Beginning with Tarot: A Personal View

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I got involved with psychic research when I was about 11 years old.  I had become fascinated with psychic phenomena while reading an article in my mother’s Family Circle magazine.  The article was based on the book Hidden Channels of the Mind by Louisa E. Rhine, wife and co-researcher of J.B. Rhine who had developed the field of parapsychology while a professor at Duke University.


Soon I was reading everything I could get my hands on about the subject.  One book in particular focused on testing procedures, and  my best friend at the time was enthusiastic about the idea of working through those tests as experiments.  His house had an attic room that wasn’t being used, so we converted it into a parapsychology lab as only a couple of sixth graders could... it basically consisted of a table, a couple of chairs, pencils and paper, some dice, and playing cards. We didn’t have any Zener cards, which we would have liked, but the book had procedures and listed probabilities for ordinary playing cards, so we were set.  We tested each other according to the protocols we learned from the book, and recorded the results.  We didn’t break any new ground in our “research”, and after that school year we lost touch with each other.


Shortly after that, when I was 13, I went to see the new James Bond movie Live and Let Die.  The music, the intrigue, girls and guns, and then... pictographic cards start falling on a table as a woman’s voice begins describing things to come.  I was instantly intrigued!  What was this?  The story developed, the cards became more prominent, and at one point the word “Tarot” could be seen in a window over an image of The High Priestess.  I had to know more.


This was 1973, and some aspects of American schools were starting to go sane, albeit only for a few years.  The Scholastic Book Club, which sold books through my junior high school, offered a deck of Tarot cards through its monthly catalogue.  That became my first deck.  I don’t remember what it was called, but it was only the Major Arcana, and in addition to traditional titles, each card had the name of a popular song printed on it.  The Fool referenced “The Fool on the Hill”, The Devil mentioned “Sympathy for the Devil”, The Wheel of Fortune had “Spinning Wheel”, and so on.


So my love affair with the Tarot began, and continues to this moment...


 Now, Lifeforce Tarot Energetics is a system of utilizing lifeforce energy, and focusing it with the symbols of the Tarot, through the stillness of Now.  Universal symbolism and psychic energy interact in ways that facilitate deep insight into real-life concerns, and often result in deep healing on emotional, spiritual, and even physical levels.  There is no known limit to this, as it is continuously evolving.


The challenge here is putting this into words.  It’s one thing to live with it as it evolves, it’s another to teach this approach to others.  What seems obvious to me now may not be apparent to you, just as what now seems self-evident to you may not seem so to me.  This is okay.  I’m not trying to teach or write dogmatic “Truth”, just suggesting an approach to the ancient art of personal transformation that may help you on your own journey... or at least, maybe, entertain you a bit.


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Copyright 2011 by Dennis George Rudolph.  All rights reserved.

Origins of the Tarot

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Tarot is a 78 card oracle with a rather uncertain history. The earliest Tarot cards showed up in Italy during the Middle Ages, and in the centuries since then they have been used for games as well as divination. “Scholars” and other writers have speculated on… um, researched… the origins and original purposes of the Tarot for a long time now, and out of these “studies” some unquestionable and well documented "facts" emerge:
Tarot was the original expression, in pictures, of the Eleusian Mystery Teachings.
Tarot originated in Egypt as an encapsulation of the ancient Egyptian Mysteries.
Mediaeval cabbalists hid their Mysteries in the symbols of the Tarot to preserve the esoteric teachings from the Inquisition.

Gypsies brought the Tarot to Europe from Egypt.

Gypsies brought the Tarot to Europe from India.

Marco Polo brought the Tarot to Europe from China.

Tarot was invented as a game of amusement long before it was used for esoteric understanding or divination.

Tarot is the origin of ordinary playing cards.

The ordinary playing card deck is the origin of the Tarot.

The Tarot hides the Mysteries of the Holy Grail.

The Tarot hides the Mysteries of the Knights Templar.

The Tarot hides the Mysteries of (name of your favorite Mystery tradition here).

I think you get the idea. Some of these speculations may have something to them. Reading about such things is entertaining, and can even expand your understanding of the practical use of the Tarot, the subject of this blog.

(Side note to advanced Tarot scholars: If I have included your favorite theory in this list, rest assured that I am well aware of how True it is. I only included it with all those obviously false notions so as not to offend the benighted souls who have yet to see its Truth.)

Now, the language of Tarot is symbols, the same as the language of your unconscious, the same as the language of dreams. Your unconscious deals in symbols, feelings, ambiguities, and things indirectly hinted at. It responds to synchronicities and “coincidences”, and searches for meaning in apparent patterns. Part of the mind’s symbolic understanding seems to be inborn and hardwired in, while another part seems to be cultural and learned.

Lifeforce Tarot reading takes all of these things into account in a practical way that enhances intuition and bridges conscious and subconscious minds.
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Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph. All rights reserved.