by Marcus Katz
THE GATES OF VALENTINE:
Gated Spread Book 2
Deepen Your Relationship(s)
By Tali Goodwin & Marcus Katz
Copyright © Tali Goodwin & Marcus Katz, 2013
Published by Forge Press, Keswick
All rights reserved.
WHAT OUR STUDENTS SAY …
Thanks a lot for the fantastic experience, I've now understood a lot about my relationship with relationships!
N. T.
… areally interesting and powerful experience.
C. M.
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
“A Fox, an Owl, a Bear, a Child and a Sphinx walk into a bar. The barman says ‘I don’t serve Sphinxes. This is a traditional bar’”.
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 & Relationships.
Chapter 1: The Ticket to the Tunnel of Love
Chapter 2: Twists & Turns
Chapter 3: Steal a Kiss from your Favorite Miss.
Conclusion
Bibliography
Websites & Resources
Kindle Tarot Books & Series
Preface
You are about to go on a journey and deepen your relationship to everyone and everything.
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. However, students have used these decks with particularly good results:
The Lovers Tarot
The Dreaming Way Tarot<
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Paulina Tarot
Shadowscapes Tarot
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 & Relationships.
This method of using Tarot is completely unique and is here applied to our relationship(s), with a loved one, partner, husband/wife, family member(s), close friend, working colleague or relationships in general. It requires a week of participation, with a simple drawing of cards taking less than ten minutes each day and then action during the day(s) throughout the week.
The aim of the exercise is to explore, develop and change through action our relationship(s). 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.
Now, to begin our Gates, then, our first spread is a simple one, it is called "Projected History in Relationship":
1. Take out the 16 Court Cards.
2. Shuffle whilst thinking about all the relationships you have had in the past. Take your time. You may use a personal ritual to prepare for this spread, if you wish.
3. When ready, stop shuffling and take out the TOP and BOTTOM cards.
4. Take these two cards and place them about 20cm apart where you can see them.
5. Consider how these two cards reflect your experience of relationships. How do they relate to each other? Make notes if you wish.
6. Within 24 hours, you must be able to move these cards together, so that eventually you can place them together with satisfaction that they are in right relationship.
This prepares us to go on our Tunnel of Love experience …
As a special bonus, you can select from the list below one link and this will provide you a “guiding card” for the week ahead. This will be selected by the “Seer of Tarosophy Towers” and we will also note a few key-words of what this card portends for you!
Select Your Guiding Card
The card you select will call you to recognize one key element of your life during the week ahead. These are selected from the Major cards of the Tarot – simply pick ONE number below to view your card on YouTube, selected by the Seer of Tarosophy Towers.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
This card is for your contemplation and consideration, and acts as a “frame” in which your experience for the week may be seen.
Gates of Valentine: Gate 1
The Ticket to the Tunnel of Love
This is the first gate of our Valentines experience, and is called the “Ticket to the Tunnel of Love”. The concept of gated spreads is that they are designed to a fundamental – archetypal – pattern and linked together in a series so that each spread depends on the one before it. Not only that, but each spread requires an engagement in real life in response before progressing to the next spread.
Illus. Steal a Kiss From Your Favorite Miss!
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”.
Our theme of relationships for this particular journey takes us to the Tunnel of Love, whose first task is to buy a ticket.
To perform the first gate, the ticket, we select out the Minor cards (all 40, Ace to Ten in all four Suits of Pentacles, Cups, Swords and Wands), as we have already utilized a Major Card and two Court Cards. Shuffle the Minors and select one card; this is your ticket card.
The ticket card requires you to act on it in relationship within the following day. It depicts a requirement to manifest something – pay in some way – for your ticket. As an example, you might draw the 5 of Wands. In my deck for this experience, the Tarot of Dreams, this shows 5 masculine figures wielding staves in combat against a fiery background. This might indicate to me that tomorrow I need to fight for something in my relationship(s) and perhaps more than once.
Not only must you act upon this card as a general theme, a gated spread requires you to actually perform a very deliberate act which you would not have done otherwise, which can be immediately attributed to your chosen card.
So I might, for example, make a telephone call or speak to a particular person, or send a document, etc., that I would not have otherwise done. This is directly associated with the nature of the 5 of Wands if it were combative or stressful.
Here is the experience of a student:
My Ticket to the Tunnel of Love was the 6 of Swords from the Alchemical Tarot. A loving breeze blows the ship and swords in the same direction. Nature complies when we go with the flow. I read it as “Higher forces keeping us ahead of our troubles”. Get away from troubles and relax. Take a trip. A safe journey ahead of you.
With the 6 of Swords, and in observation of my guiding card, the Devil (to recognize dependence and attachment and face up to fear of freedom), I can pay forward to my relationship a space to allow some personal time of each, and also give myself a time to relax.
This will allow appreciation of the higher forces blowing the breeze in the direction each of us should go during our own space/time. Then I could bring back a surprise for both of us to share.
Whatever that could be!
The week ahead will be challenging, intriguing, totally original and magical. We hope that it provides your relationship new insight, development and change - and gives you a whole new way of looking at Tarot.
Gates of Valentine: Gate 2
Twists & Turns
This is the second gate of our Valentines experience, and is called the “Twists and Turns in the Tunnel of Love”.
As we have seen, Tarosophy turns Tarot into very active, dynamic, oracular experience. You have to relate to the cards in a new way. This also helps you read the cards from deep personal experience – you will have truly lived the Tarot in real life.
As we are particularly looking this week at relationship, romance, and love, our next gate lasts for three days – taking us to the final gate of Valentine. On the final day we will reveal who our “favorite miss” is and how we will “steal a kiss” from her!
This gate is more flexible, and as we have already encountered the Majors in our first outer courtyard card, the Court Cards in our first gate, and the Minors in our second gate, we use all of the deck for this one.
But we do something different – take out all the Cups, Ace to Ten. You should
lay these out in a column, in order. Then shuffle the remaining cards whilst contemplating the twists and turns of all relationships and looking up and down the column of cups.
When you are ready, stop shuffling and lay out one card in order from the deck next to each of the Cup cards, starting with the Ace, and ending with the Ten. You should lay out ten cards so that you have two columns, with the Cups in order on one side, and a card paired with each that you have taken from the shuffled deck.
The ten pairs represent the twists and turns of the tunnel of love. In every Cup card is depicted an aspect of our emotional life and relationship to the Universe (and others). They also depict our internal self-relationship and the unconscious contracts we create between all the aspects of our self.
The card we have taken from our shuffled deck is the divination for how we are best advised to approach these aspects; our attitude or angle. So for all ten aspects of our emotional life in relationship, we are given a card (Minor, Major, Court) that depicts currently the engagement of that aspect in the rest of our life. Together, these ten pairs make a picture of the twists and turns of the tunnel of love!
So over the next three days, feel free to explore this spread, and if it prompts actions, take them. It may help wrap up or extend some of the insights achieved already in the week. We have given keywords and phrases below to assist our navigation of the tunnel:
Cups in Relationship
Ace: Arousal - what is it that excites you without pause?
Two: Proximity - what is it or who that you can get physically close?
Three: Similarity - Who are you like and like to be around?
Four: Forgiveness - How do you show kindness, appreciation?
Five: Inhibition - What holds you back?
