THE TAROT | | why, how and how far ZEXS TCHALAIT for |GRIMAUD) 1982The English version of this method is dedicated to John Boorman. You are interested in the Tarot. You do not know very clearly why. You are vaguely aware that it contains elements which could help you grasp a number of truths about yourself, your orientations and your future, or about things that have from time immemorial remained difficultly accessible, concerning the nature of the world and the destiny of human beings, about what people mysteriously call “knowledge”. But you do not know which way to handle the Tarot. You are disturbed by the appearance of some cards. Possibly, you recognize shapes, images or ideas which seem familiar or mea- ningful, but what is to be done with, say, the VI of Cup? You have reads books that deal with the Tarot, you have realized that a consi- derable ammount of big words are to be found there, and a great deal of moralizing. You have noted that the authors display a lot of confidence about what they profess while remaining rather hazy; you wonder to whase authority they are indebted for such asser- tiveness, while as far as you are concerned you just manage to skim over the surface of the Tarot; you wonder how true their affirma- tions are: for, in order to butress their own explanation of the Tarot, they keep referring to other systems, or to their own inner convic- tions, which, admittedly, are not necessa- rily erroneous. But, although unable to articulate your impression, you have a deep-rooted feeling that there is something more, that the Tarot is something other than this muddy, muzzy and dusty mixture. You are right. The Tarot is in itself a living construction, a pure and inte- 1gral path. {It is you; it is the Universe. What you only need is a means to see it. Here is a method. Yes, a method — even if the word sounds unpleasant with this schoolish and rational ring toit. Be aware of this straight off: The Tarot is indeed a school. A simple school for children (and for those who know how to become children again). And, in fact, access to what is called the irrational is possible only via arational methed. A method that science could accept, and which would allow one to substantiate a series of objective proofs of the validity of the Tarot — and no longer subjective ones, based on too personai 4 scaie of values. At the threshold of the year 2000, or of what astrologists call “the Aquarian Era", Tarot study belongs to the fields which border upon advanced science, touching the fringe bet- ween two clearly defined domains — though often merging into each other: the collective unconscious on the one hand — in the sense given to it by C.G. Jung — and the holonomic laws of the Universe, on the other hand. The Tarot makes up a set of 78 cards, but also infinitely more numerous series and cycles, each element of which is undetachable from the others, bound to them in a state of inter- connectedness (*) which cannot be pulled apart. Could it then be a model, a “design” of the Universe ? You are lucky enough to hold in your hands the Marseille Tarot, the most experience-packed, therefore the most reliable that has ever been produced: conform to tradition in its minutest details, with colours owing their lasting quality to the art of the 1981 chemist and printer, and yet accurate and very beautiful. Let us now consider how to approach it. With method ! Our Ariadne thread will consist in this: WHY does the Tarot exist ? WHY can it be said that it comes from the Future ? etc. HOW will you be able to find your own inner schemas in the Tarot, and those common to the whole known Universe, without breaking loose from day- to-day reality ? etc. HOW FAR canyou go, avoi- ding approximate and dangerous divination, while replacing it by something far superior, vaster, far more beautiful, i.e. by becoming a co-creator of the Future: yours, and that of the world. (*) The expression “inseparable interconnec- tednass" is from the physicist David Bohm.