A Brief History of Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot

Most, who hear the word tarot, generally think of mystic gypsies or even pagan heretics. For the many that do follow the divinatory path however, The Book of Thoth rings sweetly in their ears. While there are many common decks, tarot enthusiasts consider Thoth Tarot to be unparalleled. An element of becoming an adept of the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn; Aleister Crowley, and the other members were inspired to create their own tarot decks. As tarot divination was, an integral part of Golden Dawns practice among Qabalah, Astrology, Geomancy, Scrying, Astral travel, and Alchemy. Decks such as the "Rider-Waite Tarot" (by A. E. Waite and Pamela Coleman Smith), the "Builders of Adytum" (BOTA) deck created by Paul Foster Case, and the "Thoth Tarot," by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris were in turn created.

The Thoth Tarot deck was painted in watercolor by Lady Frieda Harris according to directives from Aleister Crowley. Crowley referred to this deck as The Book of Thoth, and wrote a book of that title for use with the deck. Crowley originally anticipated the Thoth deck to be a six-month project, aimed at updating the traditional pictorial symbolism of the tarot to the more primordial or archaic representation. The project ended up lasting five years, between 1938 and 1943.

Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris were scrupulous in their work, and Harris painted some of the cards as many as eight times. Although the Golden Dawns members' decks were very similar, the vigilance in interpreting the deck led to some differences. It seems as if it was a crucial undertaking to have these cards be the closest to their ancient roots as possible. Thoth Tarot was meant to fuse Cabbalistic tradition, Tarot, philosophy, science and magick to form a supreme yet multifaceted tradition. Aleister Crowley was compelled to create a tool that could be used to explore the magickal and mystical elements of both microcosm and macrocosm.

It seems as if Crowley; although never seeing the deck published, knew he was doing something pivotal. He was a pioneer not only mystically, but philosophically, scientifically, religiously and magickally. Being the truest form of Tarot, Thoth Tarot is the pinnacle of the divine. Crowleys intention for the deck was clear "I will not allow the cards to be issued so that they can be used only for gambling or fortune-telling." -A.C. Aleister Crowley knew the difference between light and dark magick, practicing both in separate rooms of his lodging. He knew that many would want to abuse and mistreat the deck for personal gain not guidance. So reader, heed the advice of Crowley. Do not use the deck if you are not with pure intention or no good will come of it. "There is a single main definition of the object of all magical Ritual. It is the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or, in the language of Mysticism, Union with God.

Join us for a more in-depth study of the Thoth tarot deck. From learning tarot card meaning to tarot card spreads. The Aleister Crowley tarot is the most comprehensive symbolic system ever developed for the occult.

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How Many Tarot Decks Exist

The number of tarot decks that are available are so numerous as to run into thousands of kinds. Most psychics cut their teeth on a deck of tarot cards and usually start with the Ryder Waite deck. It has been said if you understand this deck you can read almost any other deck.

During the years around 1425 Martiano da Tortona wrote the basic rules about the use of tarot. At this time tarot was used for card games rather than for "fortune telling". The interesting fact is that tarot was originally a deck for playing games with and had not involved with the business of mysticism or psychics at all. This was particularly true in Italy and France. It was more in France than in Italy although the one game that survive in Italy was that o Tarocco Bolognese. On France they had a game that was passed on to all regions of central Europe. This was known by several names but mainly as Tarok. Tarot as we know it really started after it was brought to the fore by Antoine Court de Gébelin. He asserted that it was of the mysteries of Thoth and Isis. Although he was later proved incorrect this has lingered until today psychic are still rather frowned upon.

A set of tarot cards is made of seventy eight cards which are basically 4 sets or suits of cards each of which has fourteen minor and then the major arcana. Tarot decks range from Disney to erotic. They have been used through the centuries by psychics, Egyptians and gypsies as well as Josephine. One deck that was used by a lady you used to draw cards was made for her and Mlle.Maria Lenormand made several different beautiful decks but unlike the normal tarot deck this has only 36 cards with no major arcana. Here the full deck is used and the reading is very intensive. Mlle.Maria Lenormand the psychic of that era made herself very rich by reading for the elite of France during the late 1700's. Tarot decks tend to be themed to a particular interest. If you can think of something there is probably a tarot deck made to suit people with that interest. The interesting thing was that tarot as the game was virtually unknown in the various English speaking countries for some weird reason. They only came to the fore here as cards for divination.

Normal playing cards such as we use today for playing poker, bridge or any of those cards games came into use during the year prior to 1367 as they were referred to in documents which actually banned their use in Switzerland in that year. These cards are still used today by psychics for Cartomancy which is an excellent way of reading cards. Most of the really decorative card sets of those days were hand painted for the elite and not reproduced in any way as the printing press had not yet been invented.

Sarah Saxon works for the psychic & metaphysical arena and is a reiki master, promoting discovery of the personal spiritual pathway through the use of established and expert clairvoyants, tarot readers and mediums.

mediums

mediums

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Tarot Cards History Explained A Guide to Understanding the History of Tarot Cards

The word 'tarot' is commonly believed to have originated from the Arab word 'turuq', meaning four ways. Tarot cards are a system of divination, which means to foretell or predict the future.Tarot card divination also can be used to gather information. The cards are thought to be the origin of common playing cards.

Divination has the common meaning of predicting the future. However divination really means to receive answers. Any system system of divination provides answers to questions. The questions can be about the past, present or future it makes no difference. a question is posed and an answer is given. The deck is divided into major and minor arcane. The major arcane cards are based on images from the Egyptian book of Thoth.

It also has four suits of wands, cups, coins, and swords which correspond to the four elements of fire water, earth and wind or air. Tarot is best known today as a problem solving occult system. People use tarot to solve love problems, health problems and money problems. At various times depending on the ruling political system, the use of tarot cards was either prohibited or endorsed.

The most plausible origin of the decks of cards is that the system originated in Egypt since the cards contain Egyptian symbolism which predates the European symbolism such as the fool.

There are different types of decks associated with Tarot such as the Rider Waite, or the Thoth decks. Different decks are suitable for different levels of skills at using the cards.

Find out how you too can use psychic readings to find love, improve finances, answer your questions and get romance for free at my blog Psychic Tarot Readings

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Fortune Tellers Tarot Card Readings

Fortune telling is the practic e of predicting a person's future based on a range of supernatural techniques. This has a long history stemming back hundreds of years and has a vast culture surrounding it. There are countless 'traditional' ways to read someone's fortune and this can include everything from reading tea leaves, to the lines on someone's palms, to the bumps on their head to the use of tarot cards. Here we will look in detail at tarot card reading, what it entails, where it comes from and what you should expect if you ever go for a reading yourself.

Tarot cards were actually originally designed for playing games, and came with a set of rules. It wasn't until later that they became associated with mysticism and magic. Tarot cards however were said to hold religious symbolism, and the scholar Antoine Court de Gebelin claimed that the imagery included references to the Egyptian Gods Isis and Thoth. He also pointed out that the word Tarot could be linked to the Egyptian words 'Tar' and 'Ro' which mean 'royal' and 'road' respectively. Thus it was he claimed that Tarot cards could be seen as a royal road to wisdom. He established a link this way to the 'book of Thoth' giving Tarot cards mystical importance to believers.

The Romani gypsies however were the first to begin using Tarot cards for divination and was later developed in English speaking countries by Eliphas Levi and 'The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn'. This then became increasingly popular from 1910 onward, partly due to the publication of 'Rider-Wait-Smith Tarot' in December 1909.

The way that the Tarot cards work is that you are offered to select some cards, or will be dealt them in a methodical yet random manner (they are placed in what is called a 'spread'. There are a vast selection of cards you can receive such as The Magician, The Empress, The Lovers, The Hermit, Justice, Death, The World etc. However it is not a simple matter of 'the cards you draw tell your future'. For instance Death won't necessarily mean you are going to die. Rather it is a matter of combining the cards and looking at the order in order to make a story or a phrase. So death might mean death of a friend or loved one, or it might mean death of an idea or something more abstract.

Depending on the form of Tarot card reading you will then be told the meaning of your cards, or you will be asked to come up with ideas yourself. In some cases the cards are said to be guided by a supernatural force, but in others where you play a larger role in the selection it is said that you are drawing on the 'collective unconscious' that we all have access to. A kind of ancient knowledge that we are all born with through evolution that was originally described by Jung - Freud's successor. Those Tarot cards then are much like the Archetypes we see in our dreams, and that royal road is much like a royal road that Freud once described.

It is good to be prepared before paying for tarot card readings. If you have questions or points prepared to talk about, you will learn more from your psychic readers.

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Learning the Tarot Living With a Card

This article looks at a number of ways to gather information to understand a card using our intuitive mind, our intellectual mind and our unconscious to bring forth the inspiration we seek when reading the tarot for ourselves - this in turn feeds our well of experience to draw upon when reading for others.

Often when we read tarot for ourselves with the Thoth, we have a position in the spread which is the main focal point - it might be the outcome card, it might be the 'card to focus on' it might be the 'key'. Whichever it is the card that we are most drawn to and seek answers from. Sometimes in readings this card is the very one that we understand the least - or in this particular reading it seems not to provide the direct answers we usually gain or expect. This is a good time to build your tarot knowledge, both in a traditional way and in a very personal way.

These, perhaps confusing, yet central cards hold a key for us. There are a number of different ways to approach this:

the academic study the meditation the journey the holding the card with you through life

I want to focus on the last of these here this month, but before I do I will briefly talk about the others as you can use all these together to enhance the understanding and inspiration you can gather from your cards.

The first is to go to the books you have, the online resources you have access to and to read all anyone has ever seen in the card and go with those statements and concepts you have a intuitive reaction to. You are starting to gain a deeper understanding of the card and how it relates to you specifically in your situation and you are adding to your remembered bank of card meanings.

In this section I would also include studying the things that have been associated with the card by the deck creator, so you may also be going to references about the astrological associations of the Thoth card you have, the Kabbalistic position of the card, the meanings of the sephiroth or path connected to the card etc. Perhaps even looking further into that into the associations from the Kabbalah correspondences.

All of this can lead to great depth and often when we experience a one of card's many meanings it stays with us much more strongly than others we have just read about. So picking out the parts that you feel a ah-ha with of a click is a powerful way of learning.

Then we come to the second way of working with the card - to do a traditional meditation on the card - sitting quietly and still in front of the card and allowing the different parts of the card to draw you and to wash over you - once quiet within and at peace with the card then you can allow intuitive understanding and inner wisdom to arise within the session. Also within this there is the Inner Discursive method of meditation where you can allow yourself to first describe the images you see within the card and the to allow yourself to think about what this image means and what other concepts and situations also are connected with the image.

There is then the creative visualisation, pathworking or journeying technique where you prepare yourself for an inner journey in your usual manner and then allow yourself to walk directly into the card, initially seeing some or all of the pictures on the card but as you progress you see the environments change and you may travel on a very personal journey into different terrain even with the same card on separate occasions. This gains you intuitive insight as you assess and reflect on your journey after you return you ordinary consciousness.

Then we come to allowing the card to work with you.

In many ways this allows all the above to process within you - but it can also be done on its own. You look at the image and see it clearly in your minds eye, then you take it with you in your mind as you go about your day to day activities. You set your unconscious mind to work on the issue of finding this cards true message to you. As you intend this you then can forgot about the card and watch out for patterns of action, behaviour or events around you in your day. Any time something stands out to you hold the card in your mind and against the activity or event.

Ask yourself what is the connection between these two things - if any?

Sometimes a connection will clearly be made and you can log this as a confirmation of a certain slant of meaning of this card at this time for you. Other times there is a tenuous connection - this you can hold in a 'maybe this' pile and wait for further confirmation or a missing link between two things the card and that event to show itself to you. Sometimes there will be no connection - here you can leave the situation as being about a different part of the process you are in currently - perhaps it relates to one of the other cards in your reading, perhaps it is just in a different realm of your life.

You can also look out for connections between your thoughts on the topic you have asked about, when you find yourself reflecting on the issue and exploring it in its own nature then remembering the card and looking for these same connections, the card its images, energy and possible meaning and the relation of this to your situation of enquiry.

As we set intentions like this with our unconscious often these processes of inner analysis take place almost by themselves, we come in and out of awareness of the process through our day. As we become more conscious of this process we start to become conscious of our own intuitive and inner being knowledge making its voice known in our conscious world - we come to know what we have been seeking for, often triggered by the tarot, and sometimes feeding back into a depth of knowledge of the tarot for future use with others.

Have a go at this process yourself, see it working in your life. All the processing of understanding the meaning of the card to you are valid and worthwhile, and if we use them together then our learning process becomes a very rich and personal experience which accelerates our own inner growth and the skills we have to offer others.

I have been reading the tarot for 22 years focusing mainly on the Thoth deck and its wonderous images. My background as a counsellor and counselling trainer has informed my use of this deck and I find it very powerful to work with. I offer online training now with the Thoth tarot deck exploring its use from psychological and intuitive perspectives. I also work with people helping them develop their intuition. I offer MP3 visualisations, tarot readings, telephone and face to face. I live in North Wales with my husband and son.

http://www.thoth-training.co.uk http://www.tarot-guidance.co.uk

Emma works as an intuitive psychic tarot reader and runs training courses on reading with the Thoth tarot deck using a unique blend of intuition and psychological techniques. She also mentors other professional and non-professional tarot readers and has published articles in magazines for the Tarot Association for the British Isles and the Tarot Professionals' magazine - Tarosophist International.

Emma has a Bsc in Psychology and is a trained counsellor, counselling supervisor and trainer. She integrates this experience in her Tarot work, and in her self-written training courses for personal development, Tarot, and Tarot mentoring. Emma lives in the mountains of Snowdonia, in North Wales, with her husband and son.

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The Magician Tarot

Imagine if you will a two or three year old. They want their parent's attention and will do anything to get it. They will get positive attention by doing something good like potty training, or bad like drawing pictures on the walls with crayons.

In the deck I use, the Thoth deck, there are actually three cards that are the magician. I pick one daily and leave the other two out of the deck for the day. So as an adult a magician is a manipulator. They can move people around to do what they want, or in some cases they are in control of situations (such as a boss at work).

In some positions the magician is someone with too much on their plate. They are trying to juggle too many things at once and find over time everything comes tumbling in on them. This is because they do not know how to say no or they are just desperate to please someone.

In a more sinister role, the magician is the trickster. The magician is trying to play tricks and create chaos and sometimes these tricksters are hard to find and ferret out. They are very good at hiding themselves and their motives, but their one goal is to create chaos and mischief. Again this is a immature child like response of a child playing with a bug under a magnifying glass and even burning the bug. These tricksters have to be removed from a person's life before they set that life ablaze.

In the reversed position, this can mean that manipulation is stopped or going to be stopped. It can also mean the people's motives will be exposed. It is also a warning that manipulation is having a real negative impact on a person's life. So be careful.

We are do some level of manipulation in our lives to get what we want. A woman may wear certain clothes, wear makeup and other things to attract a man. A person may work extra hours on a weekend in order to be considered for promotion. It is when those motives behind the manipulation are negative is when problems can arise.

John Fortuna Intuitive Reader http://www.advisorandreader.com

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Psychic Tarot

The tarot is actually a pack of 78 or so cards that were originally used for card games in parts of Europe during the 15th century. Sometime in the 1700s, however, the tarot began to serve a completely different purpose, with mystics and occultists using it as a means to find out more about someone's past life, present circumstances, and future undertakings. The psychic tarot is one of the more popular means that psychics use in order to give psychic readings to those who are seeking to learn about things that they would normally not know in hopes that this new knowledge will help them better map their future.

This pack of cards has undergone design changes over the centuries and some special packs contain particular motifs. There are even decks of cards that prefer to be acknowledged as non-occult, thus disassociating themselves from the worlds of mysticism and magic, realms that are now closely associated with the tarot. Psychic tarot cards, which have also been classified as occult tarot cards, are specifically made for divinity purposes and this is so as not to confuse them with the regular tarot decks that are used for game playing.

Believing that the tarot cards trace their beginnings to the Book of Thoth, an ancient Egyptian book that contains magical spells believed to have been written by the Egyptian god of writing and knowledge. This 78-card psychic tarot deck is separated into two parts, the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana is known to contain 22 trump cards that have no suits and these cards represent individuals such as The Magician, Wheel of Fortune, The Chariot, The Hierophant, Strength, The Empress, The Devil, the High Priestess, The emperor, The Sun, The Lovers, The Hermit, Justice, The Star, The Hanged man, Death, Temperance, The Tower, The Moon, Judgment, The World, and The Fool. On the other hand, the Minor Arcana contains 56 cards that are divided into sets of 14 cards with one suit for each set. Even the psychic tarot deck differs depending on the manufacturer of the deck, thus making the symbolism different for each deck.

The use of psychic tarot as a methodology to provide psychic readings continues to be popular even in the 21st century and even non-psychics venture into the world of the occult in order to try and use tarot cards to gain information about themselves or about their family and friends. This casual use of tarot cards highlights how much of an impact these cards have made even in the modern era. To some, the use of tarot cards is just a hobby, a way to pass the time while having fun. To others, the tarot cards represent the keys to learn more about themselves and to see how they can better their lives. These beautifully designed cards can literally let you know the proverbial cards you have been dealt in your life and what you do with them is all in your hands.

Looking for the best accurate psychic advice? Check out http://www.thepsychiccouncil.com/ for the lowest rates and best accurate psychic readings!

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An Introduction To Tarot Cards

Tarot was founded in Italy, and references to it are found in the Steele Manuscript, in a diatribe about tarot cards used for gambling. The cards were standardized by 1500. These cards were hand-painted or wood block printed.

Tarot cards were given divine status by their interpreters. French cleric Antoine Court de Gebelin believed that the cards were born in ancient Egypt as a commencement into priesthood. Alliette or Etteilla, a famous mystic gave different divine interpretations to religious Christian meanings. Alphonse Louis Constant, also a cleric who later called himself Eliphas Levi, believed that tarot was a word connected to Kabbala He felt the god Thoth-Hermes was the creator of the original deck. Eventually other mystic beliefs were used, including Sufism, Hinduism, Christianity, Norse gods and many others.

The major arcana or the trumps have some of the most interesting cards. Each of them is governed by one of the four elements and a planet. The Fool represents energy and new beginnings. The Magician is the conscious mind and fortune. The High Priestess denotes the subconscious mind. The Empress represents memory, creativity and imagination. The Emperor is the ruler of the conscious elements. The Hierophant is the inner being, the teacher and the subconscious. The Lovers are about relationships and compatibility. The Chariot controls the negative and positive forces. The Strength Card speaks of control over material forces. The Hermit is the controller of the elements. The Wheel of Fortune symbolizes change and its interpretations. The Justice Card is symbolic of balance. The Hanged Man represents reversal of views and also about control and balance. Death symbolizes change and rebirth. The Devil is about ambitions and is said to be a masculine card. The Tower represents actual understanding. Lightning is about use of power. The Star symbolizes the hidden mind assembling knowledge. The Moon is symbolic of the development of the spirit. The Sun is all about life, judgment and the understanding of spirituality.

The lesser arcana cards consist of 56 cards with 4 different suits. These are the wands, the cups, the swords and the pentacles. These have cards from ace to 10 and have lower ambience or auras. These cards are also linked to numerology.

There was a revival of interest in tarot cards in the 70s, when many new decks were published. To know about more about tarot cards, you could read Michael Dummett's The Game of Tarot, Cynthia Giles' The Tarot: History, Mystery and Lore, Brian Williams' A Renaissance Tarot and The Minchiate Tarot. These, together with the information available online, are sure to spark your interest in this other-worldly area.

Tarot provides detailed information on Tarot, Free Tarot Readings, Tarot Reading, Tarot Cards and more. Tarot is affiliated with Reading Tarot Cards.

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Tarot Card Meanings

Tarot card meanings and interpretations are based on numerology, the elements; spiritual, emotional, mental and physical processes and of course the drawing and placement of the cards. The elements or suits within the tarot still exist in modern playing cards. The pips of diamonds, spades, clubs and hearts can be expressed as earth, air, fire and water. Or to bring it into our modern worlds, money, mind, intent and emotion. This then can be related to business, thoughts, transformations and love.

In an older world and another time, these four elements also contained wisdom of disposing the dead, the seasons, times of day and life ages. Christian orthodoxy also incorporated this with

1)the chalice of the last supper, 2)the wooden lance St. Longinus used to pierce Jesus' side, 3)the round platter from which the disciples ate the paschal lamb and 4)King David's "Sword of the Spirit."

The meaning of Tarot cards is universally consistent and lends credibility to this ancient oracle. The soul lives in images. The soul nourishes itself on images. A picture speaks a thousand words. The cards depict the levels of human consciousness, the first awakening, up to divine All-consciousness, to union with Spirit. The tarot comprises seventy-eight cards. Of these 56 are the lesser or minor trumps, keys or arcarna.

The origin of the word "Tarot" remains unknown and so does the origin of the cards themselves. The first documentary evidence of Tarot is 1442. A reference to "trump" cards is made in an account book from the court at Ferrara, in Italy. But they are much older. It is impossible to find a period in time when these images were not known. Sometimes they were found as murals, sometimes as sculptures of stone or as terracotta tablets. Wherever they have been discovered, their resemblance is so striking; a common source seeding global knowledge is indisputable.

ROTE TARO ORAT TORA ATOR

The Wheel of Tarot, speaks the Law of Life. The letters of Tarot can be interchanged to create several meanings. "Tora" is Hebrew for Law, "Rota" is Latin for Wheel; "Ator" is a form of Hathor, an Egyptian goddess interchanged with Isis. Another connection is the sacred mound of "Tara" in Ireland. Also "Tara" is the mother of Buddha. The great fertility goddess of Syria and Persia is one of sensuality and known as "AsTAROTh".

The Egyptian god "Thoth" (thus the Tarot's name as The Book of Thoth) may have given us the Tarot. Within the Egyptian language; "tar" means road or way and "Ro", king or royal, thus the Tarot translates as the royal road.

The word Truth, Terra (meaning earth), Tantra and even The Tao are suggested deviations of word TAROT. In Ireland, the legendary "people of the goddess DANA",(Tuatha De Danann) spoke of four magical treasures; a cauldron, spear, stone and sword. Similar symbols are found in Hindu art; the cup, the scepter, ring and sword. The Greek goddess of Fate herself, Nemesis, symbols included a cup, a wand of apple-wood, a wheel and a sword. The cards may have been the original "elf books" given to humans by fairies to people they loved, which enabled them to foretell the future.

From ancient times to the present; people have sought to understand the present and foresee the future. It is clear, people continue to feel the need for supernatural guidance and seek out those with true vision and good counseling skills.

Shannon Holloway-Esmeralda (SHE) is a renown Tarot Reader from Australia. SHE comes from a long line of Tarot Readers who received her first Tarot Deck at 16 and has been reading cards ever since. SHE keeps her powers strong and pure by eliminating any interferance such as TV, newspapers and unnatural foods from her life. Check out the extend of her powers with a free introductory reading at The Tarot Priestess [http://www.thetarotpriestess.com].

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The Book of Thoth Tarot Cards

People have always wondered about the future and the mysteries to decipher it. The power to unveil it, is something that every men would like to have. There are many methods to determine the present and the future, tarot reading being one of the most common techniques among the others.

But not everyone knows that the Tarot Cards are really "The Book of Thoth", here you will learn a bit more about this book.

Thoth is the Wisdom & Authority God that rules the rest. With a head of an ibis, Thoth is one of the first gods appearing in antique monumental sculptures.

Unveiling the Mystery

Some old traditions mention Thoth as the creator of the Tarot Deck, in other words, "The Book Of Thoth". All the knowledge of the tarot cards was kept secret for centuries by the priests of that time in Egypt, this secret knowledge was just revealed to those that pass some initiation ritual and different types of mental strength test.

I had to say that the tarot cards were affected by personal interpretations, feelings, religion or some groups through the time. These different interpretations made different Tarot Decks types, Egyptian tarot being the one that conserved the essence.

The Book of Thoth has 78 illustrations that in combination, and tarot reader skill, generate the diverse interpretations that allow the psychic, determine one person past, present and future. There are lots of books about tarot, but all of them were born by one single book: The Book of Thoth.

Now we can find all kind of tarotists, psychics, and fortune tellers using the tarot decks to read someone's future. I think it is important to know where this ritual came from, for it to be remembered and never forgotten.

Find your Destiny...

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The Game of Life A Tarot Majors Book by Timothy Leary, PhD

As a student of Tarot I consider myself very fortunate to have taken a friend's suggestion to read a book entitled The Game of Life by Timothy Leary. The Game of Life is centered around Leary's idea that the Tarot trumps represent stages of personal growth that humanity experiences both as individuals and as a species. According to Leary, the Major Arcana represent the stages of growth that our species evolves through, and he even included 2 extra trumps that uncover the way of the future. Ultimately the Major Arcana encompass all life when considering the cards as organisms of various stages and complexities.

Other than The Book of Thoth, The Game of Life was perhaps the biggest influence on me as a student of Tarot. Many of Leary's ideas on the Tarot seemed to me like quirky statements of the obvious, but he also did unprecedented things with the Tarot such as corresponding the trumps with The Periodic Table of Elements. Little characters on the sidelines like to throw out their 2 cents every now and then. The book might seem silly, but that's just Leary's mode of communication, how he likes to lighten the mood.

Leary discussed the notion of life being based on a 3-fold system of octave rhythms, arriving at the conclusion that the correct number of majors must actually be 24. Leary stated:

The number eight (particularly expressed as 7 + 1) seems to be involved in the basic equations of energy-matter. Neurogenetic theory looks to atomic physics for explanatory guides. The Periodic Table of Elements is a logical foundation for any model of energy manifestation, even as peripheral as the psychological and sociological. The Periodic Table defines eight (7 + 1) families of elements.

Leary also pointed out the neurological significance of the number 3 and the numerological significance of the 4 elements ultimately permeating 24 trumps (1X2X3X4=24). He also stated that since there are 24 hours in the day, this number should also match the number of trump cards. He presented a number of mathematical arguments as to why the number of trumps simply have to be 24.

For a couple years I had searched for a Tarot that I could relate to, and as far as I was concerned, that deck would have to be influenced by Leary's ideas. My search for this Tarot yielded no results. I could not believe that nobody seemed to notice or care about Leary's brilliant book. When my life took a strange turn and I winded up actually designing a Tarot deck, naturally it was laced with Leary's unique discoveries. I included 2 extra cards in order to complete the majors just like Timothy Leary would want it.

The 2 extra cards at the end of Leary's Major Arcana reveal the path homeward to the center of the universe. In the position before The Universe is a card entitled Violet Hole Fusion. This card shows that at the center of The Universe there is an axle known as a Black (or Violet) Hole. This axle is actually a portal to the spiritual dimension as well as a type of center in that dimension. The journey to the Black Hole occurs in the final stages of evolution, where the evolved being escapes the cycle of life and moves on to another form of existence. Through the Black Hole, one gains universal oneness and then proceeds to the Singularity. The final trump, Singularity shows where the soul meets its maker and gets reabsorbed. At the stage of Singularity, the organism has outgrown its body, having evolved to godhood.

Despite the quirky sideshow of oddball characters such as Richard Prior and Adolf Hitler doing color commentary in the page margins, The Game of Life really does have a lot of value for the serious tarot student. Like its author, the book has taken its place in history. In time more and more souls will find their way home, with just a little help from Dr. Leary.

Jeremy Lampkin, symbolic-occult artist and creator of the bifrost Tarot, which was heavily influenced by the ideas of Timothy Leary as well as many other occult and underground figures who followed in the example of Aleister Crowley.

The bifrost Tarot is available online for free tarot readings as well as for viewing and studying a gallery of the entire deck.

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