have them studying the Tarot – learning the divinatory meanings, the structure of Tarot, Tarot Spreads, not through pathworking, nor through magickal rituals, nor through studying the Tarot. What does that leave us with? The very thing that can frighten newcomers and learners the most – Tarot readings with the general public. As a friend of mine said to me, “For me, Tarot readings are mystical experiences.” Far from being a reclusive experience, the exchange of knowledge between two strangers as they strive to understand their circumstances can result in powerful spiritual and mystical benefits for both.
Mystical Experiences
We are all capable of mystical experiences – it is in our genes. I am pretty sure that we all have mystical experiences on a fairly regular basis, but it is more than likely that we do not recognise them when they happen, and if we do, we reject them for a number of reasons. Mystical experiences, particularly when true, fly against the knowledge, beliefs, understanding or perceptions we hold. True mystical experiences transform our beliefs in God, religion, philosophy, the meaning of life itself. The problem is that we are confused about what mystical experiences are, and what they for. Furthermore, as tarot readers there often seems to be an inferiority complex when it comes to magic and mysticism.
Mystical experiences are by their nature vague, ephemeral, unstructured, and easy to miss or misunderstood. Mystical experiences can happen at any time, at any place, whatever we are doing. We never know when we are going to have a mystical experience.
That is the reality. If you are seeing crystal clear technicolour visions akin to watching a HD television, I would wonder what medication you are taking! Do we deserve to have mystical experiences? This is an interesting question, for the theoretical and spiritual basis of the Tarot has been the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, which by its nature is rigid, structured, orderly, clear and hierarchical; the complete antithesis of mystical experience. Masonic Lodges or similar organisations like the Golden Dawn love the Tree of Life because its vertical structure can easily be converted to a Grade System starting from the bottom just below Malkuth up to the supposedly unreachable heights of Ipssissimus in Kether.
Maintaining the hierarchical structure in these organisations is critical for the maintenance of power by the leaders. Is that what we are doing when we read for a client? Are we power crazy monsters hell-bent in imposing our will, our social views and way of life onto our clients? I suppose there are such tarot readers out there, but most of us genuinely want to free our clients from their situations so they can enjoy their life in peace and happiness, confident in their abilities, and hopeful for the future, whatever may happen. Besides, most of us are not members of a Lodge, so why do we have to follow their rules? Ethically and morally, if we were a member of a Lodge reading for the public, would it be right to impose these theoretical structures on them?
We need something like the Tree of Life precisely because the structure of the Tarot is messy. We do? Why? Look at the lives of people around you, and I bet you will see that beyond the apparent order there is a lot of chaos and complications in our personal and work life. We love structure, and structure is required, but what makes us think we know what that structure is?
The problem with structures in the Tarot
The problem of maintaining structures extends to the Tarot readings themselves. We all use particular tarot spreads which are supposed to help us understand what is going on the life of the querent, and help us to communicate that knowledge and information to the querent. We even have Tarot Cookbooks which tell us what a card in a particular position means. We can say that the tarot spreads work because the readings work, but have we done justice truly to the reading? Tarot spreads are there to help the reader, not the querent. In my view, not only are tarot spreads too rigid, but they militate against the mystical experience. Do we throw out tarot spreads? Of course not. I will come to the solution I use in a minute, but first let us look at the meanings of the Tarot cards.
Memorising the meanings of the Tarot cards is a big worry to beginners. We worry about the divinatory meanings of reversed cards – and there are books about that too. We worry about how the divinatory meanings change when using different decks. We worry about the sources of the divinatory meanings. I know people who can effortlessly reel off the meanings of the cards. I have been reading the Tarot for twenty years, and as the years go on, I remember less and less about the DM for each card. At the same time, I am getting better at reading the Tarot for my clients. The reality is that I am guaranteed to fail just about every questionnaire on the meanings of the Tarot cards. People who have been studying the Tarot for a month will know more tarot meanings than I do. If I really wanted to know the DMs for a card, I would have to look them up in a book, but fortunately, the book is never to hand during a tarot reading.
Just in case you are confused about what I am saying, here is the point. I do not use rigidly structured Tarot spreads like the Celtic Cross spread. I do not use spreads where one card is in one position. I have no detailed knowledge of the divinatory meanings of cards. Believe me, I have tried and tried to remember the meanings. I have filled up notebooks and files on the computer with the DMs of the cards, but almost none of this “vital” information sticks!
The problem of meaning in the Tarot
The reality is that the querent has no interest in what people think a card means, and how many divinatory meanings it has, and the history of how the meanings have changed with time, and what people now think the card means. They want answers to their current situation, and so we need to apply meanings to the cards at that moment, and it may be that meanings for that card do exist until the reading unfolds. I do not know what the meanings are for that client until I speak, or I have to wait to see how the reading unfolds. If I do not know what the DM for a particular card is, it may be that the client has no knowledge or relationship to that card. I have to make a decision on the importance of not knowing what that card means. I deduce the meaning from the context of the situation of the querent; how the reading is going, in what direction it is taking, and from the context and relationship of all the Tarot cards in the spread. The entire sequence of the 78 cards is a perfect mandala representing the relationship of the querent to the cosmos at that moment. When a querent sits down for a reading, there is a cessation in the actions of the life of that querent. Done properly, there is stillness, a short time of contemplation where the querent has the opportunity to rise above the situation, to see life from a new perspective. When the still point has passed, the querent restarts life, perhaps in a new direction, or with renewed insight, wisdom and hope, or with a new determination or new goals to attain.
The Tarot Reader is that stranger bearing gifts, who can say things, or point things out that the friends, family and colleagues in the life of the querent are unable to do.
I am sure you have seen similar things in your own readings using the Celtic Cross spread with a far better memory of the DMs than me. The process I describe above should be familiar to all Tarot readers.
The Power of Not Knowing
Far from fearing not being able to remember the DMs of the Tarot cards, we should embrace the Not Knowing that accompanies a Tarot reading. After all, the querent is in entirely the same boat. The analogy goes further, for the process I described for the querent is very similar for the Tarot Reader. Not only that, but done properly, both Tarot Reader and querent will go through this process at the same time. They will experience the Not Knowing, the resurgence of new meaning, the Stillness, the rebirth together. In every reading the Tarot dies and resurrects itself. The death and rebirth may be so subtle that neither Tarot Reader nor Querent will notice anything. But, it is there. At the instance the Tarot dies and is reborn, the Reader and the querent go through a similar experience to a greater or lesser degree.
Powerful spiritual forces are at work, but there is protection, because done properly any agendas the Tarot reader has is less likely to manifest. After all, not knowing what the Tarot meanings for that reading will be is the perfect safeguard! The Querent can only receive what the Tarot Reader has to say, that is true, but there is the possibility of greater knowledge and insight being received. After all, we only accept what we believe to be true, if that truth is already there, even if it had not been acknowledged until that point.
I have only been able to scratch at the surface of this process of the emergence of knowledge in a tarot reading, partly because I am still trying to understand the mechanics of what is actually going on. Querents are all at different stages of spiritual development. The magic of this transformation is manifested at its greatest for the more spiritually aware, but only if the Tarot reading is at the right moment. Here is where the transformation can be the most profound, for the synergy of Querent and Tarot Reader delving into the Unknown creates the perfect conditions for mystical experience.
Now, you may be uncomfortable with such notions. If you are, there is nothing to worry about. Carry on reading the Tarot in the way you do, and you will be fine. For the mystically inclined, learn the Opening of the Key spread, and you will out that it is the Key to Mystical Experiences.