DrZoidberg
Contributor
I've started on a project to create my own tarot deck. Not to get rich. But just as a fun little project for me, my lovers and friends. I like to paint, I like to write poetry I am into philosophy and I like to play around with occultism. I think it's a good combo use of my available talents.
Since starting this I keep having conversations where people were asking why. So I wrote a text justifying my project. I think this forum is just the kind of people to critique this. Please do your best to rip apart my logic. You don't need to be gentle. I'm not going to be hurt.
Tarot deck mission statement
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We go through life putting labels on things, sorting them, squeezing big things into small boxes. Not because we are stupid or unenlightened. But simply because life is complicated and we need to do this to be able to function in society. Sometimes (or quite often) we don’t have time to connect with our feelings, and be conscious about why we do what we do. Because we just need to get stuff done. When we do give ourselves the permission and time to fully connect with ourselves, we might feel a bit lost. Its a question of practice.
I created this deck in order to help us get out of our current personal logical and ordered universe and to connect with other universes. Some archetypes are more universal, and some simply an other perspective. To me tarot and spirituality is the practice of breaking through the rigid patterns we have built for ourselves to connect with other patterns of behaviours and structures of thinking. We first need to let go to be able to connect with a new perspective.
Occultism comes from the Latin “occultus”, that which is hidden. Esotericism, hermeticism, magic, witchcraft, spirituality, mysticism and tarot are all traditions to study this. We can interpret these traditions as as the study of the supernatural. Meaning, with the correct rituals and words we can manipulate the physical world and bend it to our will.
Another interpretation, and the one I will use, is more mundane and not supernatural at all. We can use magical rituals and practices to reveal and manipulate our subconscious. To reveal that which is hidden from our conscious mind, yet undeniably rule us. We have all done or said things that we’d many times promised ourselves we wouldn’t do again. We’ve all repeated destructive patterns we know are destructive. Yet, we keep repeating them. It's this the magician seeks to reveal and change.
In the modern world we have a language to describe this, psychology. But the tools with which to manipulate our subconscious are as old as humanity itself. And, I would argue, are at the core of every religion and spiritual practice. We use them because they work. We use them for social control and self control. These tools have been honed and perfected over the millennia. Each tradition and practice system continuously evolving to fit the needs of a changing world. Following the rise of the enlightenment and secular culture the elite priestly class who used to control these tools, lost that control. The practices were spread to a wider audience by people like Hermes Trismagistus, John Dee, Eliphas Levi, Austin Osman Spare, Dion Fortune, MacGregor Mathers, Aleister Crowley and Anton Szandor LaVey. Today the problem isn’t access to this information, but rather a lacking guidance for how to use these tools, and an absence of ways to integrate these tools into everyday life.
We all have a multitude of wills and voices within ourselves pulling in different directions. More or less conscious to us. The Jungian archetype system was an attempt to categorise these inner voices in a way that made sense to modern psychology. Similarly each tarot card is designed to speak to one of those inner voices. Conscious or hidden. The goal here is to make the hidden visible.
Contemporary psychology rests upon the idea that the feelings, emotions, narrative and world views that we are culturally subjected to can be integrated. That means that we have them rather than them having us. I believe the traditional tools of magic can help with that. We can get closer to laying bare the inner processes, the elements, events that make your experience of self. Not your experience of the physical world. But your inner cognitive representation of it. To make conscious the ways you bend the perception of reality to fit your emotional needs. Not only your ego. But the complex construction of self you have built to fit into your social and cultural context, built upon a gendered primate neural architecture. We can call the conscious and volitional manipulation of these, to change our experience, magic.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Biography:
This part isn't part of the text. But it's more of a background if you are interested in the background of this. You can just skip this. I used to be a rabid atheist who hated religion. I've never had any belief in the supernatural at any time of my life. 2012 me and some friends came across "Religion for Atheists" by Alain de Botton. The theory behind it is that religious practice is great. That's why religion exists. It's not fundamentally about belief in anything supernatural. That's just what religious people say. But it's not why they're religious. Incidentally the same view of Jürgen Habermas. So me and my friends created a religion. A religion for atheists. We called it Syntheism. It's now a thing and has a life of it's own. Our organisational theory was that modern religion doesn't need cult leaders telling everybody what to believe. The Internet and social media gives us all the tools to create viable bottom up religious organisations where the collective can act as priests for eachother. All we needed to do was to start doing it for ourselves and if it was any good it would catch on. The forrest fire of Syntheism has been raging since we started it, and it's way beyond any of our control. There's now loosely affiliated "churches" all over northern, western and southern Europe. Which I'm cool with. It's by design.
Since we started the Syntheism project I've been systematically studied every religion, read every sacred text ever created in human history (there's not as many as that sounds like). I've studied occultism and mysticism.
I now have a deep respect for religion and spirituality. Something all of us who started Syntheism realised along the way, is that the world doesn't really need Syntheism. You can be an atheist and belong to any of the already existing religions or spiritual systems. They will work just fine anyway. Or better. I think supernatural beliefs are a pure distraction from the core of any religion. The reason why, I think, Syntheism is still going as it's own thing is because old timey religion feels a bit tainted through the use and abuse of religion through the ages. I don't have a favourite. If I had to pick one I'd probably go with Greek/Roman paganism. But I think the religions are too similar for it to matter much. Several of us (three to be exact) who started Syntheism have converted to Christianity and become priests (a variety of denominations). Which is interesting. With quite creative and sophisticated ways to interpret what God is. We all agree that religion and spiritual work is important. I'm still just as much as atheists as I've always been. I don't believe in the supernatural the slighest little bit. After studying religion I now think I better understand why belief in the supernatural is so widespread. Since the belief in the supernatural is no longer baffling to me, that makes me less likely than ever to believe in the supernatural.
Creating a tarot deck is part of my spritual journey and spiritual work.
Since starting this I keep having conversations where people were asking why. So I wrote a text justifying my project. I think this forum is just the kind of people to critique this. Please do your best to rip apart my logic. You don't need to be gentle. I'm not going to be hurt.
Tarot deck mission statement
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We go through life putting labels on things, sorting them, squeezing big things into small boxes. Not because we are stupid or unenlightened. But simply because life is complicated and we need to do this to be able to function in society. Sometimes (or quite often) we don’t have time to connect with our feelings, and be conscious about why we do what we do. Because we just need to get stuff done. When we do give ourselves the permission and time to fully connect with ourselves, we might feel a bit lost. Its a question of practice.
I created this deck in order to help us get out of our current personal logical and ordered universe and to connect with other universes. Some archetypes are more universal, and some simply an other perspective. To me tarot and spirituality is the practice of breaking through the rigid patterns we have built for ourselves to connect with other patterns of behaviours and structures of thinking. We first need to let go to be able to connect with a new perspective.
Occultism comes from the Latin “occultus”, that which is hidden. Esotericism, hermeticism, magic, witchcraft, spirituality, mysticism and tarot are all traditions to study this. We can interpret these traditions as as the study of the supernatural. Meaning, with the correct rituals and words we can manipulate the physical world and bend it to our will.
Another interpretation, and the one I will use, is more mundane and not supernatural at all. We can use magical rituals and practices to reveal and manipulate our subconscious. To reveal that which is hidden from our conscious mind, yet undeniably rule us. We have all done or said things that we’d many times promised ourselves we wouldn’t do again. We’ve all repeated destructive patterns we know are destructive. Yet, we keep repeating them. It's this the magician seeks to reveal and change.
In the modern world we have a language to describe this, psychology. But the tools with which to manipulate our subconscious are as old as humanity itself. And, I would argue, are at the core of every religion and spiritual practice. We use them because they work. We use them for social control and self control. These tools have been honed and perfected over the millennia. Each tradition and practice system continuously evolving to fit the needs of a changing world. Following the rise of the enlightenment and secular culture the elite priestly class who used to control these tools, lost that control. The practices were spread to a wider audience by people like Hermes Trismagistus, John Dee, Eliphas Levi, Austin Osman Spare, Dion Fortune, MacGregor Mathers, Aleister Crowley and Anton Szandor LaVey. Today the problem isn’t access to this information, but rather a lacking guidance for how to use these tools, and an absence of ways to integrate these tools into everyday life.
We all have a multitude of wills and voices within ourselves pulling in different directions. More or less conscious to us. The Jungian archetype system was an attempt to categorise these inner voices in a way that made sense to modern psychology. Similarly each tarot card is designed to speak to one of those inner voices. Conscious or hidden. The goal here is to make the hidden visible.
Contemporary psychology rests upon the idea that the feelings, emotions, narrative and world views that we are culturally subjected to can be integrated. That means that we have them rather than them having us. I believe the traditional tools of magic can help with that. We can get closer to laying bare the inner processes, the elements, events that make your experience of self. Not your experience of the physical world. But your inner cognitive representation of it. To make conscious the ways you bend the perception of reality to fit your emotional needs. Not only your ego. But the complex construction of self you have built to fit into your social and cultural context, built upon a gendered primate neural architecture. We can call the conscious and volitional manipulation of these, to change our experience, magic.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Biography:
This part isn't part of the text. But it's more of a background if you are interested in the background of this. You can just skip this. I used to be a rabid atheist who hated religion. I've never had any belief in the supernatural at any time of my life. 2012 me and some friends came across "Religion for Atheists" by Alain de Botton. The theory behind it is that religious practice is great. That's why religion exists. It's not fundamentally about belief in anything supernatural. That's just what religious people say. But it's not why they're religious. Incidentally the same view of Jürgen Habermas. So me and my friends created a religion. A religion for atheists. We called it Syntheism. It's now a thing and has a life of it's own. Our organisational theory was that modern religion doesn't need cult leaders telling everybody what to believe. The Internet and social media gives us all the tools to create viable bottom up religious organisations where the collective can act as priests for eachother. All we needed to do was to start doing it for ourselves and if it was any good it would catch on. The forrest fire of Syntheism has been raging since we started it, and it's way beyond any of our control. There's now loosely affiliated "churches" all over northern, western and southern Europe. Which I'm cool with. It's by design.
Since we started the Syntheism project I've been systematically studied every religion, read every sacred text ever created in human history (there's not as many as that sounds like). I've studied occultism and mysticism.
I now have a deep respect for religion and spirituality. Something all of us who started Syntheism realised along the way, is that the world doesn't really need Syntheism. You can be an atheist and belong to any of the already existing religions or spiritual systems. They will work just fine anyway. Or better. I think supernatural beliefs are a pure distraction from the core of any religion. The reason why, I think, Syntheism is still going as it's own thing is because old timey religion feels a bit tainted through the use and abuse of religion through the ages. I don't have a favourite. If I had to pick one I'd probably go with Greek/Roman paganism. But I think the religions are too similar for it to matter much. Several of us (three to be exact) who started Syntheism have converted to Christianity and become priests (a variety of denominations). Which is interesting. With quite creative and sophisticated ways to interpret what God is. We all agree that religion and spiritual work is important. I'm still just as much as atheists as I've always been. I don't believe in the supernatural the slighest little bit. After studying religion I now think I better understand why belief in the supernatural is so widespread. Since the belief in the supernatural is no longer baffling to me, that makes me less likely than ever to believe in the supernatural.
Creating a tarot deck is part of my spritual journey and spiritual work.
