Tarot As A Spiritual Guide

Tarot is one of the paths to spiritual self-enlightenment. It teaches you not only how to reach this goal, but also warns you of the wrong turns you can take along the way.

Tarot card reading is the easiest to understand the nature of your journey if you think of the Major Arcana as an ascending staircase with twenty-two steps. Each step has a slightly different configuration; some are wider, some narrower, some are rougher, some smoother. And each step has its own unique obstacles which you must overcome in order to make your way across it.

The passage between steps varies in difficulty as well. In some cases, you may have a steep and torturous climb; in others, the passage may be as simple as stepping through a doorway. There is always a barrier, however, which you must figure out how to cross in order to make your way to the next stage upward.

Each step also has a landing, leading off the main staircase, where the climber can stop and rest – or get off the upward bad forever – and here there are no barriers. What you see on these landings is sometimes terrifying, sometimes beautiful, sometimes both at once, but it is always alluring. Each landing has its own temptations, drawing you toward it. And whatever you see on any landing, and however it affects you, it is always easier to step off onto the landing than it is to make your way across the step you’re on, or upward to the next one.

All that you do know for certain is that there are twenty-two steps, and that you must climb them all to reach your goal. If you stop at any point less than twenty-two, you may find what you think you were really looking for. But you will never find the true answers to your questions.

Every path to spiritual self-enlightenment has its own dangers, and its own opportunities for failure, and the Path of the Tarot is no exception. There will be times when you despair, when you’re certain you’ll never understand or succeed, when you are tempted to quit.