Magical systems & tarot

[canid]

While researching ancient languages for links between runes & tarot, I stumbled across this at supertarot.co.uk & found it fascinating...hope I'm not being redundant...

How many systems of magic can you associate with the Tarot? The list below is impressive, but not complete.

The serendipitous structure of the Tarot allows us to develop various protocols. Here is a list of magical practices that are associated with the Tarot. Kabbalah Angelic Magic:

22 Letters of alphabet
Shemhamforash: 72 Spirits
10 Sephiroth: Minor Cards
4 Elements:
4 Worlds Astrology
Goetia: 72 Spirits; 36 Day and 36 Night – 36 Minor Cards
Lunar Mansions 28 = 4x7
Nakshatras
7 Olympic Planetary Spirits
12 Signs of Zodiac – Archangels, Angels – Major cards
Enochian
93 Governors
88 – 22 Major cards in 4 Elements
Four Watchtowers
Egyptian Gods
16 Gods = 4x4
30 Aethyrs
Heptarchia Mystica
7 Spirits
21 Letters (plus one letter)
Geomancy
16 Symbols
Shamanism
4 Directions, 4 elements 3 Worlds
Tantra
7 Chakras
Tattwas 4 plus Spirit
I Ching 64 Hexagrams = 2x32 Paths
Wicca
8 Spoked Wheel of the Year
Voodoo
Santeria See Voodoo
Sufism
This is list is not complete! There is a curious dichotomy. Magicians do not use Tarot, while Tarot readers are rarely knowledgeable on magic. Furthermore, current understanding of Tarot is rooted in the Victorian obsession with classification. Tarot readers isolate cards in a reading: The Future is here; the Past is there; Work is in another place; while Love is put elsewhere. The Magician, however works to unite the aspects of body, mind and soul to work in harmony towards the intent to create change. The Magician, Shaman, Wiccan, or user of Enochian all creates a Sacred Space that is defined by the Four Directions. This Sacred Space can further be defined as relating to the four elements.

All the magical practices mentioned above can be defined by the use of the four elements, or the seven planets, which make them accessible to the Tarot in some form. Further, because the four elements are intrinsic to the Tarot, we do not need a different deck for each practice. Ingenuity is needed, but Magicians are resourceful!

There are dedicated Tarot decks for many of the Magical systems mentioned above, but they are not strictly necessary. While the current state of Tarot is rather backward, surprisingly the creator of the Thoth Deck, Aleister Crowley, understood the limitations of knowing only the classification of the Tarot cards: "The Holy Qabbalah is a system of classifying the Beings, By-comings, Thoughts, Monads, Atoms, Waves, Packets of Energy, Ideas, or whatever one chooses to call them; of memorizing, discussing and manipulating the Relations between them.

"The Units of this system are Numbers: generally, one means the "natural Numbers"… Each Unit is a living idea or person; to each are related in nature all other ideas in some way."

For Crowley, all the concepts were relative – it was the relationship between the cards that counted, and he inherited this idea from science and physics, particularly relativity theory, and from the Golden Dawn system of Tarot divination, where the Magician had to visualise himself at the centre with the Tarot cards projected around him in a particular order that extended to the constellations. Within all this he also projected a three dimensional Tree of Life which created one pillar at the centre, and four pillars at the four directions. Between the Pillars he also visualised the Enochian Watchtowers. In one masterstroke, the Magician had united in Space, Enochian Magic, the Tree of Life, Kabbalah, and Tarot.

 

[SGrossberg]

You say, among other things, that "Magicians do not use Tarot, while Tarot readers are rarely knowledgeable on magic." Have you read "Portable Magic," among other books that unite the two?

 

[Abrac]

Interesting article canid. With so many different systems of magic, it makes me wonder what the point is really. Each one promises to reveal grand secrets but in the end all you have is a bunch of correspondences that aren't that helpful, to me anyway.

 

[epvitale]

Interesting article canid. With so many different systems of magic, it makes me wonder what the point is really. Each one promises to reveal grand secrets but in the end all you have is a bunch of correspondences that aren't that helpful, to me anyway.

The point for me is that there is no such thing as magic. What the list describes are different tools or vehicles (muses, if you will) to help you connect with the energies of the universe. That is why there is so many overlaps in all forms of "magic." The Tree of Life in Kabbalah is exactly the same Three Spheres of Life described in the Merlin Tarot.

The secret is there is no secret. All you need to do is open yourself to the energies around you and you will tap into that knowledge. The tools you use (belief systems, vehicles to obtain knowlege, etc.) are up to you.

Gary

 

[Milfoil]

The secret is there is no secret. All you need to do is open yourself to the energies around you and you will tap into that knowledge. The tools you use (belief systems, vehicles to obtain knowlege, etc.) are up to you.

Gary

Yup, thats how I see it too. The magic gets you half way there, the rest was/is within you all along but most of us need some sort of vehicle to get that far, call it kabbalah or shamanism, its all the same. Some people get stuck on the vehicle because its easier to keep your mind occupied running around after all this information when really it is a mirror. Break the mirror (ie quiet your mind and tap into that knowledge within and without) and then progress is really made. Systems which promise this and that power are playing on the ego which is, in itself a mirror.

Thats how I see it anyway . . . perhaps next year I'll see it differently who knows?

 

[canid]

You say, among other things, that "Magicians do not use Tarot, while Tarot readers are rarely knowledgeable on magic." Have you read "Portable Magic," among other books that unite the two? (I still can't figure out how to insert someone's quote.)

I didn't say it, the article did. I just found the article fascinating; got me thinking about tarot in a whole new way.

 

[Mateo06]

"Which finger is the magic in?"
From the movie "Willow"
Guessing all five fingers a wizard extends out to you will be wrong.
Only when you guess your own finger will you be right.

 

[nisaba]

There is a curious dichotomy. Magicians do not use Tarot, while Tarot readers are rarely knowledgeable on magic.

HEY!

That's a bit of a generalisation, isn't it?

I'm a magician who uses Tarot. I'm a tarot reader who uses magic. I even use some of my decks as working Magical Tools.

And I'm not alone. Two of my ex's can be described in the same terms, and I personally know about eight others. Not to mention others who use both systems that I know of but haven't met.

I don't think I know many magicians who are not learned in Tarot, although to bne fair I do know a few Tarot readers who are not magicians.

 

[canid]

Again, nisaba, I didn't say it, the article did.