The Garden of Creation

by Marcus Katz

  THE GARDEN OF CREATION:

  Gated Spread Book 5

  Explore Your Creativity

  By Tali Goodwin & Marcus Katz

  Copyright © Tali Goodwin & Marcus Katz, 2013

  Published by Forge Press, Keswick

  All rights reserved.

  WHAT OUR STUDENTS SAY …

  I am extremely thankful for these exercises. I feel like I could spend years contemplating these results and still not get to the bottom of the insight I have gained.

  C.C.

  This exercise as well as the others have spoken volumes. Thank you for sharing this experience with us.

  R. G.

  Incredible knowledge so easily shared … This has been a journey in which I have learned a lot of new things and feel very satisfied.

  L. J.

  Very moving and effective. I cannot wait for the next gates!

  Y.

  I suddenly realized I have been dreaming like crazy since I started these exercises! Very intuitive stuff about my situation, and about my Tarot!

  L.

  We have used real-life examples and authentic feedback throughout this series, anonymously, from our students in Tarot-Town. We thank them for their engagement with these experiences over the years.

  About the Authors

  “You know, the Tarot is a Blank Bible – for everyone to fill in.”

  Goodwin to Katz, Typical Conversation.

  Tali Goodwin is the co-author of award-winning and #1 best-selling Tarot books, including Around the Tarot in 78 Days, Tarot Face to Face, and Learning Lenormand. She is also a leading Tarot researcher and is credited with the discovery of A. E. Waite’s second tarot deck, kept secret for a century, published as Abiding in the Sanctuary. She has also uncovered and published the Original Lenormand deck, and with co-author Derek Bain, the original Golden Dawn Tarot images in A New Dawn for Tarot. Her research into the life of Pamela Colman-Smith with new photographs will be published as The Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot by Llewellyn Worldwide in Spring 2014. She is co-Director of Tarosophy Tarot Associations (Worldwide) and organizes the international tarot conventions, TarotCon.

  Marcus Katz is author of the ground-breaking Tarot book and teaching system, Tarosophy, and is the co-founder of Tarosophy Tarot Associations (Worldwide). In addition to Tarot books with Tali Goodwin, he is the author of The Magister, an 11-volume opus on the Western Esoteric Initiatory System, The Magician’s Kabbalah, and the forthcoming Path of the Seasons. He teaches students privately in the Crucible Club, available by application.

  Contents

  WHAT OUR STUDENTS SAY …

  About the Authors

  Contents

  Preface

  What is the Tarot?

  What Are The Top 10 Wrong Ideas About Tarot?

  The Tarot & Creativity

  Chapter 1: Garden Plan

  Chapter 2: Stepping Stones

  Chapter 3: Talking Fountain

  Chapter 4: Labyrinth

  Conclusion

  Bibliography

  Websites & Resources

  Kindle Tarot Books & Series

  Preface

  The business of making up stories has been going on a long time.

  Alexander Steele (ed.) Writing Fiction, p. 2

  You are about to go on a journey and experience magical creativity.

  Grab a Tarot deck, and we are good to go!

  The purpose of Gated Spreads is to overturn the common use of Tarot cards as a means of “telling” the future, or providing a brief insight into our life and motivations – and hence our future possibilities. The teaching of Tarosophy encourages the use of Tarot as a divine language; one which connects us to the deeper world underneath the apparent one which we often take for granted. A gated spread requires you to take action in your life, from which change emerges naturally. This is not the empty promise of a feel-good self-help book, but a call to action – your action – to change your life through Tarot.

  Our Gated Spread experiences have been offered for several years to the public, and now for the first time we provide them in handy self-study packages on Kindle. In each of these individual books, you can experience shamanism, relationship and romance insight, creativity, alchemy, and even delve into your ancestry, all using just a tarot deck.

  We have also ensured that this is not a book of fictional examples that sound too good to be true. Our books are based only on real-life testing and the actual experience of real people like you, encountering magick often for the first time. We have taught these methods and ran workshops and gated spread weeks for many years, and have hundreds of experiences which have constantly shaped what you are about to experience for yourself.

  This book is ideal for first time users of Tarot or the experienced reader who is looking to activate the tarot in their life. We have ensured that you are given the necessary instructions and clarifications (from our previous teaching and feedback given by students) to experience true magick in your time using this book.

  Before you begin, you may wish to join our free Facebook group if you have any questions about Tarot, and also download our free keyword guide to tarot cards and standard spreads from our site:

  www.mytarotcardmeanings.com

  What is the Tarot?

  The tarot as most commonly recognized is a family of card decks, most often 78 cards divided into four suits of 14 cards (10 numbered cards and 4 Court cards for each suit) and 22 Major cards. There are presently about 1,000 different decks in print or circulation, and many more out-of-print, rare and collectable decks.

  Although it can be proven that the tarot was developed in the early 15th century, a lot of books still suggest that it was used by the “ancient ...” and then provide lists of the unproven, non-factual ideas which results in a conflation of tarot and those very ideas.

  The earliest names for the tarot are Italian. Originally the cards were called carte da trionfi (cards of the triumphs), but around 1530 A.D. (about 100 years after the origin of the cards) the word tarocchi began to be used to distinguish the tarot cards from a new game of triumphs or trumps then being played with ordinary playing cards.

  You are actually seeing in the cards some direct examples of the triumphs – the procession of floats common at festivals in Italy at the time – particularly in such cards as The Chariot and the Court cards. There is even a Christian tarot in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the cards were used to depict virtues, the liberal arts and sciences, and other aspirational notions from their earliest development. In fact, it could be said that the cards were originally educational or self-development tools, although that could also be debatable.

  There is no evidence that the tarot were used by gypsies, originated in Egypt or were used for divination prior to the 1700s, despite popular occult lore that the cards have embodied ‘ancient teaching’ from time immemorial. It was not until a pseudo-connection between the Hebrew letters and the tarot was published in 1781 – by Comte de Mellet, in Antoine Court de Gebélin’s Le Monde Primitif – that esoteric interest began to appropriate the cards to embody occult teaching.

  The earliest list of the 22 cards which have become known as the Major Arcana is given in a sermon against their use by a monk writing in Latin around 1450-1470 A.D. This sermon is sometimes called the Steele Sermon as it belongs to the collection of Robert Steele.

  [This above section which we think is so important to teach is repeated in each booklet in this series, and is an extract from Tarosophy, by Marcus Katz].

  Which Tarot Deck is Best for This Gated Spread?

  Our students have used a range of decks for this experience, and of course the standard Waite-Smith is a favorite. H
owever, students have used these decks with particularly good results:

   The Dragon Tarot

   The Tarot of the Silicon Dawn

   The Waite-Smith Tarot

  As every deck tends to follow the “Hero’s Journey” (in fact, the Fool’s journey) in its structure, this particular gated spread experience is suited to any tarot deck – perhaps choose one that you are not used to, or really don’t like – or love! The only deck that won’t work for this is one which doesn’t interest you or cause any passion – this is a creative exercise!

  What Are The Top 10 Wrong Ideas About Tarot?

  There are many wrong ideas about the tarot that seem to be popular. We would like to present quickly some common myths about tarot that you may have heard already, and change your view!

  1. The tarot did not originate from Egypt, the gypsies, the Templars, Atlantis or a secret order.

  2. You do not need to be gifted or given your first tarot deck – you can simply buy a deck for yourself.

  3. You do not have to keep your tarot in a silk bag or bag of any particular color.

  4. You can let other people touch your cards if you choose.

  5. There are no real ‘rules’ in tarot, but some generally agreed good ideas.

  6. The keywords for cards are not set in stone; they can be modified depending on the deck, the reading and the question. However, there are basic concepts specific to each card in the deck, which form a basic language.

  7. The cards are not evil – no more than any art or printed material is “evil”.

  8. You do not have to be intuitive or gifted in some special way – you can learn, and develop your tarot skills in any way.

  9. The ‘ancient Celtic Cross’ spread has not been used for centuries, and it is not particularly ancient and it is not Celtic.

  10. There is no single right way to read tarot – we encourage every reader to discover their own unique voice.

  The Tarot & Creativity

  This method of using Tarot is completely unique and is here applied to our ability to create stories from images – and our own lives. Over the course of about a week, you can use these gated spreads to create a story, novel, poem, or narrative. In doing so, you’ll also be learning how to read tarot as a creative process, and read your own life as a hero’s journey – or heroine’s!

  The experience also comes with a twist at the end – as should any good story, perhaps – when you see that you can now use the skills learnt in the first few days to divine your life. We recommend you work through this experience slowly, and in sequence, to get the most out of the final few days. These experiences are carefully constructed, and have been tweaked over years of student experiences. Whilst they are deceptively simple on the surface, they can be radical in actual practice.

  The aim of the exercise is to explore, develop and change through creativity our own awareness of our life as a journey. This is why we refer to Tarosophy as “Tarot to engage life, not escape it”. We hope you will find this method entirely revolutionary and useful to you in your personal life as well as a method to teach your own students, friends who are Tarot readers, or clients with whom you use Tarot.

  The Garden of Creation : Gate 1

  Garden Plan

  Illustration. Forking Paths.

  This is the first gate of our Garden of Creation experience, and is called “Garden Plan”. The concept of gated spreads is that they are designed to a fundamental pattern – archetypal – and linked together in a series so that each spread depends on the one before it. Not only that, but each spread requires an act of creation before progressing to the next spread.

  In this way, a spread may not make sense unless you have accomplished the task of the previous gates – this is why the technique is called a “gated spread”.

  For this particular spread, we are teaching Tarot to encourage your imagination and creativity, whilst also allowing you to unconsciously learn new methods of approaching the skills of Tarot reading. In this case, we will be installing through our work and exercises the skills of pattern-recognition, connection-making and narrative – leading to the intuitive leaps so much part of the Tarot reader’s repertoire.

  The Garden Walk

  Illustration: Garden Gate

  So in this first day we start with a simple spread but an unusual technique – those who have been on other Gated Spread experiences will be used to weird approaches by now!

  We are going to create a new imaginative piece each by the end of this week – whether it be a project, poem, story, article, essay – something new that is not here yet. The Universe is waiting with bated breath!

  Our first step is to sit and shuffle our deck - any deck is “tuned” this method, although I suspect you’ll get best results from a deck which is at the far ends of either your most favorite or least favorite decks, those you are not particularly bothered about will be less provocative and engaging. Whilst doing so, think of all the times in your life when you have been creative, imaginative and playful.

  Then take the top 10 cards from the deck and throw them to the floor or table, face-up! Spread them out a little – they should be slightly scattered.

  Illustration: Garden Paths Cards

  Turn the rest of the deck upside-down to reveal the base card (in the case above, the STAR) and place that somewhere suitable to act as a “Garden Gate” into the spread. Then we simply go for a Tarot walk to discern the plan between the various cards. You can choose any route at all, starting from the “Gate” card and meandering through the other cards as you wish. Sketch out the route you take, and pause when you feel you have exited the garden out another card.

  In the example route below from the garden spread above, I walked from the STAR “gate”, to the Empress, the 2 of Wands, 5 of Pentacles and then exited with the MAGICAN.

  Illustration: Garden Path Cards Marked with Route

  Number these routes (it is best to have at least 3 connections) and write down the connecting cards. In this example:

  1: Star – Empress

  2: Empress – 2 Wands

  3: 2 Wands – 5 Pentacles

  4: 5 Pentacles – Magician

  Now write a brief impression of the nature of the route between each pair of connecting cards, against each numbered path. This should take into account everything you know about the cards, or merely the pictures. You can use Kabbalistic or Numerological information, intuition, Astrological correspondences, keywords … anything.

  So, for example, I might write:

  1: Falling from the heavens. Sky to Earth. The drop.

  2: Son sets sail, leaving home.

  3: Hard times from hopeful beginnings.

  4: A mentor teaches those who come inside. Choices.

  Repeat this path-walking to discover a number of connecting paths in the structure of the garden. See which cards always seem to determine the same meaning to their connecting paths, and which cards suddenly appear to mean very different things when connecting with different cards.

  See - more importantly - what themes emerge in common across any or all of the paths chosen in the same garden.

  Here is a student example, using the Dragon Tarot.

  1st Path: The Straight path right across the middle of the garden:

  - Empress (the gate) to the Hanged Dragon

  - Hanged Dragon - Knight of Coins

  - Knight of Coins - Four of Swords

  - Four of Swords - Six of Coins (Leaving the Garden)

  Setting out encouraged and nourished, meeting with the first obstacle, which is a riddle

  Having solved the riddle, the goal and the path become clear and straight-forward.

  Pursuing the way with vigour, determination and clarity, taking a deserved rest.

  Making a well-considered decision and going onto the gate out of the garden, where the “treasure” is gained.

  The Knight is the one who is taking this path. But he first has to find himself (his identity, his gold
and his path) through the riddle of the Hanged Dragon. The solving of the riddle involves considerable hardship, probably even a sacrifice (of quite another kind than the Knight would be accustomed to, for example it is not his knight-typical task to slay the dragon).

  The main stations of this path from Hanged Dragon to Four of Swords fell into a stair-like pattern, which very well shows the steady progress towards his goal (the treasure - a more mature identity and/or control over new resources)

  The numerical value of the cards together is 20. This relates this path to Judgment. The Knight has to heed a call (solve the riddle) to open an avenue which ultimately leads to a new life/a new level of consciousness/a more integrated Self.

  2nd Path: Circle around the complete garden (far side):

  - Empress to Four of Cups

  - Four of Cups to Chariot

  - Chariot to Four of Swords

  - Four of Swords to Blasted Tower

  - Blasted Tower to Five of Cups

  - Five of Cups to Two of Coins

  - Two of Coins to Queen of Coins (leaving the garden)

  This path is taken by one of the Empress’ children (baby dragons):

  Setting out well-trained in care and compassion by your Empress-Mother, you cannot refuse the dragon who asks for help in feeding his/her young.

  Having fulfilled this work, the dragon makes good on his/her word and takes you up on a ride to unbelievable new vistas.

  But all good things have to end and you find yourself at a place of rest. You have to leave, though, because there is a sudden fire in a tower nearby and you have to go and see if you can be of help there.

  On coming to the Blasted Tower you are hurt by falling stones, but you meet your dragon again, who rapidly explains that he had to dismantle this evil structure by force and fire. Together you flee the scene across the water.