tree-of-life – Dreamyoga

I first started looking into Tarot around 2001. At the time I was an academic in Physical Chemistry at Imperial College London. I was very busy and a part of my job involved considering the second order non linear susceptibility of surfaces and probing these with femtosecond laser pulses.

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It probably wasn’t on the cards that I would share these two interests. Needless to say I did not soap box about tarot to my colleagues, lead ballons and all that.

Last night YouTube suggested a short video from the V&A about tarot and the history thereof. I watched it and found out about Minchiate and subsequently Sicilian tarot. I also found out that you can request to examine and handle some of the collection. The video was well made and interesting.

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« Le minchiate est un jeu de cartes du début du XVIe siècle, originaire de Florence, en Italie, qui n’est quasiment plus joué depuis le XXe siècle. Très proche du tarot, mais plus complexe, il se caractérise par le nombre important d’atouts qu’il utilise : 40, là où le tarot n’en comprend généralement que 21, pour un total de 97 cartes. »

The V&A has a nice web page on the history of Tarot, click here.

In the past I was more often found across the road in the science museum where I, on occasion, explained various exhibits to a little person. Often I would attract a small crowd who pretended not to listen in to what I was saying. The science museum seemed more natural, home turf.

The idea of emailing the V&A collection room to ask to inspect tarot cards from my old Imperial address tickled my fancy. Would they note it and find it odd?

Anyway I have a PowerPoint slide pack course in which I relate tarot to the Kabbalah tree of life and the various paths thereupon, to the Toltec Jewels of Awareness and to the evolution of inherent and evolving awareness. If I remember correctly Théun used to say that it was the Toltecs who invented tarot as a means of communication under things like the catholic inquisition. Anyone who threatened the supremacy of the church was subject to torture and death. The church had a stake in keeping control and power and it burned others on stakes. Tarot being arcane could be hidden under a cover story from prying eyes.

I’ll wager that more people use tarot than second order non-linear hyperpolarizability tensors. Hyperpolarizability is more arcane than tarot.

Back then I looked in detail at much so-called occult literature with the skill set of someone who can read matrices, and spot patterns. I found a lot of the published work shoddy and inconsistent.

I have a weak notion, that I am probably uniquely placed to relate so-called occultism, Toltec, Tarot and Buddhism with the critical thinking of a once pukka scientist.

In the 1990s I never knew that tarot was on the cards for me, though I had started to use I Ching for divination and shamanic journeying to request guidance from the universe. The shaman’s drum and the optical parametric oscillator do not see natural bedfellows. Seemed pretty darned normal to me.

The history of things like tarot will always be largely the overt and exoteric because the esoteric and hidden, is not in the public domain.

I personally cannot get on with the more modern tarot decks, using the tarot de Marseilles almost all of the time. I don’t do cartomancy but allow the major arcana to add pictorial clues to whichever Jewel of Awareness is in play or needs to be used.

I do dream tarot cards from time to time. This may not be common.

Let me be clear occult as I use it means difficult to see, partially hidden from view and not the bleeding obvious. It has nothing to do with Satan nor any dark ritual magic.

There are enough evil people in the world who are successful in the ordinary socio-political and pecuniary sense. They don’t need upside down pentagrams and goat heads. They are just nasty evil selfish people.

I still don’t know what is on the cards for the rest of this year / life …

« La Kabbale (de l’hébreu קבלה Qabbala « réception », forme anglicisée écrite plutôt Cabbale ou Qabale en français) est une tradition ésotérique du judaïsme, traditionnellement présentée comme la « Loi orale et secrète » donnée par YHWH à Moïse sur le mont Sinaï, en même temps que la « Loi écrite et publique » (la Torah). Elle trouve sa source dans les courants mystiques du judaïsme synagogal antique. »

Here is this morning’s dream. I should preface this with the statement that I have studied kabbalah from various published texts but with a background of someone skilled in the art of molecular group theory, symmetry, an open mind, and institutional understanding. I will add a few footnotes at the end. In no way do I see this, kabbalah, as satanic, nor is it some groovy thing a pop star might get a tattoo of.

The dream starts in the Department of Chemistry of Imperial College, South Kensington. I am in the fourth floor secretarial offices with Alan B. He is as I remember him but aged slightly and he is wearing a yarmulke on his head. This is surprising to me for although I knew his background, I never saw him thus attired.

He is standing by the printer waiting for a document to arrive. I greet him and he comments that the print queue must be long. Slowly out of the printer a sheet of A3 paper comes out and on it there is a kabbalistic otz chiim or eitz chaim. I glance at it and point out the common mistake which is deliberate in much of the published “work”. He says that he did not know that I knew about kabbalah.

I say that I have looked into it a little and see it as a model for the manifestation of the universe and how an idea or thought form comes into being, from before a germ of an idea.

I draw his attention to ein, ein soph and ein soph aur and explain that this is “deity” unmanifest often call God transcendent and this is a guess for what lies beyond the veil. An attempt of the seers of old to verbalise what they could not see. I point at the top trinity above da’ath and say that this is God imminent or that first part of deity which is, present participle, manifesting, in manifestation.

I say that the veil represents that which is in the very initial act of manifesting, that which is neither unmanifest or manifest. It represents the cusp of beingness, the as yet non nascent dream of existence.

He looks taken aback and says that he thought that kabbalah was pretty much a Jewish thing. I explain that yes that is where it was first started and that it goes way back. He points to da’ath on the tree.

I explain to him that herein lies the crux, because beyond {above} this we are dealing with models of deity which must be by way of conjecture. Whilst human I believe it difficult to conceptualise such states of awareness. In many ways da’ath encapsulates the mystery of beingness in that one cannot see beyond form whilst in form. The model of a triangle is reflected here with the apex of the triangle pointing up instead of down. Da’ath is a kind of lower reflection of the veil of existence.

Alan looks a little freaked.

The dream ends….

* Whilst working in pastoral care a student who had been on holiday at a rabbinical kabbalistic kibbutz had a big discussion on kabbalah with me and saw fit to give me a book on the subject. She was astounded that I could discuss such matters with her.

*There is a Toltec interpretation of “Jacob’s ladder” the lightning strike of manifestation too.

Tag: tree-of-life

What is on the Cards – Tarot – V&A

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