About - Fool on the Road

“…who, I ask, can know that he understands anything, unless he do first understand it?”

Benedictus de Spinoza (PART II – PROP XLIII, Notes)

One of the fundamentally human issues of life is understanding ourselves and our place in the universe. Tarot is a means of this discovery process, a vessel of our striving for true awareness. It is related to everything human; events and situations one is likely to face in life are represented in the cards, embellished with mythological symbols and elements.

If “yesterday” was that which happened out of many possibilities and “present” is what is possible today, “tomorrow,” is a bundle of possibilities you are going to face in the future. Tarot helps you broaden your vision while you are considering the possibilites ahead of you. It acts like a mirror, inviting you to contemplate your reflection in life and enable your experiences and intuition to draw out the essential conclusions.

Tarot is simply a means, not an end; how you take Tarot’s message and relate it to your life and personality is up to you. You are the only one who can truly assess what Tarot stirs in you and recognize what’s in your heart and in your mind. In a nutshell, the buck stops with you, not with Tarot.

In contrast to all this, those who think that the Tarot is “a harbinger of the unknown” and those who condemn it as “a fabrication of those who seek refuge in vulgar superstitions” make precisely the same mistake, and fall into the same trap, despite starting out from opposite corners. There is no ethical difference between trying to figure out through use of the Tarot when one will meet the love of one’s life, what lottery ticket one must buy to make the big time, which diseases one will struggle with in later life, or ultimately, when one will die; and judging the Tarot because of such vain and irrational endeavours. One should never forget that the thing labeled “irrational” is an object; and that the relationship established with it can only be irrational in nature.

However, reason can explain and understand things that are considered mysteries, and for instance, the Tarot. And thus the Tarot can take reason on a brand new adventure.