AUTHOR’S NOTE: As I wrap up my reading of Vincent Pitisci’s Genius of the Tarot, I’m struck by how much momentum it gained after I got past the slightly inane discussion of card meanings. In the last chapter he talks about having fanciful conversations with several of the cards; he is rather flippant about these episodes of “imagination gone wild” but still manages to illustrate a serious point about getting to know the cards.

In The Book of Thoth, Aleister Crowley advises treating the cards as living beings, and living with them as constant companions:

“It now being established that . . . the cards of the tarot are living individuals, it is proper to consider the relations which obtain between them and the student.

He (the student) can not reach any true appreciation of them without observing their behaviour over a long period; he can only come to an understanding of the tarot through experience. It will not be sufficient for him to intensify his studies of the cards as objective things; he must use them; he must live with them. They, too, must live with him.”

Imagine, if you will, an affiliate of the 78-member team showing up at your door, freshly scrubbed and combed and ready to move in. As we all know, living with someone inevitably involves making conversation (oh, and sharing the bathroom). By figuratively “talking” to the card we will ideally “get inside its head” or – more to the point – invite it inside our own head. There is a more formal and mystical way to do this known as pathworking on the Tree of Life, in which we identify with the card and take on its persona as we navigate through the Astral Plane. But this is a rigorous undertaking that involves copious amounts of creative visualization (and, it must be admitted, more than a little suspension of disbelief). Having a simple dialogue with a card (even if it is only a conversation with oneself) is a much more enjoyable and, for the purpose of divination, potentially more illuminating experience than working in a more esoteric vein.

In practice (even though I don’t stop to think about it), I do have a silent “mini-dialogue” with every card that comes up in a spread as I approach it for interpretation; it has become second nature to entreat “What do you have to tell me about this situation?” The cards can open up and become quite eloquent when addressed in this manner. I think of it as entering a room occupied by several unique personalities, each with a different tale to offer; some stories will be similar, other will be refreshingly different. I will play the part of interviewer, taking all of the statements and putting them together in a transcript that becomes the narrative of the reading. Then I will set about mentally editing it for maximum impact before I open my mouth.

Of course, cards don’t have any form of sentience beyond the minimal pseudo-consciousness that animists impute to every inanimate object (as a “Spinozan sympathizer” I will grant them that much). But it’s not the paper-and-ink artifacts we engage with as intimate confidantes but the magical allure their symbolism holds in our metaphysical comprehension of the subtle realms. Although history tells us otherwise, it’s tempting to assume that an ancient philosopher of the Unseen (or, more likely, a cabal of sages) imbued them with the significance that has endured down through the centuries to the point that they can now “speak” to us in the form of intelligible anecdotes that have relevance to our life’s circumstances.