The History and Alchemy of Tarot with Robert M. Place

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Where did you get your ideas from? Your ideas? Well, I got a million dreams. ♪ ♪ That's all I do is dream. All the time. ♪ ♪ I like to play piano. No, no, this is not piano. This is dreaming. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Welcome to Synchronicity. That is a song by Slacker called "A Million Dreams." That's Duke Ellington talking. He's being interviewed. He's cool. Jazz. Big band, I guess. It's less jazz-y. I mean, he's jazz. You get it. You vote and get it. Yeah, so that's what we're doing. It's not just piano. It's living life is dreaming. I'm dreaming. I'm smoking a joint. Lo and behold, this is just what I do on Pac.

I used to do it before. Fuck it. You know what ends up happening, too, as I get, like, two hits and then it goes out. And it's out. All right. Well, welcome to Synchronicity. My guest this week is Robert M. Place. He is the creator of, I mean, infinite tarot decks or, as he would say, tarot. And there's, we also get in very quickly the correct pronunciation. There is no correct pronunciation. Pronounce it however you want. He's really good at, like, the etymology of the word. Is etymology the right? I use this all the time. And I feel like, hold on. I'm just going to Google it. The study of the origin of words in the way.

It's specifically the right word for what we're taught. Boom. Nailed it. So this is a long episode. I went over to his place. He lives in Socrates. I live in Red Hook. I got the alchemical tarot. Previous guest, Sean. He was using this deck. He was just sending me all these readings via text. And I was like, yo, the hell is that deck? Is awesome. And I got the Queen of Staffs right now. I was just like, what is it? And he was like, oh, it's the alchemical tarot. I was like, cool. I'm going to get that. So I got it. Then I got it. And I saw it was shipped from Sogrides, which is right across the bridge here.

And I saw it was on Moon Road. I'm like, this is cool. So I was like, OK, that'd be cool maybe to have that guy on some time. But I didn't do anything. And then I got an email because I guess I put it on his email list, Robert's email list, because I bought the thing. You know, it goes. And I was like, this email smells as though he is actually the one putting it together. So I wrote back to the email. I was like, hey, podcasts. I'd love to have you on. And then I was like a few days later. We did it. And it was great. And so the audio is going to be a little different on this one because I used the XY mic and placed the two because like he's like, I don't want to hold that mic.

And I'm like, fair enough. So we just placed them down facing each other. And it actually came out way better than I thought it possibly could. But nevertheless, it sounds a little bit different than if we were holding mics. So thought, I don't know. That's just no one even cares about that shit except me. I listen. I listen through really good headphones, really good interfaces. I love sound. I love music. I want to hear it the best. So I'm sensitive to these things. So if you hear it, if you've ever heard an episode of this show and it's like not good quality, I'm aware. I know. I fucking think about it every night.

But I know. So that's what's going on there. A few things for you to do if you're interested. If you want a live event, a live synchronicity event, sign up, use the form. It's like 20 seconds or less. Tell me where you live. It's like really easy to do. Jake, my assistant is making it better. He's fucking awesome. She's just good. She's getting better too. Go fill up that form for live events. And then I'm going to be selecting the person for the live episode tarot reading. And is that a wood packer outside? Yeah. Cool. There's a metaphor. Look at that is later. But I'm going to pick that person over the weekend.

And then we're going to do the episode probably next week before Halloween. And then there is also, gosh, I got to stop giving free shit away. I got to be like, yo, you got to pay like 20 bucks to be on the podcast or something. You don't want to sign up. You don't have to. But I feel like I got to start doing that. Because whenever I say something is free, so many people do it. And like, even if it was just like $5, it would like be like, all right, those people aren't that series of $5 is deterring them. And I get and I run as money. I run as five bucks. So anyway, I'm doing those things. Sign up.

There's links on this episode on the website. I'll also send out the email tomorrow, I guess. So like in case you missed it and you're on the email list, you'll get that. So this is just a way to incorporate like these live events. The reason they're happening is because they're fucking great. I love doing them. And I was talking to Jake about it too. I was like, you know, I realized this about myself. Like I can, I can talk about stuff that I'm getting like downloads or, you know, shit. I can, I can get it. But I really enjoy when people ask questions and it's like the dynamic interplay. That's why I have this podcast.

I had this podcast and was doing that with people before I even knew what the fuck I was doing. That's what I liked about it. So I like that in group settings too. So that's going to be fun. Plus we can have some music. It's like a whole fucking thing. It's going to be cool shit. That's all I know. And there's probably going to be cool lights. Like what I saw on DMT. I'm pretty sure the lights I saw, at least when I was coming down from DMT. Like the more I kind of get distance from the Changa experience. I'm pretty sure that is going to actually be a physical place in this reality. Towards the end of it.

Riding the beam of infinite light to your dreams, glory and love and all that stuff. I mean, I know that's like physically like that will unfold here. But in the exact way experience, I don't know if that's, I don't know. We'll see. So anyway, sign up for that stuff. It's going to be fun. And then those things will happen probably sooner than you think. Anything else? I don't know, man. I don't know. Shit's good. Shit's real good. Go listen to Jess's last two podcasts. The one with water baby and the collective energetic update. What does she call it? I don't know. They're so good. They're so good.

Holy shit. That's it. And I'll be doing YouTube tarot stuff and Instagram tarot stuff. I'm just popping in live. I'm not even announcing it. I said I was going to do every Monday. Whenever I tried to say I'm doing a schedule like that type of shit, it never works out. I was like, why did I do this during Monday night football? No, the dolphins are playing on Monday night. I'm not going to do it then either. So just like tune into Instagram, tune into YouTube, tune into Twitter. I'm not even doing this to jack up my followers. Even though I love it. Like I'm not like one of these people. I'll be like, I don't care.

I love followers. I love likes. I love that shit. I pride myself on ratios and stuff. Someone gives me a bad review. I fucking go, what the fuck? For like two minutes. And then I'm like, okay, probably not worth getting upset about. So I do care. I can't very much. But also I don't. But I do. So what was I saying? Sign up for whatever the hell I just said to sign up for. Do those things because it's fun. That's the reason to do it. If it doesn't sound like fun, don't do it. Easy. That's it. I did not talk about Robert in place at all. Go check out the links. His website. I have it pulled up right here.

I don't want to fuck that up. Robert M. has in Mary, placetero.com. Go check it out. He has a ton of decks. He's incredibly talented. I feel bad because I didn't do the interview justice because I didn't realize how awesome he was. I knew he was awesome. Obviously I have his deck. But he's like a historian of the tarot and just like, man, you'll hear Hermes was talking to him and through him and dreams and shit. Anyway, he's great. Go check him out. Go check out the rest of the people on my pod network. Everything's good. You're God, you're everything. Don't forget it. Purge. Push through these last months.

If you're totally waking up, it's fucking great. Not further ado, here is Robert M. Place. He's amazing. I'm like, I don't know what he's doing, and he's like, "I'm not going to do this." He's like, "I'm not going to do this." I'm like, "I'm not going to do this." He's like, "I'm not going to do this." I'm like, "I'm going to do this." I'm like, "I'm not going to do this." I'm like, "I'm going to do this." I'm like, "I'm going to do this." I'm like, "I'm going to do this." I'm like, "I'm going to do this." I'm like, "I'm going to do this." I'm like, "I'm going to do this." I'm like, "I'm going to do this."

I'm like, "I'm going to do this." People who are cool, I've always known that, but I do it in a way that when I'm doing my solo episodes or with the guests, like, I'm not holding anything back. There's no point of this other than to have an honest communication, because I think the magic from all these conversations comes specifically from the dynamic interplay of the alchemy of energies, you know what I mean? So that seems to have a positive effect on the listeners and the conversation itself, because it's not like an interview where I'm like, "I want to know about this stuff, but we let it come up in a conversation."

So I think that element, if carried in any aspect of life, usually reads the good shit. What's this going to be more relaxed? Well, yeah. That's kind of my modus operandi, so I prefer that in life when you're trying to start. Okay. We're officially starting. Yeah. We're good. Okay. So, yeah, one thing is when I had my radio show, like, you know, there weren't all these podcasts, and they were looking for people to be on the radio, I think radios were in trouble. Yeah. Like, like, a lot of other things are now. Yeah. So they're starting to get this feeling like the internet might be influenced by them, so they invited me to be on this radio station in Rhode Island, W.A.L.E., which is a regular AM radio station.

And I was just supposed to do this show, like, a new age show. How long did you have, like, to fill up time-wise? An hour. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, regular slot. Yeah. Which isn't really an hour because they've got advertisements. Yeah. And then you've plugged in. But plus, as part of the thing is, you know, they gave me advertisements so they could advertise my decks and just stuff. Oh, that's cool. And I was, you know, I was selling the old chemical to her. But at that time, I was buying it wholesale from Harper Collins and, like, you know, selling a retail. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So, when I first got it, I was so nervous.

And they would send me tapes of the show, right? Right. And I didn't have a guest or anything. I just talked. Yeah. For now. That's what this is, basically. And I listened to myself. Why wouldn't anybody listen to this idiot, like, I sound so nervous, you know? Well, I know exactly what you're talking about. I said, they're going to do something with this. This is, like, horrible. How long did you do it for? Two years. Oh, so by the end, you probably hit it. Well, what happened is, as soon as I started getting guests, you know, so, like, this is like, you have a conversation, something to talk to.

And then, you know, and I got over the idea, like, well, you're just talking to people. It's not, like, because, you know, being on the radio, man, I was, like, big deal. You know, I grew up when there was a TV set with three channels, you know. Right. Right. So, there's only so many options. And that was, like, if you were on TV, it was big, you know, like, yeah. Actually, the first time I was on TV, I was four years old. Doing what? I won a beauty contest for kids. Really? What was the contest? Coming child contest and the final, there were three finalists and we were all invited on the Peter Lynn Hayes and Mary Healy show, which it was this music variety show where they would play the piano and sing songs and have guests.

Sure. Like, is that vaudeville? No. What's vaudeville? Vaudeville is before, you know, precursor. Because of the movies and, yeah, before movies, before TV, it was live, you know, stage shows that people would go to be entertained, and they would just do all kinds of stuff. But basically, the Ed Sullivan show is where vaudeville went. Remember the Ed Sullivan show and how... That I know. You know, the Beatles were into, you know, the big thing that got on the Ed Sullivan show and that's how they made their invasion into the United States. Got it. Got it. That I knew. The Rolling Stones, all those people.

Yeah. But they, in between, they had somebody jowling plates and, you know, a guy, you know, the Chilla Quiz and the guy who's still to this day telling his grandkids that he was juggling plates on the Beatles or on. Yeah. Right. That was me. So, no, not to derail you, though. Okay. All right. So, I had this show, right? And then, so I started getting guests and then I started to relax. And then I realized this gave me a certain power because I'd get guests on and they were sitting nervous about being on the radio. And I said, "Oh, you think you're nervous. I was so nervous when I started, you know, like, and you sound calm next to me.

I would calm them right now." Right. Because they said, "Wow, if you were nervous, then what do you know?" And then you got over it. Like, what, you know, what's there to be nervous about? Right. Like, which is just your learning how to hold space for people, right? You provide like a comfortable environment. Yeah. And because, you know, I have these authors on, I'm trying to give them exposure. Right. If I like their book, I get them on. Right. And then, you know, the, so the publishing company started supporting me because I'm interviewing their authors. It's cool. And then, you know, I actually got people putting ads and, you know, paying for it.

Yeah. Right. Okay. So, because before, you know, the first shows, I had to pay for them. Right. For the radio time. That's how it works, man. That's how the fucking works. Yeah. Then I got a partner on, you know, my friend Michelangelo, who was an opera singer. Cool. And he, and he was into New Age stuff. So then, so, you know, so we had two of us there. We could talk, we could interview, we could do stuff and that went on for... This is in Rhode Island. Yeah. But we did it over the telephone. We didn't really have to go there. Right. You know. Oh, amazing. Just set it all up, right? Oh, amazing.

All those games I had, Rick Jarrow, I think, was on. Sure. Yeah. And, and, oh, I'm trying to remember some of the guests. Oh. What's your name? Wolf. Wolf of Cross. I forgot. Amanda Wolf of Cross. I think she wrote this book about Pope Joan. Hmm. And... It was Pope Joan. Pope Joan was... Pope Joan is supposedly a legend. In the 9th century, there was a woman, you know, women weren't allowed to get an education. She was really smart. She wanted to educate. So, she disguised herself as a man during the monastery. Right. And so, she could get educated. Of course, she was really brilliant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, she kept coming up in ranks until she became Pope. Right. And she was... She's the Pope Joan. Yeah. And they called her Pope John, because they didn't know she was a woman. I mean... But it got found out. Well, she did get... Find out... Well, she got found out because she got pregnant. That'll do it. That's a hard one to hide. Yeah. It was hard to hide. So, it didn't end well. And... I suppose it's a legend. And then... But, see, my guest was on... She was... She wrote a whole book about it. And she was convincing me... There is something to the legend, like, because she had researched something.

It all happened. Yeah. And she said, you know, you can see all the names of the post. And there's this Pope John. And all of a sudden he's that off the list. Frost on. But the really weird thing is there's this throne that the Pope has to sit on before he's ordained it, because that's what they call it. Annointed. Annointed. Whatever. Okay. Yeah, but it's like a potty seat. And he sits in there and his testicle is hanging through. Are you serious? Yeah, this is what she told me. And then there's one of the officials at their looks from the back. And then he says in Latin, basically, that the Pope has testicles.

Holy shit. Yeah. So, you know, like, sort of like the Pope is well home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Money spreads in Latin. So it sounds better. Yeah. Okay. So the thing is, why are they doing that? Because Pope John. Yeah. Because they're worried. Obviously doing it because they want to make sure the Pope's a male, right? So why did they make a mistake one time or something? Yeah. What are they saying? Oh, geez. I never knew any of that. Also, there was to see the thing is that supposedly she was found out during procession. There was this route from the Vatican to this other church that they would do once a year for the special procession.

And on that procession is when she was found out and that she was stoned to death on the spot. Oh shit. Because people really outraged. Yes. And then, ever since then, when they do this procession to that church, even though this is the most direct route, they don't take that route. They go around the bell. Right. It's like some weird detour that no one knows about. Yeah. It's like going through soggers. So why do they do that? You know, why do they miss that spot? Why do they have a silly chair? You know, why? Yeah. Why is this stuff existing? So, you know, I mean, I didn't go there and check it out myself, but that's what she told me.

So what got you into, I came across you because a friend, as I mentioned, author has been just kind of introducing me to Toreau. I call it Toreau because I'm just ignorant. No. You see, the real name of the deck is Toreauki and Italian, but everybody's mispronouncing that. So, you know, so it doesn't matter if I call it Toreau. Yeah, right. Because the thing is, okay, well, if, well, here's the thing, so then the French picked it up, right? You know, I didn't want to go Toreauki because who puts it, you know, French don't like to have those endings. Yes. Right? Okay. So they call it Toreau. Toreau.

Like that, right? Okay. And that's... And now when it finally came to England, you know, with the... they started getting the French decks. And then finally... Well, it was only in 1909 when Pamela Coleman Smith designed the new deck. Right. Right. So it's only cheese. You know, and there was no other Toreau deck in England at the time. So they just called it... It was the name of the deck, you know, because maybe you say, "What's the name of the deck?" Well, it was called the Toreau, right? Toreau. But of course it was English. In England, they pronounce it Toreau. So they say, "Okay, it was the Toreau."

And then it came to the United States, right? But in the United States, we tend to... for some reason, we tend to favor the French pronunciation which is Toreau, but because we're more relaxed than our vowels, often we go Toreau. Well, maybe... Because any unstressed vowel in American English can be in us sound. Maybe because we liberated ourselves from the British and we aligned ourselves with the French to do that, so we naturally linguistically aligned ourselves. And it makes sense that because when you think a lot about this, the one thing I've learned from Toreau and any other divinatory path is this stuff is kind of really what's driving culture.

Like, you know, that may be missed. They think it's, you know, some side, new-agey thing, but I have found and really do believe in my heart that this stuff is about as powerful as a modality that exists around. So, I mean, what was your whole towards this? How did you... Oh, how did I get started? Yeah, man. It came to me. Of course. How else could it? I mean, it came to me in a dream, literally. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. When? What the heck is the harmonic convergence? Oh, did you read my intro? Yeah, I read your intro. Okay, so what did I say in the book? What day did I give? 1986 or something like that.

Let me get the book. It happened. Yeah. It's like, what? I don't know what that is. He's going to get the book. It's up, so I know. I had to figure these things out, you know, like figure out the date, it's not like I think about the book. No, I totally get it. So then I wrote it down in the book and then I said, okay, there we have it, okay. Yeah, okay. It's 1982. 82, okay. And I had the first dream. So what? But that wasn't the -- that convergence happened later. So what was the convergence that was in -- of course, I need my glasses, I believe it. Okay, 1987 was the convergence. Okay. So I was pretty close.

Yeah. You were good. Yeah. You were good. What explained to me -- so start with the dream. 1982 dream. Yes. Okay. So I have -- the thing is, I've always been an artist. Yeah, I've heard as much. Yeah. You see like paintings, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So -- and I was -- I mean, I was born an artist. Yes. I mean, you know, I knew I was an artist since I knew what the word was. Right. Okay. I mean, I could -- I draw the kids we draw, but I said, no, I'm an artist. Right. And I could draw realistically from like a really early age, like my father would flip out, you know, because he's a little kid, he's more real than me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know. What did your dad do? He made -- he was like a manager in this factory that made television sets. Interesting. Made the picture too for television sets. So he was a techie kind of guy, you know, for the time, but it wasn't like -- it wasn't like computer techie back then, you know. TV. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And -- and -- but as an artist, I always have paid attention to my dreams. And so I always say my first form of divination was always dream divination, because I always listened to my dreams. Yeah. Okay. And paid attention to my dreams. So in 1982, I had this dream, which, you know, I talked about this in the introduction of my books, because it's sort of like everybody wants to know it, and it's sort of my starting point.

Okay. How do I get involved? Okay. So I was -- at that time, I was making jewelry, handcrafted jewelry, that I sold a crash show for -- Sure. Okay. And I was in the middle of a dream that was about -- that was really about my jewelry business, because there was another -- there was a woman in the dream who was another jeweler. Sure. And she was about to become a show promoter. And I didn't know this, so it was actually predicting this. The dream was predicting this. And -- because she was going off into this -- this red brick building, and I was following her. Right. Because she was a friend of mine, and I was going to go into her shows.

Yeah. And I didn't even know this yet, right? Okay. And that's what the dream was about, right? Okay. So we walk into that building, and I'm following her. In the other room, I'm in the living room, and there's a telephone table, and a telephone rings. And that was like, "Wait a minute. This has nothing to do with this dream." Yeah. I mean, it was so obvious in the dream that this is a message outside of the dream. Yes. Yes. It's some coming from some other -- I mean, I probably would have forgotten the first dream, you know. But he didn't. Because of that call. Yeah. Actually, they're welcoming this lucidity.

Like, I didn't know if anybody could call you in the dream. Like, what's happening? Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like -- because, you know, in fact, see, in the '80s, when the phone ring used to pick it up -- Yeah. And she didn't have -- You remember? Must've been have voice mail and all that stuff. You know, like, yeah, it wasn't like, you know, it was like a big deal. Somebody called you and better pick up the phone. So I said, "Okay." So I picked up the phone. And this woman came on -- I was like a dream operator. And then she said she had a person called from England for Robert Place. And would I take it?

Except it. Because you didn't have to accept the charges. Yeah. Back then, yeah, for sure. Okay. So I said, "Okay, yeah. I'll accept it." And I put this woman on -- who was the secretary of the dream law firm. This is an amazing dream. Yeah. So -- and she told me I had an inheritance coming from an ancestor in England. And, you know, and -- and she told me there was certain karmic debt attached to it. It was a very powerful tool. Yeah. But because of the way he used it, there's some karmic debt attached when I would have to take on the debt with the gift. Yes. With the boo and comes the debt. Yeah.

Sure. And in retrospect, thing about it, I was like, "Well, I didn't even think that over." No. Well, you're just being given a boon by a karmon, a serial dream operator. Yeah. So -- so, yeah. What's -- I should have said, you know, what is the karmic debt, you know, like if I pay that off? Can you clarify? But I didn't -- oh, yeah. Sure. I'll take it. So I said, "But where is it? How will I know it?" And she says, "Oh, you know when you see it. It's called -- it's called the key and it comes from England. I'll be in a box for England." Amazing. So I woke up in the morning, you know, looking at the foot of the big, expecting the box to be there.

Right. Because it was so vivid. I mean, I thought there was going to be boxes for my -- You materialized for sure. Yeah. Right. And Rosanne and my wife's looking, like, "What are you doing?" You know, and I've explained the dream to her. Well, it's an amazing dream. Yeah. Right. Okay. So, I mean, she was pretty cool about it because some people might have thought, like, "What is that?" You're nuts. You know. You know. You expected to see a box from your dream? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The thing is, what happened was almost like that. Because my friend Scott, Scott Jarrett, he's a musician -- actually, he's -- you know, Keith Jarrett, the musician?

The jazz musician? Well, he's Keith Jarrett's brother. Cool. And he used to be friends of mine. Keith Jarrett's a really famous jazz musician, pianist. Well, pianist. Composer. You know. Yeah. And Scott -- you know, this is where we live in New Jersey. And Scott came over because somebody had sent him the Wade Smith cards. Sure. That's the present. And he was holding his Wade Smith deck. And it was like, "This is in the day or so after the dream." Right. And I'm sitting in the kitchen at a table like this, and the door was over here, right, to my left. And he came through the door. Now when he came through the door, holding the deck, my head turned.

And my eyes focused on the deck without -- You just, like, drawn to it. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't -- like, I know what's out of control. It was like, you know, my head turned on its own. My eyes focused on their own. Yeah. Like, why am I -- why is my head doing this? And it's like -- I'm aware of what is going on. Yeah, I'm sitting back here. My head's just doing this, you know. Totally. Okay. So, I look at the deck and I go, "Oh," because, you know, I remember this from college. I said, "Oh, yeah. Those cards. They were made in England first." Yeah. And it wasn't the book, "The Key to the Tarot."

That's because they called -- you know, also they called the Trump's the Keys. Right. You know, this is -- Oh, yeah. The Key. Okay. Yeah. Right. I get it. I get why they're calling the Key. And it's from England originally. So we're looking at going on. And I tell them about my dream. My friend, Ed, who's an astrologer at Coyle comes over and he -- like this is another day or so. And he gives me the Marseille deck. And he said, "You know, I have this deck and it's -- you know, I'm very -- he's not an intuitive guy." And he says, "I have this feeling that you're supposed to have this deck." Wow.

And just gave it to me. Wow. You know, and then I heard after that there was this tradition that your first deck should be a present gift. Yeah. That's huge. Which I don't pay attention to any of those things. Right. But that's actually what happened. Wow. Wow. And now I have to go -- I have to go by the Waismith deck also. Right. Because that was the initial thing from England. Yes. Because this one's French, right? Right. Right. Okay. So I was -- you know, it wasn't like there was no place -- I was living in Western New Jersey by the Delaware River. And I had to go into New York City to buy a deck because there's no place there to buy a deck.

Yeah. Okay. Totally. So I went into Times Square and there was a bookstore. In Times Square. Amazing. Yeah. And really, you know, the fake morning stars and -- Yeah. I actually know it's like where they used to keep it. Yeah. Right. Okay. There was a counter and it had old tarot decks in the back, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I said, I want to see that tarot deck, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, the fell behind the counter goes, you mean the tarot? Yeah. Like you idiot. You don't know how to pronounce it. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And you know, I mean, you probably shouldn't say tarot cards.

I mean -- Right. That's -- Get away with that in Kentucky and places. Maybe. Maybe. But yeah. But you know, mostly people will think you don't know what you're talking about. But the thing is, okay, so it gives me the deck and I'll, yeah, that's it. I buy and I come home and I start -- and then, you know, I'm working with it and I'm seeing all these symbols in it that I had known a lot about studying art history, right? And I'm getting a feeling for the two decks and working with it and figuring out how to work with them. Yes. So like my girlfriend in college, she was working -- she used to have the waysmith deck and she would do the Celtic Cross, which was -- Celtic Cross.

Yes. Okay. Well, do the Celtic Cross. Yeah. Okay. So -- And also, the thing is, when I was in college, I used to spend a lot of time reading the cult books and I remember I had books that showed pictures of the early French cards, like historic cards, right? And even in college, I said, well, maybe I should make a tarot deck and I got a little piece of cardboard and I started painting cards and I got about four cards done and, you know, just copying, like the French ones, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I said, this is a lot of work. Yeah. Shit. It's a lot of work. I don't know if I can do this. Yeah.

I stopped, you know, after four cards, right? Yeah. So -- 74, again. Yeah. 75, sometimes. Yeah. Okay. So I just -- so now I had this and now it was like, okay, this is my inheritance. I have to get serious about it and I started looking into -- maybe I should read some books on it. I'd read these books and back then the books were filled with misinformation that like, you know, it was all this occultist information about the deck that couldn't -- Yeah. As it's somebody who studied art history, I knew it didn't make any sense. Yeah. They can't come from ancient Egypt. They never make cards in ancient Egypt.

Right. It wouldn't -- Yes. They didn't have paper. Yeah. Yeah. They had papyrus where we got paper. Yeah. Yeah. The reason they make scrolls out of it is because it's phrased at the edges and stuff. Right. Right. It doesn't hold together like -- So well, they could pull potentially some symbols. This wouldn't have been a deck that was in use like we think of these cards now as a modality. Right. Well, also, you know, if you look at the cards, you know, and I had some inkling of historic cards, you know, like, excuse me, and I'm going to take some water. Okay. No problem. At least it's caught in like -- It'll happen.

It happens. Yeah. Okay. So if you look at the antique decks, like, for instance, the card that they call the Hierophant and the Wade Smith deck, when you look at the early decks, it's the Pope. Right. Okay. Now, you know the Pope's not Egyptian. Right. Typically not thought of as Egyptian. No. Right. Not at all. So I want to -- you know, how could they say it was Egyptian? Right. So what's -- you know, where this comes from. So then I started trying to find real books about the history of Thoreau. Right. But I also started reading books, like, seeing all these symbols in the Wade Smith cards. And then I said, well, what did these come from?

And so I started reading more and more books about Hermeticism and alchemy and Gnosticism. Yes. Okay. So -- and what happened -- see, the thing that happened is once I started on the journey -- and you started popping open all these alchemical doors. What do you think happens next, man? Yeah. Well, the synchronicity kept happening. Yeah. So it wasn't like the first thing was synchronicity that I got the decks, right? Yeah. Okay. So then -- but once you start on this journey, then all these things started coming to me. Like, you know, like, I was in -- I was in a -- I mean, I just started reading about Gnostics.

I said, well, you know, I had heard this word loosely. And, you know, I remember, you know, reading Cosinsakos or something, you'd pick up these words. Sorry. And then you got -- but you didn't really know much about them. Not the word. It's just Gnostics and start to the deep. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So then I said, well, maybe I should find out who they were. You know, what is this thing, Gnosis, and I started reading about studying that. And then I'm in a health store in Manhattan. Rosanne and I are there with our prince, Sue, and I'm looking -- I don't have to check out Canada. There's a magazine called Gnosis.

And I'm like, well, I'm just learning about Gnostics and I already got their own magazine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What is this? Oh, wait a minute. This is pretty interesting, really. Yeah. So then, you know, put it down and then Sue goes, aren't you going to buy that? What's the matter with you? Oh, yeah. You're right. Okay. So we have lives. Well, that was my friend. Oh, it was your friend. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So she pushed me into buying the deck -- I mean, the book magazine, that's a magazine. And I come home and I read a cover to cover. This is great magazine. This is really like -- Exactly what I want.

Yeah. There's no magazine like this. Right. But that's the Turk subjects. Yeah. And they're really interesting and I really want to read. Because most times you get a magazine to thumb through it and you read one article, maybe that's it. No, not the whole thing. No, I read a cover to cover it. I'm like, why is this really great? So then, this voice in the back of my head, like, see, I've had this voice in the back of my head since I was a little kid. And I didn't really -- you know, when I tried to talk to my parents about it, they got really worried about me. Sure. Okay. So I stopped talking about it.

Yes. Most people suppress that when they realize other people. Now it's kind of accepted more, but yeah. They're afraid you're schizophrenic, you know? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Okay. But it wasn't like I'm having hallucinations. I'm just having a voice in my head, like some kind of information coming out from a different deeper aspect. Totally. And I've since identified the voice as Hermes. Amazing. Amazing. Now this makes sense to me. Okay. So the Hermes says, said to me, while I'm reading the magazine, Hermes said, you know, they're going to do an issue on the Tarot. And at this -- by this time I had every start on the old chemical Tarot, I had done a few cards, right?

Cool. Okay. What did you start with? Did you start a fool? You just -- No, I started with a star. Whoa. With the sign of the philosophers, you know, she's a mermaid giving out blood and milk from her breasts. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So -- and it's important to the story because that's actually pertinent. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, the voice had sent them some pictures of the cards you've made. You know, only had a -- like maybe six or seven. Sure. And then, you know, tell them a little bit about it. And then you could be in their issue on the Tarot. And I wrote to the editor in San Francisco. Yeah. And I said, you know, I'm sending you these for your upcoming issue on the Tarot.

Yeah. Okay. So a week later, he calls me. Yeah. And he says, we're not doing an issue on the Tarot. What do I do? Hermes said, hey, what? He said, but this is weird because the thing is I'm just doing this issue on the goddess, this issue number 13. And then I really like this picture you sent me on the star card. And it's going to fit totally with this article about Sophia. And it came right at the right time. Wow. And he said, well, of course, Hermes lied to me because if you told me that, I was -- Yeah. I wouldn't do it. Hermes is the persuader. It will save you whatever way you do that. That's amazing.

So, yeah. Because the thing is, you know, if you thought about it, like that was more far-fetched. Yeah. But then they're going to do an issue on the Tarot. Yeah. It's perfect. I can do that. I know it's totally aligned. And it's some weird, like, sync up with 13 and goddess in the start. Totally. That's amazing. Yeah. Okay. So he said, and not only that, I want you to write a one-page article on it. So that's the first thing my head published, was it? No, it's this magazine. So it came out in issue 13. Oh, nice. And after that, and I had more artwork published in the magazine, I became like, you know, somebody they go to for certain artwork.

Sure. And then Rosemary Ellen Guiley, who was a New Age author who had, I don't know, maybe had about 10 books at that time. And she was writing a book called The Mystical Tarot. And she read the, she read analysis. So she saw what I was doing, and then she said, well, you know, I want you to contribute to my book. Right. Okay. So I put two cards in her book that was, it was Temperance and The Devil. Cool. And then I wrote a few pages for her book. Cool. Okay. So that was the first place I got published in a book. So you're just laying out the steps of going where you're going? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So then, then she had me work as a ghost writer for the Right About Alchemy because I knew more about it than she did. So then, you know, so I worked on another book with her. And she finally said to me, well, what do you, what's happening with your Alchemical Tarot? You got to, you know, get us published. Yeah. And I said, well, you know, I'm really a jeweler. And I don't have a whole lot of time. And I've got, you know, maybe, by this time I had like maybe 14 cards done on. So in her painting, I really crossed her hatching and all of a sudden you had the coloring. I can't even imagine that.

I'm not. I wasn't on a computer. It was all I had done. Yeah. So she said, well, you have to understand, like you have to get, you see, you get a contract from a publisher and then they give you an advance, then it frees up your time. Right. Because you have the money and the confidence to know that. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, oh, okay. You know, I'll show you how to do it. So she, she teamed up with me. Amazing. And, and, and people say, well, okay. So what's it? She wrote the book and then you did the art and I said, no, I wrote the book and did the art. Yeah. But she worked the book, wrote the book with me.

And she gave you the skills to help. She knew how to, she told me how to form a book, you know, like, yeah, that's important. Put the book together. Yeah. And also how to write it, you know, write a proposal and get in a context of the publishers. So, so she said she had, she had good context with the publishers in England at Thorson's, which is HarperCollins, the biggest publisher in the world, HarperCollins. Yeah. And this is their branch in England. Right. Cool. Okay. So, so I got, so then I got a real phone call from England, from the head. An actual one, not a dream call. Yeah. From England saying that they wanted to publish the, I'll come up to the wrote, it's really marvelous.

Yes. This is marvelous. I can hear how they would say it. Yeah. And, and, and we think, I think it's the art, which is exquisite when you want to publish it, you know, so then, so they gave me a year to do it. And the thing is, it took, it was really, you know, it took a lot of time. Yeah. So, it ended up taking me two years and they kept giving me extensions. And I've heard, since then, that's unheard of because, you know, they would demand the money back or something. Yeah. Like, you're not doing this. You took our money and run, like, why are you meeting or doing it? But they, but I kept saying artwork and all this is great.

The best thing we have. Okay. Let's keep going. They saw what you saw. Yeah. Okay. So, in the meantime, you know, I'm telling all my friends, you know, like, you know, they olden them using artists. They're like, "Oh, I'm not doing this." And they're like, "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this." "Oh, I'm not doing this."

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But then they said, "Okay, now you don't have six months to finish today." And I had worked in the lesson for two years after I had already worked on it for years and years before I was doing all this stuff. Okay, so I did this deck, like, you know, trying to work how to work it faster. And so basically, what happened is I had to sit down and draw every day, seven days a week, you know, from the time I got up, to the time I went to bed just taking breaks to wash and go to the toilet and eat and do normal things. "P basic shit." Yeah. And then, you know, people would call me and say, "I want to respond," and say, "You can't talk."

"Right." "You can't talk to anybody to take too much time." "Yeah." And I worked on that, like, until the deck was done, and I actually handed it in a week girl and, "Wow." But to do that, see, on the minor suits, I just, I had a repetition of the suit symbol. I didn't have the images. Right. All different, yes. Images helped you with the divination, like the way Pamela did, you know. Right, right. Right. And, but I worked it all out. And meantime, Rosemary was right in the book, and she said, "May we should just give the advance back?" I said, "I can't already spent it." It's not a thing that I do here.

I get the advance. It's my money. It's me. Of course. Give them back the money. Of course. Yeah. So she said, "Okay." So she wrote the book really fast, and I let her just write the whole book, but she basically just wrote a lot of stuff we had already written for the alchemical trial plus whatever I said. I told her about the angels. Sure. Sure. Okay. And then we got it out. And that came out. And it was a, and it was a real big success, and they sold the rights to Germany. You know, and it got you, and I started getting advances, you know, I mean, I mean, royalties past the advance because, you know, like it was selling so well, and I think, but this really wasn't as good as the alchemical trial, but it was, and it came out the same years they all came out the trial.

But see, you know this. It's not really actually what matters when it comes to like opening up to energies, right? Yeah. But you need, but you know, it's before money and what you needed. Money and we were talking about here, which is kind of this relationship between pursuing your creative, I don't even call them passions anymore. I call them like desires and needs. Like, I'm sure you've experienced this as an artist, but if you're not making art, if you're in a situation where you're prevented, which we pretty much try to eliminate from our lives, it is like it, it built the tension built quickly.

Yeah, because you're supposed to be making art. Because you're supposed to be. And if you're denying that hero's call, the hero's journey there, you're going to be. Yeah, and you need, you need money to make art. Also, the more money I have, the more creative things I can do, like, like, I collect antique decks. You get cool stuff. I know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, money comes up a lot in this podcast because I did not have a particularly healthy relationship. As a lot of people don't, they view it as a cudgel that beats the man. Well, they think money's evil. It's not. It's so not. It's just energy.

It's a reflection of energy. Well, because people do evil things to get money, that's what, so they confuse the two. Or we'll use it to do evil things. Evil things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, to have undue political influence and make the laws in their favor. Let's give it to Mike Kavanaugh and Socrates. What's going on? This guy really wants to be a district attorney. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, science everywhere. Well, you know, the election is coming up next month. I gather because there's science like an everywhere. Yeah. It's always like this. It gets to the election. So I'm fascinated that you had this kind of download of information that led to these decks.

I mean, but as you're going through and creating these, surely more is being revealed to you via synchronicity via just- The thing was, you know, I keep studying trying to study, like from the beginning, I wanted to know, okay, who were the artists who made this deck, right? Yes. Yes. Okay, because we read the esoteric books, like there's, they're so full of- Wow. Well, it's like, I can't read most tarot books because mostly, like most tarot books are telling you what the cards mean, but they're just telling you what the person who wrote the books feels about the card. Which is, okay, this is to me why I have the confidence to start doing readings for people.

And I only started a month ago and then B have the confidence to start charging for people because what I learned about these cards is they are the querent, but they are there unconscious revealing something to the person. Yeah. My job is to get the fuck out of the way. Well, but basically you just, you look at the cards and you put them together and you tell a story. Right. And the story has relevance. Right. And that's it. That's it. That's all definition is. That's all it is. Exactly. But I use it as a way to allow people's unconscious to tell them what they want to know. Right. Because that's what everyone's trying to do.

That's the deep. That's individuation. It's the alchemical process. It's the Jesus Christ moment. It's everything is waking up to this connection between the masculine and the feminine, right? This is the alchemical led into gold process. And I have found few things as good as tarot cards. And then your alchemical deck comes into my life in a very magical way. And I see not only what was just kind of a felt sensory connection between these things, but the actual connection between them in pictographic form. And I love the way you put this is kind of like, it's kind of like a two dimensional representation of not just a three dimensional or four dimensional concept, but all these other dimensions and consciousness that they kind of unlock and you can put them together in a narrative set, which is like, it's the best thing I think I've found.

Well, see, that's my whole reading technique is based on using groups of three cards. Because I don't believe that one, like, essentially what I've uncovered going back to the Renaissance and trying to uncover who created these cards. Yeah. So there was a lot of interest in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Yeah. Okay. So there was an Egyptian connection, but they come from the Renaissance and become the Renaissance interest in the ancient pre-Christian world. So like, so a lot of artists in the Renaissance wanted to know how you read hieroglyphs. And there was a book called the hieroglyphica, which was a book written in ancient Greece, well, in the Hellenistic world, and it was basically a Greek writer's misconception of how to read hieroglyphs.

I put some bumbling in it. It's like, no. Well, he wasn't an idiot. Of course not. He wrote a book in ancient Hellenistic Greece. He's not an idiot. But you know, but he was, he was just, you see, the thing is the hieroglyphs were like sake, they're, they're hieroglyphs is sake. I mean, hieroglyphs is just Greek. I mean, it's sacred carvings, is what it says, right? So they were the language that the priest used, and not everybody could read it. Right. See, then there's a more, there's a popular form of Egyptian writing also. Right. Right. The modic, how do you say it? So the, the book was trying to explain the hieroglyphs.

And then so the, what the author was saying is that hieroglyphs are pictures that, like the one picture encompasses lots and lots of information. So every time you see it, you pull out new information, which is what a symbol is, right? Right. It's what a symbol is. Okay. Now the thing is, the hieroglyphs were actually formalized so that each hieroglyphs was one word or one syllable. So you could put several syllabus to make a word, right? Okay. So, and they were much more solidified that way, but they, but it wasn't entirely wrong because there were, there was this aspect of Egyptian art that was more open ended and kind of, you can read what you want into the image.

Yeah. And like I'll let the image talk to you sort of. So, and see the thing about hieroglyphs, they had, the main picture on an Egyptian art had to relate to the hieroglyphs. So the hieroglyphs would, would, you know, work with, like if the picture is facing to the left, the hieroglyphs would face the left, the picture is right, they would face the right. They had to relate to the artwork. Right. Now, now think about this. You know, like if you, like, the thing is like I've made pieces where, you know, I annotate or have words on my cards, right? Because you want to give more, like you want some kind of verbal message with it, right?

Okay. And, and so you use the alphabet. But the thing is the gypsis didn't have an alphabet what they had, they just wrote right with the pictures. Right. So there's very little difference. See, when they're making a picture, they're already writing. So, and then when, and people say, well, how come Egyptian pictures, you know, their heads are always in profile, their shoulders are facing you and then you have to feed her in profile. Yeah. You know, their weird combination of parts to the body, right? Yeah. Okay. Because they're actually combining hieroglyphs to make the picture. Wow. Wow. So the direction of the facing is actually part of the syntax for like understanding.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like the way, everything's like, okay, if you draw a face, you know, it's in profile unless it's a particular, you know, like the certain demons that you look full face. Right. You don't have to do that. So the, so everything is formalized, you see, you know, and, and there's no separation between written language and visual language. Right. Because they're the same because they're both images. Yeah. They're all image. See. And, and we've lost that. Well, that's why they were considered magical like, like, like the hieroglyphs were like part of Egyptian magic. Yeah. And I mean, I think that's what we call magic is just something that we don't have a clear explanation for what it is consciously, right.

I mean, when we have unconscious things happen that aren't explained by our Newtonian physics or just our conception of the world, that's magical to us. That's not how things are supposed to work in consensus reality. And what I found with a lot of things like tarot cards and what you're saying about hieroglyphs is they switch our mind, if you allow them to, into kind of the more metaphorical and allegorical way of looking at the world. And that to me is actually the function of this world. We take it very literally. We take it quite literally. But if you look at it symbolically and pictorially, which is just to be clear how we experience the world, we come up with these hermetic ways of language and dialogue to filter and parse what's going on.

But when we're just having our experience, I see the woodpecker. I see the leaves. I see green. It's actually doing, it's kind of a more accurate representation of the experience of reality. And I think that's probably why it was resonant to people with the artist's spirit, because they're seeing that as the act of mechanism underneath, like one of my favorite artists is Magritte. And I didn't know why I love Magritte so much. He's known for the bowler hats, but he's got these whole series of paintings. And then I read a quote from him and he's like, it's all about what's underneath. He's like, it's all about the reason I put the things over people's faces and obscure them under things is because it's all about what's underneath.

That's all I'm drawing out to the surface. And I feel like these cards and what you're doing, like, I mean, it's just, it's that. It's so clearly that and that is the magic that hooks people, even if they don't consciously know why, you know, like, oh my God, like, why is this resonating? I have had more comments on this deck than any other deck I put on Instagram. And I just started getting into Instagram and people are like, what is that deck? I don't want, yeah, it's fucking awesome. Well, like, going back to the initial experience when I was looking at the images philosophers down, right? Yes.

Okay. So looking at that image basically opened up this portal in my mind that didn't know existed. So it literally did exactly what you said. It's like these pictures have power and you don't see that's the whole point of mandalas, what that's what mandalas are for. It's a two dimensional representation of higher states of consciousness. Yeah. And it opens up these higher states. So so that's what the alchemical imagery can do. And that's why I got very involved in alchemical imagery. But see what I, but I would, but the, one of the things though is, you know, the, the, I wanted to go back to, like, see, remember we started with talking about the Renaissance artists.

Okay. So I wanted to go back to what they were thinking. So that's why I did the tarot of the sevenfold mystery because, because the thing is they weren't trying to make the deck, but now chemical work, it wasn't, it just, I was showing these two things coincide. Right. But what were they actually saying? What were they saying? Okay. So, so that, so I went, you know, I read the best, sorry, the information I could find. I tried to recreate it. I saw that the earliest cards like you'd see the artwork related to other artwork at the time. And you know what that meant. Yeah. Okay. And, and so, and these things were going back to what we were saying before, these, the, the Renaissance artists at the time were trying to create their own hieroglyphs.

Right. They wanted to create symbolic pictures that had the same kind of power like the Egyptian images had, but they were making it in their own style. Right. And you see that all through Albrecht Dürer and, and, you know, you can see it in Leonardo's work or Michelangelo's. Yes. Botticelli. All these artists you can see. Yeah. Like the thing, things in their pictures are like in the Renaissance, like they believe that art should have body and soul. Right. Okay. Now, body is, is the technical form. Yes. It's the technical power that the artist has the skill to create the image and, and, and create, you know, all those things we've learned about in art school, like a composition and line and form and color, all the formal elements.

Yes. Okay. Now when I, so when I studied art in college in, in the sixties, right, that's, we, you know, abstract art was it, right? Yeah. Okay. So that, so it was all about body with no soul. Right. It wasn't supposed to, it was supposed to be said to all that's literally that stupid. Yeah. Yeah. It's on the form. Yeah. Yeah. It says about composition. Yes. Right. And that's an abstract painting. So all that's just just composing. You're not, it's like music. You know, you're not, you know, there is no message. Yes. Okay. And that's stupid and literary. Right. Okay. And, and things in the Renaissance, they would say, that's really stupid.

You left the message. Yeah. The message is the, is the whole point. Yeah. Cause that's, and that's the soul. Okay. And, and, and what, and so one of the ways they tried to create the message is they want to actually set something bills off of the important that is, as I see it, the dance that we all do constantly throughout life, whether we outwardly express it as artists or not. It is the philosopher's stone that we're all seemingly groping for that exists within all of us. Right. It is this kind of like, how do we get it out? How do we experience it? So what has that process been like for you?

What has been revealed as you've made these decks that you plunged into kind of, well, dealing with those Renaissance artists were doing. Well, what, okay. So in studying the history of the Torah, more and more stuff that's been uncovered, like, I started, well, one of the things that I started giving these lectures, I don't know, maybe ten years ago or so, I'm probably longer, but I, I got to the Metropolitan Museum and I looked through, through their collection in the print, in their print library. Yeah. And they have some of the oldest tarot decks in the world where, so I started giving lectures on it.

Like a couple of times a year I get, I bring a class in there and, and I lecture on the collection. Right. And we'd look through and they have some of the, they have tarot wood cut tarot cards from Ferrara from the 1400s. Wow. So that's the oldest, you know, it's the oldest. Yeah. And these, and because you know, we're so used to seeing the Biscontes floors, the cards that are hand-painted from Milan, right? Yeah. And those are the, you know, the, and then the Carrielles Viscontes and the other ones from Milan and these are oldest cards we have, right? Right. But those are hand-painted cards, painted by, you know, skilled miniatures for, for nobles.

Right. Or rich people. Right. And, and it's, and it's doubtful those cards are going to use to play the game because they probably just works of art. In fact, there's little like holes in the top of it. Right. Where you could hang those. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the people in the street were using the wood cut ones, the cheaper ones. So that was the tradition you want to go back to and say, well, what were they actually using? Yes. Right. And, and, and doing that, see, because the thing is, okay, most people now know the cards then come from ancient Egypt. Right. That's been thoroughly debunked.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, and, and any book you read on throw, they won't say that anymore. Right. But the thing is, what they do say is, okay, but the cards are related to the Cabala. Right. And, and, and this card missed this and they treat it like it's some kind of secret formula that you have to uncover and you're not looking at the artwork anymore. Right. And it's like the people who made it were Cavillists or magicians in the first place. Or maybe they were the, the, the Cathars and, you know, all these silly theories. You come up. Okay. They can't be the Cathars. By the time the Tarot only developed in the early 1400s, the Cathars were gone.

Right. Right. Okay. And it wasn't the Crusaders coming back from the whole of the end. It wasn't any of this stuff. It was them naturally expressing pictorially. Yeah. What it was, the secret is that the Tarot was created by artists because it was the work of art. Because it is art. That's right. Yeah. And artists in the Renaissance were very, you know, knowledgeable people who studied philosophy and because they had to have soul to their work. It wasn't like, they're not just people, like, because we think of artists as just body. What do they, what's the work? What's their body of work? Yeah.

Right. Okay. But, but, and, and artists in the Renaissance had had body and soul in their work. So they had, so how do you put soul in, you know, like, like look at Michelangelo poetry and all this stuff. Right. Right. And educated people who, the artists, even even doing, you know, like basically the only cards are like folk art, right. But they still had to hire, you know, who made these cards? Well, the people who made the cards, the people who make books, right. The Renaissance is a time when, well, first of all, there's a merchant class and to be a merchant, you had to know how to read because people, oh, people didn't know how to read back then.

Right. Well, well, yeah. Most, like farmers didn't know how to read. But the thing is, but if you're middle class merchants or whatever you had to read. You had books at the time. You were not just a clergy. So the thing is, and they wanted books. That's why you started seeing books that aren't religious books. They wanted other kinds of books, like romance novels, basically. You can see Hermes run through all of this, right. Right. Merchants, Mercury, Hermes. Okay. And this important thing happened, paper was introduced to Europe, like it didn't have paper. Okay. So paper, like in, like in 1200s, like mid 1200s, paper was introduced in the Spain and says in Italy, Italy.

Okay. From, from the Islamic world, it was originally in China and made it finally made it to Europe. Okay. Okay. Now with paper, you could, like they already knew how to make wood blocks and they were printing on cloth to make, that's how you made patterns on cloth with wood blocks, right? Sure. And they also did engraving on armor. And then, and then the armor started saying, well, you know, I did this beautiful engraving on this armor and I want to have a record of it so they'd ink it up and put it paper on it. And then people go, well, you just made a print on the paper. Yeah. So then they started making, you know, making gravies to put on paper.

It's like, okay. And, and now this really important thing happened in, in the 1450s, around 1450 as they created movable type. Mm hmm. Okay. Okay. So now, because before they had a carb, if you want to make a page of a book, you had to carve the whole page. Yeah. Not only that, but backwards. Right. Because it's going to be red. Yeah. And you got to do this way. Okay. So you say, well, we can just put type in it, lay it out real fast. So, so they started printing like between 1450 and 1500 more books were, were printed and distributed then, you know, from the, from ancient world to that time. Yeah.

Wow. Because it was the explosion. It's like the internet of the. Yeah. That's what it was. It was just like the internet. Just because the information then is freely dispersed amongst people who have the ability to parse it. Well, it's interesting because like what I hear, and I still want to hear about the Renaissance and all this stuff, but I'm sure you can see the cyclical patterns that happen throughout time. And it certainly feels like we're in one now where we're experiencing kind of a renaissance because because of the internet, right? Because what's the distance? What's the gap between us recording this year, me going home to my place in Red Hook 20 minutes away, 30 minutes away and putting it out to thousands and dozens of thousands of people within a few days.

That is such an amplifier in this reality that we have no choice but to kind of ramp up this spiral. So you also bring an important principle. Yeah. The creativity follows the technology. Yeah. That's interesting. That's interesting. The creativity follows the technology. Well, here's, here's where I'm at with all this stuff. I've kind of opened up to this idea and, and, and like you only based this off direct experience. No one told me this. No one said you should, you know, believe this. That's just useless with everything. But this idea that our imagination is the only reality, that our sense of I am is the only real reality and that this world isn't just conceptually a dream or kind of a looserie or Maya or some sort, but it's actually malleable in the same way that a dream is if you learn how to lose a dream.

So I've been experimenting with these techniques to kind of prove that to myself. And as I've done that, I've been connected with things like the tarot and astrology and things that were foreign to me and kind of weren't unlocked. I kind of had Hermes come and open up those doors and make it make sense. And I've just kind of been sharing that for the past few months because I've noticed, as we're talking about a little bit of our like, I just appropriate states of consciousness now. I don't, I don't even like, I just decided I wanted to be fearless. I decided I wanted to have clarity. I decided I wanted to meet my creative potential and express that in the world in a way that was both fulfilling and beneficial for myself and other people.

And lo and behold, not only has that stuff happened, it happened so much fucking faster than I could possibly imagine. So to me, what your deck has helped solidify in my life, and I'm sure a lot of other people is that the true alchemy, the true individuation, the philosophers don't, the stuff that Jung was obsessed with them were really Louise von Franz was obsessed with. It's us. It's always been us. It's always within the individual. It's always there to be found. And if you go looking for it, it comes out in these amazing ways or these, these decks that you kind of called forth and you were talking about like all these different decks you did across so many different modalities, like the Buddha deck, the vampire deck, like it's all the same thing because you have tapped into this.

What is it, the primo materia, is that what they call it? Yeah, that's the thing you start with to do the process. Yeah, right. So it's, it's pretty incredible. Well, say like the prime materia is like, they say it's the stone rejected by the builder. It's the most valuable thing in the world that we step over every day. Every fucking day. So there's always hints that it's right there. It's right there. And I think what people trips people up is they want to externalize it. They want to believe it's outside. They want to believe the things that they think make them feel happy, whether it's another person or relationship, whatever it is, that's the active mechanism.

That's the operative principle. But it never is. It's always us. See, that's actually what Korda Javelin used to use that same idea of the primo materia to like he related to the Torel, like the, you're familiar with Korda Javelin? No. Okay. And the first occultist that discovered the Torel, and this is in the 1700s. So Korda Javelin, he was a Swiss, but he lived in Paris. And he was a Freemason. He belonged to the Masonic Lodge in Paris, which is the same one that both Terre belonged to, and the king of France belonged to it, and Benjamin Franklin used to drop by. Cool. Hang out. Have a good time.

Yeah, right. So, you know, hang out with the ladies. I was going to say it. Is everyone else Benjamin Franklin? No, no, no, no. He was connected, right? Okay. Okay. And he had this idea. He believed, like he kept seeing, see, this is before Jung and all this stuff, right? Yeah. And he kept seeing that there would be all these similarities between all these different cultures as they're studying more and more cultures around the world, right? Right. And especially this is like in the 1700s, Egypt, like Egypt was unfolding. There's no connection back then either besides like boats and people traveling, so it wasn't like this.

There's no information superhighway, just no internet, right? But there were books. Right. Books, but slow with books. Yeah. Okay. But he was, but he wanted to write a book. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. And he's pulling together the thing and he started, he's one of the founders of the whole science of etymology, but he, but he's really bad at it. The first people usually aren't the best at it. They are the first, but they're not going to be the best. Yeah. Cause he just sort of like, well, this sort of sounds like that must be connected. Yeah. That sounds like making me. So, you know, just join these connections just out of his ass.

Yeah. Right. Okay. So, so the thing is, so he, but he wrote this, he wrote this series of books called Moon Primitiv. So his idea was that there was, there was this ancient society of really enlightened masters. And that all our philosophy and magic and religion is a bastardized version of this initial pure, pure, pure society of the, that was ruled by these enlightened masters. Finally. Okay. Which is just an archetypal myth in itself. It's the good myth of the golden age, exactly what the Egyptians and ancient Greeks and all these people believe that, you know, that one time the gods lived on the, on the earth.

Yeah. And, and he'd find it all over the world. It's like one of the basic archetypes, but he thought it was a real history. Yes. Okay. So he's trying to prove it by showing all the similarities with different cultures and, and, and, and also working with words. Yes. And, and the thing is in the eighth volume, he had nine volumes of the, came out of Moon primitive. Right. And he would, he would sell them, he, he'd get pre-orders on them, which is exactly what I do with my terror. Right. Yeah. You know, get pre-orders to help pay for the printing. Of course. And, and, and the king of France would buy, you know, like he, he'd buy a whole, you know, a whole bunch of him to his friends and, you know, at each volume.

So the original Kickstarter. So there's only nine volumes he did. He would have kept going, but he died because basically mezz, he did some experience with mezz, my mezz, my killed him. You know, accidentally with his electric. Yeah. He's trying to like mesmerize people. Yeah. Okay. So, but in, in 1781, the eighth volume came out. Yeah. Okay. So the eighth volume of Moon primitive way in the back is I starts up page 365. See, and he's in page remember because the number days in the year. Yeah. So the thing is he has this article about the Tarot and, and he said that he was, this German Countess, this unnamed German Countess was in Paris and she, and he went to her salon.

You know, her, her, her partner. Yeah. Yeah. And they were playing cards. Okay. And they're playing Tarot, which wasn't, see at this time, Tarot wasn't so well known in Paris. It was still being played more in Southern France, but the German Countess knew about it. I guess from Germany. Right. Yeah. Because it's a game. Yeah. And basically the cards were originally a game. Right. That they're the ancestor bridge. Right. What a great name bridge for the whole of this, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, the bridge is, you know, evolved version of the Tarot game. Amazing. You know, there was whisk and there's all these different versions came out.

Okay. So, she's playing the game and he looks at the cards and he's into my God, these, this is an Egyptian mystery, you know, and he recognized the Hermetic philosophy in them. Yes. Okay. Which was real. Yeah. Okay. But he's the size of must have come from ancient Egypt. Because, you know, he's putting, I mean, but basically, but it's his theory. I mean, what's one of his ideas, his theories is not like he's, you know, saying, look, I saw this. This seems to be like. No. It's a hypothesis. Yeah. Yeah. And everything in his books are hypothesis. Yeah. But the story is, but the story is he says, he saw the world card and he realized that this is the Hermetic myth and they started looking at the cards and he started explaining to everybody they're messed up their game.

Yeah. Yeah. And he said, and then he came up with this theory. He realized that the ascended masters, our last contact was, was in ancient Egypt. And that, and they wanted to leave us a book of the, of the mysteries of the world, you see, and, and, and, and they, and they, and their wisdom, they knew if they wrote this book and that it out of ignorance and greed and warfare, that the book would be destroyed. Right. Okay. So in the great wisdom, they made it a deck of cards because they knew that people would use it to gamble and, and because of their, their greed and corruption that they would ensure that this deck would continue.

This guy had a good, interesting thing. Yeah. That's a really good one. Yeah. Because he like, like betting on, on the lower nature of mankind because they were so wise, they knew that their wisdom would make it through. We got, because we know exactly what's weird is that also does kind of work for a lot of shit too. That's so funny. Okay. So, so he says, and, and, and, and he said, so they left this book for us and until this year when finally someone with the knowledge could read it, which is me, I had the chosen one who can read the book. And it's in hieroglyphs, of course. Wow, wow, wow. See, who's at Tarot?

We are, you know, they're, they're Renaissance hieroglyphs. So the thing is, you know, he's, I mean, there are connections with Egypt because there are, these are influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, but they're Renaissance hieroglyphs, right? Right. Okay. So, so he's saying, okay. So he feels that the deck was obviously created in ancient Egypt and then was passed on in ancient Rome to, you know, the wrong world from there came to France. But of course, as, as artists kept re-interpreting the cards, they added, you know, they re-interpreting of the images in European style because, you know, he knows they're not Egyptian, you know, it's a pope card, you know, okay, so, but the pope was the Hierophon, you see, in ancient Egypt.

And then, and of course, and of course, there's a pope and a pappus. There's no pappus. Right. So how does there, that's obviously the priestess from ancient Egypt. See, they're like, see, it doesn't really fit Christian culture. Well, because, you know, one thing that I was reading or hearing about with a lot of this stuff is all of these scriptures, all of these metaphysical traditions and religions are allegories. They're metaphors. They're not able to capture, you know, that's how everybody looked at the Bible for you. You know, that's until the fundamentals came along, everybody, I mean, the things, you know, everybody acts like the fundamentals are the original Christians.

Right. And it's like, they're just a new version that happened. It's a new version who misinterpreted that this isn't a secular history, that it's the way I look at the Bible now, and I grew a form Jewish, so like Jewish light. So I just didn't really even have any conception of the New Testament, but every character in the Bible is you. They're all psychological states that we move through. And if you look at it metaphorically and allegorically and symbolically like that, it makes total fucking sense. If you look at it like literally there was this dude and he did this and there was this well, especially when you look at the original, the Torah and, you know, the pen to talk the first five books.

Yeah. Like that's why the Ebola was developed because, you know, basically the tablets have told me that the reason that they look at it symbolically and interpret it and go away, you know, they do really obscure things to find symbolism and like, you know, Jamatria, and numerology and all this stuff. Yeah. Because if you read it literally, it sounds horrible. And it's like this God's not good is not good and that's what I didn't understand that Yahweh or Jehovah is alchemically. If you break it down, it is Yad Hei Vau Hei and the Yad is the, the Jad, the Jad is the unconditioned awareness, this sense of I am.

The Hei is a desire that springs within a person. This is the selective masculine energy that says, Hey, I want that. The Vau is the feeling aspect which binds the objective witness or of the desire to the actual desire. That's the feeling. And then the last Hey is just accepting that it's done. I will be done. It allows it to happen when I started like getting these pieces of information revealed to me. I was just the cool shit. I never thought I'd be into the Bible number one. I never thought I'd be able to not only understand it metaphorically from when it's explained to me, but find other stories that haven't been covered in the like, Oh, like whenever you see the number five in the Bible, it's your senses, like just think of it like what does it have to do with your five senses, it's allowing your senses to process kind of information that doesn't fit with our analytical and logical mind.

So part of this for me has been kind of accepting and realizing this Ross the farionism concept of I and I, which is I didn't know it's about Ross the farionism. It's strict biblical interpretation that's it's straight from the Bible. It's this concept of I and I, big guy, God, little I, you. And they're the same fucking thing. And so when you tap into that, they use cannabis to shift them into the imaginal realms where they experience, use this as a sacrament to shift them into that reality where it exists. For my life, I'm so gonna tunnel you and I'm like, I don't know why. I know it's good for me.

I know I like it. I see these studies. And I'm like, of course I get it. It's the fucking high priestess. It's the moon. It's the path of path of contemplation that shows you this whole alchemical process takes inside. It literally happens inside the person. Now how I look at death and I listen, I'll say this with the bold claim that I don't consciously remember dying physically, but my conception of death is kind of like neat, what Nietzsche thought. Or I really stayed away right away from because he was an nihilist, but it is this recurrent thing. If you die, if you don't wake up to this reality of who you actually are and what the function of this place is, you just keep coming back and not even necessarily as like a different person as you, just a younger version with the shade off to help you kind of get to this place.

And I think this explains a lot of things having to do with destiny and free will. The destiny is everyone wakes up to this. It's just a fact. It's gonna happen no matter what. The free will is how you wake up to it is completely within your control. This is the process of waking up that people talk about and I keep trying to punch your holes in this shit. I keep trying to like pressure test this and be like, maybe this is just some weird delusion or something. But I'm telling you, I've been using these techniques, getting in touch with this imaginal reality. And it literally just keeps unfolding.

I think you have to be careful about the, the Bible though. Well, of course. But the thing, see, if, like when you, like I was just reading Genesis, I went over Genesis and the thing is, it's pretty sick. It is. Cause you know, there's these things where the Israelis wipe out this whole other tribe and steal the women. No, no, no, no, no. So that's literally what's going on. Yeah. But, but it's actually, this is based on historical records. So I, I have. So we, but see what happens is then later, the whole history of Judaism, as I see it, is they took these stories, these historic references. And then they said, how can we make something good out of this?

Oh, oh, see, and I, and then, and then I keep modifying and modifying, modifying, and that's what Judaism is. Cause that's what the process is. And that's what Jesus is. He's just another Jewish prophet who's like trying to make something better out of this whole story. Right. So here's here. I will give you my, um, felt experience of Jesus Christ. So 17 years ago, I had an experience where I took a nominal amount of LSD and taken it plenty of times before, maybe 150, 200 micrograms, not milligrams, and I tripped for three months. I didn't come down. I didn't come down. For three months? I stayed in a state.

Were you hallucinating or? Uh, just every classic aspect, I never visually really hallucinate when I take psychedelics. I just never. Cause I can never, if I was to stay on that for three months, I could have a function. It was pretty intense. Um, so what ended up happening is my direct experience was everything was a synchronicity. Nothing stopped. This includes the dreaming state. I would go from lucidity, uh, in an awake state right into lucid dreaming and there was no stop. Lots of information was coming to me about numbers on conditional love on conditional acceptance. And remember, I'm a, at this point, I'm a college kid at a music school in Boston.

I'm horny, um, like a regular fucking person trying to get you done, but all of a sudden this experience is kind of like raining down on me. And for us for three months, this is a long enough time to get acclimated with this experience and have that kind of like bifurcation of being like, what the fuck is going on, but still being within the throes of it. So one aspect of it, and I could never make sense of this, and it was the most direct experience I ever had. Remember, I grew up Jewish, never read that old testament, didn't tell a big Christmas or a new testament, never knew anything, I knew I was Jesus Christ.

And this is a clear sign if you know your Jesus Christ that you're losing your fucking mind. Yeah. That's a classic hallmark. Classic schizophrenic. Yeah. Classic classic. Yeah. At the same time as I realized in this, there's a substantial homeless population in Boston. Every single homeless person would walk up to me and go, you know what I'm talking about. People who were mute, who would live outside the store 24 and never say shit to people who would walk directly up to me and start talking and like, what the fuck is going on. Anyway, I go through this whole experience, magical shit is happening all around me.

My friends see it, everyone's seeing it, and I eventually crash, and I'd never been depressed in my entire life. I had never experienced anything close to that. So I knew something was wrong, because I was like getting up to go get cigarettes on like I couldn't walk, because I had been in bed so I'm like, okay, shit's wrong. I eventually had a withdrawal from school. My friends and my family. I see a psychiatrist down. What's going on? I was in Berkeley College of Music. And I withdraw, I go back to Maryland, I kind of reconstitute my sense of self, I get diagnosis bipolar. They give me lithium.

I'm trying like weird mandalas all of a sudden, I don't know what the fuck is going on. So I get diagnosis bipolar. I take lithium for about four years. I reenroll in school, fucking graduate, honors, prestigious program, all this stuff. I move to New York, I'm going to have a music degree, what the fuck am I going to do with that. I'm going to have my jobs, production assistants, and stuff. And it occurs to me that like, oh, I'm fucking bipolar. I think that was some weird fucking experience, and I think I'm pretty sure I'm not. So let me do this above board. Let me go to my mom, my family. Do you get depressed?

No. So if you don't get depressed, how are you bipolar? Well, I was depressed one time. This was an up and a down. Okay. So you had to crash, basically. I had my crash, because what happened was, and now I can actually, oh, I'm related to you, but you don't keep having recurring depression. Yeah, I don't remember, so then how do you can't be bipolar? Well, that's what I was realizing was like, I think this is some other thing that happened to me. So I went and I eventually got off with him. I went to a psychiatrist. I was like, I don't like I need it. Went to my family. I was like, I don't think I need it.

Did it above board. I didn't want to just stop taking it, just because I felt that would be a nice way to ease into it. So anyway, long story short, I get involved, you know, with, I had the Macarache experience, the same one where you felt the heat. I'm in reconstituting myself right after this big break from kind of consensus reality. I find myself at the Omega Institute, and there's the wrong best library. And I'm walking up and I see this carving of Maharaj and I'm like, I fucking know this guy. I'm like, who, I'm like, I know this guy, like this is weird, it's freaking me out. So I'm like, okay, whatever.

I eventually ended up working with him, find out who Maharaj is, I'm like, holy shit, that's really you. Okay. Go back about six months from where we are now. I started hearing this guy Neville Goddard, a new thought, new age type guy, you know, popular wanes and popularity. And he starts talking about, well, he has a lot of, he's a lot about Christian mysticists. Yeah, but it's also about how you're basically like positive thinking creates your reality. Basically that the only, well, this is the stuff he starts talking about. So he had two different aspects of his life. He had what he referred to as the law, which is what essentially your consciousness creates reality.

If you want a house to imagine you're in the house, you get the house. That's it. Boom. Yeah. And then there's a lot of beautiful visions that were basically living out biblical prophecies and he wouldn't shut the fuck up about it. And his crowds got smaller and smaller and they're like, yo, dude, can you start talking about the houses and cars again? Yeah, right. Because that's what he was. Yeah. We really want houses. Yeah. Right. You don't give a shit about being God. But anyway, he started, I'm listening to these talks. So I hear because of this podcast, someone talked about Neville Goddard, they told me to basically blah, blah, blah, blah.

I go on this peer to peer file sharing service just to see if there's talks by him. And I find a treasure trove of like 80 talks in his voice talking, so I'm listening to these things. I'm listening. I'm listening. And I'm like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? He's talking about Jesus Christ. He's talking about imagination. And his conception, it just hit me so hard because this is exactly what I experienced is none of this shit is historical because point in fact, nothing in linear time actually exists. But we know this if you go deep enough into a psychedelic or meditative experience that it's just an ever-present nexus of flowing stuff that we smoosh down into a spectrum of, you know, experience that so we can parse this place because this is a fucking place so we need to be able to navigate it.

So there's no such thing as historical accounts of what the Bible is. He says, however, if you look at it as an allegory, as a metaphysical kind of psychological map of the states that people go through culminating in the Old Testament with Moses getting this information and bringing it down to Earth alchemically, he says, the New Testament is the flower of the plant of the Old Testament, which culminates in a state of consciousness, not a person called Jesus Christ. And that is the awakening and remembrance inside your own skull in Golgotha of, oh shit, I am that big eye and that little eye. Now, most people in the get to this point have what I originally had 17 years ago, which is this harsh rejection of this truth, because if this is true, you're God.

It means you literally create all of this and everyone is dead. Yeah, and that old religion is set up to tell you that sacrilegious. And sacrilegious is more importantly your logical, analytical parts of you have a hard enough time kind of navigating this world and the trumps and the people who bother us as it is to take on all, literally, of the responsibility of the universe and the multiverse of everything. We're like, fuck out of here. That's not it. However, as I experimented with these techniques and started trying to really integrate and synthesize all this stuff, I 100% believe this. And I don't walk around thinking I'm Jesus Christ and I'm like, you know, like I'm some special Messiah, but I know this is a process.

The difference between the schizophrenic and the mystic is the schizophrenic says I'm Jesus Christ and you're not correct exactly what the mystic says I'm Jesus Christ and so are you. So are you. Right. That's the Campbell quote, right? The psychotic drowns in the same waters. The mystic swims and delayed in. Yeah, right. That's the thing. Yeah. So that's that's been my conception of reality. I've been bending it pretty hard for the past six months and I don't find. See, also, the thing is there is a history. There is. Yeah. And the thing and not every this and the thing that you're the way you're looking at the Bible is a current revelation that was not known in the past, but the thing is what was known in the past wasn't at all what the fundamental say either.

That's it. That's the thing that came about. That's the thing that came about in the mostly in the 1800s when it was a reaction to the age of enlightenment and science and they wanted to say and they wanted to act. They were trying to apply a scientific certainty to the Bible, which is absurd. No one ever looked at it that way. Well, you couldn't because there's clear discrepancies. Yeah. It doesn't even make sense. It makes no sense. Right. Like, like if you look at, if you look at, you know, Genesis, for instance, right? Okay. So like, okay, there's all this contradictory stuff like this, like, you know, the animals are created and then Adam and Eva created, right?

Okay. But then in the second version, Adam and Eva created, then the animals created so they can name them. You know, so they changed the order, right? From one story. Then that's your, that's your clue that it's never meant to be literally. No, it wasn't meant to be literally. I mean, that's true. That's true. There's never meant to be literal, but not everybody. Well, interesting topic. They interpret, but they didn't interpret literally. They interpret non-lurdily literally in all different ways. Well, I would, I would actually say that all of those ways are literal. So like, I, you know, a lot of people think the Bible was written by men as an oppressive kind of tool to keep people down.

That's also a literal interpretation of what it is. The symbolical interpretation is that if you hear of Noah's Ark, he's not building a physical book. He's building an imaginal Ark. It's made out of love. The waters aren't physical waters. They're the psychic waters that drown people. If you don't know what the fuck is going on, it's like the people who smoke weed and can't handle that shit. Your waters are too high. You're drowning. You don't have the boat to lift in. If you just start looking, that's why I love tarot so much. It teaches you so much to look symbolically at what's in front of your face.

You don't look at it and say, oh, it's just like, it's a bird. It's just a bird. It's like, no. Well, the bird represents something. The cops represent something. The water represents it. But it also could represent a bird. It could. It could. Of course, because it's up to us what we choose. But when I do a reading, what I want to do is I want to hook in the person's life. Sometimes the bird's a metaphor and sometimes it's really a story about a bird. And you have to be open to both those things. Well, it can be a story about a bird, but I think what we call a bird is essentially a metaphor for a state of consciousness.

I look truthfully at every, I don't get weird about it, you know, in these conversations I will. But I look at everything as a reflection of the state of consciousness. To me, that is a felt and present reality that is navigable too. It's not something that prevents me from it. Well, literally what's going on is like the thing is essentially the central world was what science started. We're creating it. We're creating it in our mind. Right. So, because basically if we could perceive the world accurately, we would realize that there's all these atoms and molecules spinning around. And we're grouping them into things like a table and, you know, yeah, that's why sometimes people take, take out a stick and they put their hand on the table and they can't get it all off.

Yeah, because they're stuck. They're bound to the molecules that are there. Yeah, and I think, oh my God, this is a molecule, you know, like, they can't, they're just stuck. They don't know what to do. They like lose track and like that. You could separate these things. Yeah. But so, but we're organizing everything in our minds or like what it's like with colors, like, like things, I was just listening to this show on the radio about colors and the thing in ancient Greek literature, there's no word for the color blue. It's like almost like they didn't have the color blue, which is weird because blue is the basic color.

I mean, even dog seed blue, it's everywhere because reds, you know, like dogs have two color preceptors in their eyes so they could see blues and greens where we see blues and greens and reds. Right. Okay, which gives us like huge amount more colors because you combine them. Yeah. Okay. So, but then, so how come the Greece didn't mention blue, right? And then, and then the theory is that you don't come up with a word for a color until you have a paint or die for that color. And so the Egyptians had a word for blue and they also had blue paint, but so they didn't have blue paint and colors. So they didn't say they didn't have blue paint in Greece.

Wow. Wow. And that's a mind blur when you start thinking about because you'll see in Homer, like he's talking about the wine red sea and you know, never says the sea's blue. Yeah. You know, all these weird things, right? And so, so, but so they did these experiments like they went around to other cultures, right? And they found cultures like in Africa where the people that show them color charts and they asked them what color they could, they could not distinguish between green and blue was the same color. Because it's the same thing. So, because they're really creating in your mind, that's so that to me is the allegory of what this world is there.

Everything is the color until we can contrast it with something. We don't have the kind of relief to see what's going on. That's kind of just how I look at everything now. And I see this thing as a regular scientist who look at the work, they only care about like empirical evidence, right? Right. Okay. So, so they don't believe in three will technically. No, well, because so scientific materialism is not real empiricism. Real empiricism in my mind is when someone says, hey, I have a technique that will prove to you that you're God, I have a technique. And someone says if they're not a scientist, they'll say, that's fucking ridiculous.

Fuck off. That's a non-scientist. A real scientist will be like, what's the technique? I'm going to test that shit out. Right. And then test the things and then, you know, keep making hypothesis and test it. That's who the skeptics were. People forget this. We think of it as like this group of naysayers. They were just people who are like, well, I don't know, let me test that out and see if it's true. I don't know. Do you know the website Quora? No. Oh, yeah. Of course. Quora. Quora. Where you ask the question. Yeah. So I always answer questions. Cool. I'm one of the experts that think they know things and answer questions.

So, so, and then sometimes, you know, then it's to this thing that when they say they'll pay you money to ask questions. Yeah. Which is how they ever pay you anything, you know, because I can never, the kind of questions I ask them, they don't get enough people. So, but I ask this one, you know, is there such a thing as free will? Yeah. And it's interesting with science, a lot of scientists said, no, they don't believe in free will. It's deterministic. It's, it's because they believe, you see, you know, if you believe in cause and effect and that everything is cause and effect and physical, then that's wrong, it eliminates free will, right?

It's wrong. If you, this, this world is the effect. The cause is up here, if you try to gain insights into what you see that you're pointing here. I'm saying my imagination. Your sense of mind. Yeah. But guys, it is in there. No, no, no. This is. That's what they're saying. They're saying the brain is the mind. Oh, I know. That's just, it's cockamamie. And for my perspective, the mind and the brain aren't the same thing. No, no, no. I know that. But what I'm saying is that the physiological basis for what they think creates consciousness, we know and have at least enough anecdotal evidence that that is not accurate, that when higher brain function is shut off in certain states, people still have consciousness.

Right. Exactly. So we know that at least there's anecdotal, yeah, no, I mean, all I know is that the scientific world is having to deal with an existential crisis, which is on one level, we have Newtonian physics saying this is how the world works. And then when we get down to the quantum level, all bets are fucking off, like, no, locality is a thing. The observer principle, all of these things that completely break open how we perceive our world. And I think I used to be harsh on the scientific materialist because it seems so foolish. And now I actually have quite a bit of compassion because it is going to really feel like this world is getting ripped apart in the coming years as just to clear my conception of it in linear time, if we're accepting it as real is becoming much more apparent that your imagination, your sense of consciousness, the sense of I am, is the creative genesis of this world.

And you know, if you fight that, it's not a pleasant experience, typically, and in my experience, we'll see how it is for other people. Now in this podcast, how long are we going to go on? We can stop it at any point. Okay. But we want to cover more about the cards. I would love to hear more about the cards specifically this day. Okay. Well, the things that I was talking about, I was at the Met and giving you much at the Met. Okay. So, okay. So the thing is, we started with the terrifies. But as we went through the history of cards, you're looking at regular playing cards, then you were there. These always oracle decks.

Yes. Right. And the thing is that first I didn't know what to say about because they're all their own oracles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I started researching this more and more and then it got to be this resurgence of interest in the linear mondacks and stuff. Okay. And then what I discovered, now this is the thing that was really hard for a lot of people to hear, is that originally the tarot was not popular for divination, the regular playing cards were popular for divination. Right. Well, we know it's the suit of cards. Yeah. They're really for suit decks that you play games with. Yeah. And so, but, you know, for games.

But so was the tarot for games, you know. They're all created for games and for gambling and, okay, and but also you could do divination with them. Sure. So, cards that were used for divination had the meanings written on the cards. Right. And we actually have an early tarot deck like that. And then also then it got to be fortune books where you would use the cards to find the answer to your question in the book. So it wasn't until like late 1600s when they developed cardomancy where they tried, they would write books where they said this card always means this. Pinning it down. Yeah. So you can use any deck and you could do it.

But the thing is, nobody really agrees on the meaning because, you know, when regular playing cards, the pip cards are just, you know, the suits are repeated, right? Yeah. Except, you know, no, Pam will come with Smith gets lots of credit for putting imagery on the pip cards, right? Yeah. Okay. But if you look at regular playing card decks and look at the early decks, there's imagery on the pip cards, and especially in Germany, there's all kinds of like, and usually they're body, you know, like the little character drawings like, like people, you know, gambling over a pile of shit or like, there's a pregnant woman pointing at these two novels saying you're like, yeah, it's amazing, you know, like all these like, you know, moralistic body things, you know, and there's people working with pigs, you know, and like the pigs represent lust.

Sure. Sure. Yeah. And they're all over the place. That's how the German decks were. And then, but then there's other ones too, like the total variety of imagery on the cards, and then there was this deck, even there was a tarot deck called the Celabuska that was made in the 1400s in Italy, and all the, all the pips are illustrated, and that was one of the influences on Pamela. She, she really did all this research on that. So that, that whole thing, first of all, it's not true that the, the weight Smith deck is the first tarot deck that have images on the pips. Right. There were ones before it, and regular playing cards often had the images, but playing cards are more often used for divination.

Now in England, into the 16 and 1700s, they started making all these wonderful engravings and decks, and they, and they make these decks where they had images with some moral message on the bottom, and they have a little playing card on the top, they're connecting it, and they started making games like this, and then we find into the 1700s, there's these games, like, conversation cards, they're called, where, where like, like there's just pictures on the cards, and then you're supposed to put it down, and then somebody will tell a story, and then somebody will pick another card and then add to the story.

Right, it's kind of like what people call like a rummy tarot rummy now. Yeah, something like that, yeah, right, okay, and, and, and now from these decks, there got to be these decks where they were designed for games or for divination, and we call them Oracle decks. Right. Okay, and there was one called The Game of Hope that came out in, in 1799. Okay. And that one had 36 cards, because it was based on the German playing cards, which only had 36 cards in the deck. Okay. Okay, and there was a picture of a German playing card and a French suit playing card at the top, and then there'd be some allegorical picture that was just more iconic and simplified, right?

Sure. Okay, now what happened, Mademoiselle Looner-Mann was the most famous diviner in France, you know, in all of Europe, at the Napoleonic period, right? Because she, you know, she was, you know, Josephine Napoleon's wife, she was her personal diviner, so, and she predicted the rise and fall in Napoleon. So that made her like super fan, you know, that was like, remember Jean Dixon, she was a psychic back in the '60s, and she predicted that the Kennedy assassination. Oh, wow. So like that made her like superstar right away. Hopefully she didn't create it. No, I don't think she did. But it's just picked up on it somehow.

Yeah. But that made her like, oh, she was there, you know, but the original one was Mademoiselle Looner-Mann. Marie Looner-Mann. Looner-Mann just means she comes from Normandy. So yeah, so the thing is, once she died in the early 1800s, I think it was 1845, sometime in there. Sure. Okay, so, every, she was self-empted, you know, they couldn't let her reputation slip away without trying to make money on it. Right. That works. Right. Okay. So, like for instance, there were four books that came out that said they were all her autobiography. Yeah. A neural difference. She was very prolific and had led a lot of different lives.

Okay. So then the French came out with a deck called the "Gram Looner-Mann," right, which had 52 cards based on a regular 52 card deck, and every single card had a little playing card in the corner. It had a constellation, an image from Greek mythology, some symbolic images, a flower. Right. You know, everything, everything you can put on a card. These are jamming in. Yeah. And then had books on numerology and plant divination that went with it. Okay. Now, the Germans, like a year or so later, I think it was, it was 1847, I guess it was when it came out. Yeah. Okay. So, approximately, they came out with the Petite Looner-Mann, which was based on the German card deck.

Right. It had 36 cards, but it had a French-suited card at the top, but it was just like the German deck, where it doesn't have the two's, three's, four's or five's. Gotcha. Okay. So, and then they'd have these iconic images, and they said that, you know, they call it the "Looner-Mann," but it was basically the "Game of Hope." They just took the "Game of Hope" and just dropped one of the cards and then, you know, and said it was "Looner-Mann" deck. Now, "Looner-Mann" never used these kinds of decks. No, no. Of course not. Okay. But that became famous and became standardized, so a lot of people are really into that in Europe and there's a bit research that's been interested in that.

Oh, interesting. But the thing is, that, all through the 1800s, even into the early, you know, 20th century, those are the most popular decks for divination, not the Tarot. Not the Tarot of the playing cards. Yeah. The ones with the Oracle decks. Right. The "Looner-Mann" and other Oracle decks. Now, what happens is that Tarot, once Korda Givlán decided that Tarot was this mystical thing from the ancient ascended masters, you know, all the cultists picked up on it, and then they wanted to make, they said, "Oh, I knew this all along." You know, he's presenting as his theories, right? Because I knew this all along and they talked to me, the masters, you know, they're a bunch of con men.

Well, so this gets to the nexus of, I think, where all this stuff is, is that it's very easy to look in a Tarot deck, read an alchemical thing, read a beginner's kabbalah guide, read any new age book, and ape and mimic, and you're there, you're at their level, to plunge deeply into the roots of this, not just historically, although that's very important because it gives you the context needed often, but, like, personally, psychically, emotionally, spiritually, that is the harder work, right? That's the... See, to me, the whole point of divination, like, the word divination, the root word is divinity.

Right. I mean, it means to talk to the gods. Yeah. It's really... Okay. So, basically, the way I look at it, it's like what I call it, the higher self, you know? Yes. Yeah. Okay. That inner wisdom that's in you, what I'm trying to do, and so I'm putting out the cards to talk to that inner wisdom and draw out the inner wisdom, and I'm trying to draw it out, and that inner wisdom is connected, like you and I have the same inner wisdom. Right. It's the same thing. And we're drawing that thing out so we can talk to us. With these. Yeah. And so we can tell a story with them and draw it out. Now the things with the tarot cards, a tailor, who was a French...

He was an art dealer, Deltan Prince, and he was also an alchemist, and he wrote books on card divinations, where they're playing cards. And then, once a courtage of law, he came out, he's like seized on a tarot, and of course, I knew so long enough. Yeah. Okay. So he redesigned the tarot deck and created the first occult tarot deck that's supposed to express the occult philosophy information, Egypt, and that was called the grand tarot... You know, grande te la tarot. Okay. And that was the most popular tarot deck all through the 1800s. See, there wasn't any way it's meant there. Right. Right. So we actually used that for divination, along with...

So that was kind of the pre... But the thing is, most people were using oracle cards. They were much more popular, like lunar mondex. And now there's this whole resurgence of people making their own oracle decks everywhere. Yeah, well, I'm doing oracle decks too, like this is an oracle deck. It's so cool. And I did the Burning Serpent oracle, and then I recreated the New York lunar mondex, because I collect historic decks, and a lot of decks I collect are oracle decks, because that's more what there is that you can collect. Right. Because there... There weren't any tarot decks. Yeah, those didn't exist.

You know, I have tarot cards from the 7th, and I have to buy one card because they're so old, you know. So as we're winding towards the end of this amazing story and journey through tarot and your own kind of explorations with it, what would you say to someone who hasn't yet penetrated the veil or gotten into it yet? But we spoke about it, weaved around it kind of the practical use of this. Oh, you know what I'm gonna say, this should buy my book. Yeah! Don't worry, there'll be links to all that shit in this, this is what the vehicle is. I mean, I wrote this whole book, say I wrote this whole book.

I was looking at it right when I was asking the question, but I mean, to you, what... There was something that led you to write that book. There was something that you found in this book. Well, the thing is, from the beginning, like I was telling you, when these messages came to me, I would corner my friends and talk to them about it, and they'd say, "Look, you can't just go around and try to corner--" Leave us the fuck alone, write a book. Yeah, you're supposed to write this down so we can come to it when they want to, you know, like... Thanks! You can't just tell everybody your book, you know.

We're not dissimilar, my friend. I love it, but now there is the book that exists. Well, you know, because the first book was the one that was in the old chemical tarot, right? Finally, I was Mitch Horowitz, you know, him? He's been on the podcast. Yeah, yeah. Well, because he talks a lot about the same stuff you've been talking about. Yeah. Okay. Well, he was the editor at... He's the one who told me not to go. Yeah, torture penguin, right? Okay. So, he came to my lecture at the New York Open Center, and he said, "I wanted to write a book on the tarot." Okay. So, you know, it gave me a contract, and I wrote the book, and it's still in print.

And it was called "The Tarot History, Simulism, and Divination." And the thing was, you know, I started writing the book, and he said, "He wanted to be this basic book." Like, sort of, you know, like there were these older books, eating gray book, like that was actually published by Penguin, and that was sort of like a standard book back in the, you know, '60s or whatever, when it came out. Okay. And he wanted to have a new version of that with all this insight I was talking about in my lectures, right? Right. Right. Bringing those histories. Right. Okay. So, I started writing the book, and then, you know, we're arguing back and forth, because this has to fit a certain price range, it's got to be a certain size, you know, you've got to be able to sell it.

He's trying to pin you down? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, good luck. Well, he did. No, he did. I know, because Mitch is good. Yeah, he did. But he didn't... But at a certain point, he had to give up, too. Yeah. He had to go to them and say, "Look, we want to make this a bigger book, because I can't pin him back anymore than this." Right. Okay. So, that came out. Okay. And we sent it out, you know, sent it out for reviews. You know, because they print up copies of the book and sent it out to get reviews. And it went to the book list, which is the American Library Association periodical. Okay. They gave it a starred review, and they said, "This may be the best book ever written about the Torah."

Wow. So, you know, I remember when the view came to me, and I told Mitch on the phone, and he said, "Well, that's really good." And then he hung up, and then he called me back, and he said, "That's really great! It's not good. It's the best. You don't get better than the best." Yeah. This is really great, you know. So, then... And we sold out the first printing, and the book sold out in a month. Okay. So, then you print the second print, and that sold out in two months, you know. And then... So, they need a really big printing. And then, see, on the second printing, we put that review right on the cover.

You know, this may be the best book ever written about the Torah. So, and it's still in print, the book, you know. But the thing is, I always wanted to revise the book, and I talked to Mitch about it, and he said, "Well, and then I started my own publishing company." So, I said, "Okay. I'm going to make my own book." And now I don't have Mitch to hold me back, which is, you know, I understand what he was doing, because... Yeah. How you realize, the constraints are not there to vex you. They were there. Yeah. The book weighs three and a half pounds now, you know. And it's like... And of course, I'm fortunate to mail it to Europe, you know.

So, I worked out a deal with where I had my printers in China, and I had them send the books right to Watkins Books in London. So, that's... In Europe, you can buy it from Watkins Books, and you don't have to pay for the shipping. Ah, it's smart. So, you got it there, so it's already housed. Yeah, because, you know, because the wholesale price already has the shipping from China to me, sometimes I'm going to have it to China to them, you see. This has been fast. Is there anything else I'm missing that I should be asking about? I know that. Obviously. I mean, look at this book. And it goes back to ancient Egypt, and shamans, and...

We're going to have to get together again and do this when we have some time. I end with three questions, and then an open-ended one. Okay, what's the three questions? What's your favorite color? I don't have a favorite color. If you were forced to choose one, if I'm Mitch and pinning you down... Alright, I'll say "Rid." Okay, "Rid" it is. What's your favorite number? Seven. What's your favorite animal? People. Good one. Fucking great one. Last question. What's a practical tip that has helped you in your life that you could share with people listening? Could be anything. A practical tip is, well, I always found that working for someone else was like a form of enslavement.

Can I tell you something? Right before I left my house, I've never had this thought. I was thinking about my wife's situation. I had the thought, "I cannot believe there is a concept such as bosses." I just can't... It's crazy to me. So to hear you say that is timely... Well, I told off more bosses than I care to mention. So I almost have to work for myself because nobody wants me to work for them. Right. Amazing. Ron, thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for listening to that episode of You're Here Past Music. Man. Good for you. It was a long episode. It was pretty cool, though.

As I was editing this, there's a woodpecker outside. I mentioned it in the intro and it occurred to me that when I was recording this originally with Robert a few weeks ago, there was a woodpecker right outside and I mentioned it to him. So let's look up what do we think woodpeckers mean? What do we think of symbolic meaning of the woodpecker? Let's look it up. The meaning of woodpecker is strongly rooted in communication and opportunity. When the woodpecker shows up in our lives, it's a good time to get clever about how we communicate our needs to reach our best advantage. Woodpecker meaning is also about determination and being resourceful.

To be sure, the woodpecker is an attention grabber and those who claim this amazing bird is their totem will attest to its ability to shake up awareness. Oh shit. Oh man, if you say it into, all right, remember, I'm going to do like a mini thing at the end here. This is like, it's the worst way to, this is secret information. This is why we don't put it up in front. All those people think they're like, I love synchronicity. It's so good. Yeah, just say the end of this fucking two hour podcast. Probably not and you're going to miss this mini episode and I'm not going to break it up. All right. You guys, we're in this together.

We whittled them out. They can't, the secret knowledge, they didn't get it this time. Okay. Uh, you know how I was talking about how you can jump into God energy and deity energy? Well, you can also do that with animals and it's just occurring to me. Of course you can. That's why there are totem poles. Uh, man, you know, it's like, I guess I got her to go take all these different indigenous plant medicines and understand this at some point. Okay. Fine. But wow. That's cool. And before, holy shit, I did that as a kid, I think anyway, do that. You can do it. Right. So identify characteristics and traits of animals that you like make it seasonally appropriate.

And that means not just based on the weather outside of you, but your internal weather. And you can jump into those animals, right? Holy shit. This is fucking cool. All right. I'll do a whole episode for everyone who didn't catch that, but man. That's fucking cool. Okay. Woodpecker. You're the best. Uh, happy imagining everyone. I will see you soon. Bye bye. Oh wait. No, not bye bye. If you're in New York, sign up for this list thing I keep yacking about because I want to basically say like, all right, look, I got 50 to 100 people who want to come to an event. And then I send you guys an email and you're like, Hey, this is the event.

Would you really come to this? And you're like, yeah. And then when you say, yeah, I'll assume like 20% of you will still flake. And then the rest will all get together and do something fun. Sound good? All right. Do that. This is for dedicated people only at the end of an episode. I'll see you soon. Bye bye. Polymarket is proud to be the world's top choice to trade football. You mean soccer? Right. Soccer. Polymarket is proud to be the world's top choice to trade soccer. Know the game better than the market? You can earn cash trading on tournament and game outcomes, golds, assists, saves, corners and much, much more.

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