How to bend people to your will using the Tarot

1. Which deck to use?

Before we start, I must comment on the diversity of Tarot decks available in this, the early twenty-first century.

The tarot deck you use for this work (and, later, you will be using more than one deck) should be one to which you feel a connection. It is also important that the iconography of the cards be clear and consistent.

Tarot cards appear around the same time as card making technology, which in the Western civilizations is around the fifteenth century. Cards are merely a useful technology to communicate a concept. The underlying concept is that of a twenty-two item set that is linearly independent and can be used to describe the Universe. There are twenty one items in a set that can describe the faces and edges of a cube. The six faces correspond to the six planets of astrology (with the outermost visible planet, Saturn, describing the center), and the twelve signs of the zodiac describing the twelve edges of the cube. The three remaining cards describe up-down, east-west, and north-south change of direction vectors, and correspond to the 'outer planets' in astrology: Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. The Builders of the Adytum do the best job of explaining this system and to their weighty body of written work you are directed for more details.

This set of vectors, the tarot, is well defined and corresponds tightly to astrology. One can use the nomenclature of either to define concepts.

In the past, practice was for initiates to make their own tarot decks. Before card technology, this involved making a set of amulets. Cards are easier, so that technology has taken over.

I suggest that you use the BOTA or Rider-Waite deck. I suggest that, in your travels, you find the time to either color a deck, or, even better, craft your own.

We will start by using the major arcana.