Step by Step Tarot

We live in a society in which the Empress is heavily repressed. Our culture is now so TV-based, we all of us, like robots, switch on these machines when we come in – and many of us remain thus transfixed all night. Before the advent of TV and radio, people would learn how to play musical instruments, to sing, to dance together. They would hold plays in the village hall just to entertain themselves. These are all Empress activities.

How would you like to learn how to play an instrument, to dance, to express yourself more fluidly? What about that book you’ve always wanted to write? Those poems, that play? What about that baby you keep thinking of having? Well, when are you going to switch off the TV and radio and make a start?

Make this the year in which you concentrate on cultivating your own creativity!

4 THE EMPEROR

The Tarot is showing you a card which is the epitome of independence, of resisting external influences and of moving in your own totally self-determined direction. Up until now, although you haven’t been happy about accepting orders from others, you have done so, feeling that one day you would be able to branch out in a totally independent direction, free from the external constraining influence of other people.

This may have ramifications on your work area, for example. You may have felt, over the last two years or so, that you could have done a lot better for yourself by starting up your own independent line of business than by continuing to serve those who were employing you.

On a relationship level, you may have felt limited, held back by the person that you are with, unable to get your life moving in the way that you felt it should have been.

Now is the time in which you can feel free to begin to tell these forces of limitation where to get off, so that you can live your life the way you feel it ought to be lived. This card is telling you to strike out!

The Emperor is about your own potential to say no to whatever you are unhappy with. It is he who breaks agreements in society about how things ought to be and challenges oppression. It is he who leads the revolutionary forces and suffers personally through his belief in the principles of equality, liberty and justice. But it is also he who, through his own excessive zeal for the cause in which he believes, can set in place of the preceding government a far worse dictatorship! In a society which has become so excessively centralized, with people feeling increasingly that they are unable to influence their destinies in any way whatsoever, it is the Emperor type who tends to emerge, first as rebel, then as opposition, then as alternative, and finally as the new establishment. Many who in life start off wanting to change the political system end up as members of an establishment which may well have a different symbol on its headed notepaper, but which pursues the same policies as its predecessors.

But the Emperor is also about your own assertiveness; about not looking for others to take the place of your own potential for leadership. Because whenever we do this we are copping out of precisely those issues which we most need to take responsibility for.

What can you do to take more control over your own life?

5 THE HIEROPHANT

Around you there are many influences at work, only some of which may be apparent from your present perspective.

Now is the time for you to make whatever compromises are necessary in order to be able to continue in your present direction. In ancient times, the Hierophant was the master of ceremonies and thus was the original forerunner of the Masonic tradition, the spiritual tradition through which the ancient mysteries were handed down despite years of religious intolerance and persecution.

The basic meaning of this card is that now is a point in your life when you are ready to say to the world, ‘Here I am’ and the reply of the world will be, ‘And here is the effect of all the causes, good, bad and indifferent, which you have made in the period leading up to now.’

The presence of this card is suggesting that your life has been a rather eccentric one – and probably always will be. But at this point you will increasingly see that even those who you have assumed to be very orthodox or conventional have actually led similar lives, beneath the surface level of immediately visible reality.

You are about to receive an initiation into the way in which the world works – remember, even in some of the trying experiences that lie ahead, that you are surrounded by friends and allies who, for reasons of their own, prefer to remain in the background ready to be of help if needed, rather than be so openly identified with your position.

The Hierophant was the ‘Chairman’ as it were of the Magical Order of the Golden Dawn, a semi-Masonic order set up around the end of the last century to enact symbolic journeys of its members through the doorways and pathways of the Tree of Life. The Hierophant would have to learn long speeches by heart which would then be recited in front of the new members; set-piece speeches in which he would go on about the significance of the cube, or Star of David, or the journey of the soul into the astral plane. He would pass on to the new member ‘keys’ of magical value – sometimes they would be angelic names, or things they could do to enhance their own magical powers in one way or another. Some of these spells would have to do with invisibility, or knowledge, or protection. So it was really a school that he was responsible for running. This school attracted many members of the intelligentsia, including a number of writers, historians and professors, as well as members of ‘high’ society, even as far up as the House of Lords. So, you can see that this card really has a lot to do with hierarchy, structure, traditions and so on. These days mystical knowledge is a lot more freely available than it was in the age when the church and its own form of orthodoxy had a much stronger grip over what got published and what was freely discussed in polite society. So, these days, the appeal of small esoteric societies has waned, as people are now able to get insight into their lives from a much wider range of spiritual practices than ever before.

Another aspect of the Hierophant is the relevance of initiation. In some societies around the world, the male members of the tribe have to go through some kind of initiation in which they are led out into the forest or desert for a certain period and left to face their own fears. The Hierophant is he who leads through the pathway of initiations such as these. They would always be regarded as symbolic turning-points for those concerned, and after being taken, there was no going back to the more juvenile states which preceded them. They always marked the divide between man and boy, woman and girl. In a sense, the ritual of marriage is an initiation in itself, in its original form, as it would originally mark the development of the married couple from childhood innocence to adulthood. In every religion, there are rituals to mark the symbolic passing of the soul through each of its major lifetime landmarks. The rite of a funeral is, in a sense, another example of this.

The Hierophant card touches upon all of these other areas as well.

6 THE LOVERS

This card has come up for you because it is talking about intensity in relationships that you are involved in with others. It is really saying that until now, your relationships have been pretty hit and miss as to whether they have worked out or not. Sometimes they have and sometimes they simply – and sadly – haven’t.

Now you must begin to experience them from a new viewpoint, to realize that they are not just based upon affinity, but also upon communication and reality. In other words, you must see that your relationships depend not just upon feeling, but also upon how much you have in common with the other person and how well you are able to communicate with them too.

This card is saying that in any relationship scenario, be it love or friendship, you must regard any upsets as a challenge to be overcome and not just as a barrier.

Here we are also looking at the principle of duality in relationships. It may be that your partner is complementing certain aspects of your own personality – or challenging them.

This card is saying that instead of reacting to whatever is going on in your love life, just relax and experience it instead. Life’s teachings come to each of us in many guises, sometimes in a very obvious form and sometimes in a less than obvious form. Here, the Tarot is saying, become aware of the fact that life’s teachings are coming to you through the kinds of relationships which are forming around you. Learn from them.

But we are also looking at the principle of love in its wider sense. Whatever we love, we do well. In the realm of Tarot training, I know if someone is going to do well in their studies if they actually have a love of the Tarot. When this principle is at work in our lives, it is we who experience the fruits through both giving and receiving. For whatever – or whoever – we love, no time is too much to spend. We do not count. And thus we begin to tap into the universal spirit of giving which mystics have called God, or deity, or infinity. For those that have tasted of its essence, there can be no higher teaching than this.

What – or who – do you most love? What is it about your object of affection that draws you towards it in this way? Does your life feel empty without someone or something special which you can be involved with? Or are you able to create something to be at the centre of your life?

7 THE CHARIOT

In this card we see someone holding the reins of power in their hands and, we must suppose, the principle of strong leadership is being shown. But if we look in a little more detail, we can see that the reins of power which this man holds onto so determinedly are in fact connected to the two horses which drive his chariot.

The fact is that although you may well feel empowered under this influence, remember that to a greater extent than you realize, your position depends upon the continued good will and co-operation of other people who are also involved in the situation with you.

At the base of the chariot are two sphinxes, one white and the other black. They are saying that you will achieve balance here in your life by maintaining a sense of forward motion, not by staying passive, waiting for something to happen.

At this point, great power is being given to you, possibly from a higher spiritual plane of being. You must use this extra energy by doing something with it – other people are waiting for you to take the initiative. You must now create a game plan and mobilize the human resources which are now available to you. If you don’t, rest assured that others will, and you will have missed an important chance. The Chariot is about the completion of projects, as well as their initiation. The wheels of the chariot invariably have to turn full circle if any sense of forward motion is to occur.

It is telling you to look around in your life and see what needs to be completed. You may be reminded of promises you have made which you have since forgotten about. When the Chariot card comes up in a spread it hints that now is an ideal period to fulfil commitments. It also touches upon the danger of entering into commitments from which it is difficult to withdraw. After all, in order to draw a chariot forward, you need horses, and you can’t easily change these in midstream, can you?

The Chariot, because of its link with the astrological sign of Cancer, also touches upon the principle of our defences, because just as a crab protects itself wherever it goes by carrying its shell on its back, so in this card we are looking at the defences which we each of us employ for our own self-protection. What are your defences? In what way do you hide behind them? Do you still need all of them, or can some of them be thrown away?

8 STRENGTH

Great power is given under this placing. The Strength card has come up for you and is saying that through the conflicts which you have had with your own weaknesses, you have gained some degree of mastery over others. And vice versa: that through the conflicts you have had with others, you now stand much more in control of yourself, of your own energies, and are more single-minded.

This card was traditionally represented in old Tarot decks as showing the battle between Hercules and the Nemean Lion. In more recent decks, the same principle has been shown by the image of a beautiful woman, serenely opening and closing the mouth of a roaring lion. The symbols are different in that in the former it shows the domination of one power by another, while in the latter it shows the transcendent influence of reason over passion.

This latter image is more in keeping with what the Tarot is trying to say to you. It is saying that it is by keeping your cool that you will be able to come out in top of whatever situation of conflict you are going through, or are about to go through.

Remember that the strongest weapon you have at your command at this time is the fact that you are not to rise to the bait of whatever provocation is made towards you.

Above the head of the woman in this picture, we see a figure of eight on its side, the symbol of infinity, which means that no matter what is occurring on the outer level of action in your life at this time, it too will change and move on to become something else.

Remember, just as the serenity of the woman is more powerful than the lion, so your own spirituality is a stronger force than the animalistic passions of yourself and also of others.

This card is calling upon us to examine where our real strength lies. We are so often used to thinking of ourselves as ‘strong’, especially when in perfect bodily health. But are we? All it takes for us to be reduced to whimpering wrecks is to step on a nail and get an infection. Or to develop a soar throat. Many people get very angry when a loved one is sick or ailing, basically because it is a reminder of their own frailty.

What are you doing with your own strength? Are you using it positively or are you wasting it on irrelevant jousting tournaments, left, right and centre? What are you doing that is helping others get in touch with their own strength?

9 THE HERMIT

In this card we can see that you have led something of a solitary life, always holding yourself back from other people, seemingly letting them into your life but not really doing so. This card suggests that you are a very private person, or have been up until now.

Your path has led you through some very solitary experiences and, symbolically, has been akin to a path that has run through a mountain range. Now you stand at the top of this same mountain and you hold a lantern outstretched in front of you.

You are just finishing a period of relative isolation, in which psychologically you have gone through a slimming process. Unnecessary layers of personality have been sheared away and you are probably feeling slightly worse for wear.

Now, this card is telling you, you must begin to think much more in terms of how you are going to find your way back down the mountainside, to the valley below where the rest of us live.

Your presence is required here, in the real world, where the rest of us can enjoy your company and get the benefit of your wisdom, of your experiences, no matter how isolated from us they may make you seem or feel. This is your next step.