Animation Tarot
Piers Anthony
From the Tarot novels by Piers Anthony.
ANIMATION TAROT
The Animation Tarot deck of concepts as recreated by Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision consists of thirty Triumphs roughly
equivalent to the twenty-two Trumps of contemporary conventional Tarot decks, together with five variously tilted suits roughly equivalent to the four conventional suits plus Aura. Each suit is numbered from one through ten, with the addition of four "Court" cards. The thirty Triumphs are represented by the table of contents of this novel, and keys to their complex meanings and derivations are to be found within the applicable chapters. For convenience the Triumphs are presented below, followed by a tabular representation of the suits, with their meanings or sets of meanings (for upright and reversed fall of the cards); the symbols are described by the italicized words. Since the suits are more than mere collections of concepts, five essays relating to their fundamental nature follow the chart.
No Animation Tarot deck exists in published form at present. Brother Paul used a pack of three-by-five-inch file cards to represent the one hundred concepts, simply writing the meanings on each card and sketching the symbols himself, together with any other notes he found pertinent. These were not as pretty or convenient as published cards, but were satisfactory for divination, study, entertainment, business and meditation as required. A full discussion of each card and the special conventions relating to the Animation deck would be too complicated to cover here, but those who wish to make up their own decks and use them
should discover revelations of their own. According to Brother Paul's vision of the future, this deck will eventually be published, perhaps in both archaic (Waldens) and future (Cluster) forms, utilizing in the first case medieval images and in the second case images drawn from the myriad cultures of the Galactic Cluster, circa 4500 A.D. It hardly seems worthwhile for interested persons to wait for that.
SUIT CARDS
NATURE SCIENCE FAITH TRADE ART
1 Do Think Feel Have Be
Scepter Sword Cup Coin Lemniscate
2 Ambition Health Quest Inclusion Soul Drive Sickness Dream Exclusion Self
Torch Scalpel Grail Ring Aura
3 Grow Intelligence Bounty Gain Perspective Shrink Curiosity Windfall Loss Experience
Tree Haze Cornucopia Wheel Holograph
4 Leverage Decision Joy Investment Information Travel Commitment Sorrow Inheritance Literacy
Lever ten Pandora's Box Gears Book
5 Innovation Equilibrium Security Permanence Balance Suspicion Stasis Confinement Evanescence Judgment Band of Glory Kite Lock Pentacle Scales 6 Advance Freedom Temptation Gift Change Retreat Restraint Guilt Theft Stagnation Bridge Balloon Bottle Package Mobius Strip
7 Effort Peace Promise Defense Beauty
Error War Threat Vulnerability Ugliness
NATURE SCIENCE FAITH TRADE ART 8 Power Victory Satisfaction Success Conscience Impotence Defeat DisappointmentFailure Ruthlessness
Rocket Flag Mirror Crown Yin-Yang
9 AccomplishmentTruth Love Wealth Light Conservation Error Hate Poverty Dark Trophy Key Klein Bottle Money Lamp 10 Hunger Survival Reproduction Dignity Image
Phallus Seed Womb Egg Compost
ENERGY GAS LIQUID SOLID PLASMA
COURT CARDS
NATURE SCIENCE FAITH TRADE ART PAGE Child of Fire Child of Air Child of
Water Child of Earth Child of Aura KNIGHT Youth of Work Youth of Trouble Youth of Love Youth of Money Youth of Spirit QUEEN Lady of
Activity Lady of Conflict Lady of Emotion Lady of Status Lady of Expression KING Man of Nature Man of Science Man of Faith Man of Trade Man of Art
ENERGY GAS LIQUID SOLID PLASMA
TRIUMPHS
0 — Folly (Fool) 1 — Skill (Magician)
2 — Memory (High Priestess) ∞ — Unknown (Ghost) 3 — Action (Empress) 4 — Power (Emperor) 5 — Intuition (Hierophant) 6 — Choice (Lovers) 7 — Precession (Chariot) 8 — Emotion (Desire) 9 — Discipline (Strength) 10 — Nature (Family)
11 — Chance (Wheel of Fortune) 12 — Time (Sphinx)
13 — Reflection (Past) 14 — Will (Future) 15 — Honor (Justice)
16 — Sacrifice (Hanged Man) 17 — Change (Death)
18 — Vision (Imagination) 19 — Transfer (Temperance)
20 — Violence (Devil)
21 — Revelation (Lightning-Struck Tower) 22 — Hope/Fear (Star) 23 — Deception (Moon) 24 — Triumph (Sun) 25 — Reason (Thought) 26 — Decision (Judgment) 27 — Wisdom (Savant) 28 — Completion (Universe) NATURE
The Goddess of Fertility was popular in spring. Primitive peoples believed in sympathetic magic: that the examples of men affect the processes of nature—that human sexuality makes the plants more fruitful. To make sure nature got the message, they set up the Tree of Life, which was a giant phallus, twice the height of a man, pointing stiffly into the sky. Nubile young women capered about it, singing and wrapping it with bright ribbons. This celebration settled on the first day of May, and so was called May Day, and the phallus was called the Maypole. The modern promotion of May Day by Communist countries has led to its decline in the Western world, but its underlying principle remains strong. The Maypole is the same Tree of Life found in the Garden of Eden, and is represented in the Tarot deck of cards as the symbol for the Suit of Nature: an upright rod formed of living, often sprouting wood. This suit is variously titled Wands, Staffs, Scepters, Batons, or, in conventional cards, Clubs. Life permeates it; it is the male
principle, always ready to grow and plant its seed. It also relates to the classic "element" of Fire, and associates with all manner of firearms, rockets, and explosives. In religion, this rod becomes the scepter or crozier, and it can also be considered the measuring rod of faith, the "canon."
FAITH
The true source of the multiple legends of the Grail is unknown. Perhaps this famous chalice was originally a female symbol used in pagan fertility rites, a counterpart to the phallic Maypole. But it is best known in Christian mythology as the goblet formed from a single large emerald, from which Jesus Christ drank at the Last Supper. It was stolen by a servant of Pontius Pilate, who washed his hands from it when the case of the presumptuous King of the Jews came before him. When Christ was crucified, a rich Jew, who had been afraid before to confess his belief, used this cup to catch some of the blood that flowed from Jesus's wounds. This man Joseph deposited Jesus's body in his own tomb, from which Jesus was resurrected a few days later. But Joseph himself was punished; he was imprisoned for years without proper care. He received food, drink and spiritual sustenance from the Grail, which he retained, so that he survived. When he was released, he took the Grail to England, where he settled in 63 A.D. He began the conversion of that region to Christianity. The Grail was handed to his successors from generation to generation until it came at last to Sir Galahad of King Arthur's Round Table. Only the chaste were able even to perceive it. The Grail may also relate to the Cornucopia, or Horn of Plenty, the ancient symbol of the bounty of growing things. It is the cup of love and faith and fruitfulness, the container of the classic "element" of water, and the symbol of the essential female nature (i.e., the womb) represented in the Suit of Cups of the Tarot.
It is intriguing to conjecture which of the human instincts is strongest. Many people assume it is sex, the reproductive urge—but an interesting experiment seems to refute that. A group of volunteers including several married couples was systematically starved. As hunger intensified, the pin-up pictures of girls were replaced by pictures of food. The sex impulse decreased, and some couples broke up. Food dominated the conversation. This suggests that hunger is stronger than sex.
Similarly, survival—the instinct of self preservation— seems stronger than hunger, for a starving person will not eat food he knows is poisoned, or drink salt water when dehydrating on a raft in the ocean. This hierarchy of instincts seems reasonable, for any species must secure its survival before it can successfully reproduce its kind. Yet there may be an even more fundamental instinct than these. When the Jews were confined brutally in Nazi concentration death-camps, they cooperated with each other as well as they could, sharing their belongings and scraps of food in a civilized manner. There, the last thing to go was personal dignity. The Nazis did their utmost to destroy the dignity of the captives, for people who retained their pride had not been truly conquered. Thus dignity, or status, or the perception of self-worth, may be the strongest human instinct. It is represented in the Tarot as the Suit of Disks, or Pentacles, or Coins, and associates with the "element" Earth, and with money (the ignorant person's status), and business or trade. Probably the original symbol was the blank disk of the Sun (gold) or Moon (silver).
MAGIC
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were tempted by the Serpent to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fruit is unidentified; popularly it is said to be the apple (i.e., breast), but was more probably the banana (i.e., phallus). Obviously the forbidden knowledge was sexual. There was a second special Tree in the Garden: the Tree of Life, which seems to have been related. Since the human couple's acquisition of sexual knowledge and shame caused them to be expelled from Eden and subject to the mortality of Earthly existence, they had to be provided an alternate means to preserve their kind. This was procreation—linked punitively to their sexual transgression. Thus
the fruit of "knowledge" led to the fruit of "life," forever tainted by the Original Sin.
Naturally the couple would have escaped this fate if they could, by sneaking back into Eden. To prevent re-entry to the Garden, God set a flaming sword in the way. This was perhaps the origin of the symbol of the Suit of Swords of the Tarot, representing the "element" of air. The Sword associates with violence (war), and with science (scalpel) and intellect (intangible): God's manifest masculinity. Yet this vengeful if versatile weapon was transformed in Christian tradition into the symbol of Salvation: the Crucifix, in turn transformed by the bending of its extremities into the Nazi Swastika. And so as man proceeds from the ancient faith of Magic to the modern speculation of Science, the Sword proceeds inevitably from the Garden of Eden... to Hell.
ART
Man is frightened and fascinated by the unknown. He seeks in diverse ways to fathom what he does not comprehend, and when it is beyond his power to do this, he invents some rationale to serve in lieu of the truth. Perhaps the religious urge can be accounted for in this way, and also man's progress into civilization: man's insatiable curiosity driving him to the ultimate reaches of experience. Yet there remain secrets: the origin of the universe, the smallest unit of matter, the nature of God, and a number of odd phenomena. Do psychics really commune with the dead? How does water dowsing work? Is telepathy possible? What about faith healing? Casting out demons? Love at first contact? Divination? Ghosts?
Many of these inexplicable phenomena become explicable through the concept of aura. If the spirit or soul of man is a patterned force permeating the body and extending out from it with diminishing intensity, the proximity of two or more people would cause their surrounding auras to interpenetrate. They could thus become aware of each other on more than a physical basis. They might pick up each other's thoughts or feelings, much as an electronic receiver picks up
broadcasts or the coil of a magnetic transformer picks up power. A dowser might feel his aura interacting with water deep in the ground, and so know the water's location. A person with a strong aura might touch one who was ill, and the strong aura could recharge the weak one and help the ill person recover the will to live. A man and a woman might find they had highly compatible auras, and be strongly attracted to each other. An evil aura might impinge on a person, and have to be exorcised. And after the physical death of the body, or host, an aura might float free, a spirit or ghost, able to communicate only with specially receptive individuals, or mediums.
In short, the concept of aura or spirit can make much of the supernatural become natural. It is represented in the Animation Tarot deck as the Suit of Aura, symbolized in medieval times by a lamp and in modern times by a lemniscate (infinity symbol: ∞ ), and embracing a fifth major human instinct or drive: art, or expression. Only man, of all the living creatures on Earth, cares about the esthetic nature of things. Only man appreciates painting, and sculpture, and music, and dancing, and literature, and mathematical harmonies, and ethical proprieties, and all the other forms and variants of artistic expression. Where man exists, these things exist—and when man passes on, these thing remain as evidence of his unique nature. Man's soul, symbolized as art, distinguishes him from the animals.
Copyright © 1980 by Piers Anthony.
Piers Anthony Sattelite Spread
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=31867
I've just started the Tarot novel by P Anthony, page 65. (It was not meant to be a trilogy, but a single novel the publisher couldn't afford to print all at
once.) Anyways, he suggested an interesting spread version that I thought you might want to consider, in the forward to the novel.
1. Pick a significator. It can be any card in the deck that represent you or your question. Now put it back in the deck.
2. shuffle the cards and deal or by whatever method you prefer put the cards in 5 stacks of 15*. Each stack is prelabeled Earth, air, fire, water, or aura. a. do or...nature....or...wands
b. think...science...swords c. feel...faith...cups d. have...trade...coins e. be...art...aura
3. Now flip through the stacks until you find your significator. The pile the sigi was in tells you the general area of your life that the question relates to. If that doesn't answer your question, go to step 4.
4. The cards that are below the significator are available to further explain your answer. The rest of the cards from that stack and the other stacks can be set aside. Lay down the sig. Deal the top 5 cards (if your have 5 left) from the leftover stack like a cross on a map.
a. center over sig, defining the problem b. south past
c. west present d. north future e. east destiny
If that doesn't answer it for you, continue
5. Place a card on top of the one that confuses to further explain it and wrap 3 cards around that new center card for past, present, and future. If you run out of cards, thats all Tarot had to say to you today. Repeat step 5 as long as you have cards and still don't understand. You can build a satalite cluster on top of another satalite and not just the main, first 5 cards.
*
somehow that I missed all the reasoning on but will figure it out as I read the book. Part of the reasoning has to do with the fact that the classical element of the middle ages were earth, air, fire, water, and aura. a. His 100 card deck made 5 piles of 20.
b. He may have meant you to use all the cards in the original pile. c. didn't say what you did when you had less than four more cards.
My head churns with possibilities. One such is that the significator turning up in the 3 cards that weren't dealt is a clue that Tarot doesn't want to talk about that today. Maybe the last 3 card if they don't have the significator could be the advice cards if the spread didn't make it clear just by telling you the problem.
Looks like I'll have to offer to answer questions since this was such a huge post.
Divination Vocabulary
Clairvoyance - " Clair " - or " Clear " & " voryance ", " seeing" It means soul seeing or that someone has the ability to see spirit. In my definition this also goes along with seeing mental images.
Clairsentience- " clair " means " clear " & sentience means sensing or clear sensing... This is the inner - knowing, or intuition... This sometime is the start of Mediumship
development when you first start sensing Spirit you are starting to develop CLAIRSENTIENCE or impressional Mediumship.
Clairaudience- means clear hearing
Psychometry- is Mental Mediumship - Psyche or soul metry means measuring or soul measuring or the ability to feel vibration while holding an object & tell about the people connected to it.
Inspirational writing & speaking- are written or spoken through the mind of the medium... But are given direction by the Spirit world.
Trance - deep trance is where the medium is in a state of unconsciousness, light trance where the medium is aware of what is being said through Spirit.
Altered State of Consciousness (ASC)- A term used to refer to any state of consciousness that is different from "normal" states of waking or sleeping. ASCs include hypnosis, trance, ecstasy, psychedelic and meditative experience. ASCs do not necessarily have paranormal features.
Apport- A physical object which appears in a way that cannot be explained (seeming to come from nowhere). Apports are often associated with the seance room and physical mediumship.
Astrology- A theory and practice which attempts to identify the ways in which astronomical events are correlated with events on earth (e.g., with an individual's personality and biography, or with social and political trends).
Aura- A field of energy believed by some to surround living creatures. Certain clairvoyants claim to be able to see the aura (generally as a luminous, coloured halo).
Automatic Writing- The ability to write intelligible messages without conscious control or knowledge of what is being written.
Automatism- Physical activites (e.g., arm movements, writing, drawing, musical performance) that occur without the automatist's conscious control or knowledge. Also known as motor automatism.
Basic Technique- Term used in card-guessing tests of clairvoyance, in which the top card of the deck is placed to one side after each guess.
Billet Reading- Procedure in which a question is secretly written on a piece of paper which is folded or sealed in an envelope, and handed to the psychic who attempts to answer the question. Various trickery can be employed by fraudulent psychics and mentalists. Black Magic- Magical spells or rituals practiced with the intention of harming others. Book Test- (a) A communication in which the sitter is asked to look at a specific book and page in order to receive a significant message. (b) An effect in which the psychic or mentalist divines the words written on a particular page of a book.
Cabinet- A box or curtained enclosure in which a physical medium is secured and from which various phenomena may manifest (e.g. lights, objects moving, instruments played). Cartomancy- Fortune telling using cards.
Channeling- Receiving messages and inspiration from discarnate entities.
Christian Science- A religious healing movement founded by Mary Baker Eddy. Rejects orthodox medical practice.
Clairvoyant Medium Or clairvoyant- A person who obtains information paranormally (often by spirit communication) without the need to enter into a trance state.
Cold Reading- A reading given with no prior knowledge of the sitter. Often a mixture of very general statements which could apply to anyone, together with inferences made from cues presented by the sitter (e.g., physical appearance, clothes, tone of voice, statements made).
Contact Mind Reading- A technique simulating telepathy, in which the "mind reader" (who generally holds a hand or arm) responds to slight muscle movements produced
unconsciously by the person whose mind is apparently being read. Also known as muscle reading, Cumberlandism or Hellstromism.
Coven- A group of witches.
Crisis Apparition- An apparition in which a person is seen within a few hours of an important crisis such as death, accident or sudden illness.
Cross-correspondence- (a) Separate items of information, received independently by two or more mediums, which make sense only when piece together. (b) THE
cross-correspondences is a classic case of highly complex cross-cross-correspondences which
continued from 1901 to 1932 among a group of automatists associated with the Society for Psychical Research.
Divination Practices- involving the interpretation of signs or symbols that seek to obtain oracular knowledge of events. Examples of divinatory practices are geomancy, tarot, I Ching, sortilege, and reading tea leaves.
Down Through Technique (DT-) An experimental test for clairvoyance in which the person guesses the order of a stacked series of target symbols (e.g., cards) from top to bottom. Earthquake Effect- A phenomenon produced by the physical medium D.D. Home, involving the room shaking as if there was an earthquake.
Ectoplasm- A semi-fluid substance exuded by a physical medium from which materializations may form .
EEG (Electro-encephalography)- A method of recording variations of electrical activity in the cortex of the brain..
Elongation Paranormal extension of the physical body, reported in some mystics and physical mediums.
Empath -Someone who shows considerable empathy, especially of the apparently psychic type.
Empathy- The ability to understand the experience or emotional state of another person or animal. Often used to refer to an apparently psychic ability to experience another person's sensations, pain or emotions.
Guardian Angel- An angel believed to protect the individual. Guide- A spirit who is believed to assist a person's spiritual journey.
Hot Reading- A reading given in which prior knowledge of the sitter has been obtained, often using devious or fraudulent means.
Huna- An Hawaiian religious practice involving clairvoyance, precognition, healing, miracles and magic.
Hyperaesthesia- Exceptionally acute sensory awareness.
Hypnagogic Imagery Imagery occurring in the hypnagogic state (occuring while dropping off to sleep).
Hypnopompic Imagery- Imagery occurring in the hypnopompic state (occurring while waking up).
Intuition- The non-paranormal ability to grasp the elements of a situation or to draw conclusions about complex events in ways that go beyond a purely rational or intellectual analysis.
Invocation- Summoning benevolent spiritual beings.
Meditation- Mental or physical-mental techniques which aim to produce spiritually desirable states of consciousness.
Medium- A person believed to act as an intermediary between discarnate entities and the living.
Mediumship- Activity of a medium.
Near-Death Experience- (NDE) Experiences of people after they have been pronounced clinically dead, or been very close to death. Typical features of the NDE are an OBE, life review, a tunnel experience, light, coming to a boundary (marking death), seeing dead friends and relatives, experiencing a loving or divine presence, and making a choice (or being told) to return. Occasionally NDEs can be frightening and distressing. NDEs often have profound effects on the person's later life.
Occultism -Esoteric systems of belief and practice that assume the existence of mysterious forces and entities.
One-Ahead Principle- In mentalism, a procedure for sequentially revealing information where the revealing of one item gives the mentalist the next answer.
Open Deck- A series of cards used in a card guessing test where each card is chosen randomly and independently. This enables each target to be selected any number of times. Statistical analysis of research data using an open deck differs from statistical analysis of data using a closed deck.
Ouija Board- A board with letters and numbers on which messages are spelled out by unconsciously moving (with the fingers) a glass or planchette.
Possession- Refers to cases in which a person's body is apparently taken over by another personality or entity.
Psychokinesis (PK)- The paranormal influence of the mind on physical events and processes. Raps The name given to unexplained knocking sounds associated with physical mediumship and poltergeist activity.
Raudive Voices Intelligible voices recorded on magnetic tape under conditions of silence or white noise which are heard only when the tape is played. A phenomenon discovered by Konstantin Raudive. Reading Information given by a psychic or medium to a sitter. Reincarnation The belief that some aspect of a person's being (e.g., consciousness, personality, or soul) survives death and can be reborn in a new body at some future date. Reincarnation is often seen as a repeating cycle of death and rebirth in which future lives are influenced by past and present actions through the law of karma.
Spiritualism -(Spiritism) Religious doctrines that advocate communication betwen the living and the spirits of the dead using a medium as intermediary.
Telepathy Paranormal awareness of another person's experience (thoughts, feelings, etc.). In practice it is difficult to distinguish between telepathy and clairvoyance.
