The Enchanted Tarot

Astrology

Enchantments

Alchemy

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The Land of Our Dreams; there is nothing in our lives more magical yet more common to us than this land where each of us spends a third of our life. Each night our Higher Self lovingly welcomes us home to this invisible yet omnipresent place where our waking mind's thoughts and our heart's desires are symbolically materialized along with our past, present and sometimes our future so we may be instructed, nurtured, healed and sent back to the other side of the landscape of our soul to try and work our will in a land where time and space rule.

But just as we know that the world does not fade away while we sleep, the land of our dreams and the incredible power of our Higher Self live on while we are awake. It is this world that is contacted by people who we of the waking world now call 'enlightened' but used to call 'enchanted'. The great religious mystics, prophets, seers and psychics as well as artists, inventors and all people of great creative vision have been able to somehow harmonize their waking consciousness with that of the land of our dreams to produce, on a fairly regular basis, what most people only experience sporadically as accurate hunches, flashes of intuition and 'lucky' guesses.

But since antiquity nearly every one of these 'enlightened' individuals has used their own special method to enable them to contact the land of our dreams; something that would allow them to completely occupy their mind and yet, at the same time, allow the diffusing of the focus of their consciousness to the point where they were awake to both our world and the dream world. The religious mystics used fervent prayer, chanting, deep breathing and meditation; the prophets used fasting and introspective isolation; the seers stared into flames or danced themselves into trances; and the psychics either gazed into crystal balls, held an object worn by the person in question or used the symbolic art appearing on beautiful tarot cards to contact the enchanted land.

The tarot is unique among these methods because each of its seventy-eight cards is designed to embody and convey a special message to both our conscious and subconscious minds, harmonizing and activating their incredible combined powers using only visual symbolism, the 'official' language of both the land of our dreams and the visual arts.

Like our dreams themselves the tarot and the visual arts have the power to guide us in a way that routinely transcends differences of language and culture. This is why art is the primary way through which we are able to 'communicate' with peoples and cultures from the near and distant past. There are striking similarities running thread-like throughout the incredibly divers body of the symbolic, visionary art of the people who have lived on earth. It is the physical proof of psychologist (and student of the tarot) Dr Carl Jung's theory of the Collective Unconsciousness, a place where all the knowledge and emotions of everyone's past, present and future resides, eternally available to and connecting us all with each other and All There Is; or if you prefer, God. Like those who have come before us, we are all citizens of the land of dreams.

This commonality is reflected in the tarot whose reliance on artistic use of universal symbols has, since its introduction into western civilization during the time of the Renaissance, allowed not just the singularly dedicated spiritual adept but any seeker of guidance direct access to the wisdom and power of their Higher Self.

Use The Enchanted Tarot and enter this magical realm. The first thing you will notice that distinguishes The Enchanted Tarot from the rest is the sheer beauty of the individual tarot cards, each rendered in the unique fabric collage style of my wife, the pioneering visionary artist Amy Zerner. She has executed an epic series of seventy-eight of her 'Illuminated Tapestries' — illuminated in the sense of the knowledge contained, preserved and communicated by medieval illuminated manuscripts — rendering each card a miniature work of inspirational art worthy of meditation. These images radiate life and love. They manage to evoke the traditional meanings of the cards without the garish, violent pictures that frighten many away from the tarot. The richly detailed cards of The Enchanted Tarot delight, captivate and, when combined with the accompanying text, educate and offer guidance by uniquely and directly addressing the fundamental principle underlying the tarot: the blending of our dream-consciousness with that of our waking mind to produce a state of enchantment.

The use of THE ENCHANTED TAROT involves a novel three-fold approach. Each card possesses its own special power derived from 'The Dream', 'The Awakening' and 'The Enchantment' levels of consciousness.

• The Dream is the gentle fable that reveals the fabric of each card's allegorical meaning by weaving a tale explaining the action and symbols portrayed. The Dream entertains as it penetrates the psyche to fulfil the card's intention. These stories are full of the innocence of youth yet contain the wisdom of years. Over time repeated reading of each of The Dreams will expose deeper levels of meaning, as repeated viewing of the cards of THE ENCHANTED TAROT will produce new insights into their purposeful design.

  In each of the seventy-eight Dreams, both the twenty two cards of the Major Arcana, as well as the fifty-six cards comprising the four suits of Minor Arcana each correspond to an archetypal dream experience. They are engaging fantasies that speak directly to our subconscious mind.

• The Awakening brings the lesson of each story into our conscious mind for evaluation and assimilation so it may be used as a tool for guidance and personal growth. It is a straight-forward explanation of what each card signifies in a specific reading.

• The Enchantment is the link between our waking world and the land of dreams. The use of these healing rituals, charms, chants and spells reinforces our awareness of the existence of the magical world and remind us of our ability to draw on its power. The enchantments aid us in casting out our fears, drawing love and abundance to us, and healing emotional wounds.