This is Brother Harmonius, and we are here today to talk about the tarot and magic. The tarot deck that I am using is the one designed by Pamela Coleman Smith for Arthur Waite, and is sold as the Rider Tarot Deck.
The tarot has rightly been called a philosophical and psychological tool for exploring the unconscious. It has also been used as an oracle device to divine the future.
A lesser known use of the tarot is as a tool of magic, to make things happen in the world. Another way of saying that is it has been used for magic. The reason why the tarot can make magic lies in the Rule of Reciprocity, or the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, which states “as it is above, so it is below.” Or, “As above, so below.”
Now, what does that mean, really? What it means is that everything is happening in the context of a duality. There is an upper plane, and there is a lower plane. There is a spirit world, and there is a material world. There is an unconscious world, and there is a conscious world. These two extremes of nature are not independent from one another, but are, in fact, tied together or sympathetic to one another. What happens in the spirit world affects what happens in the material world. What happens in the world of the unconscious has reverberations in the conscious world.
The opposite is also true, that what happens in the material world has a sympathetic effect on what happens in the spirit world. What we do in the conscious world reflects back to the world of the unconscious.
The rule as stated explains how the tarot can be used as a divination tool, and also a psychological one to gain insight into the unconscious. After all, if we can look at a symbol in the material world, and it represents what is happening in the spiritual or unconscious world, then the tarot is a kind of telescope for looking beyond this world.
This is true when we draw a card without predetermination, otherwise called drawing a card at random. A card drawn at random has meaning because it is the culmination of all the events happening at this moment in time on the spirit level.
When we choose a specific card or set of cards in a predetermined sequence, however, we are doing exactly the opposite from seeing what will be; we are making a conscious decision about what is to be. Using the Law of Reciprocity, we are telling the universe, “This is what we want to happen.”
That is magic. It is flipping the maxim of “As above, so below” around to make things happen in the spirit world based upon what we are doing in the material world.
Now, when in the spirit world the dynamic equation of power is in favor of the good and orderly, that has a favorable effect on life on our world. When chaos and evil rule in the spirit world, it translates to insecurity, brutality, and poverty in our world. Likewise, we can turn that maxim around and cause good to rule in the heavens when we do good deeds here on earth. That is why it is important not to be too hung up on being rewarded for our good deeds, because the real consequences of our deeds happen on a much higher order of cause and effect. People naturally want to see their name up in lights when they do a good deed, but the best deeds are done without any recognition whatsoever.
Conversely, when we do an evil deed, the effect is to strengthen the forces of chaos and evil in the spirit world. It should be stated that I oppose evil, and if you think doing evil is a good thing, a fun thing, then there is something wrong with you. When you see evil and destruction as beautiful, it indicates a perversion, a sickness that needs to be healed, not glorified.
Let’s draw a card and look at it. Here we have the Two of Pentacles. It represents a transition between states of “have” and “have not.” On its own, it doesn’t say what state it is coming from, or moving to. We see the main character standing on one leg, but not for long, because it looks like he is about to land on the other foot. He is juggling two coins between a Moebius strip, an infinity sign or a figure-eight. This may represent a transition of fortune. In the background we see merchant galleons sailing turbulent waves, going up and down, representing the ups and downs of fortune.
If drawn as a divining tool this card could indicate we might expect a change in our fortune. But we could also consciously choose this card to contemplate upon, or in a magical ceremony in order to make change. We are thus telling the universe, “I want this in my future.”
A little bit about my own philosophy on handling cards. I do not put much stock in special handling instructions. I don’t see that cards need to be purified in salt, for instance. Also, my own belief is that you can never draw an incorrect card. Whether you over-shuffle the deck or under-shuffle the deck is of no consequence. Whether or not you draw randomly from the deck or draw from the top of the deck, the tarot will never be wrong. Every card you draw is the right card. This is because the sequence of things in the universe is exactly as it should be at the time. In fact, the tarot is only the most pictographic of symbols, but in fact every least thing and movement in the world is equally symbolic.
Finally, I never draw cards in reverse. I know that many experienced tarot readers do, but I do not. I don’t necessarily see that cards were meant to be understood in their opposite connotation by their orientation. I always shuffle and draw the cards right-side up, and have never perceived an incorrect or unjust reading from doing so.
