Transcendent Experiences
Tarot Rota Torah
Please never, ever say "I found it." Infinite truth is, indeed, infinite. So pretending you found "it" simply means you stopped looking.I think I learned this lesson first in spring of 1986, when Dan and I were talking, and he handed me a Tarot card.
Now, my reaction was pretty much like yours (I imagine) would be. Disgust. Yes, I had learned God's Name from Dan, and much (most?) of what he had told me over the years had proven experientially true. But this was too much. The Tarot is a tool of the Devil, Satan himself. It's exactly the type of thing Yhwh warns people about over and over in the Bible.
Or so I thought.
But by this time I had developed a type of faith in Dan. And, more significantly, I had developed a scientific approach to the field of religion, as I've discussed so often.
So this Tarot thing was going to be easy. Just do some research, and prove the whole thing to be crap. Case closed.
Except it was not to be that way at all.
I remember so clearly the day in May 86 when I went to a bookstore near the University of Riverside to do my research and get this Tarot thing "behind me." I actually remember the weather, the sun, the nice patio they had outside the bookstore.
And I also remember my shock.
Really, friends, I am not exaggerating. As close to biological shock as I've nearly ever known.
The first thing I saw was a book about "Tarot and the Bible." It didn't talk about fortune telling. It talked about the Biblical symbolism contained pictorially in those "stupid, evil cards."
So I gathered my courage, actually bought a Tarot deck (praying literally for Yhwh's protection as I did), and opened it.
And yes, I saw the usual pictures Hollywood is so happy to show us, pictures of the Devil and Death and a heart pierced through with swords.
But I also saw a Torah scroll.
And pictures of blessed, natural simplicity.
And Adam and Eve in the Garden.
And on two of the pictures I actually saw...God's Name!
And I learned that "Tarot" was simply "Tora(h)" spelled backwards. Tarot Rota Torah: The Tarot is the Wheel of the Torah.
Yes, my friends, I was astounded. I simply could not believe this!
Within one hour I had enough information to tell me these cards deserved deeper investigation.
Years later I wrote The Truth About Tarot Cards. You can find it here, complete, and for free, if you are interested. It is the summation of nearly a decade's study. And what I have to say about the cards themselves can all be found there.
But the experience of encountering these things...I still think back on it in wonder. The sense of astonishment as I found all of my preconceptions to have been wrong. And I have some observations to share with you.
- It is impossible for me to imagine that the Creator of the Universe, who holds swirling galaxies in the palm of His hand, is afraid of a human question. An honest desire for greater information cannot hurt you. With the understanding, of course, that you are seeking for goodness and morality.
- The eternal promise is that if you seek, you will find. That's how the system works. You will find what you are looking for. Just be sure you are looking for goodness.
- The Revealing Science of God works. One of the causes I "champion" is to get more people to apply the scientific method to their religious studies.
- And science is what I did with the Tarot. I started with a hypothesis, "These things are crap and evil." I consulted the literature, and found that others had found them to be divinely inspired. I did personal research, leading ultimately to the experiment of looking at them for myself, taking proper precautions. I gathered my data, and reexamined my hypothesis. I found my original hypothesis to be wrong, and I published my results for other researchers.
- Preconceptions are not in themselves bad. None of us can avoid them. They are wired into our brains as a part of our survival instinct. But when we hold to our preconceptions even in the light of new data or, worse, refusing to look at new data, then we are out of balance and doomed to ignorance. We are not seeking. We will never find.
- I was willing to admit that my preconceptions were wrong. Open to the possibility that they could be wrong. That makes me (regrettably) a rarity in today's world.
- Do not expect to become popular with your personal investigations. You will find an entire world full of ignorance, with vested interests in maintaining their particular viewpoint. Regardless of the data.
- A case in point is my The Truth About Tarot Cards. I have tried for a year now to find a book publisher for this incredible document. (An actual email: "I read all of your Tarot comments, Lintscreen and all of your Revealing Science of God: great! As for the Tarot, you're at the same level of the grand Masters of the past, Ouspensky, Wirth, Eliphas Levi...[If you know anything about the field, this is the equivalent to a musician being called Bach and Beethoven combined.] As for the rest, you've been an incredible teacher to me: I wholly agree with your considerations, and I find you express your ideas in a very easy-to-understand way. Thank you a lot!!!) For good, bad, right, wrong or otherwise, it is nearly unique in the publishing world. Yet no one wants to touch it. Why? It steps outside the norm and accepted conventions. The fortune-telling crowd doesn't want anything to do with it, because it stands firmly against fortune telling, and adds a devoutly spiritual dimension they run from. And the so-called Christian publishers likewise will not touch it, because they "know" (as I thought I did) that the Tarot is evil; the only difference is they refuse to be open to other possibilities...
- So the only option presently known to me is self publishing. So it stays on the Web.
It is OK to have questions, to wonder, to search.
It's OK, my friends.
A Call to Divine Inquiry. The actual card my Teacher gave me in 1986.
I was to later discover that it symbolizes Yhwh's Large Face, the way He looked before the Universe was made.
