Precis: The well-known artist and author reveals how he came to create the Tarot of the Saints, its spiritual nature, and how it combines the myths of Christianity with the archetypes of the Tarot, and how both the Tarot and the legends of the saints are founded in Classical Paganism and its Renaissance revival. He also shows how the Major Arcana, especially as exemplified in the Tarot of the Saints, forms three "acts" representing spiritual development.
Introduction: In the last half of the twentieth century, interest in the Tarot grew like never before. With this attention, came a growing demand for decks and books on the subject. Artists and authors made use of this opportunity to create new and innovative Tarot decks. Those created by Robert M. Place stand out for their beauty, spiritual integrity, and sensible approach to history and symbolism.
Place is best known as the creator of The Alchemical Tarot, demonstrating the connection between the two esoteric subjects. Together with Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Place co-authored its accompanying book. The two teamed up once again to create The Angels Tarot.
Now, Place has completed his first solo work, The Tarot of the Saints. This deck matches the legends and images of the Christian saints to the archetypes of the Tarot and demonstrates that the Tarot can be used in a Mystical Christian context. The book that comes with it fully explains how to do this.
The Llewellyn Journal: How did you become involved with the Tarot?
Robert M. Place: I first became interested in the Tarot and other esoteric subjects when I was in college in the late 1960s. My girlfriend at that time read the cards. She used the Waite/Smith Deck. I even began to create my own hand-drawn deck based on the Tarot of Marseilles. I only finished four cards before I lost interest in the project, and although I was involved in symbolic art, I was not directly involved with the Tarot for many years after that.
In 1982, I had a dream that startled me with its clarity and intensity. I dreamed that I received a phone call from a law firm in England. The phone was a symbol used by my dream to indicate that the communication was coming from outside of my consciousness, and I was aware of that in the dream. I remember thinking, "How can someone call you in a dream? I didn't know that that could happen." I wrote a detailed description of the dream in the introduction to A Gnostic Book of Saints, the book that I wrote to accompany The Tarot of the Saints. Essentially, the dream told me that I had an inheritance coming that had great power. It was called "the key," and I was told that I would recognize it when I saw it. Within a few days, a friend brought his new Waite/Smith Deck to show me. I immediately recognized it as my inheritance. Once I did, another friend spontaneously gave me a Tarot of Marseilles deck. Because of this I usually say that I did not entirely choose to become involved in the Tarot. It seems more like the Tarot chose to become involved with me.
TLJ: From your description of the experience, it seems that you consider the Tarot a type of spiritual calling.
RMP: That's true. Many people think of the Tarot primarily as a tool for divination. At the lowest level, that means that it is used as a means of foretelling the future. When people are involved with the Tarot in this way, there is often fear associated with it. When someone goes to a fortuneteller, they are hoping that they will receive good news about their future. Then, they don't have to do anything but sit back and wait for it to happen. With this hope comes the fear that the news will be bad. To relinquish the responsibility for ones future in this way is fatalistic, and the downside of leaving things to fate is that if the future is bad there is nothing that can be done but wait and dread the event. A friend of mine, the one that brought the Waite/Smith Tarot over to my house after my dream, once told me that he feared the cards because they are "too accurate" about predicting the future.
TLJ: But that's not the way you interact with the Tarot...
RMP: Right. It is probably because my unconscious introduced the Tarot to me through my dream and the synchronistic events that followed that I realized right away that the Tarot is a tool for communicating with the unconscious. It is the tool that my unconscious chose for the communication.
In Jungian terms, the unconscious is the part of us where our soul resides. In its entirety, it is our higher Self, and the ego is a small manifestation of it. Setting up a dialog with the unconscious is the first step in the spiritual journey. This is a mystical process that leads to higher consciousness, as we come to identify with our higher Self. This is what Joseph Campbell called the "Hero's Journey."
The Tarot's symbolic pictures are similar to the images in dreams. Symbolism is the voice of the unconscious. It is a language that can take us beyond the confines of words. My studies into the origin of the Tarot, in the Renaissance, have led me to believe that the creators of the Tarot were involved with the same interaction, although they would not have used modern psychological terminology to explain it. In the Renaissance, certain individuals were deliberately trying to capture powerful symbols in images and organize them into a meaningful philosophic structure. One manifestation of this was the Tarot. Therefore, the Tarot consists of a series of symbols, or we might call them hieroglyphs or sacred writing, that our unconscious can use to write to us. Beyond the individual symbols, the entire deck contains a mystical structure that can keep the communication on a high philosophical level. The trumps outline the story of the Hero's Journey and the entire deck contains the archetypal, mystical, symbolic structure that Jung referred to as a mandala. Jung said that the mandala is an archetypal symbol of the Self. If we are aware of this when we use the cards and use it as a tool for corresponding with the unconscious, instead of predicting the future, the readings help us create a better future and can nudge us along to higher consciousness.
TLJ: In your opinion, were these Tarot creators a group of mystics, heretics, or some other esoteric brotherhood?
RMP: I believe that the internal structure and symbolism of the Tarot is mystical. Therefore, its creators could be called mystics. However, by that I don't mean to imply that they were a secret of a heretical group. Historic evidence leads to the scenario that the Tarot was a product of popular culture in 15th century northern Italy. Renaissance culture made a synthesis of various historic trends that began to appear in the centuries that proceeded it. These trends included the poems and romantic literature inspired by the troubadours, the belief (inspired by the vision of the mystic Joachim of Fiore) that a "new age" was dawning, and the reclaiming of pagan Classical culture, which included the rediscovery of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism. All of these elements are mystical. Therefore, we find many aspects of Renaissance culture that are an expression of mystical philosophy. It can be seen in the Dante's Divine Comedy, the works of Petrarch, and in Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" and the "Primavera." You will also see it in some of Michelangelo's work, particularly in some of his drawings, his sculpture group in the Medici Chapel, and in his Christ in the Sistine Chapel. It is evident, too, in Leonardo's drawing of a man fitting into a circle and a square, called "Vitruvian Man."
TLJ: You say that the Tarot was a manifestation of popular culture and not the product of a secret or heretical subgroup. However, In your new kit, Tarot of the Saints, you have entitled the book that accompanies the deck A Gnostic Book of Saints. Weren't the Gnostics Christian heretics?
RMP: It is true that the term Gnostic can be applied to Christian heretical groups in the late Middle Ages, such as the Cathari or Albigensians. In the title, I am not using the term in such a specific way. I am using it in the broadest way, to mean those who search for gnosis or enlightenment. In other words, the title suggests that the Tarot is a manual for seeking enlightenment.
Modern historians coined the term "Gnostic." No one in the ancient or Medieval world called themselves a Gnostic. However, there were groups of people who were looking for a spiritual experience that they called "gnosis," a Greek word that meant a kind of knowledge only gained through a spiritual initiation. The people who would have used this word to describe their spiritual goal included groups of Jews (such as the Essenes), groups of Pagans (such as the people who wrote the Hermitic texts), and groups of Christians who later came to be considered heretics by the orthodox Christians. Originally, historians used the term to refer to all of these groups. However, there has been a narrowing of the term lately. Now it is more often used to refer to certain Christian heretics.
The Medieval Christian Gnostics called themselves Cathari, and although we can trace a line of transmission between them and the ancient Gnostics, there are many aspects of their beliefs that changed over the centuries. The Cathari lived in Southern France and northern Italy in the 13th century, and some have theorized that they were the source of the doctrine expressed in the Tarot. Robert O'Neill, author of Tarot Symbolism, has done a lot of research into this possibility. Recently he wrote a series of articles on this subject in which he reaches the conclusion that the Cathari are definitely not the source of the Tarot images. Two of the main reasons are, first, that the Cathari believed in such a strong separation between the spiritual world and the physical that they considered most aspects of the physical world evil. This included shunning all sacred relics and icons. Therefore, they were not about to create a series of sacred images. Secondly, the inquisition did its best to insure that most of the Cathari went out of existence before the Tarot was created. What O'Neill did find is that the Cathari had a more lasting influence by contributing to the mix of ideas that became the Renaissance. Their lack of materialism and spiritual striving inspired more orthodox groups such as the Franciscans and synthesized well with Neoplatonic and Hermetic mysticism. It is this Hermitic mysticism that I believe is captured in the Tarot. The Hermeticists were striving for gnosis and can be called Gnostics. However, Hermeticism was part of mainstream culture in the Renaissance.
TLJ: Generally in American culture the Tarot is considered something occult and by its nature "not Christian." Some fundamentalist Christians consider it evil. On the other hand, some Neopagans consider it part of their spiritual heritage and are proud that it is not Christian. By making a Tarot with saints on the cards, you could be opening yourself up to criticism from both ends. What has been your experience?
RMP: One of my reasons for making the deck was to show that the Tarot is a sacred tool and to cleanse it of negative connotations. My experience has been totally positive. Many people have expressed that I have helped them to come out of the closet about their involvement with the Tarot. The Tarot of the Saints is one deck that they feel comfortable showing to their Catholic grandmother. It makes the Tarot less scary. Also I think it has been getting more mainstream attention because it makes a bridge between the general public and the Tarot. For example, it was on the cover of "Publishers Weekly" magazine and it was reviewed in the "Library Journal." I have seen it reviewed on a Pagan web site, and it is a recommended book on the list of a Christian web site.
TLJ: But some people consider the Tarot to be Pagan. Do you consider it Christian?
RMP: I have heard arguments on this topic coming from both perspectives. My view is that the Tarot is both Christian and Pagan — it is a synthesis. People make up these labels, like Pagan or Christian to box up history and culture into neat little segments — to make it easier to deal with. However, sometimes they forget that they are the ones who made up the labels. They mistake the labels for reality and waste a lot time arguing about in which box something should be kept. In reality, concepts and ideas flow into one another and mixtures are formed. This is exactly what was happening in the Renaissance. They were trying to reconcile what they loved about Classical Paganism with their Christian beliefs, and created a synthesis of both.
We find a similar synthesis in the African based religions in Latin America, like Santeria. These are a continuation of African Pagan religion, but the participants have made use of icons of the saints to represent their deities. Most practitioners are involved in Christian worship and consider themselves Christian. However, they also use the saints for their magical practice. In reality, their religion is both. In the Renaissance, they not only made a synthesis of Classical Paganism and Christianity, they even added some Gnostic, Kabalistic, and Sufi elements. The result is a mixture that can not be confined in one box. In the Paradiso, Dante added Classical gods and their seven planets as a ladder leading up to heaven although he was describing a Christian cosmology. His poem is Christian, Pagan, Hermetic, and Neoplatonic. Botticelli painted numerous exquisitely beautiful Madonnas then he painted the same face and figure nude and titled it Venus. As I point out in my book, Christianity, itself is a synthesis of Classical Paganism and Judaism.
TLJ: What are some of the Christian and some of the Pagan elements in the Tarot?
RMP: The English word "Pagan" is derived from the Latin paganus, which originally was their term for country dweller. This, in turn, was derived from the Latin word for countryside, pagus, which is also the source of the word "peasant." In the Imperial Period the Latin meaning of paganus shifted from referring to a person living in rural villages to anyone who was not a member of the military — a civilian. In the fourth century, Christians who considered themselves "soldiers of Christ," adopted the term paganus for anyone who was not one of them. The members of many pre-Christian religions in the ancient world were open-minded about the archetypal similarities between their gods and those of other cultures, and in the late Roman Empire there was a merging of different beliefs. Even so, the ancients did not consider all of the non-Christian religions of Europe, Africa, and Asia one group, and, they certainly would not have called their religion "Pagan." By using this term we are looking at history with a Christian prejudice and grouping together large groups of diverse religious practices as if they are all the same.
What I will be referring to as Pagan elements in the Tarot are references to Classical gods and goddesses and references to pre-Christian Classical philosophy and mysticism. The Christian elements are references to Christian icons, symbols, and beliefs.
The enigmatic fifth suit of the Tarot, known today as the "Major Arcana," contains 22 cards — an unnumbered Fool and 21 trumps bearing numbers. The 21 trumps can easily be divided into three groups of 7 cards, and when we look at each of these groups we can see that the images in each group have a unity of theme that is distinct and different from the other groups. They illustrate the story of the Hero's Journey, and the Fool, being unnumbered and outside of the sequence, can play the part of the Hero. We can think of them as three acts in a play. There are variations to the order of the cards in early decks, but for this discussion I will use the familiar Tarot of Marseilles order.
In act one, we find a hierarchy of worldly figures. We can assume that they form a hierarchy because they are organized in order of rank from a commoner to the Emperor and then the Pope. Also the original name for the Tarot in Italian was carte da triumphi, which is like saying, "a deck of cards with a triumph added." What was added to the deck at that time was the fifth suit, and it was called a triumph, which is a parade in which each participant triumphs over the one who comes before. Our modern English name for these cards, "trump," is derived from the French for triumph.
After the lowly Bataleure, or Magician, there are four figures of rulers starting with the Papesse and ending with the Pope. The Papesse is one of the most controversial cards in the Tarot. Catholicism is extremely patriarchal and the idea that a woman could become Pope was considered heretical. In fact in 1300, there was a heretical group called the Guglielmites, who elected a woman Pope. The inquisition destroyed the sect and saw to it that this new Papesse was burned at the stake. It could be that this card is a reference to the Papesse of the Guglielmites. That it comes first and then is "triumphed over by the Empress," the Emperor, and then the Pope fits the facts because the Papesse attempted to rise to highest throne but in the end fell to the lowest.
The Papesse could also be a reference to the legend of Pope Joan, the ninth century woman who disguised herself as a man to join the clergy and eventually rose to the rank of Pope. As Pope Joan was found out and stoned to death, she was also triumphed over by the male Pope. Those who are looking for a more orthodox interpretation compare the Papesse to allegorical images of a woman wearing the Papal triple crown. She is a symbol of the Church. This association leads to the view that the Papesse represents the Church and that the Pope is married to the Church just as the Emperor is married to the Empress. The interpretation is based on a logical attempt to find a precedence for the Papesse in Renaissance art, but it is not as true to the triumphal structure of the fifth suit.
A better fit of the Papesse with Renaissance art can be found in a mystical Romance written in Venice in 1467 — close to the time that the earliest examples of Tarot cards that we have were created — and first published in 1499. The title of the book can be translated as The Dream of Poliphilo. Near the end of the story, Poliphio and his lover are united and appear before the priestess of Venus. In the woodcut that illustrates the scene, the priestess bears a remarkable resemblance to the Papesse in the Tarot, even wearing the Papal triple crown.
If the Papesse is the priestess of Venus, as this Renaissance use of the image suggests, then she represents Classical Paganism and the Pope represents the triumph of Christianity over Paganism. The Empress and Emperor are seen going away from Paganism and submitting themselves to the authority of the Pope. However, the next card, the Lovers, which is dominated by the Classical god Cupid, triumphs over all of them. This represents the triumph of sensuality — the theme of the first act. Cupid is Venus' son and although the Pope has demoted her priestess she has the last laugh — even he cannot free himself from the desires that the Classical gods represent.
TLJ: So for you the Tarot actually illustrates the struggle between Paganism and Christianity. In The Tarot of the Saints you made the Papesse Mary Magdalen. How did you arrive at that choice?
RMP: Historic evidence points to the fact that Mary Magdalen was the wife of Jesus. In the Bible, Jesus is called "Rabbi." At that time, it was expected that a rabbi should be married. The Bible goes on to point out that Mary was chief among the women who administered to the disciples — a position that parallels the position of Jesus among the men — and in one scene the disciples express jealously over the amount of attention that Jesus is giving Mary. In the Gnostic gospels that never made it into the Bible, it is spelled out that Mary was the wife of Jesus. Mary is held in high regard in the Gnostic texts. It is made clear that she was an enlightened master.
In three of the Gospels in the Bible, Mary is said to be the first person to see Christ after he has risen and in each of these, Christ asks her to spread the word. Only in Luke is St. Peter the first to see Christ and to be given the task of spreading the word. This text is used as evidence that Christ appointed Peter as the first Pope. However, by this logic, three out of four Gospels declare that Mary Magdalen was the first Pope. The Church then went on to discredit Mary. In the fourth century, the leaders of the Church arbitrarily decided that the unnamed prostitute that Jesus saved from stoning was Mary Magdalen. From then on, her image was one of a repentant whore, and it was denied that Christ ever had a sexual side to his personality.
I don't think that Mary Magdalen was the person who the Tarot designers had in mind as the figure on the Papesse card. However, I was creating a deck with the theme of saints, and I had to find a saint that was a fit for each of the trump cards. Mary Magdalen, as the first Papesse, is a natural fit.
TLJ: Let's move on to the second act of the trump cards.
RMP: The second act expresses the down side of life in the physical world. The first act was about power, prestige, sensuality, and love — the things that make life attractive. In the second, we are presented with the basic problem that philosophy and religion try to answer. All life contains suffering and ends in death — what is one to do about it? In this section we find the Hermit, which originally bore an image of an old man holding an hourglass — a symbol of old age and time. There is also a picture of a man suffering because he is hung by his feet. Some may interpret that he has taken on this martyrdom willingly and bears his fate stoically, but still he is in the midst of an ordeal. Also, there is an image of death. These are the same characters that we find in the story of Buddha. The sight of them caused him to question his pampered life and begin his quest for enlightenment.
In the center of this act, we find the Classical goddess Fortuna. In the Tarot of Marseilles, her wheel suggests her presence. In the older hand painted decks she is depicted in the center of her wheel. Fortuna is the Roman goddess of fate. As can be seen in many of the Renaissance images of Fortuna, her wheel is a symbol for the zodiac. To the ancients, the zodiac represented the measure of time and the limit of space. Once the soul left heaven and descended through the zodiac, it was in the realm of fate. She may dispense love and riches at her will to those who deserve it or to those who don't. However, all of her gifts are short lived and all fates end in old age and death — her companions in the Tarot.
Fortuna was derived from the Etruscan goddess Vortuma, whose name means "she who turns the wheel of the year" — that is, she who turns the zodiac. The wheel of the year was thought to be centered in time and space by four pivotal points, the solstices and the equinoxes in time and north, south, east, and west in space. These points were called "cardinal," or cardinalis in Latin, derived from the root cardin which means axis. Cardinal referred to the points that turned the wheel on its axis — the movers and shakers of the world. Plato suggested it was useless to pray to Fate as her gifts are short lived. Instead, he recommended the cultivation of the immortal soul through the practice of temperance, strength, prudence, and justice (these are woven through his book, The Republic). In the fourth century, St Ambrose (who worked at Christianizing Plato's philosophy) named these four "the cardinal virtues," suggesting they were the real pivots of fate. Thus, he declared that our true fate was in our own hands and depended on our good works.
In the Tarot, we find three of the cardinal virtues in this second act interspersed with the symbols of time, fate, and death. They seem to be battling it out to see who will triumph. There is Justice, then old age and fate. Next, comes Strength, then suffering and death. The last triumph in this act, number 14, is Temperance. Here Pagan philosophy and Christianity have united to battle the Pagan goddess Fortuna. From this point of view, Prudence — the highest virtue — is contained in the truth of the final trump.
TLJ: In the first act, Venus seemed to triumph. In this act the goddess Fortuna seems to be the villain, and is overturned by the virtues.
RMP: Well actually the final triumph of the first act is, number seven, the Chariot, which depicts the Hero leaving the sensual world behind to take on the harsh realities of the second act. In the second act, Fate is not the only goddess. The virtues are depicted as goddesses themselves. Except for Strength in some early decks where it is illustrated with an image of Hercules. Sometimes, as in the example of the virtues, the synthesis of Pagan and Christian symbols is so complete it is impossible to declare the image one or the other.
For The Tarot of the Saints, it was easy to come up with saints who embodied the virtues. For Fortuna, I decided that St. Catherine, the patron of the wheel, was the natural equivalent.
TLJ: Let's go on to the final act.
RMP: Act three depicts the mystical ascent from the bad to the good. The bad, of course, is the first card, the Devil, a thoroughly Christian character. Departing from the Devil, the story now focuses on the assent to higher consciousness of mystical truth, represented by the final card, the World. In depicting this mystical process in the early decks, the Tarot artists made use of popular Christian iconography meant to illustrate the final section of the Bible, Revelation — again I have Robert O'Neill to thank for this insight. Revelation is a visionary description of the Last Judgement and the Second Coming of Christ. Judgement, the Devil, and the Tower are all a good fit to elements in Revelation. After the Second Coming, the earth will be reborn into a purified mystical state. In the text, this is described as the Heavenly Jerusalem — an archetypal image of the city as spiritual perfection, sort of a mandala — descending to earth as a new bride. The oldest World cards depict the New Jerusalem as a vision of a city contained in a circle and supported by angels or with a queen presiding over the scene from above.
In the Tarot of Marseilles, the World takes the form of a nude goddess in the center of an oval wreath with the symbols of the four evangelists at the four corners. This structure is based on a Christian icon known as "Christ in Majesty." It is a mandala based on the description of God's throne in Revelation and the vision of Ezekiel in the Old Testament. This is one of the strongest archetypal images of sacredness. Variations of this structure can be found in all cultures. It is called a quincunx. The center of the design represents the sacred center of the world, and the images in the four corners represent the authors of the four gospels spreading sacredness to the four corners of the world. Through their relationship to the four fixed signs of the Zodiac they relate to the four elements, the four directions, and the four seasons. This would seem to be a standard Christian icon for the mystical vision, but the figure in the center is not Christ — it is a female symbol of sacredness that was part of the mystical vision of Classical philosophy. She represents the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World, a goddess who was part of Hermetic and Neoplatonic mysticism, and was presented to the Renaissance through these philosophies and through alchemy. Her equivalent in Christianity and Judaism is Sophia, whose name means wisdom and who is considered the female aspect of god. She is the one I chose for this final triumph in The Tarot of the Saints.
TLJ: This act seems to be primarily Christian except for the synthesis in the final card.
RMP: Well, there is also a depiction of the ladder of the planets on the Star card. In the Star in the Tarot of Marseilles there is a depiction of a nude woman standing on the land and the sea. This symbol can also be traced to Revelation, but it was used as an alchemical symbol of the harmony of opposites also. The female nude, as an artistic expression, was reintroduced to the arts by Renaissance Neoplatonists.
Above her there are seven stars encircling a larger eighth one. This image is identical to alchemical engravings depicting the seven planets. The eighth one is a symbol of the eighth sphere containing the fixed stars. This card depicts the mystical ascent to the spiritual vision, and it is Hermetic, Neoplatonic, and Christian.
TLJ: You mentioned before that you chose St. Catherine for the Wheel of Fortune. Some have expressed that it is hard to separate this serene image from her story of torture and martyrdom. The wheel in her story is not really the wheel of fortune but a device with spikes on it meant to tear her to pieces. How do you reconcile this with the meaning of the card?
RMP: St. Catherine was not a real person. Her story was fabricated by early Christians to accompany the image of a woman with a wheel. She is a Christian adaptation of the Pagan goddess Fortuna. Her story expresses the same philosophical solution to the problem of fate that is expressed in the Tarot. In the first part of the legend, Catherine is a beautiful and brilliant intellectual living in Alexandria. It seems that fate has been generous to her. However, she meets the baby Jesus in a dream and he finds her wanting. It is only after she purifies her soul through the practice of the virtues that he declares her complete.
The story is Christian propaganda and contains the bias that the only way to virtue is to become a Christian and maintain virginity. Once she attains this virtuous state, she is ready to face the down side of fate. To facilitate this showdown, the authors created a monstrous vision of Fortuna's wheel, a machine with two spiked wheels turning in different directions meant to murder Catherine. This is similar to the role of the Wheel of Fortune in the Tarot where it is accompanied by old age, suffering, and death. Catherine, a heroine, is up to fate's challenge. When she touches the wheel it shatters. Because of her virtuous state, she breaks the confines of fate and attains eternal life.
In the final scene, she is beheaded with a sword and dies a martyr's death. Milk flows from the wound instead of blood. This is an important symbol. In alchemy there is a symbol for the assent to higher consciousness called the Siren of the Philosophers. She is pictured as a mermaid giving forth two streams from her breasts, one of red blood and one of white milk. Red and white represent opposite poles in alchemy. Here, the blood represents fear and death and the milk hope and life. Having milk flow from Catherine's wound instead of blood is a symbolic statement that life came from her death. Through purifying her soul, she achieved eternal life in heaven and triumphed over fate.
TLJ: Are you bothered that so many of the saint's stories revolve around asceticism, torture, and death? It makes the book that accompanies your deck somewhat grim.
RMP: Sure, I am bothered. That is why I had doubts about the project in the beginning. I talk about that in the introduction to the book. I also describe a dream that helped me see through that doubt and how important this project would be. There is much about the saints that is hard to deal with. Sometimes their stories seem to be perverse. One is tempted to say, "Why should I admire a woman who would prefer to be tortured than have sex?" or "How does living on top of a column, qualify someone for sainthood?" Yet, at their best, the saints are heroic examples of compassion. At times, I was in tears reading about their selfless love, like St. Kolbe, who volunteered to go to the gas chamber at Auschwitz as a replacement to save another man, or reading about how St. Francis thanked a man for criticizing him. However, at their best, they are still uncomfortable to read about because they challenge us to go beyond our self-centered existence, and lose our egos.
Recently, I was reading Gareth Knight's Magic and the Western Mind. He expressed the view that there are inherent dangers in the Golden Dawn magical system because it doesn't have the kind of safeguards provided by most religions. This can lead to ego inflation. The cure for ego inflation is the humility and compassion that we find in the legends of the saints, and with their guidance, the Tarot can become a magical tool that can lead us to gnosis.
Editor's Note
The Tarot of the Saints kit, which includes the full deck and the book, A Gnostic Book of Saints, is © Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., and is available through bookstores or through the Llewellyn website here.
Knight, Gareth. Magic and the Western Mind: Ancient Knowledge and the Transformation of Consciousness. Llewellyn Pub., St. Paul:1991. Reference is to the footnote on page 149. (Currently out of print)
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