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Video Description
The title sounds like a riddle, and it is. Lyam Christopher opens with a small confession from his own training: when he first learned tarot under a Golden Dawn adept, the very first instruction was to throw away the little booklet that came with the deck. The reason is unexpectedly deep. If every card carries one fixed meaning, reading tarot becomes like doing the same thing over and over while expecting something new, and that is how a tool for waking becomes a trance of its own.
Instead of memorizing, he points toward the images themselves. Dreams of falling, crushing objects, or monsters with claws arrive even in people who have never met a snake or a lion, and he reads those pictures as old, inherited threads of evolutionary trauma rising to be seen. The cards become a mirror that catches those patterns before they harden into life, so the practitioner can make friends with what was frightening and let it loosen its grip.
The goal has less to do with fate and more with freedom. Damnation, in this view, is simply being bound inside the same fear and wish, forever chasing or fleeing the same scenes. When the old knots finally resolve, what remains is shown by the Universe card: everything quietly as it is. The daily card practice is part of the path in Kabbalah, Magic & the Great Work of Self Transformation, a gentle way to regard one image at a time and let it speak.
Full Video Transcript
All right, this week we are talking about divination and why not make it fun by bringing in the topic of damnation as well. Divination and damnation. What do they have to do with each other?
So when I first started working with the tarot, it was actually under the training of a Golden Dawn adept.
And the first bit of instructions that came from the adept for tarot training was to throw away the book that comes along with the Rider-Waite tarot deck.
so that little booklet that comes with
Ride or Wait
the instructions that my teacher
gave immediately off the bat was to throw
away the book, don’t even bother looking at it
of course I did look at it
but I did not read it
it did as I was told
and the reason for
so when you start out with tarot
the reason you don’t read
the guide that comes along with it
is mainly simply because the guide
provides lots of
one word
meanings and interpretations of what the different cards mean. And when most people get a tarot deck
they will simply learn all of the meanings and then begin to do readings based on
so if this card comes up that’s what it means. Okay and if you know anything about Einstein’s
definition of insanity it means doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get
the same result. That’s very similar to saying every card has one meaning and every time that
card comes up it has one meaning. That is a type of insanity. We can go into that a little bit more
in depth to explain why that is. The founder of archetypal psychology James Hillman was fond of
saying stick to the image and he was noting that Carl Jung was a psychologist, a psychotherapist
who essentially did that. Whenever imagery would come up in dreams of his clients, he would look
at the images. He wouldn’t necessarily look at what they meant, okay? And so, people like James
Hillman and people like me would discourage you from getting those books about the meaning of your
dreams. If you see a snake in a dream, oh, it probably means rebirth or immortality or something
like that, right? If you see a lion in a dream, it’s probably the devouring power of the subconscious
mind, right? And that’s what it means whenever it comes up. No. So what does it mean to stick
to the image? When an image comes up, let’s say on a tarot card, it means different things at
different times. And one of the easiest ways to look at each tarot card is that each tarot card
is like an entity or a scenario with entities in it and these entities have good and bad days.
They are intelligences and they when you draw a card on different days of the week they might
say different things based on what’s happening with you, based on what’s happening with them.
It’s helpful to regard these things as living entities because then you begin to value the psyche
as though it’s real. You have to remember that in most of us, imagination is getting tired of being
told that it’s not real. And then of course, it produces all kinds of compulsive behaviors and
psychoses and psychological obsessions, because it’s getting tired and annoyed by us continuously
disregarding it as unreal okay and so when you begin to work with tarot the tarot deck you can
these are all each card is like a gateway or a doorway into a particular part of the psyche
specifically for the western psyche and the rider weight deck tunes very much into the forces of
astrology and also the forces of the agricultural worldview, which astrology is largely based upon.
And the Rider-Waite deck was developed by adepts of the Golden Dawn, particularly Arthur Edward
Waite and Pamela Coleman Smith is the actual artist who did the illustrations. And so it’s
based on golden dawn principles more or less and i like the deck because it also has a lot of sort
of exoteric uh christian imagery woven into it okay and as you know as for many of you know
the golden dawn system of magic is sort of pagan on the outside and um has a christian flavor on
the inside because of on the on the on the in in the inner order that’s largely based on the
redemptive force within creation the osiris current or the christ force and so there’s a
sort of christian flavor to it and the and the cross uh the like the celtic cross becomes very
important um in the inner order of the golden dawn and then when you work with tarot one of
the most famous spreads of tarot is the celtic cross tarot spread there’s also the hexagram
spread the tree of life spread and of course others that you’ve probably heard of so when
you’re working with these tarot images uh you want to throw away the booklet that because that comes
with the deck because uh for the kabbalah magic book you’re drawing a single card every day
and you’re simply regarding it and wondering what uh which is whatever comes up you’re just
regarding it and you’re looking at it to see whatever might come up okay and how do you do
that well one of the best ways to do that like with this card this is the high priestess card
is to imagine it as a doorway and then maybe you can hear see and smell various forces that
might drift through the card at you you can kind of get a sense for the atmosphere and the space
that’s beyond the portal of the card and that what this means is that you kind of your imagination
reaches into the card and sort of feels the textures inside that space okay this is one of
things that comes to the rescue by the way if you have supposedly have trouble visualizing
people will try to take visualization literally and visual make visuals out of everything see
everything when visualization is much more um it’s much more like uh imagery that you learn about in
a lit in a literature class imagery involves all the senses and for many of us it’s very tactile
so it has a textural quality tactile visual visualization so you can feel the various
textures inside the card you can feel that tapestry behind the high priestess not only do
you feel the vibrancy of the colors and you know and there’s might be maybe even um a sense of heat
or energy or or or of maybe fruity fruity smells that are coming from the pomegranates that you
see behind her. You can feel the stone of the two pillars, yakint and boaz, on either side of her.
And in particular, you can see how interesting that robe is of hers, how it flows like water,
sort of like the Lady Galadriel, power of the moon, and how the moon represents these subtle vibratory
liquid energies. And the High Priestess, when you look at her, can say a variety of things.
and she can imply a variety of things with her mere glance okay these are the things you pick
up on and they resonate with you and you notice them and you write them down in your journal and
that’s kind of how you work with these tarot cards and for the longest time you ignore the meanings
that other people have told you that these things mean okay a lot of you guys like to work with
Aleister Crowley’s Toth deck, and you’ll notice that many of his cards have meanings attached to
them. That’s unfortunate. But of course, eventually you will learn not to take any of the assigned
meanings in the catalog of meanings. You’ll learn not to take them so literally, and then it’s not
that big a deal anymore. You can see, oh yeah, this is what many people say the card means,
but what’s it saying to me right now as this moment the today this very minute and this is
how we learn to read tarot and then really see the forces that are coming through for ourselves now
divination and damnation what does damnation have to do with divination well um what you’ll notice
is that when we have dreams at night um dreams are always i wanted to say almost always but they
really always have an uncomfortable component to them. There’s always some kind of slightly,
there’s slight anxiety going on like you find yourself walking around naked in public
or you are up in front of a group of people and you don’t know what to say.
People are treating you unkind and or turning the cold shoulder to you.
uh there are dreams that you are falling from a great height uh that you that something’s falling
on top of you crushing you all kinds of monsters chasing you these are all pretty much manifestations
of trauma from evolutionary trauma they often come from this very life from this very generation in
which you’re living right now things that you’re dealing with right now but most of them are
reflections of from much further in the past than that arising from cell memory from previous
generations inherited fears like the you know falling off of a great height fear of falling
some people even dream of snakes when they’ve never really seen a snake except on tv or
something like that right or they dream about monsters with fangs and claws when they’ve never
really seen a lion up close where do these things come from okay or horned creatures even though
they’ve never lived on a farm they still have images of these scary creatures arising or
dangerous forces like a very common um sort of nightmare people have is that they’re on the beach
and a great tsunami comes rushing in a wall of water comes rushing at them or a wall of water
comes rushing down the river and and of course washes them away and kills them and they wake
they wake up and so uh when it comes to dream imagery uh dreams arise as uh basically
manifestations of trauma if you’ve ever had ptsd and hallucinated you can see that something from
the past is becoming vividly alive right in front of your eyes it’s a powerful hallucination let’s
say. It’s simply that scenario coming back to you so you can relive it and make sense out of it.
It’s saying you haven’t made peace with this yet. Something happened and you really need to make
sense out of this. This is very important and you haven’t done that yet so it’s going to keep
coming back to you to try to get you to make sense out of it, okay? And this is what happens at night
when we dream. These little tiny traumas come back and they keep asking for your attention,
for you to make meaning out of them, to resolve them, okay? Now, these kinds of scenarios,
they don’t only arise while you’re sleeping at night in your dreams, they arise sort of behind
the scenes in your subconscious, even in the waking world. And as you get further along and
get closer to adeptship, you can see them, you can sense them. It’s like, oh yeah, there’s that
that scenario, that flash there for a moment, and I could see
what the scenario involved, right. And if I were dreaming at
night, it would be much more vivid, obviously. And so these
things are always there, they’re always lurking there. And the
tarot is sort of designed to plug into these things. Okay.
And every time there is an image arising of a past trauma, it is
always a dualistic scenario, okay? Because trauma always involves me versus something else. There’s
me desiring something very much so badly, must have it, and I feel so deprived because I don’t
have it. Or there is me being threatened by something else, I must get away from that,
it’s my biggest fear, gotta get away. So there’s me versus it, subject versus object.
And if you’ll notice, all thoughts are subject-object scenarios.
Okay, so if you remember from grammar class, the English class, a sentence is a collection
of words that comprises a complete thought, a subject-verb and an object,
or subject-verb and complement. And so the subject-object relationships are thoughts.
So anytime you have compulsive thoughts that are arising, they also are manifestations
of stress and trauma that are trying to work themselves out. Every thought you have is
a stressful scenario. Now it’s possible to walk around in the world without having any thoughts
you’re just experiencing and sort of automatically just participating in the environment without
thinking about it. But then a thought might arise like oh I need to buy some bananas.
it’s like oh i desire something and i’m i i am incomplete without something i must have this and
then that’s your thought arising and that slight discomfort of not having something you want is
that slight trauma scenario that has now arisen which now needs to be resolved and in order to
resolve it you’ll go buy some bananas and you’ll eat one maybe something like that right and so
whenever a thought arises or whenever a scenario arises like this if it is a stressful scenario
it’s going to be a subject object relationship that’s the way these things work okay and these
tarot cards they conjure up these subject object relationships now the devil is a good example of
a card that indicates this a sense of being bound by these subject objects scenarios that keep
arising and as they arise they compel you to do things and you’re you’re kind of you you’re kind
of walking around the world as these needs and fears keep coming up you keep responding to them
and let you let them boss you around okay these scenarios rise up and kind of pinch you and grab
you and say let’s go do this or let’s fight against this or let’s run away from that or
let’s go grab that and uh when we are at their beck and call and we do as they say we are bound
by them. This is sort of a hell state, a state of damnation, where our fears and desires control us.
Okay, so the devil card is a good example of or a good representation of what it’s like to be
at the beck and call of these trauma scenarios that arise within us and possess us and take us
over. I gave an example of this one time. Many people, when they see a snake, they get possessed
by an entity that arises with them. The snake killer arises and they go kill the snake. And
then when the snake is dead, they snap out of it. It’s like, whoa, what came over me? It’s like,
I have this powerful instinct that reacts with fear to anything that moves in a serpentine sort
of way. Okay. So when these things can take you over and you’re not really in control and you
just kind of can’t help it, but obey their commands, you are in a state of servitude
governed by fear and desire, trapped in a world of fear and desire, which is basically hell.
It’s a hell state. Some people have it really bad. Some people have it in a minor way, you know,
it irritates them throughout the day. And this is what we call unenlightenment. Now it’s possible
as these scenarios arise to address them and say, I don’t need to do that. As they arise,
you can become aware of them and see the tarot basically is plugging into these dualistic
relationships these subject object relationships that have stress between the stressful relationships
between the subject and the object the stress being the subject says i must have this i’m
incomplete without it stressful right or the subject says i’m afraid of this i must get away
with it okay when the subject is afraid of the object it’s a stressful situation when the subject
desires the object it is a stressful situation okay and it’s possible to be free of that to
simply not have any thoughts at all and yet still there’s mental activity there’s images
being processed but there’s no sense of inadequacy or threat at all gone and that’s what it means to
be free of the devil card now all these tarot cards have subtle or very pronounced dualities
within them of course. And here we have the Two of Cups, which represents, many people will say
it represents desire, but it can represent all kinds of things. Timidity maybe, tenderness,
the beginnings of tenderness, the beginnings of the expression of love, the impetus to love,
the impetus to desire. And you notice how the man there is reaching for the woman. That’s the
the initiation of some kind of desire, you know, impulse. And this is a very obvious
example of a stressful scenario of desire, timidly wishing, tenderly wishing to be fulfilled.
And of course, it’s a bit of a monster between them, isn’t it? And of course, we have other
types of duality where being kicked out into the cold, rejected by the people inside, let’s say,
living in a state of poverty where people inside are nice and warm and cozy, right? So, the fear
of being rejected by the community is very powerful, especially for people who suffer
from the fear of public speaking. That’s primarily a fear of being rejected by the community,
which used to be for us a death sentence. If we’re rejected by the tribe, it’s very difficult
to survive in the wilderness on your own. You kind of need that community. And so that
dualistic relationship exists between self and community, fear of being rejected.
But of course, this card can represent more than just that. Depends on what’s happening with you,
how it comes up, what you notice each time. Each time you draw it, it’s going to say something
possibly different and the definition given to it in the little booklet that comes with the tarot
deck will not will no longer be adequate thank god now eventually yeah you can start look at what
other you can start looking at what other people uh say the cards mean and that’s fine but it’s
best to develop your own interpretations first and then uh really see how um what you’ll notice is
that your interpretations run much deeper than the superficial interpretations of the catalog,
what the catalog says. Okay, so what you notice is that all of these scenarios, they arise
and they compel you to go do things, go chase after this, go run away from that.
These are all sort of hellscape scenarios, little nightmares. And as you deal with each of these
scenarios as they arise in the tarot, that triggers one of those things. And then you can
actually you know feel what’s going on with the energies of the card but then you can even close
your eyes and say and then the scene the scenery will change to something that is pertinent to you
right now okay and then of course working with the cards through various spreads becomes much
more intricate and interesting because you have all of these different types of stress scenarios
coming together to produce what appears to be a life situation okay there’s much more much much
more to say about tarot, but I wanted to really talk about how it’s primarily a tool for processing
trauma. And so, the more you become aware of these stress scenarios that are presented by the cards,
the more you are able to confront them and make peace with them and to make meaning out of them
and to make friends with them. So, you recognize these scenarios and these energies as they come
up. And rather than say, oh my God, there it is. It’s like, oh, there you are again. Yes. Yeah.
Life can be frustrating because of this dualistic relationship and that dualistic relationship.
And eventually you learn to see through all these things because none of these dualistic
relationships are necessarily real. They are simply, they have arisen to compel you to do
something that has something to do with survival, like finding a mate and procreating or reaching
for food and eating or running away from a predator these are not necessarily things that
anyone ever has to do but there are things that have been programmed into us that we are that are
now causing us to be reactive and to suffer and to to react inappropriately inappropriately when
we don’t need to because we’re being triggered all these triggers can be noticed and uh let go of
okay or made friends with because you know if there’s a if there’s a bus speeding towards you
naturally you’re going to jump out of the way it’s only normal okay but um but if you have the trauma
really bad just looking at a bus it’s not moving can it can make you freak out and that kind of
subject object relationship stress scenario um needs to be resolved okay and the more we resolve
these things the the more free we become the less damned we become and we free ourselves from being
bound by all of these fear scenarios and desire scenarios. The ultimate goal of the tarot then
is to be free. Probably the best representation of that would be the universe card of the tarot.
Everything’s resolved now and everything is just the universe just as it is. Some people would say
the star card also represents that too. But probably the universe would be a better
representation of that. All right, so I hope that helps. That’s something, a little bit of
tarot advice for this week. So until next time.
Source: Lyam Christopher