To develop a number theory of tarot, we have to strip out all the non-essentials to have a blank canvas. How far can we go with this, and how far are you ready to go? Tarot has a lot of baggage that is jettisoned before we can take Tarot to its fundamentals and really get started. One definition of those fundamentals would be Pure Consciousness and Maya. I will show you how to find Pure Consciousness and Maya in the Tarot.
To do this we have some clearing to do. For a start all the divinatory meanings can go. Then we dump all descriptions and images. We can do the same thing with the titles. This is extremely drastic but in truth a lot remains. Tarot has accumulated attributions from many other systems to varying degrees of success. You might think they aid the reader in interpretation, but adding complexity to an already complex system is madness. The most obvious systems to go in the trash can are astrology and the kabbalistic tree of life, and kabbalism in general. While we are about it all the attributions in Liber 777 are unceremoniously dumped. That still leaves us with beliefs and isms such as paganism, magic, spiritualism and all the others, so they have to go too.
Do we have anything left? If you can only see blank cards bereft of any association you are nearly there. For now you have to abandon everything you hold dear that relates to the concepts of Tarot spreads. Everything. Junk the positions, names, titles and positions and everything else. While are about it we need to jettison all our core beliefs about the Tarot – what it is, what it represents, and its purpose. Dispose notions of divination, story telling, therapy, and anything else you can think.
What do we have left? A pile of blank cards. What can we do this pile?. Not much apart from shuffling them? Shuffling randomized the cards, so how many permutations of the 78 are there? The mathematics of permutation is simple: 78! which gives us a truly astronomical number,
1.13242812 × 10115
which is bigger than a googolplex. Faced with such a truly vast number, questions such as the order of the Major Arcana fade into insignificance. This number is so far beyond our comprehension that the normal methods of interpretation fly out the window. The problem is that this number is purely for the number of permutations, so if we only included reversals (remember that at the moment we have blank cards with no marks), the number of permutations doubles. If there are only two interpretations for each card, then the number of permutations increases yet again. The traditional way to combat this is to use only a limited number of cards. For three cards there are six permutations, four have 24 permutations, five have 120 permutations, while ten cards have
3 628 800
Ten is the number of cards in a standard Celtic Cross spread. Assuming there are four standard meanings for each card, that gives us 4×3628800=
14 515 200
Can you imagine going through all those permutations of ten cards with four interpretations each? You would go crazy. So what is the value of blank cards? They represent consciousness, which has no attributes. Since each card is blank, it looks the same as the others, so we are in effect seeing one card which appears as many. We have Pure Consciousness, eternal, unitary, without characteristic, appearing as plurality, or Maya, Illusion. Both Pure Consciousness and Maya are invisible – we cannot see, feel, hear, touch, or taste them, but we know we are surrounded by them. So in a tarot reading, simply by remembering that beneath the colourful imagery of the Tarot you have the eternal Oneness manifesting as the Duality. In Eastern philosophy we are approaching our True Nature with Pure Consciousness and its expression in Maya, so by having the awareness of the blankness of the cards, we are connecting with that Truth, not just for ourselves, but for our client. My own experience of reading the Tarot from this perspective is profound – new interpretations leap out at me, and I perceive the connectedness that pervades the Universe. By taking the focus away from each card, which represents a fragmented view, we are able to perceive levels of Wholeness, which we will communicate to our clients. This method enables healing to take place, not just for our client, but also for ourselves. Once you have systematically gone through the process of stripping away every facet, every nuance, every philosophy, every meaning, every attribution, every system, every belief, every ism, and you see those blank, pure, pristine white cards, and you remember that one-ness and unity, you will find that you will see and use all the familiar attributions, meanings and beliefs associated with Tarot in an entirely different way. There is a kind of non-attachment that develops with time, that allows you to perceive deeper levels within yourself and within your clients. For myself, I have more visions, and I integrate the reading far more easily. Somehow what I say, and how I say it, seems to have a healing power that was not there before