AUTHOR’S NOTE: The more time I spend with the tarot, the more appreciative I become of the numerous layers of intelligent and meaningful commentary that can be found within its often obscure symbolism. It’s said with justification that tarot talks to us in its own tongue. This is an easy assumption to make but I think it deserves some analysis.

At it’s most basic, tarot obviously speaks the language of cartomancy, or divination with cards. In its modern form, this goes back to the seminal work of Jean-Baptiste Alliette (aka Etteilla) in the 18^th Century, and it is currently experiencing a renaissance in the anecdotal (that is, non-scientific) conduct of fortune-telling. However, that is only part of the story. A number of other dialects have been grafted on since the end of the 19^th Century, many of which deal in “metaphysical syncretism” by way of correspondences.

To the psychologist, it speaks of archetypes. To the philosopher and sociologist, it communicates cultural history. To the astrologer, it invokes aspects of the signs and planets. To the Hermetic occultist, it partakes of numerological and Qabalistic nuances. To the Western mystic, it offers intuitive and psychic glimpses into the past, present and future. To the student of Eastern cosmology, it shows parallels to the I Ching and other ancient writing. To the ceremonial magician, it is a stepping-stone to more profound and complex experiments. If I were to attempt summarizing its virtues, it would stand out as a system-spanning “multi-tool” for the expression of tropological (i.e. non-literal) and allegorical subtleties.

I practice all of these modes to a greater or lesser extent depending on what I’m pursuing at the time. I believe it is crucial to have a command of most of them and at least a nodding acquaintance with the rest so we can expand our intellectual horizons and also keep up with online discussion of their merits and shortcomings.

It’s all part of trying to penetrate to the heart of the human condition and its wealth of experience by exploring, as Sting once sang, “things they did not teach me of in college.” Religion never had a hope of taking me there, nor did traditional humanistic studies because in their dogmatic insistence on either faith or “hard” evidence they only skim the surface of the deeper spiritual truths that I’m convinced lie below the veneer of conventional thought. I think Spinoza was onto something with his “immanent universal consciousness” even though he retained an anthropomorphic slant on his perception of deity that I see as an ontological “crutch” to make it comprehensible to the laymen of his era.

The language of the tarot and similar methods of subliminal investigation stimulates me with a sense of immediacy and authenticity that more prosaic terminology can’t touch. It makes me think “outside-the-box” in ways that produce uncommon insights regarding human nature and the larger realm of “cosmic consciousness” (for lack of a less-euphoric description) that forms the objective backdrop for the drama of subjective experience. In a more casual vein, the mental gymnastics such weighty contemplation entails are a lot of metaphysical fun!