What follows is a very minor modification of my opening presentation at the 2010 ATS Convention, held in July in Brisbane, Australia. The original was accompanied, or rather, itself accompanied, over a hundred different images to which I talked ‘to’. Having been asked to include it as part of a Newsletter, I finally do so, rather belatedly.

It is a presentation I had also long wanted to do – though the form it took was of course also in the context of the weekend we were about to have. The full title, ‘Two Uses of Tarot: the vatical and the sacral’ considered tarot as both a vehicle for the sacred as well as manteaic art.

These two forms seem in so many ways obvious: we do readings with tarot – in other words, we use it as a manteaicly or vatically; and we can see in many of the imagery what reflects the sacred.

Yet I’d like to take this a little more deeply – or at least somewhat differently to what we may be accustomed to.

Allow me to first paint a historical picture of the world in which were immersed those who brought to us these images as we now have them. It is a world that for many amongst us is no more. It is a world that has been at times described as porous: a world that the shaman still inhabits; a world that some amongst us, engaged within communities that may still accept such, we may also perhaps still in part inhabit. Yet it is a world that is rather difficult to explain to those who, conversely, live a buffered existence: our modern world is not one in which the spiritual and sacred permeates the everyday. It is not one in which, as we walk down the street, we engage with elementals of with fairies… and I don’t mean by these terms our friends who may refer to as ‘elemental’ or ‘fairy’.

Our world is not one with which we generally take for granted the co-habitation of angelic and devilish beings. It’s one in which rather the opposite is taken for granted.

If we take these images not so much as allegorical, nor as metaphors, nor symbolic, but rather as implicitly representational of the world permeating our very everyday existence, as well as, of course, representing an eschatological view, then the card images not only take on quite different characteristics, but also reflects a worldview that simply is no more for most people.

Our world is one that appears to be denuded of sylphs, salamanders, gnomes and undines, denuded of what Dionysius the Aeropogyte described as the spiritual hierarchies. For us, air becomes the movement of physical particles in motion; flames the ignition of a fuel; the earth mere compounds. Where each tree stands without its spirit; where we can walk the desert, deserted of spiritual beings – whether these be as companions or as combatants.

This is the modern world, the buffered environment, in which we tend to reside, where even our thoughts and feelings are deemed our own and sheltered from view from others – unless we happen to either consciously or unconsciously reveal these, purposefully or accidentally.

By contrast, imagine – and I say imagine if you’re not living in it – a world in which each thought and feeling becomes something to which the inhabitants of the invisible world react to and respond, pick up and deliver…

In such a world, there is what has sometimes been called a great chain of Being – with a hierarchy of beings. A hierarchy in terms of not only power, but also (or instead) development, awareness, care, responsibility, and virtue – in that each of these terms applies to the state of each being in this great chain or hierarchy.

In many ways, tarot’s trumps can be seen to reflect this ‘great chain’ – with earthly stations, followed by allegories, followed by the trans-earthly realm… and all embedded within a world that is essentially spiritual.

The sacral – or sacred – can thus be seen to be nothing other than, in the first place, depicting the world permeating us, or in which we are ourselves embedded, as essentially sacred.

By contrast, in our modern and buffered world, the sacred, like everything else, is partitioned and allocated its peculiar enclosure: a pointed to there (wherever ‘there’ happens to be in both space and time, and oft some structural form such as synagogue, temple or church) is where the sacred is.

I mention time… and here is another concept that has vastly altered since time became standardised to, in the first place, allow for train timetables across the USA. It’s simply not the case that an hour’s drive west of here will be a local hour’s difference away: noon reflects the Sun at its meridian, and this changes as we move east-west. In the fast-paced world of telephones, of course, we don’t want time to be porous to either the influence of the Sun’s location, nor to the state of conscious awareness we happen to be in at the time! (yet, we cannot totally remove the Sun’s apparent location, so we ‘standardise’ and digitalise time into zones, and then additionally force Summer-time clock shifts).

Time is also now principally linear: what was two thousand years ago is past. In the porous universe, however, the event of two thousand years past recurs: it is circular… not just by correlated calendrical reference, but rather as a spiritual reality: the event of the past lives and breathes anew each Easter, each Solstice, each Yom Kippur.

To call this the ‘circularity’ of time is perhaps not such a useful term, as what is at play is rather that the repetition unveils the spiritual influx at especial play at those times.

We may get an inkling of this when experiencing the depths of feeling: for example, when falling in love, or when experiencing trauma, or when suddenly awake within a meditative space. Time gains a different dimension to the clock’s mechanical measure.

These are all at play in the depiction of each and every card, and during the course of this coming sessions, some of these aspects will, in various ways, become ever more apparent.

Let me, however, give two brief kinds of examples as to how both sacral and vatical intermix – and then I’ll separate these terms again before finishing.

Let’s first have a very brief look at first, Death, and then, Love – not-withstanding the connection made between these in the French language both in terms of its sexual climax as well as by what is called the ‘language of birds’ – ie, homophony.

Death…

Let’s first observe one amongst hundreds of sets of the Dance of Death – the dance macabre.

But also, as we look through it, let’s reflect on how this shows us its face – for again we tend to live in a buffered universe, with, for us, two pillars marking the beginning and the ending of life.

Not sure about you, but seeing these shows those pillars to be but door posts..

Also observe how the social stations of all and sundry were shown – again the chain of being, this time showing its well-structured microcosmic reflection here on Earth.

I suggest looking through this [partial] set again.

Let’s reflect on how the death of someone can variously be felt.

In the earlier, porous, instance, it’s our common death. When you die, something in our community passes away and dies. It is not simply that ‘you’ die, but rather that the current ‘we’ dies and has to establish itself anew. ‘The King is dead, long live the king’ gains, in this way of thinking, an entirely different sense to focussing on the individuality of the person: the community shifts and allows the social chain of being to become complete again. WE are dead, and we are coming to a new life… again, a very porous self is reflected in this understanding. The Shaman ‘feels’ the death of the community with a single person passing through the gates of life and death. And that community’s re-emerging – with the person dead now ‘simply’ accupying a new position within the connected porous chain.

In a different, a little more modern, way of viewing it, but still not quite contemporary, the individual, the me, dies… thus ‘me’ has a need for the community to support me in my journey yonder: the world has become semi-porous, in that the reality of spiritual beings is ever present, but at arm’s length.

In the buffered world, in our world it is simply the you that seems to die – the ‘you’ upon which so much was invested. You are no more. The relationships cease, and only remain in memory. Hence the need to celebrate the life that was. Of course, as I said earlier, many of us do not solely live in a totally buffered world – yet the norm and social view is that this is what the world is, and the sub-text is that we need to ‘grow up and come to grips with it!’

In the sacred engagement with death, there appears, at least for myself, a greater or more encompassing sense than just the relational ‘you’: it is each ‘me’, each ‘we’, that also sheds its life and transforms.

And you know, in all this, I have only hinted at the differences as to spiritual views, for what I have said thus far could easily be understood within a Buddhist or a Christian or neo-Pagan or Hermetic way.

Let’s look at l’Amoureux…

By the way, the reason I mentioned the close rapport between the two is that ‘l’Amour’ and ‘La Mort’ sound awfully close… and when uttered by some ‘paysan’ or country folk, would have been undifferentiable to outside ears.

Let’s consider this card – ostensibly of marriage.

Here I’ll begin by reflecting on some English friends of ours whose son recently married a Chinese woman. The cultures could have been other, it’s just an actual example.

At the wedding reception, each family group was somewhat horrified at the ‘insulting’ manner in which the other appeared to lack respect and honour the situation: the English spoke of THEIR – ie, the couple’s, new and independent fruitful and life-engaging existence; the Chinese spoke of the enriched and broadened unified family (or we would still say ‘familieS’) that now spanned across two continents.

Effectively, to the hearing of the Chinese, the English were sending them off on their own implying that they are not welcome as part and parcel of integrated family-community; and to the hearing of the English, the Chinese were now using the wedding of their respective children as a means by which to insinuate themselves into the buffered and private personal lives of others.

Certainly, of course, the arrow of cupid and the new marriage may be experienced rather as a lightning bolt to the existing home.

But there’s much more to the point I want to make.

It’s not so much that the new couple enter a new relationship with each other and with their community, but rather the inverse ways in which this can take place.

In the porous world, the community finds within its being a new space for the couple, and, indeed, love may even come after the development of the relationship. In the buffered world, the couple creates new communities as it establishes itself. To give an analogy from Kabalah – though this is using a porous-world description to account for the buffered one – the plenitude to the community undergoes tzimtzum: it withdraws and creates space for the establishment of the new couple.

This is, at least in part, also what the two families were faced with: the Chinese family spokesman was speaking on behalf of the community and asserting that they are welcome in the now expanded world of the co-joined community and that due space will be provided; in contrast, the English family spokesman was speaking in recognition that henceforth they (the couple) will forge their own new and enriching inter-linked micro-communities.

Each was, in its own way, welcoming the couple as couple.

So what does this have to do with vatical and sacral uses of the tarot?

I’ll finish by answering this in three ways.

Firstly,

the ways in which the world is held as sacred will impact on the very meaning the imagery presented in the context of a reading. A sense of the differences between the social reality of various communities, heightened by a sense of the historical with regards to the way in which the imagery is presented, allows for both a reflection of its sacred content as well as to the ‘message’ it presents.

Secondly,

meditative or contemplative work on any of the cards requires that, again, not only its historical context be delved into, but also how such imagery may have instructed in a world that was held in a far more porous way than is our own.

Finally,

there is both the combined manner in which manteic or vatical use, ie, readings, becomes itself sacred act – sacred with regards to those with whom one has a sacred engagement; as well as the flipside of the same coin, the union between the way that reflection upon the card’s meanings becomes, as sacred act, a mantaeic art towards the transformation of the heart – metanoia – towards theosis.

Two years ago, a variety of answers to the question ‘What is Tarot?’ was presented in this Newsletter (#12). During the December 2005 Melbourne Tarot Café, a similar yet quite distinct question was asked, for which replies were requested in a thread on Aeclectic’s tarotforum.net. So…

…what is the function of the tarot reading? with the question left undefined allowing its myriad senses play in the replies.

What is tarot?

For me, it gives insights into my life and what’s happening around me, thus usually helping me to make better decisions for myself.

Except for the occasional grandchild, I don’t read for others, so tarot is useful only in my own life.

Red Emma

It’s a clear answer, that if you stick to has no ifs ands or buts.

carly

Coming from a counselling-psych background, I use tarot to help the person explore the psycho-spiritual aspects of their situation to identify strengths and problem areas, and investigate what the person can do to build on those strengths and untangle the problems through increased awareness and action. Thus, for me, the function of a tarot reading is, in effect, to create a counselling environment with a focus on active involvement of the readee.

mythos

I believe it is a process for reflecting on the por-trayed images, then speaking of what such images suggest to our associations and imaginations…an opportunity to talk or think of how an allegory, feeling and image can creatively relate to a situation or question…

Cerulean

I would say that the function of a tarot reading is to explain and clarify by showing which actions will bring you to your best or desired conclusion.

tarotbear

To me, the function of a tarot reading is used to give insight on myself, others, and situations I may be in, at the present or past. I also use it to divine the future, so that I may make better choices.

Azarial

The tarot reading is a tool to find alternative ways of looking at problems and potential solutions. It allows us to separate ourselves from the questions just enough to gain a new perspective while remaining close enough to feel the crux of the issues.

FaerieSage

The function of a tarot reading is to help a person to get the perspective and insights of any situation and to let them know how their actions or other people actions or inaction’s can help or affect their future.

Tara Deck

The function of tarot for me is to allow insights into situations and even just life in general that you may not have known or thought of as yet. It helps to solve problems and gain clarity.

Emeraldgirl

The purpose of the tarot reading is to provide a trigger to jar memories, feelings and ideas loose from the dark recesses of the mind (heart/soul) and to stimulate dialogue with the higher self.

firemaiden

To me, the function of a tarot reading is to help querents gain insight into their past, present, and future; to assist querents in making difficult choices; and to generally give querents the opportunity to explore issues and questions that they would not feel comfortable talking about in any other context.

Annabelle4

The Tarot can be seen as a kind of algebra of the subconscious, allowing it to be analysed at the conscious level.

From Wikipedia

I believe The Tarot as with most divination tools. They help keep you focused, on the issues at hand.

Dancing Bear

The function of Tarot is to enable someone to feel in control of their future thereby giving them a sense of hope.

Mimers

The function of the tarot reading is to give one the information one needs to produce the outcomes one desires in life.

Major Tom

For me, the Tarot provides a framework on which to hang a question, turn it around and even inside out, so that our conscious may look at the question differently and our unconscious may have a voice to express its view on the matter.

aja

Asking the Tarot is like asking a neutral yet knowing outsider to provide useful insight to a problem or question; it allows us to see the situation from another perspective in order to make our decisions in life.

Milfoil

For me, Tarot reading provides a means of translating energies present in the querent’s life and universe into a pattern of symbols and images (cards), that can be used for insight, meditation, self-improvement, or other magic!

WoodSorrel

The function of Tarot is to help you make decisions and learn about yourself.

sosuper

I find that Tarot readings help us to ask ourselves question we would not otherwise ask ourselves. The right ones.

closrapexa

For me a tarot reading is like taking a snapshot of a situation.

It helps me to see things from different perspectives or just to see the ‘bigger picture’.

A tarot reading helps me to see the options I have and so helps me to make more informed choices and decisions.

Sulis

For me the tarot cards are markers or guides to a path. Every person has a different path to lead so every reading is different even if the same cards are used over and over again. The reason for this diversity is because of energy that is prjected into these cards by the reader (if you’re doing it for yourself) or the querent. The energy is reflected in these cards, and the reader has the calling of interpreting them.

Tongodiva

I see tarot as a way of putting thoughts, themes and issues that are in your mind, in all different levels of conciousness, into a physical, visual form. it lets you lay elements of your life and mind out, see how they relate to each other, play with them, analyse them and understand them. Also, tarot’s history and symbolism allows you to see your own issues in a wider context of history and wisdom.

powdermonkey

It gives us more to consider, more options, or confirms our own thoughts… it makes us think.

Moonbow*

A tarot reading is to help us meet whatever happens in the best possible way.

The function of a tarot reading is to help a querent/self alleviate anxieties, achieve goals, and to find meaning in experiences.

Teheuti (Mary)

A tarot reading is a conversation with the collective unconscious, using the language of symbol and image to access the wisdom of humanity.

gypsy_morrigan

I use a tarot reading (either personal or paid exchange) to get some clarity of the message(s) that the gods are trying to drum into my thick head

peaceful zazen (Tim)

Voici a miscellany of ingenious thoughts and reflections…all in one sentence

The Tarot Reading puts you in an undefined space-&-time and helps you to redefine ÒyourÓ space-&-time…

etboa

A Snapshot of Where You Are On Your Life Path

That is what I believe is Tarot’s highest purpose. You read the cards to see where your current actions and reactions are taking you along life’s path. A good reading will show you a ÒsnapshotÓ a still frame of where you are, where you have been and where you are going if the current climate and your actions remain the same.

Actions and outlooks can be changed to help arrive at a more positive outcome if the cards show a less than bright future. People can shore up their courage and take comfort in the climax of the 10 to know that it can only get better from there. The outcome card is only the true outcome if you continue to act and react the way you have been. Even if the outcome card reveals a physical reality over which the querent has no control, the knowledge of the event or emotion can make all the difference in the person’s mental state when same comes to call in linear time.

Readers and querants alike can benefit greatly from doing/having regular Tarot readings and recording them. This is one of the most illuminating things you can do with the Tarot – if you do regular readings, after a year you will have an incredibly valuable map to which you can refer to see how you are doing with your progress toward being the best person you can be and ride the tides of life’s changes with a minimum of despair.

Asradel

Tarot readings allows us to gain insights into situations, ourselves and others, and encourages responsibility to respond accordingly.

jmd (entry also in Tarotpedia)

The ways in which this question has been answered takes somewhat for granted that we are referring to a deck of 78 cards, of which 22 are images, and 56 reflect, with the addition of Knights, our ‘standard’ pack of fifty-two playing cards. I am reminded of reading an ethnographic study, in which the native, responding to a question as to the origin of new-borns, indicated the Dreaming or the Stars: the study concluded that the native was ignorant of the relation between sex and pregnancy. Rather, some knowledge, in context, is taken as given, and a student new to a subject may at times want far more straightforward answers to a question which has material, psychological, historical, social and spiritual ways in which responses are possible. Below are some of the many possible answers… reflecting on these, with a deck by one’s side, may certainly deepen our own understanding.

I would like to extand a special thankyou to the many at Aeclectic who have provided the various responses here included and intersperced with extracted quotes from various books – these latter of course taken totally out of their peculiar contexts, and may therefore not reflect respective authors’ central views.

The Tarot is of intense interest to the occult student because it contains an outline of Initiation; and as some form of Initiation has formed the heart of every world religion, the truths contained in the Tarot symbolism are universal and belong to no one race, creed or culture, but constitute a textbook for every serious aspirant on the Path of Light.

Corinne Heline in The Bible & the Tarot, pp129-130.

Tarot is a living picture book that changes every time we read it!

skytwig on Aeclectic

The Tarot pack of cards [...] is the primitive book of ancient initiation.

Papus in The Tarot of the Bohemians, pvii.

Tarot is art. Tarot is a focus on what it is to be human. Tarot is a guide through our conscious allowing us to view the options and chose better paths. Tarot is an ancient gift from our ancestors, and even though we modernize it or view it in different fashions, the basic truth of the human reality is there to be learned from.

mercenary30 on Aeclectic

[...] one must hope that a new tarot will actually talk to others – and not merely artistically, or as a visual novelty, but as a vehicle for usable insights, ideas, and feelings.

Brian Williams in Book of Fools, pxiii.

A book of seventy-eight detachable pages which may be read in any order or manner one wishes, to which any system of philosophy may be applied, no matter how contrived.

firemaiden on Aeclectic

Is it possible that there is some connection between the Tarot cards and the great encyclopedia of the Rosicrucians? They announced their book containing the entire knowledge of the world as a kind of symbolic work, through the study of which all scientific and philosophical speculations were integrated into one mathematical pattern.

Manly P. Hall in The Tarot: an Essay, p15.

Tarot is a friend you can talk to; a friend who tells you not only the good things in life but also the bad…

jog1118 on Aeclectic

[...] tarot images offer a framework, guides and mileposts on an otherwise uncharted and therefore frightening journey.

Irene Gad in Tarot and Individuation, pxxiii

[The structure of the Tarot] is necessitated [...] by the structure of the universe, and in particular of the Solar System, as symbolized by the Holy Qabalah.

Aleister Crowley in The Book of Thoth, p3

Tarot cards are only pieces of paper with images on it. Images that Tarot readers interpret and relate the symbols into meanings. Tarot readings can provide information about what is known and what is unknown. [...]. Some people believe that Tarot readings work due to spirit guides telling us what the meanings are, other people believe it to be a tool to contact the higher spiritual self (or soul), others who are skeptic believe it be too vague, therefore, any tarot reading would fit anyone. [...]

sagitarian on Aeclectic

Tarot cards were unquestionably invented to play a particular type of game [...]

Michael Dummett in The Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards, p3

[...] tarot cards work [...] by providing a channel for the reader’s intuitive responses to impressions coming from his or her unconscious mind [...]

Rowenna Stuart in Tarot, pp 9-10

The Tarot was designed to play a game. [...Their] symbols have a meaning and significance that goes beyond mere card game.

Robert O’Neill in Tarot Symbolism, p5

For me, modern tarot provides a wonderful structure and expressive means where pictures can be used with symbols in an imaginative way. I find its evolution from beautiful historical miniatures to different card games and then ‘magical’ allegories quite fascinating. There’s even historical poems and literary figures associated with it.

Mari_Hoshizaki on Aeclectic

There are many methods for developing the ‘sense of symbols’ in those who are striving to understand the hidden forces of Nature and Man, and for teaching the fundamental principles as well as the elements of the esoteric language. The most synthetic [...] is the Tarot.
P. D. Ouspensky in The Symbolism of the Tarot, p3

The Tarot is like a mirror that we can hold up to help us see into our blind spots – it takes what lies in our subconscious minds and lays it out in front of us where we can see it more clearly.

Pat Martian, Conference Presenter

[...] it’s an aid to tapping into the Universal Consciousness that we all have an ability for but that many are afraid to use. I’m so glad I overcame that fear.

mzmystic on Aeclectic

Tarot is a wise being with a divine intelligence and universal proportions. Its symbols are like beautiful multifaceted gems. The discovery and contemplation of each one may reflect parts of our being previously hidden or lying dormant. So too, our life and world may be reflected back to us in richly woven symbols for our deeper consideration or action.

p.

[...] the Tarot stands of falls by its own merits. Admittedly the Tarot does correlate with the Kabala at certain points, but this correlation is also patently evident with other metaphysical systems, with none so strongly as with Sankara’s Vedanta.

Carlyle A. Pushong in The Tarot of the Magi, p12

Tarot could easily have been a highly sophisticated pictorial memory system, tapping deep levels of consciousness, and is still used as a focus for contemplation today.

Jane Lyle in Tarot, p13

No collection of symbols is comparable to it, revealing as it does, wisdom of a completely unarbitrary kind, for each of us discerns it freely, without being prey to any other suggestion but that of silent pictures.

Oswald Wirth in The Tarot of the Magicians, p11

[...] there is plenty of evidence to show that the 22 Tarot trumps are the remnants of a late-medieval instructive card game. [...] it is perhaps no coincidence that the first card games employing memory images appeared almost coincidentally with the invention of printing in Europe.

Brian Innes in The Tarot, p10

The Tarot is a truly philosophical machine, which keeps the mind from wandering, while leaving its initiative in liberty; it is mathematics applied to the Absolute.

Eliphas Levi in Transcendental Magic

The Tarot are keys. Keys that allow us passage through the doorway of the mind, and entry into the territory of the spirit – the province of the divine.

Umbrae on Aeclectic

Tarot is the instrument of our wisdom.
Tarot is a navigation tool for the soul.
… and my favorite,
Tarot is 78 images that are gateways to the imageless.

Rachel Pollack, Conference Presenter

In traditional Western occultism, the Tarot is recognized as the keystone of the whole philosophical system called Hermeticism.

Mouni Sadhu in The Tarot, p11

Tarot is a tool & a teacher. Tools are used to fix and build things, the tarot helps to fix and build our lives. Tarot teaches us about ourselves and life around us. Tarot gives advise and encouragement, and can warn us of dangers. Tarot can be a connection to the mystical plane like spirits & such. Some hear the voice of the Divine through tarot, for without tarot, there would be no other way.

lunalafey on Aeclectic

As a technique for looking into the future, the Tarot set offers possibilities not contained in other predictive methods.

Fred Gettings in Tarot, p7

Tarot shows you the doors to Possibility, and gives you the golden keys to open them.

Diana on Aeclectic

[Tarot cards] are increasingly capturing the attention of serious students, who view the cards as a repository of a very complex system for the development of inner knowledge.

Robert Wang in The Qabalistic Tarot, pxv

Through choice or chance, depending upon one’s viewpoint, the twenty-two Major Arcana cards from the seventy-eight card tarot deck are clearly interwoven into our daily lives.

Stuart Kaplan in Tarot Classic, p2

Tarot is much like a layer-cake, built up from historical substrata which were laid down up to three thousand years before the cards were printed. [...] Tarot is the continuation of a long and rich cross-cultural conversation, carried on through the generations between mystics of the western tradition.

Christine Payne-Towler in The Underground Stream, pvi

Tarot is an iconographic-spiritual, soul-psychological and mathematical book permitting the Imaginative faculty divined insights.

Jean-Michel David, Conference Presenter

The Tarot is an ensemble of figures which symbolically express man’s striving for the accomplishment of his evolution, in other words for arriving at destiny’s inscribed ends, an evolution which will demand of him struggles, efforts, joys and sufferings accordingly as he aligns himself or not with universal laws.

Paul Marteau in Le Tarot de Marseille (trans. rather literally by jmd)

Tarot is a complete education!

jewel-ry on Aeclectic

[...] it seems likely that [Tarot cards] were devised to represent grades or stages in a system of initiation.

Alfred Douglas in The Tarot, p39

Tarot is a set of images in which, through grace, I see what truly is and what may be.

Moongold on Aeclectic

[...] it is the Arcana which stimulate us and at the same time guide us in the art of learning. In this sense, the Major Arcana of the Tarot are a complete, entire, invaluable school of meditation, study, and spiritual effort – a mastery school in the art of learning.

UA in Meditations on the Tarot, p5

Tarot is a book without words whose story is rewritten each time we use it. It is a tool for self-growth and self-exploration. Tarot enhances our creativity, our intuition, and our self esteem, each time we use it.

Mimers on Aeclectic

[...] the Tarot provides the key to a whole new range of human ability that is not limited by the perceptions of the five physical senses. [...] It is a way of cultivating the intuition.

Gareth Knight in The Magical World of the Tarot, p2

… how wonderful is Tarot!…