Introduction

I was once in Tampa Bay, Florida, trying to make a quick buck, reading cards on the street. I was going through some hard times, trying to figure out my place in the world. I had gone there to eat some magic mushrooms and meet this pscybernaut named Louie. I was not too sure if I should be reading the cards or not, because the cards have a way to jazz with one’s spirit, to draw into quirky realms of realities that, in my case, tend towards the Lovcraftian.

But I have always been sure that God loves me somehow, for some reason, so I just asked God directly: Hey, God, should I be reading these here cards? God sent me a woosh of wind that blew them all over the pavement. I guess God is like that. Clear as a whistle.

But then, I’m notoriously disobedient of God’s wishes, and I decided to keep reading anyway.

In fact, I often think of my relationship to God a bit like the relationship to my father. I love him dearly, and I know, beyond any doubt that he loves me. But I will be demned before I do what he asks me to do the way he wants it done!

I must admit, though, that I have been reading a little less since then, and certainly with more respect and caution. When I read, I do so only to help others, never to benefit economically from it. In fact, publishing this book will probably mean that I shall not read tarot again. I have a certain fear of screwing up the few and basic rules that I have learnt over the years about these strange little cards, rumored by many, to have been invented by the devil.

Am I trying to sell you a deck or am I trying to share a cautionary tale of the power of these cards? They are a too, after all, used often to help others, rarely to benefit oneself, and rarely (but sadly) to utterly screw up other people.

Tarot Card readers are basically two kinds: people with a genuine gift to “see” into the future and charlatans.

Charlatans know that they are charlatans and they do not believe, really, in the power of the “Tarot”. Instead, they use their cards as a kind of “magic trick” that cleverly gives people a view of themselves, thanks to the images and symbols that the cards evoke, that fits into their lives and thus makes the charlatan “appear” to know deep inner secrets of the client’s life.

Folks who have a “gift” to read cards actually perform a kind of magic, which of lately, I have begun to think has more to do with intention than anything. Reality here is bent to satisfy the needs of the client’s reading. A kind of synergy between Tarot Reader and Client occurs where both are thrown into a world of magic, faith and the impossible. Here, the mysterious origins of the Tarot can give anybody with a little bit of common sense the need to stop, do something else and forget about all the crazy-nerve-wrecking sorcery of it all. Thankfully, God never game me such common sense, so you can be reading this book.

If you know anything about the major 3 religious beliefs, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, you will probably know that in all 3 of them there are serious indications that reading the tarot, or any other kind of work dealing with “seeing” into future events is a most terrible sin. You can not, in good faith, be totally fearless about such things if you permit the Tarot to really tell you the future. It makes you wonder if really we should not be allowing certain things to be seen before they happen.

Since then, we have been informed by a number of sources not related to the big major three religions, that we don’t really “see” the future: we create it. Certainly, if anything can prove intentionally as a form of “magic” – which all the Magik and Yoga traditions speak of – well, then the Tarot is a kind of living laboratory of such intentionally.

Sunday, May 10, 2009
Hollywood, California