THE TAROT

Nobody knows the origin of the Tarot. The Tarot appeared in the end of the XIV century in Italy, and thereupon in France. In 1.781 Court de Gebelin affirmed that the Tarot would be an ancient Egyptian book. But the Egyptian Tarot is a recent invention, mixing drawings in an Egyptian style with hebraic letters, symbols used by the  Middle Age Magic and modern astrological symbols.

The origin of the Tarot is very much older. In prehistorical caverns are drawings and paintings: here is the true origin of the Tarot, in the faculty to think in pictures, to think like our subconscious thinks, to think like the Universe.

The Universe does not thinks in english, nor in french, nor in chemical formulas. Reality thinks in forms, in relations and inter-relations of patterns and energy. To use the Tarot helps us to think like the Universe, to feel, to perceive. The Tarot is an hidden door to enter into an intuitive state, in telepathy, in direct contact with Reality.

The place where a card is correspond to a question. For instance, using three cards, the card on the left corresponds to the past:" How is the past of the problem ? What is the cause of the present situation ?" The middle card correspond to the present: "How is the situation, now ?" The card on the right side asks about the future: "How the past and the present will materialize the future ?" This card shows what probably will  happen, if we stay passive.  Changing the present, we change the future, and we can use the Tarot to receive an inspiration, to know what we need to change to materialize a better future.

The images awake our sensibility, our telepathy, our vision, our perception. We perceive, we know.  The Tarot is a fine training to consciously use the whole of our brain: the left rational hemisphere, which asks with precision, and the right hemisphere which feels, perceives. Thus  with precision we perceive directly what is, the full Reality.

To use the whole of our intelligence is easy. We only need to rationally imagine, feel, perceive, formulate a rational question and thus to feel, to perceive with precision. Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci were doing this. We also can. The Tarot is not necessary to do this, but the Tarot is an excellent training.

Many tarologers believe that the sequence of the Arcanes is significant, from zero to 21. This is true. But any other sequence also is meaningful, as it is shown in the random sequence they use in their practice. In an holistic world, where everything is inter-connected with everything else, nothing happens perchance. Tarots anterior to the Tarot de Marseilles used different sequences. For instance, in the Minchiate of Florence, 2 is the Grand Duke, 3 the Emperor, 4 the Empress, 5 is love, 6 temperance. In a world where everything depends of everything else, the 1, the beginning can be found everywhere. There is no beginning, nor end.
Just for the fun, we'll go to the card without a number, the Fool.

Arcane Zero, The Fool

The name of the Arcane easily can mislead us. The Tarot is not made of names, but of pictures. The name only shows one side, only a possible aspect of the image, which perhaps is not the most important. The name can even prevent us to perceive the true meaning hidden in the picture.  Thus the Arcane 0 can reveal insanity, or very different things.

Inner Travel:
Arcane Zero

Just let you dream.
Find an at ease position,
and let your imagination drive you to The Other Side,
farther than appearances,
to the mysteries and powers of your inner world,
to the inner side ot the World,
to the  secrets hidden behind the appearances.
In the full Light of your conscience, you are going down
to your profound universe, and there you discover a crypt.
On the farther wall, illuminated by the Light of your conscience,
you find a wood door.
On this door is painted a person dressed like a clown.
In his right hand he has a staff,
that he uses as a cane.
On his back he carries a knapsack, which seems empty.
He is walking, and his eyes are badly focused, dreaming, dreaming.
A dog is ready to bite his teared pants.
He is like a rover who does not know  where he is going to.

Curious, you enter into this image:
it is a hidden door to go far away,
you enter into this image, you become this being.
Walking ... to anywhere, looking with the look of dream.
Looking at Nothing,
looking into this Nothingness,
looking into this Mysterious Nothingness from Where the Universe comes,
into this Nothingness which contains the galaxies,
You feel you are a zero.
You feel you are nothing. You feel you are everything.
In communion with this immensity, with the Sky and the Earth,
you feel "All of this, I am."

Walking, you are coming to a little town.
You walk in the main street.
You feel, you know: "Nobody pays attention to this Nothingness I am,
nobody but the dogs. I am a zero"

You take out a crown from your knapsack,
which seemed empty,
you dress yourself as a king,
beginning the theater.
You are an actor playing the role of a king.
The citizens come to admire the spectacle. They applaud.

You dress yourself as a peasant.
You are an actor playing the role of a peasant.
The citizens applaud.

You dress yourself as an old man ...
You dress yourself as a teenager ...
You dress yourself as a naive person ...
You dress yourself as a cunning burglar ...
You dress yourself as a warlord ...
They applaud. They applaud.

And you go away,
you this nothingness,
this king, this teenager, this old man, this warlord, this peasant,
you go away.
The Nothingness you are goes farther,
to dress the immensity,
to dress the paths,
to dress the hills, the trees, the wind, the rain,
to dress the light from the stars,
and the sunlight and the moonlight.
You go, without knowing where to.
Any road goes in the immensity,
goes in the Divine Reality.
Goes, goes in the Mystery of Being.

I am Nothing, I can dress any form,
a king's form, a vagabond's form,
a youthfulness form, an oldness form,
I can chose stupidity, I can chose wisdom.
My knapsack is empty.
My knapsack contains the Sky and the stars,
the Sun and the Moon,
the sea and the forests,
the cities and their citizens
and the wind which comes from the sea,
the wind where the birds are flying
and the luminous wind which comes from the galaxies.
I know nothing, the Universe is too large.
I understand being,
I understand the wind being the wind.
To understand the king I am the king,
to understand Life, I am sheer life,
to understand love I love.
To understand the flash of lightning which falls from the sky
I fall from the sky,
to understand the fire I dance the dance of the flames,
to understand you I am you.
To understand the Divine I enter in communion.
The dogs can bark and bite.
They can bite my clothes.
They cannot bite the Nothingness I am.

Imagining the Temple of the Sun,
you are you, beneath the Great Cascade of Light.
And with pleasure, you dress your human body,
to breath the wind which comes from the sea,
to admire the tranquil beauty of the sunset,
and to partake of the permanent creation of the Universe.

Comment

The Arcane Zero correspond to Neptune, to spirituality, to Saint Juan de la Cruz's  "Nothing, Nothing, Nothing"  and to the Buddha's Nirvana. This is a dangerous Arcane, corresponding to supraconscious (then unconscious) faculties, acting blindly. This is an Arcane of confusion, of Mystic, drunkenness, drugs and inspiration. It is divine when conscious and in harmony with other Arcanes. This is an Arcane of wholeness: alone, this only is the vagabond, the fool.
The Arcane Zero specially needs the Arcane 19, The Sun. To enter in communion, we need somebody else, Somebody, a Sun, a consciousness enter in communion. But if you annihilate yourself, you only enter in confusion.

All of the planets gravitate around the Sun, and the Sun illuminate the planets. Into our inner world, the center is the Sun, our consciousness. Neptune, the mystic, is only a planet.
If we make of Neptune the center of our life, nothing can enter in gravitation. The Spiritual, the Infinite is only a fragment of Reality. Reality is the whole: spiritual, astral and material.
The Arcane Zero needs of the Sun.

We cannot be conscious of everything, it would be a gigantic confusion. We only need to remember that all of the powers of the unconscious are at our disposition. The true Sun illuminates up to Pluto. The true Sun is the whole of the solar system. Everyone of us we have all of the planets in our map. We have all of the powers of the solar system. We are an hologram of the Universe.