Because most standard tarot decks are based upon the Waite-Smith and Thoth or Crowley decks, these two decks are the main inspirations for this book. Though there are hundreds of decks, I feel these two provide a clear cross-section of vivid, readable symbolism that can be used to create ceremony with your own use of tarot in your daily life. These decks have been used by millions of people, thereby creating a collective conscious imprint of the images which enable us to access their meaning more readily through intuition.
To work with the cards, I recommend purchasing the Crowley or Waite-Smith deck or one based on these. You may also want to use an alternative oracle to supplement your work and add your own symbolism, myth, and interpretations to your daily tarot study. The card order in this book is presented as major arcana first and then minor arcana—which includes the suit and court cards in the order of penatcles/disks, cups, swords, and wands.
For the sake of direct connection to the cards, I do not focus on contraindications or reversals for the cards. There are plenty of “negative” cards that afford us the opportunity to work through our challenges using meditation and ceremony. For my own personal method of reading, I view reversals as inward expressions of the card or its energy or essence—not necessarily an opposite meaning.
This book is designed to help you work with a particular card for a set amount of time. You may choose to study a different card each day or each week, whatever feels most comfortable. You may also decide to randomly choose a card from your deck each day and then work with the tools for that card, again over the period of a day, a week, or even longer. Because the major arcana are such powerful cards, I recommend taking at least a week to work with the archetypes, symbolism, and different exercises found for each card.
The major arcana are the twenty-two major life forces crafted as a journey or story, following the path, and unfolding of one archetype to the next. Each card includes a discussion on the archetype and ways to work with them, including various exercises following the cycles of seven. When we take the Fool out of the major arcana, we are left with twenty-one cards that naturally divide into three cycles. Each of these cycles contain seven cards and reflect three major aspects of the human condition: the mundane existence of birth, relations, and worldly interactions; the subconscious of dreams, heart desires, soul growth, fears, and initiations; and the superconscious connected to our divine aspects of self, otherworldly, mystical, and spiritual expressions that aid in fulfillment of the soul.
The first seven cards, one (the Magician) through seven (the Chariot), offer foundational ceremonies to lay the groundwork for your connection to the archetypes and working with the journey overall. The second set of seven cards, numbers eight (Justice) through fourteen (Temperance), include various layouts designed to explore interrelatedness of the archetypes and ways to reflect on various types of questions. The last seven cards, numbers fifteen (the Devil) through twenty-one (the World), include an oracle voice visualization. This voice acts as the ceremonial essence and is a meditative guide that communicates directly from the archetype. I recommend reading aloud and recording the oracle voice so that you can play it back and sink deeply into the experience of the oracle. Often you will discover your own personal insights as you do this and new ways to embody and understand each of the archetypes.
After working through the major arcana, the book provides a look at the tarot’s numerology and suits. The numbers apply to both arcana but are primarily relevant here to the minors and their progression through a suit. Each suit is composed of an element and explores these through the exercises, visualizations, and ceremonies. Taking time to work through the ceremonies, using what is offered here, and also perhaps creating your own will allow you to embody the essence of each card and form the tarot in your daily life as a living system. The court cards provide a look at the archetypes and personality characteristics in yourself and your relations and how these are connected to the elements and suits of the minor arcana. Each of these combines the elements of the archetype with the elements of the suit to create a unique way of understanding the process of mastery from page/princess to knight/king. I have also included seven ceremonial layouts found in the second set of major arcana cards for cards Justice through Temperance. There are also layouts provided at the end of the book you can use to give readings to yourself and others.