At this point I asked Chris if he would like to answer some questions from Jason, a reader who had been enjoying the interview. Below are the results:

1. So how does Chris read his Lovecraftian cards and not come out of every reading with fear that the universe is decaying about him? Or how do his querents feel about this, especially if they ask about their love life? I’ve seen a few cards from the Dark Grimoire deck, and they were all negative looking. (Dramatic though!)

I think I can respond to both points together. Primarily I’d want to start by exploring the notion of polarity; that is, that the Tarot is polarised as both positive and negative.The notion of positive and negative is essentially coming from the idea that there may or may not be some kind of underlying morality to the world, which is a matter of belief and faith. The forces of nature illustrated in the Tarot are, alone without a cohesive morality. The Tarot for me is a tool to explore consequences (divination) and while in combination various types of morality can manifest out of the gestalt to inform the consequences the querent is subject to. Just as in everyday life, this is entirely relative to the individual querent and their situation. Morality more often than not is an anthropocentric cultural narrative, and in our scientific, multicultural and mostly secular society most of the people I encounter are in a moral grey zone as a result. Morality comes from the way in which we read our experiences of life, which is represented by the images of the Tarot. In this way the archetypal images contained in the Tarot can, in their re-combination, give us an ability to formulate our own narrative underpinned by our own experience rather than the experience of others and their agendas.

For me, a Tarot deck must be free of any moral agenda and leave the cards free to be themselves. True, in many of the more shadowy decks available you will find compromises being made so as to limit or modify the range of emotions and ideas that they can express. I call these “genre decks” and they range from decks that have a bleak horror theme to “The Lovers Tarot” and “angel cards”. That’s not really a problem, if you have a lot of them to play around with, like a DVD collection, but you are probably going to find that such decks have massive blind spots and won’t be the best tool for a sincere or important divination.

I don’t put “the Dark Grimoire” Tarot into the “genre tarot” category, although at first glance that’s exactly what it appears to be. There are few, if any blind spot to the Dark Grimoire (TDG), and emotionally it has a broad spectrum. Cards such as the 2 of Cups, the Stars, the Lovers, Temperance, the Sun, the 3 of Cups, the 6 of Cups, 9 of Cups, the 4 of Swords and the Aces, retain their benevolent characteristics in an appropriately whimsical and lyrical way. Even the cards which depict the formidable Lovecraftian entities, if you have read any of these stories; they aren’t negative or misrepresentations of the cards. They are simply expressions of the principles of the cards in the Lovecraftian context which, as I described earlier in my interview with Doug, fit very comfortably in the Tarot. Those cards which do correspond to anthropomorphic qualities are represented by some very interesting characters from history and myth. They are independent but cross paths with the Lovecraftian Mythos.

To me, the overriding theme of TDG is an adventure. It’s a quest for knowledge which is only dark in that it is unconscious. This fits very well with my approach to the Tarot as a whole. The cards are well equipped and have in the past bloomed into pictures of happy relationships and love, sexual desire, happy times and wealth, as well as bleak pictures of emotional turmoil, loneliness, mental illness and financial ruin. I don’t think a genre deck has that kind of ability.

Querents generally find the deck creepy at first glance which helps to create the emotional dynamic I spoke about earlier in my interview with Doug (credulity…) this is good because it makes them engage in a reading and makes it a more enjoyable experience for them and me. However, once we’ve drawn some cards, and they’re looking closer, there is almost always something in there that they like; sometimes that I haven’t picked up on myself.

One querent was particularly taken with the 10 of Disks which shows a woman dancing happily in a subterranean world with her “demons,” now her friends (at least this is what the querent’s interpretation was). As for querents asking about their love life I think that the emotional eclecticism of the deck caters as well for that sphere of life as it does for any other. How many times do people find that their lover can make them feel euphoric as well as put them into the pits of hell, all at the same time?

2. What deck(s) did Chris work with before gravitating to these two?

Since I first started out with the Tarot I’ve been through many, many decks. I’m a Gemini and as such my attitude towards everything is “variety is the spice of life”. I was reluctant to be limited in my understanding by decks that have been formulated according to one person or another’s agenda and wanted to get behind the set dressing to see the universal archetypes and forces of nature manifesting through them. My first real Tarot was “the Mythic Tarot”, which even at the time was underwhelming; in that it seemed very pedestrian in its execution, and didn’t really capture my imagination at all (which is the most important criteria since you’re imaginative faculty is what brings the Tarot to life). It’s based on Greek mythology but rather than drawing on the infinite amount of exquisite and evocative art created in western culture which concerned itself with the Greek myths, it seemed to be drawing on children’s storybooks; it was completely impotent as a tool. The decks that have been most significant in my journey through the Tarot, other than the Dark Grimoire have been (in no particular order):-

Crowley’s Thoth Tarot

Having had a bit of a dead-end experience with the Mythic Tarot, it’s was the text of Crowley’s book of Thoth that made me thirsty for the tarot again, gave the subject depth and a sense of mysticism. The deck itself was difficult to get hold of; I had to order it online. I still love the attention to detail contained in the Thoth deck as well as the visual illusions and eclecticism of its visual vocabulary. Everything from Greek and Egyptian mythology to modern physics and chemistry has a place in that deck. It’s like walking through an exotic bizarre and being intoxicated with all the different languages and smells. Its still, objectively one of the best Tarot decks ever formulated, which is a testament to the work and energy that Crowley put into it. It works for divination too, but it’s almost a system of its own in that the cards have metamorphosed by way of Crowley to reflect the new Aeon which he was heralding and can be a bit confusing unless you understand the card’s starting positions. I look on the Thoth deck as a psychedelic meltdown of the Tarot and I think that this fluidity really empowers the cards to melt into a gestalt which I spoke about before. It’s a very Piscean deck and I think I read somewhere that Crowley had his moon in Pisces which makes me think that perhaps one could look to your natal moon to get an idea of which decks would capture your imagination in such a way as to engender decent readings.

The Ibis Tarot

Was created back in the 17th Century by an elusive ? astrologer called M.O. Wegener. The modern version by Josef Machynka gives the original images depth and colour. It’s an Egyptian themed deck that also incorporates a lot of astrological influences and symbols. Stripped down compared to tarots I’d used at the time it was using this deck that I worked out the Kabbalistic Sephiroth myself before I was even aware of it. I had gathered together the pips and saw how the cards of the same number corresponded. This deck was not really useful for divination at all. I found it emotionally mute and the iconography too academic and perhaps dry. The most interesting thing about this deck was “the crocodile” which is a manifestation of the Fool, which had a sense of danger and imminent calamity which I’ve found to be an aspect of the Fool that is often easily overlooked.

The Cosmic Tribe Tarot

This was an important deck for me for a long time. The name alone would have been enough to put me off, since it seemed very “new age” but I had been a fan of the artist beforehand and found his work exceedingly engaging and original. The deck itself is fundamentally a modern mutation of the already mutated Thoth deck but is incomparable in terms of artistry. It’s bold and colourful in a way that the Thoth deck might have been had technology and printing back in Crowley’s day been what it is today. The artist clearly has a good understanding of the Tarot from an esoteric point of view but also is able to present the images so as to relate to a modern generation. If the Tarot were a pop music video then this is what it would look like, his creativity is unbounded. Cards that are rendered especially well here are the 9 of Swords, the Tower, the Empress, the Hanged Man and Death but he really goes to town on the pips which are the best pips I have ever come across in that they’re vivid yet abstract and devoid of the “story” element I spoke about before. The Court Cards are also really good and lend themselves to divination in the modern world where Kings, Queens, Knights and Pages rarely can be recognised by their trappings and more to do with their relative age and experience as well as their influence and action. This is a brilliant deck I’d recommend to anyone for whom the tarot has become academic and perhaps wants to get in touch with the Tarot as a living breathing thing without losing the history and esotericism that underpins the system.

The Sacred Circle Tarot

Another one of my favourite decks; and as it happens it’s one of the decks I’ve had the most divinatory success with. It transposes British mythology and Neolithic monuments onto a Rider-Waite core using computer graphics to great effect. My connection to this deck may well just be one and the same as my connection to the theme of Neolithic Britain, but there would be a very dull way of doing that. The Sacred Circle Tarot is very lucid and dramatic. Again, the pips are an outstanding element of the deck. They don’t have an imposed narrative and yet are transposed in front of Neolithic monuments which have their own mythology which relates to the theme of the card, many of which I have since visited. The elemental association of all the cards is very well indexed in the colour of the border which I think lends itself to divination.

3. How have they influenced his reading style? Does he utilize any particular spreads, or a linear style (Opening of the Key or otherwise)?

The theme of my quest through all of the decks I’ve explored is the pips. I know that Doug agrees with me when I say that they are often the most misunderstood and misrepresented aspect of the Tarot and yet they’re key to successful divination. I primarily use the Celtic Cross spread since for me it’s the best one to zoom in on a particular aspect of life especially as is often the case for me the querent has no particular question. It gives the Tarot the ability to inform us of the root of the querent’s situation very quickly. I’ve never studied the Opening of the Key; I have no experience of it in a consultation. Hope that answers you’re questions.

Douglas: I want to personally thank both Jason and Chris for such a great section to the interview .

If you have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions about what you’ve read, I’d love to hear them.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts Chris. Check out what you said earlier, “It has always been an intuitive position for me that the very idea of Tarot is something along the lines of “a picture can speak 1000 words” and this remains my position today. To write a description of the meaning of an individual card, in some way, is to emasculate it somewhat. Practical Tarot reading is far more Gestalt art than it is occult or esoteric…”

1. What did you mean exactly when you said Gestalt art is better for a beginner Tarot reader than, say, the classic occult works that are normally considered the ‘must reads’?

OK, first of all I’ll give a brief explanation of the Gestalt perspective on psychology. Gestalt is a German word that means “shape” or “form” and the basic principle is that the mind is essentially holistic in nature and has a self organising tendency. One of the key concepts of Gestalt psychology is the understanding that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” The “Gestalt effect” is the mind’s form-forming capability to perceive figures and forms rather than say, a collection of lines and curves. This is often demonstrated by means of “visual illusions” which show how the mind goes to work on raw visual information in such a way as to create something that isn’t there in the individual components of the picture but is perceived when they are put together. Crowley uses this to great effect in his Thoth deck, the example that jumps out at me is the “High Priestess” card which has an illusory cup.

I’d assert that tarot reading exists within the context of Gestalt psychology. When we look at a spread of Tarot cards we are not looking at the individual cards themselves but the “Gestalt effect” of their combination. This is what I mean when I bring up the old saying “a picture can speak 1,00 words”. We are tapping into a different and more ancient and potent vocabulary, outside of linguistics and syntax. This is one of the strengths of Tarot reading in that a Tarot reading facilitates us to look at our world from outside of our segregated and splintered semantic world and see how the seemingly disparate elements in life fit together into a holistic picture with a unifying narrative. It’s the recognition of this narrative that facilitates the divination.

When I first started reading Tarot, like many other rookie Tarot readers from a western background, rather than take my cues from the images themselves, I would spend hours poring over books with descriptions of the individual cards. In doing so I emasculated the power of the cards in that I reduced them into “cue cards” each with a set of words associated which took primacy in my early readings over the images themselves. When you look at a spread of cards in this way it becomes more like a garbled text than a picture.

That isn’t to say that I would dissuade rookie Tarot readers from reading anything about the Tarot, there are many fascinating insights to be had, but I would resist the temptation to give primacy to descriptions of Tarot cards over the images themselves.

2. What exactly is it that makes you so drawn towards the Mythos of Lovecraft? In particular, why does this benefit you as a Tarot reader?

I can’t say exactly what it is that draws me towards Lovecraft, speaking with others who share my fascination and appreciation that seems to be a bit of a theme. You tend to be either deeply into it or completely ambivalent. The elements that excite me the most are the idea of the paradigm shift, that the world and history are not at all what it appears to be – I suppose that’s a pretty romantic notion that runs through a lot of fantasy, but Lovecraft’s stories are in the horror genre which means that the sense of wonder is quickened with a sense of fear and foreboding. As Lovecraft himself once pointed out – “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”.

I find the idea of ancient, primal deities lurking on the edges of human perception particularly compelling. Lovecraft’s “old ones” are not anthropomorphic or anthropocentric in nature at all. They existed before man and will exist long after man becomes extinct. They are the embodiment of cosmic forces that are ambivalent to mankind and it’s cultures, but have on occasions crossed paths with men which has usually resulted in madness or in certain circumstances the establishment of cults. Lovecraft’s stories essentially talk about how we respond not only to the unknown, but to the unknowable and I don’t think that I’m stretching your credulity (!) to suggest that this is the same territory that we exist in when we are reading Tarot cards. There is a certain fear that creeps around the Tarot reader and querent, however marginalised or subtle. As Tarot readers we are throwing open the doors of possibility, and the source of the information we receive is as elusive as the old ones who lurk on the edge of reality as we know it…

3. I know you later go onto describe why you personally like Lovecraft and how that ties in with you but what about discussing the actual Mythos itself- how it, for you on a personal level, helps develop the ’story’ you tell you clients when giving readings.

The Lovecraftian pantheon is nebulous – especially if you only look at Lovecraft’s stories alone. Many of the writers who expanded on the Mythos consolidated and distinguished entities only hinted at in abject horror by Lovecraft himself. There are many unmanifest, intangible and nebulous forces and forms that influence us on a daily basis… anxieties that take shape and have a life of their own, over time that walk with us, peripheral to our waking state and, inevitably it is in the dream world (or the astral plane as one would refer to it in a formal, occult sense) that they blossom in front of us. This liminal/twilight state is an essential element of any truly Lovecraftian yarn.

This doesn’t even have to be exclusively psychological in nature. Consider for a moment the swine flu pandemic that is currently sweeping the earth (and keeping me really busy at work I’d like to add – hence why this interview is taking a while). What is flu? Can we see it? Can we distinguish it from its effects? No – it’s beyond the range of our limited sensory faculty and yet it can have very serious consequences for us in a material way. I believe that the Tarot can uncover the cultural and spiritual viruses and memes that ultimately inform the material circumstances of our lives in the same way. Of course this may also be underlying illness – mental or physical but it can also indicate hidden strengths and opportunities outside the range of our senses but which will ultimately determine the consequences of our action or inaction.

As an overview I’ll offer a brief description of each of the major Lovecraftian deities.

Azathoth

“Outside the ordered universe, that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes” – from “the dream quest of unknown Kadath”

Azathoth is one of those entities that was only briefly mentioned by Lovecraft but has captured the imagination of decades of readers so as to become one of the central entities of the mythos. “He” is said to exist at the centre of infinity, a “blind idiot god” who plays discordant tunes from his broken pipe that call the universe into existence, encircled by a “flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers”. This is a very potent and poetic image that resonates with anyone that has a passing interest in the shamanic tradition or the idea of gnosis. Azathoth is the keystone of Lovecraft’s fundamentally amoral universe, undermining everything modern organised religion has reassured us about the ultimate nature of the demiurge and yet in some way is in synchrony with the older world religions such as Taoism, Buddhism and the Shamanic traditions of many indigenous peoples. Donald Tyson who’s book “the grimoire of the Necronomicon” is possibly the cleverest, complete, painstakingly researched and artfully composed occult appropriation of the mythos envisions Azathoth’s dancers as the 12 signs of the zodiac, through which the universe manifests. He also gives a very convincing explanation as to why he’s insane but I’ll leave it to readers to read the book itself, I couldn’t do it justice without going off topic and it’s a fascinating addition to any occult library anyway.

In both of the Tarot decks I own Azathoth for obvious reasons is the fool, and I think while the fool is certainly a playful character the image of Azathoth manages to communicate both that and the fundamentally terrifying ramifications of the figure that often seems twee or banal and yet can signify some of the most radical and unsettling circumstances and possibilities.

Yog-Sothoth

The most important aspect of Yog-Sothoth is that he is said to be coterminous with time and space. Lovecraft described “him” as follows:

“Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth’s fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread” – the Dunwich Horror.

In this capacity as a cosmic gatekeeper “he” is important in the narrative, especially in one of the best Lovecraft stories “the Dunwich Horror” where he is invoked by an elderly farmer to assist the old one’s in their goal to re-take the earth that they inhabited before the coming of men. When he manifests, he appears as a whirling conglomeration of spheres as the gateway between this world and the parallel worlds where the old ones have been banished opens up. From the perspective of the Tarot, Yog-Sothoth the gateway of opportunity, being in the right place at the right time and fortune. Those circumstances where we are able to bring something into existence from the nether regions of our mind.

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is probably the first image that comes to mind when most people think “Lovecraft” and in fact the collection of stories associated to or refer to the old ones have come to be known as “the Cthulhu mythos”. Cthulhu is a kind of high Priest of the old ones, or a warrior king. Aeons before mankind came about he ruled the earth from an island citadel called R’lyeh in the middle of what is now known as the pacific ocean. After losing a battle for control of the earth with a species of colonizers from outer space (the “elder things”) he is now sealed in his citadel which has since sunk below the waves. Because of his incorporeal nature (as of all the old ones) he is not dead, merely dreaming. He mind is so great that he has a telepathic influence on all sentient life but the water under which he sleeps dulls or completely cuts off his influence except in rare occasions where earthquakes and tectonic movements of the crust in the pacific extrude the citadel of R’lyeh temporarily above the waves, times during which violence and madness grip the more sensitive souls of the population of the world and artists have strange visions and dreams. The famous line – “that is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even death may die” is referring to great Cthulhu.

From the perspective of the Tarot, Cthulhu to me is representative of the universal unconscious, entombed somewhere in the collective psyche and for the most part pacified and sublimated. Like Cthulhu however there are times when this powerful and ancient force extrudes into waking life and causes havoc but also can inspire a potent sense of creativity. The Devil card is articulating the same themes in culture and myth which we encounter on a daily basis either in public or personal life.

Nyarlathotep

Nyarlathotep is a tricky character. He’s like an emissary of the old ones, a shape shifting entity that is the only deity of the mythos with the ability to manifest on the material plane of existence. His common avatar is a thin black (not as in ethnicity but in color) man who wanders the desert wrapped in black robes although he has taken many fantastic and fearsome forms. His function is to hasten the return of the old ones back to earth by clearing it of all existing forms of life. It’s inferred that the existence of life as we know is on earth is in itself contrary to the return of the old ones for any length of time. He is the source of many of man’s sinister myths and legends and one of his most famous and exotic avatars was Nephren-Ka, the black Pharaoh of ancient Egypt who enslaved the people using bizarre and anachronism technology. It’s also inferred that Nyarlathotep is the source of science and technology through his avatar Nephren-ka and his appearance in the story/poem “Nyarlathotep”. This clearly is tapping into something very contemporary – the idea that science and technology, it’s use and implications for the planet will ultimately bring about the end of mankind. All that and this figure was dreamed up by a recluse many years before the invention of the atomic bomb!

Nyarlathotep is also said to be the black man of the witches sabbath and as with many of the old ones, wherever he goes follows nightmares and madness. The gods of man are for Lovecraft the products of mans hopes and aspirations, but are kept as prisoners in Kadath – a fortress said to be located atop a mountain in the cold waste. Here they are allowed certain freedoms to influence the affairs of men but ultimately are the playthings of Nyarlathotep – “the crawling chaos”.

Nyarlathotep from a perspective of the Tarot is the mercurial character of the individuated mind – the bridge between the intangible, subtle and abstract worlds and the everyday reality that we live in. What of the unseen, unmanifest world informs our actions and aspirations in life? How do those subtle and tenuous forces affect our relationships to other people – how do they inform our behavior and responses? Do we see other people as personifications of more abstract principles? Do we have many masks or avatars in different circumstances? Which is the “real” me? Are we open about our goals or do we move strategically and manipulate from behind the scenes? I guess that Nyarlathotep’s closest affinity in the Tarot is the Magician, but in the Dark Grimoire Tarot he’s depicted in the strength card. As the personification of the multifaceted, shape shifting personality he may well be the figure in every tarot card.

Of course there are a few other important deities in the pantheon I haven’t mentioned – Dagon, Shub-Niggurath and Yig to name a few but I wanted to focus on the entities that have the greatest bearing for me in terms of prophecy and the aspects of the Tarot which are often hidden in occulture but have real potential to add weight to you’re experience of Tarot reading.

Although this interview has not yet finished, I wanted to take a moment to thank Chris for taking time out of his day to talk these things through .

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I asked my good friend Chris, a massive Lovecraftian fan, if he would like to chat about all things Tarot. As the conversation developed I thought it would be a great idea to put his ideas on my blog. Thankfully he agreed, and this interview is really a way for me to get inside that brilliant but wonderfully eclectic mind of his.

Chris has an uncanny ability to link a wide range of information to the Tarot and hopefully, by transcribing this interview, the Tarot and your approach to reading the cards, will be transformed.

1. Chris, could you take a moment to tell my readers something about your background and interests in Tarot?

Hi, I’m Chris. Doug and I became friends a long time ago and very early on in our friendship we discovered the Tarot. Over the years we’ve taken many perspectives on the Tarot, some that we agreed on, others that we have disagreed on. We’ve wandered in halls of mirrors not only in the relationship we’ve each had with the Tarot, but also in the spectrum of decks that we’ve used and the various ideologies that have underpinned those decks.

One of the most important practical transitions that we have made, is to cease to have our knowledge of the Tarot delivered to us, in pre-digested form through books and articles and to look to the Tarot itself as our primary source. One of my earliest contentions about the Tarot is that one would need a book to interpret the meanings of the cards. It has always been an intuitive position for me that the very idea of Tarot is something along the lines of “a picture can speak 1000 words” and this remains my position today. To write a description of the meaning of an individual card is to in some way emasculate it somewhat. Practical Tarot reading is far more Gestalt art than it is occult or esoteric, and I would direct any rookie Tarot reader in the direction of Gestalt psychology before many of the classic Tarot texts such as Crowley’s phantasmagorical “Book of Thoth”.

One of my other passions in life is the work of the 1920’s cosmic horror writer HP Lovecraft. Lovecraft’s compelling Mythos was born out of a world where science and reason were triumphing over mysticism and superstition, and his work reflects that tension to great effect. The protagonists, usually intellectuals, scientists or explorers, are privy to mind blowing revelations about the universe and man’s place in it. The opening passage from his famous story, The Call of Cthulhu, reads:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

Lovecraft in this most dramatic of preludes perfectly captures the thrill and challenge of Tarot reading for me. By abstracting us in reflection, the Tarot can offer us vistas of insight into the unconscious narrative through which we live and which defines not only our future, but critically – our past. Are we prepared to undergo this paradigm shift? Or would we prefer to “flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age” and simply use the Tarot to reinforce the preconceptions which have created the tension that resulted in our consulting the Tarot in the first place? Are we prepared to sacrifice our credulity to win a greater understanding?

Considering the spirit of revelation inherent within Lovecraft’s Mythos it’s unsurprising that there have been several Tarot decks which have used imagery from his stories. I own two of these decks, the Necronomicon Tarot and the Dark Grimoire Tarot.

The Necronomicon Tarot was conceived by Donald Tyson, a contemporary occultist from Canada who is perhaps best known for his writing on the subject of Enochian magic. By way of his version of the fictional dread tome “the Necronomicon” and his novel “Alhazred: Author of the Necronomicon” he ratified the ancient and awesome cosmic forces and deities of Lovecraft’s loose pantheon with the factually ancient and awesome forces of western astrology without diminishing or distorting either. He conceived his Tarot cards as the third part in a trilogy to illustrate the events, entities and characters of the former installments. Because of the Tarot’s long association with western astrology, his deck makes sense and some of the images created by his visual collaborator Anne Stokes are the most vivid Tarot cards I’ve come across. However, it’s his presentation of the pip cards that as a Tarot reader I’m not comfortable with.

There is a convention in contemporary Tarot to present the pips of any given suit as installments in a story and this is the approach that Tyson takes. From his perspective this makes perfect sense, after all he’s illustrating the stories he’s already told in his previous works but in terms of reading Tarot when one sees one part of a story it’s difficult not to also have in mind the preceding and subsequent parts. For a card to have a feeling of movement within a fixed narrative for me distorts the card’s use in divination. It’s difficult to separate the narrative of the deck from the narrative of the querent. While I appreciate that from an esoteric perspective the pips illustrate the evolution of a particular element to its natural conclusion, when reading for divinatory purposes primacy should be given to the cards that have been drawn.

The Dark Grimoire Tarot published by prolific Italian Tarot publishers Lo Scarabeo was created by Michele Penco. I picked this deck up by accident while browsing in a mainstream bookshop in Birmingham. While there were no overt Lovecraftian references on the box, and the cards themselves were sealed, I got the impression from the general imagery that the deck was at the very least a little Lovecraftian in its inspiration.

The deck is in fact completely Lovecraftian, perhaps even more so than the Necronomicon Tarot. The images are presented in sepia tones which remind me of old photographs. The settings are almost exclusively within this era as well, depicting scenes and entities from Lovecraft’ stories. Even though the deck presents scenes from various stories there is no clear narrative amongst them – pips or trumps which make them conducive for practical Tarot reading. The aces are all unopened books which I feel captures the concept of the ace perfectly.

One of the great things about the Dark Grimoire Tarot for me is the spectrum of emotions it evokes. It manages to capture my imagination in the same way that Lovecraft’s stories do. It’s very potent and sets the tone for revelation and adventure which is what brings me back to the Tarot again and again.

Doug asked me to write a paragraph of introduction, I suppose that I have exceeded that expectation, but it’s difficult to control yourself when you’re asked to discuss something that you’re enthusiastic about. I know that Doug feels the same way about the Tarot, and over the years I have learned a great deal not only from his shockingly accurate readings, but also his constant attention to the process of reading too.

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview Chris ! I’ll post the rest of this interview over the next couple of weeks.

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This is the second part to the interview with my friend and philosopher Andrew Clark.

Douglas: Andy you said in your introduction, “However, deconstruction is not a method in either the classical or the contemporary sense: i.e., of adhering to rules that lie outside of the phenomena that one is analysing”.

Tarot readings involve a dialogue between Tarot Reader, Tarot Cards, and Client- moving back towards the Tarot Reader. Sometimes a reader may even involve the Client in exploring the cards directly with them (this can only be done face-to-face and does not work so well with phone readings).

1. What I’d like to know is how we could explore this point further to assist people when engaging with a client during a Tarot Reading.

Let me get started by making a couple of comments about your first question. You’ve quoted my point that deconstruction does not take place outside of the text that is being read, but within it; and your question is how this might relate to Tarot reading. Let me start by alluding to the last part of my introduction where I was referring to a reading that emphasises the ‘individual circumstances’ of whomever the reading is for.

Douglas: In your introduction you said, “It is not fortune-telling according to the classical image of a fortune-teller as someone who ‘knows the future’, with the cards holding the key to this knowledge. Rather, it is someone who is trained in the imagery of the cards, of the meaning of each individual card, and of the way in which the meaning of an individual card can tell a story when it comes in relation to the different meanings of the other cards, in such a way that the story that is told can be related to the individual circumstances for whomever the reading is done”.

2. Is this what you are meaning?

Yes. I would want to relate this point regarding the deconstruction of the opposition outside/inside to these ‘individual circumstances’. A reading that does not take place ‘inside’, as it were, the circumstances of the individual for whom the reading is done is, I would argue, an ineffective reading. It must relate to these circumstances. However, according to the more conventional image of what a Tarot reader does, to ‘relate’ in this way is also what appears as most impossible – and it appears this way because of the conventional image of the Tarot reader as ‘fortune-teller’ or ‘mind-reader’. That is, according to the image that they are given in contemporary society, a Tarot reader is supposed to know in advance of talking to their client who their client is and what will happen to them in the future. Hence, where in your question you refer to the ‘dialogue’ that takes place between the Tarot ‘reader’, the ‘cards’ themselves, and the ‘client’ – to emphasise this ‘dialogue’ as ‘dialogue’ is to emphasise the impossibility of the Tarot reader within this image as a ‘mind-reader’.

The Tarot reader who attempts to be a ‘mind-reader’ in this classical mystical image is the Tarot reader who assimilates the life-circumstances of their client to what I referred to as the ‘pre-given mystical version of the world’. For me to say this I was implicitly posing the problematic question: how can one even begin to foretell the future when one does not know the specifics of the past? To emphasise, as you do, the ‘dialogue’ between the Tarot reader and their client, is to suggest that there is a process in which the Tarot reader must get to know their client. In the more classical image of the ‘mind-reader’ it is thought that the Tarot reader already knows their client; or perhaps knows their client not through their dialogue with the client themselves but in their reading of the cards. Here, in this latter instance, it would be the cards themselves that hold the key to the future. But as you say, the cards themselves form a part of this ‘dialogue’ (along with the ‘reader’ and the ‘client’); or to put it in deconstructive terms, the meaning of the cards does not lie ‘outside’ of the meaning of the words that articulate them. Rather, the meaning of the cards lies ‘within’ the dialogue, or indeed dialogues (plural), that are taking place between reader and client. In other words, where human ideals would like to purify the meaning of the cards, the human language that we use in order to communicate the card’s meaning, the different and contradictory meanings of the words in language itself, work instead to spoil this purity; and do so at the very moment that this purity is articulated.

What I’ve said so far links into your penultimate question regarding whether Tarot reading is about the communication between Tarot reader and client, or about the meaning or the ‘message’ of the cards themselves.

Douglas: Yes, when I was asking you that question I was referring to an earlier part of your introduction when you said, “We are left, then, with the conflict between the deconstructive idea of the future as essentially unpredictable, and the ‘divinatory’ side of Tarot reading as an impossible attempt to predict the unpredictable”.

I was reflecting on the comments you made when you described how the Tarot’s role is an aid in understanding the Psyche, and therefore my question was:

3. Would you then say that Tarot readings are more about the communication that takes place between reader and client than about a client asking to see the ‘message’ of the cards?

That’s right! I have been emphasising the life-circumstances of the client themselves. Ultimately, this is what matters. In my introduction I alluded to the fact that the dialogue between reader and client is ‘much like a therapy session’. Now, some clients can resist therapy – think of all of the derogatory words we have for therapists (quacks, etc). Similarly, it is possible that a Tarot reader does a reading for someone who is sceptical about the point of Tarot cards. Already such a situation puts the Tarot reader on the back foot, with an uphill struggle. Another situation can be where the client of the therapist has the same knowledge of therapy that the therapist themselves possesses: how does the therapist do their job in this situation? Similarly with Tarot cards; a Tarot reader might read for a client who possesses the same knowledge of Tarot cards as the Tarot reader themselves. Let us imagine that this is the case. Here, even though both reader and client both adhere to value of what is being done, if the reader and the client were to have different perspectives about how the job ought to be done, there would be some inevitable tension within the dialogue. In other words, there are a lot of contingencies to take into account that transcend the meaning of the cards themselves.

Nevertheless, despite these practical difficulties, the cards themselves are, in principle, the focus of attention. In short, the communication between reader and client is where the meaning of the cards takes effect. That is, it is not that the cards do not have meaning; rather, it is that this meaning does not become effective until the point of being read. A Tarot reader will do many readings, and so the cards must take on specific meanings such that the reader can refer back to them with some sense of consistency over a period of time. So it is not that the cards do not have meaning; rather, it is that this meaning is not endowed with mystical properties in the classical religious sense of the word. Do the cards have meaning? Sure. Are these meanings important in the giving of a Tarot reading? Of course. Do these meanings foretell the future? Ah! No. This latter question is a completely different ballgame. In a Tarot reading the important thing about the meaning of the cards is that they become meaningful to the client themselves (the ‘individual circumstances’) in the story that these meanings tell. It is this that I referred to as the ‘divinatory’ aspect of Tarot reading: i.e., not foretelling the future as such, but rather some relation of meaningfulness. If a Tarot reading impinges upon the client in some way, makes them think differently or perhaps more clearly about themselves, their life and their problems, then it has been ‘divinatory’.

As such, if the client asks for the meaning or the ‘message’ of the cards then the client themselves is getting a Tarot reading with a pre-given idea of what to expect from a Tarot reading. This ‘pre-given idea’ is, then, more than likely the more conventional idea that the cards themselves will hold the key to their future. Here, the client would be viewing the Tarot reader as a neutral mediator between themselves and the mystical meaning of the cards. In other words, the client themselves would at this point be inattentive to the ‘dialogical’ process between themselves and the Tarot reader, considering the word of the reader as the neutral word of truth. Now of course, in principle the reader ought to have more knowledge of the card’s meanings than their client – so although they might not be articulating the ‘word of truth’ in quite the sense that this particular type of client would expect; one would hope that they nonetheless present an informed and knowledgeable account of the card’s meanings.

I think where you say in your second question that the role of the reader in the relation to their client is ‘to present them with options’ also links up with these problems.

Douglas: I wanted to explore the concept of free will. In your introduction you said, “Can one be said, in one’s younger years, to possess this freedom of one’s own will? And indeed, if one does not completely possess it as a child and an adolescent, then when one finally makes it to adulthood, what is the relation between one’s adult present and one’s non-adult past? Does the irrationality of the past simply disappear, or does it still impinge upon one’s ability to make ‘rational’ decisions later on in life”?

I really like what you’ve written here. There is a school of thought within the Tarot that is heavily focused on empowering the individual to make informed decisions. In other words, to present them with options.

However, as you know, our own psychology does in many respects keep us on a familiar path. Maybe this is in part due to the history of our individual experiences; perhaps they never truly leave us? Our options then become filtered through what our expectations say will happen based on what’s gone before leaving us with an ability to no longer see what’s truly possible; only what we expect is possible. From this point of view, it’s easy to see why (apart from the fact that circumstances are stronger than the individual) humans, in general, never fully realize this concept of free will and also why a fortune teller can appear to predict the future.

As I’ve already mentioned, circumstances are more powerful.

4. With this in mind, how then does a Tarot reader, in your opinion, best approach a reading? I know you already mentioned the deconstruction and Heidegarian approach, but would you mind exploring that further?

Options are possibilities. Philosophy itself works at the level of possibilities more so than at the level of actuality. That is, philosophy tries not only to figure out what ‘is’ the case, but also what ‘ought’ to be the case, and whether or not this ‘ought’ is possible within the confines of what ‘is’. Where deconstruction both works with and against philosophy is that it emphasises the idea of impossibility over the idea of possibility. Another way of thinking about impossibility is through the idea of limitation: i.e., there is an emphasis in deconstructive thinking about being savvy regarding one’s own limitations. So as you say, a Tarot reader presents their client with options as a way of helping their client work out their problems. These options that the Tarot reader presents to their client must therefore not be absolute options (e.g., ‘think positive’), but rather must take into account the actualities of their client’s life and state of mind. What is possible for one person might be impossible for another; what is an option for one person might not be an option for another; etc. The point is to get to know the client, within a dialogue, in order to get to know the limitations that are unique to that client.

This idea of limitation links up with your question about the limitations of what a Tarot reading can achieve.

Douglas: Yes, I wanted to look at what you’d said earlier when you described how, “First, it buys into the very old idea of ‘free will’ by suggesting that one can simply ‘think positive thoughts’. However, thinking positive thoughts is much easier to do if one has had positive living circumstances within one’s own life. As such, the suggestion to ‘think positive thoughts’ does nothing to aid one to think outside one’s own little bubble of a life that one lives, while simultaneously prescribing it as a message for others.” I felt your comments suggested that there are limits to what a Tarot reading can achieve.

5. What would you say those limits are?

The generic limitations of the human being, which call into question the ideal version of the human being as one that possesses free will, impinge upon what human beings can themselves achieve as such. I think that the ‘deconstruction’ of the Tarot, if I can put it like that, would indeed place limits upon what Tarot readings can achieve. Some of these limitations are those that I have already alluded to. Those working in the Tarot world might not like these limitations – particularly if they adhere to the more New Age version of Tarot cards. However, I also think that it is much more diplomatic to show up something’s limitations rather than violently dismissing it as rubbish, which is what many people do when it comes to Tarot cards. And of course, the reason they are so violent is precisely because of the dominance of the New Agey image that I myself have attempted to distance myself from in my introduction.

The difference between deconstruction and this violent dismissal is that, where this violent dismissal sees the New Age version of Tarot as the ‘whole’ of Tarot, the more deconstructive perspective would be to see it as a ‘part’ of Tarot rather than a ‘whole’. One strategy of deconstruction is to internally multiply something: so there is more than one way of reading Tarot cards, just as there is more than one deck of Tarot cards to read from. Paradoxically, however, this ‘internal multiplication’ would also, in principle, demonstrate the potentially unlimited amount of ways in which Tarot cards could be read. It is not simply a matter of saying that ‘everything is limited’ because the one thing that is therefore unlimited is limitation itself (which in this case regards the lack or the absence of the point of reference of the ‘everything’).

Let me conclude my response to your questions regarding the point of history – which, in your questions, takes two forms: first, the history of the individual; and second, the history of the Tarot itself.

Douglas: I asked that question in relation to a statement you had made earlier, “…assimilating the circumstances of the individual to a pre-given mystical version of the world; rather, the reverse is the case. That is, it is a point of saying that the ‘world’ that is at stake is the world according to the way in which it is perceived within the specificity of these ‘individual circumstances’”.

The Tradition of the Tarot is long, and much of it ignored. Its origins are as a game, hundred of years later a mythical history was invented linking it back to ancient Egypt and strange initiations.

6. Do you also think that by ignoring the Tarots past we are in danger of not understanding its role in any meaningful or relevant way?

You asked earlier whether our experiences ever truly leave us. Because of the overpowering force of time, human beings are endowed with memory. So the traces of an individual’s past, which is also the traces of their desires for the future, remain with them. However, if you think of the case of an alcoholic overcoming their addiction; it suggest that, on the one hand, it is possible to change, while on the other hand, there is always a possibility of falling off the wagon, as it were. The threat of this latter possibility counteracts the promise of the former possibility. In deconstructive thinking, there is no promise without the possibility of the threat.

This is partly why I wanted to dispel the naive optimism of the New Age thinking associated with the Tarot. To some (e.g., the naive optimist), I will perhaps have been too pessimistic here. But with Nietzsche, I think we must distinguish tragedy from pessimism: dispelling optimism is not about being pessimistic; rather it is a point of being savvy about the possible tragedies of life. For if there is one thing we do know about the future, it is that, in its singular instances, it will come to an end. Life comes to an end in death; and this is a fact of life; that is, it is a fact of life before one oneself was even born. So we come to the question of whether there is life after death. Actually, yes, there is – if you want to put it in general terms, that is. In other words, there is life after death; only, it will not be ‘my life’. It will be someone else’s. Perhaps this paradoxically leaves tragedy itself open to a certain comedy (for tragedy and comedy are, classically speaking, conceptually opposed to one another), for where the tragedy of one life ends, the comedy of another begins.

Coming to the point of the history of the Tarot itself; I believe this is important. And I find your reference to the historical origins of Tarot as a ‘game’ intriguing! There is something nowadays called ‘game theory’ which I myself have only recently come across. I suppose the guiding principle of game theory would have it that not only are games important for living life, they can also be important for understanding life. For instance, chess is about war and strategy; poker is about bluffing and raising the stakes; and so on. What would the ‘game’ of Tarot be about, I wonder? It would be interesting to look into it in more detail and see how it evolved from a ‘game’ (which in principle is non-serious) to supposedly holding the (serious) secrets to the future, and therefore of time itself. Perhaps these so-called ‘secrets’ would themselves not be taken so seriously – i.e., with such piety – by those working within the Tarot world if they realised that the historical origins of their craft were indeed as a game. But as I say, it is also the case that something like game theory would say that games can have a stake in how we understand life, and death, and their meaning; and so we should take them more seriously than we have a tendency to. Indeed, imagine a ‘game’ as one that is in the middle of being played, and is a close call. Someone asks you: ‘who will win?’ Of course, the truest answer is: ‘I don’t know’. But, we make predictions nevertheless. And we make predictions based on who is playing at the time. That is, we take into account character and characteristics, and make judgments accordingly. I think that is issue of judgment of character is quite important at this point of divination, as is the issue of accounting for the various possibilities. I said earlier that divination is simply that which is meaningful to the client. This involves, as you said in your question, weighing up different options for the client. True divination would be able to say which option out of the multiple options that are available is actually going to occur. True divination is impossible, then. However, what the Tarot reader can do is make it clear to their client precisely what the options are, and then, taking into account their client’s character, suggest which option or options would be the most plausible or desirable for them.

I thought I’d finish with reference to your ‘old saying’: ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference’. I copied and pasted this into Google and the first webpage that comes up is to Wikipedia (the online encyclopaedia), which identifies it as the ‘serenity prayer’. You ask me if I agree with it. I do. I also think that it show how something can be ‘deconstructed’ from within itself (theology, for example). Because what deconstruction primarily works against is the ideal of absolute purification of theological and philosophical thinking, which in relation to human beings is the purification of their soul from everything that is worldly and embodied. This is therefore what has allowed the ideal of ‘free will’ to become dominant. But in this serenity prayer, it is precisely free will that is put into question with reference to ‘the things I cannot change’. The prayer asks God for ‘the serenity to accept’ these things. In other words, the things we cannot change are the very same things that we worry about the most. The things that seem most impossible to us in our lives are also the things we desire. This desire for the impossible is part of a theological thinking called ‘negative theology’.

Indeed, it might be the case that, in ‘game’ of Tarot described above, the client desires an option that is impossible for them – which is not beyond the realm of possibility if what seems most impossible is what we worry about the most, or what we desire after the most, and so on. But anyway, perhaps if you find this interesting we can talk about this a bit more, but I’m probably running away with our debate now! So I will call it a day there for today.

That is the end to the second part of this interview. Great work Andy! Thanks for taking the time to muse over some of these issues. This interview is ongoing and I will be adding to this interview as time goes on. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, let me know through the comment section below.

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• Christopher Healey

I asked my good friend and philosopher, Andrew Clark to engage with me in a discussion on some philosophical questions relating to the Tarot. The aim that both of us share in conducting this interview, is to highlight the relevance Philosophy has with Tarot, and mysticism in general. This interview will be conducted through email and as the interview progresses I will update this page regularly. Below, Andy gives a brief introduction before attempting to make some philosophical links with reading Tarot cards.

Introductions

Hello readers! My name is Andrew Clark. Douglas and I have been friends from the beginning of our days as philosophy students at the University of Dundee over ten years ago (ten years… where does time go!). The impression that Doug gave me when we spoke on the phone about this ‘interview’ is that he wanted to give people who come across his website an informed account of philosophy and the relationship that it has with mysticism in general; and more specifically the way a certain knowledge of philosophy can help to de-mystify the mysticism of the Tarot cards and giving Tarot readings. What I mean by ‘de-mystify’ here I will discuss towards the end of my account of philosophy, before the interview takes place.

First, let me give you just briefly some of my credentials before saying something about the type of philosophy that I am trained in, about philosophy itself, and about the relationship that it all has with reading Tarot cards. Once I have done this I am sure that Doug will have some questions for me that he would like me to give my opinion on. Since completing my Honours Degree in Philosophy in 2002, I have since received my Masters Degree in Critical Theory from the University of Nottingham in 2003 (which I passed with Distinction), and in 2006 I was awarded a scholarship from the University of Portsmouth to study for my PhD, of which I am now, in 2009, in the finishing stages. My Dissertations, in both my Honours and Masters Degrees, focussed on the work of the twentieth-century French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004). My research for my PhD has also been focused on his work. Derrida is known mostly for what is called ‘deconstruction’.

In short, deconstruction is a way of reading books or texts with a critical eye – books that can be philosophical, religious, literary, scientific, cultural, etc: the point is that the topic of the book says something about the nature of what it is to be a ‘human being’. I say ‘way of reading’: here the word ‘method’ comes to mind. However, deconstruction is not a method in either the classical or the contemporary sense: i.e., of adhering to rules that lie outside of the phenomena that one is analysing. For these ‘rules’ would then form the bias of one’s own perspective. Rather, if there is a rule of deconstructive reading, it is that one must form a critique of what one is reading via the textual resources that lie inside the pages of the book that one is reading. That is, at all times one must be attentive to the words and the language that is used.