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Articles
Introduction to "The Initiate's Journey to Magical Readership"
The Fool's Journey to Wholeness is a model
of interpreting the central psycho/spiritual message depicted
in the Major Arcana. It signifies a psychic map that initiates
of the Tarot follow to attain enlightenment. Enlightenment
in this case representing a psychic awareness of oneness,
the cycles of birth, death and rebirth, egoless-ness, love,
and the balancing of energies. This spiritual map guides initiates
through a maze of relating, balancing and experiencing the
play between masculine/feminine, black/white, chaos/order,
nurturance/self care, love/fear, movement/stillness, doing/being,
sacred masculine/sacred feminine.
Just as all spiritual paths have prescribed tests that must
be successfully navigated for expanded consciousness, in preparation
for the ultimate state of wholeness, so does the Journey of
the Fool in the Tarot. These expanded consciousness states
prepare initiates to manage, and contain the energy surges
rising from the personal and collective unconscious. As experienced
Tarotists will testify, this movement to expanded consciousness
ever spirals around and upward. The initiate continues to
expand beyond your first arrival to wholeness - wholeness
is a process, not a fait accompli.
It wasn't until I began the interpretive work on my own Major
Arcana (www.tarotbykathleen.com/gallery.html) that I recognized
the power of this process manifesting in my life. When I began
interpreting original art work for a piece called the "Major
of the Month", for the web site (www.tarotbykathleen.com),
I was struck by the synchronicity of the appropriateness of
the card to events taking place in my life. Two or three months
into the work, I was astounded to realize that this was more
than synchronicity - this was magic. In awe, I noted a predictable
resonance between my Majors work, and my dramatically altering
life events.
In a moment, I realized that my students were going through
the same transformational process in their lives; transforming
life events dancing in step with their journey to magical
readership. Magical readership is the kind of readership that
gracefully and brilliantly combines intuition with Tarot academia,
empathy with self-awareness, practicality with frivolity,
and Yin with Yang.
Ffiona Morgan, author of the Daughters
of the Moon states, "There were times when
I feared our intense transformational process would prevent
the tarot’s publication. Events in my life and the environment
threw boulders in my path at every turn."
Morgan describes this same process engaging all the wimmin
involved in the Daughter's of the Moon creation almost 30
years ago, and many more Tarot initiates have become aware
of this same phenomenon.
Central to my point is that The Initiates Journey to Magical
Readership represents a feminine path to enlightenment.
The core of the Tarot experience is reading the Tarot
- this represents the ultimate goal of the Tarot's teachings.
The Tarot as Guru-ess, guides initiates along a sacred path
to wisdom whereby they will perform as wise ones guiding others
through their readings. The Tarot teaches and demonstrates
the developmental tasks that are archetypal through a series
of images that point specifically and uniquely to the power
of the sacred feminine.
Additionally, readership is a profoundly relational activity
and women develop psychologically within relationship, not
outside it. (Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice 1982). Also
read StarHawk's book Spiral Dance Special 20th Anniversary Edition).
Herstorically, women have been criticized for lacking in
moral development, (ie. their "personal" focus narrows
their ability to see the big picture making it virtually impossible
for them to possess the necessary objectivity to be judges,
politicians, and policy makers). Until Carol Gilligan completed
her ground breaking research that demonstrated how women grow
to full maturity within the context of relationship, women
were described as immature males.
Cynthia Giles, author of two excellent books on the Tarot,
points out in her work that women have traditionally been
the "fortune-tellers" while predominantly, males
have Kinged the presumably loftier positions as the academic
esoterics.
The time has come for Tarotists to reclaim the word "fortune-teller"
just as the women's movement have reclaimed other words like
"crone", "hag", "witch" and
"dyke". This is an important step for us to take
as Tarotists in the 21st century. Women as "fortune-tellers"
have been doing valuable psycho-spiritual work in their communities
for centuries. They have followed a path to enlightenment
which profoundly exemplifies what a woman's path to enlightenment
looks like! Women doing the grass roots work of nurturing
others to enlightenment, empowerment and ultimately freedom.
The interpersonal aspects of counseling is exemplified in
the vision of a woman sitting at her kitchen table with friends
and their deck of cards; empathetically, and with words of
encouragement, and love sharing their worries, hopes, dreams,
fears, angers, and joys.
Meanwhile, the Kings in Tarot (Paul Foster Case, Edward Waite,
Aleister Crowley and other known male members of the Hermetic
Order) are writing and pontificating on the meanings, dictating
how the cards should be read, and determining how the true
divinatory meanings must be defined. Meanwhile, they tell
artistically talented women how the cards should be painted
and then do nothing to insure these women are awarded appropriate
recognition and compensation for their extraordinary accomplishment!
Studying, reading and teaching the Tarot, is a huge feminist
issue.
The Journey to Magical Readership is women's journey
to wholeness, magic, and enlightenment. 99% of Tarot readers
are women and 99% of people who go to readers are women. I
hear this everyday in my practice, "Why do you think
it is that only women go to see a Tarot reader?" One
woman joked that she thought it was because men have trouble
asking for directions so why would they seek counsel in determining
a life direction? But I think this feminine domination of
the practice of reading the Tarot, points to a deeper reality.
The Emperor, the Hierophant, the Hermit, the Hanged Man,
and The Devil represent the masculine path but they tell a
very different tale to women. This is why I maintain that
it is crucial that Tarotists wishing to achieve magical readership
read only decks that are non-racist, non-sexist, non-classist,
and non-hierarchal; in effect that we favour only decks that
are inclusive. Magical Readership can only be attained with
the right tool!
This book is an examination and interpretation of initiates'
experiences, and the manifestations of their stages to readership,
unfolding as they study and practice their way to understanding
and working with the Tarot.
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