Camoin Tarot Forum

[Paul]

Some say the Tarot functions by Magic. This depends on one’s definition of Magic.

One of my papers in graduate program was a study of the rituals of Santeria, Voodoo, shamans, and Wiccan priests and priestesses. Putting aside that they certainly believed that were summoning spirits, what did they all have in common within their rituals? What was the Cartesian result?

If I believe that Magic works by means of supernatural forces, then likely there are ways to summon, channel, or become a lightning rod for those forces. Then, the question is, who has the correct ritual? And, this ultimately becomes a matter of religious debate. Also, I must ask myself, are these supernatural forces beneficent or malevolent? In tandem, I must then somehow open the door to the beneficent ones, and shut the windows on the bad ones.

Likewise, if the Tarot deck, itself, is magical, then I will afford it the sanctification of a religious relic. I will put it upon a shrine, anoint it, clothe it in silk, and so forth. Below is a picture of the Hindu goddess and how the relic is sanctified by Hindu devotees (Puja/Pooja).


This is the tea ceremony of the Japanese…


This is the Haitian Voudou ritual…

Actually, I do not mock, but I appreciate this sentiment.


My view is that all ritual puts the human into a state of mind of receptivity, just between the misty border of the mundane and the sacred. It is a Trance, and perhaps this Trance allows communication with Angels, or with the Collective Unconscious, or with the Unconscious of the person across from us, or the Tarot is just a parlor game and we are fooling ourselves. But, those of us who have witnessed the synchronicities between the images on the cards and the life of the querent, I think we sense…well, Magic.

So, ritual is important, but I believe it must be a deeply personal ritual. Also, if the tool we use—the cards—bridges the divide between Worlds (whether those Worlds are within us our outside of us), then I can appreciate the value of sanctifying the tool in some way. All of this assists in becoming La Papesse or Le Pape. But, we can sanctify a tool, even if we don’t believe it is magical, essentially.

Personally, I prefer elegantly simple rituals. I went to one tarot reader in Louisiana. Oh my god, the incense was suffocating, then there was chanting (I giggled), and I thought we would never cease shuffling and cutting the cards. I thought to myself, "I am glad that I am not paying this woman by the hour!" I once worked Psychic Faires, oh the garish sights I saw! I wondered if the more pomp and circumstance of the vendor, the more this covered for lack of talent.

Indeed, there was an American television series called Carnivàle, wherein the Tarot reader made sacred space out of her double-wide trailer!


So, what did I discover in my graduate study? There are 5 primary ingredients to a magical or divination success, each one is simply a matter of aesthetic and degree: Five is also the Pythagorean number of the divine as added to the mundane (4). It is the number of the Pentagram (not a Satanic symbol, but a symbol of antiquity):

1. A sacred space, however that is defined, and this space is deliberately made appealing or different than the mundane world.
2. A shrine whereupon the divination takes place. This is the focal point, the crack in the protoplasm. This is where we pierce the veil. It is the SPAM SPAM SPAM the Divine Vagina, speaking symbolically of course. Or, put otherwise, it is the Divine Vagina receiving the Divine Penis.
3. A sacred tool and a prescribed way of using that tool
4. The belief of both the diviner and the inquirer in the method.
5. A method of calming the mind of the diviner and inquirer.

Notice that the presupposed substantiality of the question is not important. In Haiti, villagers ask about crops, pregnancies, love affairs, and all mundane matters. I disagree with those who say that “fortune-telling” questions are profane. This is always in the eye of the beholder. To a Haitian, the success of the crop this year is profoundly important !!!

Here are my Five, which have evolved over the years and are always changeable:

1. My living room table, which is cleared of clutter, television off, somewhat dimmed lighting
2. A silk cloth, a candle (white seems nice)
3. The Tarot, the Camoin Method. I place the Major Arcana in proper order.
4. I adequately believe that something esoteric is occurring. But, I remain a healthy skeptic. I refuse to do readings for players who want to test me, as if this is a parlor game.
5. Deep breathing, letting go of the thoughts, and then focusing on the question; all Trance is achieved by Focus and relaxation. This is the essence of hypnosis.

Please note, there is no chicken blood here, and no animals are harmed in the making of this ritual.

Shall we all define our personal 5 ?

Fear not, there is no judgmentalism here.

[iñigo]

Hi Paul:

I am sure you are very familiar with authors as Van Gennep or Victor Turner among others. I use them to study the secular rituals of the current society. Honestly I not use complex rituals during my readings, but I acept that We need some ritual to keep the communicative tension between "the diviner and the inquirer" under control, as u wrote before.

Usually the only thing I do is having the atmosphere as quiet as possible, and I use a cloth or table cloth. Other thing is obliged to the person to repeat 3 o 5 times his or her question. When the person is repeating the question, is making him/herself be aware about what they want to ask me (Be aware that for example the marketing, the new black magic, is based on repeating some ideas to make us buy..and the marketing WORKS). The ritual always is a perfomance in which we leave the surface acting to get the deep acting. I mean with the ritual we are creating a aestetic that induces us an emotional state that permits us to arrive to high/new levels of conciousness. Of course with the rituals we retrieve the myth. We bring the remote myth from the past, to NOW and HERE. Finally, during the ritual we are holding a role that usually we don´t hold, that gives us the opportunity to transcend our everyday life or the hidden tricks of our identity, since our identity is made by cultural aspects of domination.

The ritual, as a magic, has to impact us to keep our attention, to say: ok now we start with the reading, forget the things around you!
as you know the tarot is hypnotic, the images are really powerful because the combination of colors and forms....


We will talk!

best regards,

inigo.

[Paul]

Hello Iñigo:

Yes, I am familiar with the authors you mention. I am a eclectic scholar; if I hadn’t studied psychology in graduate school, I would have studied Anthropology, and then my third choice would have been Marketing. Ah well, if only a million lifetimes to explore these interests.

You might also be familiar with Ioan Coulianu's Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, wherein this dense work he speaks of how Eros (or Venus, Love, Eroticism) is the common focal point for all persuasion or Magic (you mention marketing, and Eros is a pervasive aspect of modern marketing, just open an issue of Vogue magazine). Interestingly, these focal points become magical talismans, as if owning a pair of DKNY jeans affords one the alacrity of Mercury and the magnetism of Aphrodite.

The opposite side of Eros is, of course, Hate. Somewhat, this is a Mars/Venus dichotomy. Thus, all marketing sets on these two poles: Hate and Love. This describes the last American election between Obama (Eros) and McCain (Hate). But, I digress.

Back to rituals: I think any (effective) Tarot ritual has an Erotic element to it. I don’t mean p.o.r.n.o.g.r.a.p.h.i.c. in any sense, but a sense of Venus. In tandem, so many Tarot rituals I have witnessed involve sensual silks, soft candlelight, sweet incense, romantic lighting, and seductive music. Eros is a sensual desire or longing. Even in Haitian rituals, the devotee is possessed of the god or goddess as if in intercourse, dancing to throbbing music, and swept away by the seduction of the deity. Likewise, I think there is an intimacy between the Inquirer and Tarologue that takes place.

I know that when I have personally received readings for my own questions, there is a vulnerability that is at once disquieting and voluptuous, as if one is nervously receiving the advances of another, yet excited. When I have done readings for others, I have had clients who want to touch the cards, as if touching the lips of one’s lover, or the skin, or a breast, or the hand, and they touch me in a prolonged hug or a tender kiss, after the reading. And, this defies gender or orientation.

Indeed, the Jodo/Camoin Tarot deck is Erotic. I don’t mean the genitals of Le Diable and the breasts of Le Toille—although the nudity is seductive—I mean the colors and the postures and the expressions.

I once thought that the Jodo/Camoin deck was garish, rude, Las Vegas-meets-Tarot de Marseille. I’ve come around.

Paul

[isidore]

hi paul,

i think i understand better what you mean, when i read the original message.
not to discuss the initials statements of your study, i react on your pictures wich perfectly illustrate your words.
these are pictures of perfection, the perfection of rituals.
although, i think i do have, myself, a sense of perfection. but to describe it, you must forget the picture.
and to get the picture, you must forget the words.
the sacred is an idea, which lays in everything, and for this, i forgot the forms.
the tarot reminds me of the initial loss, wich allows me to go.
my ritual is form free. it is sacred.

isidore