* Advanced Tarot Section *

The making of my own deck (seen at left), inspired by famous modern art works of the cubist, surreal, pop, & metaphysical variety. Even Theodore Geisel, (Dr. Seuss) left his mark. A showcase of (almost) the entire Kirlian Tunnel Tarot deck

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Gymatria -
One process is called "reduction" in which all the components are summed. The digits of the sum are in turn summed. Let's try some examples:

666 = 6+6+6 = 18 (the Moon), 18 reduces to 9 (the Hermit)

777 = 21 (the World); 21 reduces to 3 (the Empress)

Jehovah = Yod-He-Vav-He  (Hermit-Emperor-Heirophant-Emperor) = 9+4+5+4 = 22 (the Fool?) = 4 (the Emperor). In my own reading on Jesus he appeared as the 'King of Swords'.

310/202-7852 = 30 'the Empress'; 310/621-8264 = 33 = 6 'the Lovers'; 39022987 = 40 = 4 'the Emperor'

You might notice that all the major arcana reduce to their more personable and physically manifest counterparts:

10 'Wheel' = 1 'Magician' - "Wielding of elementals"

11 'Justice' = 2 'Priestess' - "Unbiased conduit"

12 'Surrender' = 3 'Empress' = "Rule of Nature"

13 'Death' = 4 'Emperor' = "Wielding power to change life and order "

14 'Temperance' = 4 'Heirophant' = "Manifestation of higher forces (knowledge)"

15 'Devil' = 6 'Lovers' = "Freedom to choose structure of consciousness"

16 'Tower' = 7 'Chariot' = "Manifestation of realms (concepts)"

17 'Star' = 8 'Strength' = "Manifestation of inner-light prayer (emotional)"

18 'Moon' = 'Hermit' = "Manifestation of Dream"

19 'Sun' = 'Wheel' = 'Magician' = "Manifestation of Physical reality"

20 'Judgement' = 'Priestess' = "Balance in Creation"

21 'World' = 3 'Empress' = "Living Here"

How to learn the Tarot

The qualities of a card you should find are the energy templates which could apply to any situation: quality or flavor of being, color energy, and structures that imply growth, division, motive, and control.

Try letting the cards explain themselves.  Choose a card and use it's symbolic structure as the format for a reading. Place a card for each significant element in the card. If the card is 'Temperance' place cards for the Lillies, the tetragrammaton, etc.; for 'the  Wheel' lay cards for the ascending, descending, & crown forces, the elements, the corners...

Notice trends & circumstances between readings. In my own experience, every time I did a reading to contact a living or dead spiritual leaders  presence, the first card was the 'Ace of Pentacles'  which I now take to mean an open spirit communication door.

If you channel inner or outer voices, synchronize this with your card meditations. Look for both persistent meanings and ones that exist only in the context of the moment.

I prefer decks with standard modern symbolism (rider-waite golden dawn PC Smith derivatives). I do find though that on some strange deck with for instance a caduceus that I'll hear on the radio just as I'm meditating on the card how the caducueus is a symbol of siva and sakti kundalini awakenings, which does indeed tie into the intended meaning of the card. I like cards that speak through color and texture as well, but the deck that does that best is the crowley deck which is loaded with dark interpretation. A card should have enough going on that your intuition can key into an isolated aspect of the card and discard the irrelevant. For the magician card for instance, things on a table, elemental directions, garden growth, channelling from above, or the robe colors and stance might be the part of the card where the meaning of the card in it's context is felt. Range and depth are important in a deck. The fazzy bear and kermit frog deck just isn't going to cut it when you're examining existential heaven/hell issues anchored around freudian interpersonal dynamic dilemnas. You need a deck that can always transcend your current understanding, not one with strict interpretations locked in. The rider-waite is a revision of the medici restorations of cards that came from the crusades after the sacking of carthage where the sages made an effort to codify and salvage metaphysical and alchemical knowledge of paths of consciousness and their nuclear science equivalents. The blueprints for incredible stuff are in an original deck. New decks might accidentally or intentionally reveal a great range of contemporary issues in consciousness, but aren't as suitable for delving into ancient mysteries. The ancients had types of consciousness mapped out that few know exist today. Also the correlation with Hebrew letters which turn every word into a reading about the words spiritual nature is an asset missing in contemporary decks. It's also important that the deck speaks a language you are familiar with. Did the designer have the same sentiments and convey them as you would? A cat deck might assign different energies to abbsynians, manx's, russian blues, etc. that might be lost on a person that didn't speak cat types. and then again, a designer of a cat deck might have not meant anything by which cat they chose for each card. You can test a deck by thinking of extreme situations and seeing which cards come up to embody that. If you conjure up thoughts of suicidal tragedy over affairs, and pull up a broken toy card, or thoughts of benevolence to children and get an aquarium card, your deck might not have the power to convey what you will be considering without making a stretch of the imagination by which you might just as well page through any kids coloring book.

There are only three cards of 78 which have nothing but negative connotations: 10 swords (tragedy), 9 swords (despair), 3 swords (void/disconnection). The rest are structural conceptual paradigms which might be applied to arts, relationships, consciousness, narratives, etc. 'Death' is about things like rebirth cycles, catastrophic definitive transformation, inevitability and humility, homogenity, congruity, time as microcosm and macrocosm... It's symbolism back this up. To assign it the simple meaning of death would make it a useless tool.
To some extent comparing the Tarot with the I-Ching might be like comparing German engineering with Chinese landscape painting; The basic predominant underlying world-view understanding differs, though each have the range to convey the other.

Many decks come with a brief pamphlet or are accompanied by a book.
A good first book that isn't to heavy on theosophy or metaphysics is Eden Gray's 'Mastering the Tarot', or 'the Tarot Revealed', similar books with debatable titles. Real books include 'the Rabbi's Tarot', 'the Tarot' by Paul Foster Case, and 'An introduction to Qabalistic Symbolism' by Gareth Knight. Other books, like decks can be quite quirky, and should be avoided unless you particularly  relate to it. As much original symbolism as possible should be kept, on the other hand, the path is meant to be  enjoyed.

Here is an Analysis of the paper 'Equidistant Letter Sequences' by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips, Yoav Rosenberg regarding decryption of the bible, in which I counter a commendable work by providing alternative scientific explanations. "Seek and ye shall find".