The Rider - Waite Tarot Deck - Starbridge Centre

ENERGY MOVEMENT AND TAROT
The many levels of energy movement from God to matter, and from matter to God, are
exellently illustrated in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The steps, or "stations", of these
energy movements will on the astral plane be percieved as visual images. The images
have a universal, achetypical content, because they, as mentioned earlier, reflect the
universalities of what it means to be human.
These collective images, displayed on the astral plane, are what the original 22 major
arkana in a crude way illustrate.
The illustrations on each of the cards are of course always filtered trough individual artist`s
perception and style; the pictures are generalisations of specific astral images, of which
each of us will have our own, inner, unique designs and combinations forming our
character.
The subjective nature of the cards is important to keep in mind because the tarot cards are
often mistakingly understood as predictions of outer events, or as real persons in ones life,
or significant persons about to enter into one`s life.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION:
The Tarot Symbol as a Mandala
The classical geometrical Tarot symbol illustrated above, the symbol of body, mind and
spirit, is - apart from, of course, simply working with one single card at a time - one of the
two ways of working with major arcana presented in this booklet.
You are organising the major arkana cards spread in the mandala, which in its totality is a
worthwhile object for contemplation. We have been using this mandala exercise in our
classes at Starbridge Centre for years, but with a variation: we included also cards with
© 2005 Starbridge Centre Ulla and Erik Sandersen
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