Talk : Living With The Tarot

The second of two conversations between fellow Insight Timer guides and Tarot enthusiasts, Tom Evans and Keziah Gibbons. We discuss how we use Tarot in our daily lives. Also find out about Keziah's two courses on the app, The Daily Tarot Meditation Ritual and Tarot Wisdom : A Complete Guide. Tom also explains what his forthcoming workshop Overstanding the Tarot will cover.

Transcript

Hi there everybody.

This is the second of two conversations between Insight Timer Meditation Guides,

Keziah Gibbons and Tom Evans on the Tarot.

Specifically,

This is how the Tarot comes into our lives and how it can affect us and how we can use it.

It was a bit of a strange session because people live couldn't hear Keziah audio.

We're using the OBS system with Zoom and Insight Timer and I must have put the wrong selection somewhere.

So this is an edit of it where you should get Keziah's original audio.

I repeated the questions live so I'll try and delete those but it might sound a bit strange.

Apologies in advance but I hope that the gist of it all comes through and thanks for tuning in and listening.

So I know actually that you were going to tell us last time we spoke Tom,

You left us on this cliffhanger of how Tarot found you or how you found Tarot.

So do you want to tell us a bit about that?

It was an amazing thing.

I started meditating and weird things started to happen.

They had weird dreams and loads of amazing serendipities and I went on a course called How to be Psychic to try and understand them.

It was a nine weekend course for a year run by a lady called Lisa Turner.

About halfway through she sat in a semi circle,

Got about nine people on the course.

She got the Major Arcana in a fan,

22 cards face down and she asked us to take a card each but then to hold it face down.

I was in the middle of the semi circle.

She came round and then just before she came to you she said,

Turn it over and tell me what it means to you.

Now bearing in mind,

I'd never picked up a Tarot deck until this time.

I had the tower and I gave her a really detailed exposition of what it was.

That it's the crumbling of old ideas so we can replace them with the new.

She was a bit golf smacked.

At the end she came up to me and she said,

This book here,

The key to the wisdom of ages,

You need to read that book.

Paul Postercase.

So I started reading the book and then amazing things happened.

I started to vibrate.

It looked to me as if I knew everything that was in the book already although I didn't understand it.

I've read it about 50 times now and I still would find bits that didn't see the first reading.

Then I signed up with Botter,

The builders of the Deaton based in California and that's Paul Postercase's school still going.

They started sending me lessons but I found it really,

Really difficult and arcane language.

So I set about the translation of it and my contemporizing it.

So that's my introduction to the Tarot and how it found me all through the tower.

Thank you.

I know you're interested in this idea.

You mentioned a bit about this language,

This idea of making the esoteric into the exoteric.

So can you tell us about what that means?

The answer to that was that's been my joy.

I've always loved explaining really complex things in the most basic ways I can find.

I did that in my career as a BBC television engineer.

I became a lecturer in camera technology.

I've gone all around the world telling all these broadcasters how this complex technology worked.

When I discovered the magic of the mind as opposed to the magic of TV,

I thought I'd do the same sort of thing.

I found out that these people just made things really over complex and using words that were just inaccessible.

So I thought I'm just going to completely deconstruct it all,

Bring the essence back in.

That's kind of where I've gone from there.

I've written two books about the Tarot.

Again,

You can't advertise them in this forum,

But the one about the major arcana,

One's about the minor arcana.

I'm just on the third tree ties now,

Which is the Tarot from a holistic perspective.

Thanks Tom.

So you mentioned there about certain occultists making things almost deliberately hard to understand or using this inaccessible language.

Why do you think that is?

Two reasons.

Some of them like to be,

They think that knowing things that other people don't know,

Picks them up and makes them sound important.

But the main reason is that if it fell into the wrong hands,

It could be abused.

We can use magic for good or for not so good.

I'll give you an example of that is that I've got a meditation on insight timer.

This hasn't come from that school or from Tarot,

Kabbalah.

It came from another school that I got involved with in Germany,

An angelic school,

Where I learned how to activate my heart rate.

And when you activate your heart rate,

You can heal both humans and pets as I discovered anywhere over space and time,

Over zoom and over Skype,

Backwards and forwards in time.

But you could also go into a speed dating environment and make someone fall in love with you.

And they might not be able to resist.

So we can use magic for good and not so good.

And that's why I think that some of this stuff has been made over complex.

So,

So yeah,

You're talking about one of the reasons that people might make esoteric knowledge so esoteric is that it might fall into the wrong hands.

And so I have my own take on this as a teacher,

Which I'll share if you're interested,

But I would like to know how you as a teacher approach that possibility and how do you how do you navigate that,

That line?

So the way I do it is all about intent.

So there's the content,

If you like the words that are on the page,

Or the words that I might record,

But then in the gaps around the word,

The white on the page,

Or the gaps in the sound is my intent,

That it will only be used for the best intent.

And I learned that from the actual physical key to the wisdom ages book,

I felt there was vibration coming off the pages,

In addition to the content that was in the words.

Weird,

Weird,

Weird.

So could I ask you,

Because I and I'll relay this to people listening how you as a teacher,

Manage that and pull that off?

Yeah,

I would say that in that intention,

Putting that intention into how you set up your class,

And also making that intention,

Explicit modeling,

Good values.

And then sometimes we just have to trust.

There are some people who will do harm,

Whether they know magic or not.

And we have to trust that if if everyone has access to that knowledge,

Who needs it,

There are more people who will do good than will do harm.

So that's my part of my take.

So Tom,

Coming back to tarot and how you use it in your in your personal practice,

How do you use tarot now?

What is your practice with that?

Well every single day,

I've got tarot cards around me.

I know Siri does this as well.

I have a spread of cards using three completely different decks.

Today,

I've got one from the creative ideas deck,

Which is key key 12 called perception key 12 being the hangman.

Yeah.

Although this man's upright,

Although someone underground,

I got one from the Osho's then deck,

Which is the the fool.

And then in the middle,

I've got one from the from the cryo deck isn't a tarot deck.

And that's runa,

Which is about abundance.

So the high level message here is that if you think look at things upside down,

Take the foolish route,

Which is the wisest route,

Then all abundance that you need of all forms,

Not just money,

Will just flow your way without any effort.

What a lovely message there.

And you've got three decks there with you,

Tom.

And I know that you are working with Siri on creating your own deck.

So can you tell us a bit about that project?

Why are you doing it?

And what,

What it's taught you so far?

Because I'm sure it will be full of lessons.

It is because I just asked about a project that I've got going on with the wonderful Siri Opley in Norway.

You'll find Siri's music and meditations on the app.

But I first met her as an artist.

And I knew there was a decking me.

Siri knew there was a decking her,

But we didn't know we're going to combine it all together.

But I also knew,

Or when I say knew,

This is like intuitively new,

That the tarot was incomplete.

And as the tarot evolves,

We evolve.

So as I took the tarot from its very complex state,

And then I contemporized it in the two books,

Or whatever,

More people could access it.

But I thought,

Hang on a minute,

Maybe there's more to the tarot than everyone's been saying.

So in meditation,

When they say that the only way you can understand the tarot is in the meditative state,

Because it only makes sense when we're sitting outside our normal three dimensions,

You see something different.

And the first thing that occurred to me that in the OSHA Zen deck,

There's a 23rd major arcana called the master.

So I thought,

Got to have one of those.

So let's we extend it from 22 to 23.

We augment the deck,

And why not have another minor arcana suit.

So we've got five minor arcana suits.

If you do some research on the internet,

I'm not the only person to do this.

But my context is this,

Is that the minor arcana suits represent the ninth,

Seventh,

Fifth and third dimension.

And they describe us as a ninth dimensional being having a third dimensional experience.

So what would happen if we took the 11th dimensional view and look down on ourselves as nine dimensional beings?

What happens then?

Now the answer is,

I don't really know,

Because I'm writing this and serializing this off app at the moment.

And some of it will appear in the app soon.

But I'm doing it off app with a sort of test group of people.

And we don't know,

But we're finding out.

And every time I dive into my old materials,

I find something new that was there all along,

But I couldn't see it before.

And I'm finding that overstanding is like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

And you're learning more and more about stuff that you didn't know you knew.

And what you can't do is study anyone else's stuff,

Because you don't want to plagiarize it,

You want it to be fresh.

So at the moment,

I'm not reading any other books.

I'm looking at some small study notes and reading Paul Postecasius' excellent book again,

Seeing words that I didn't see before.

And I'm overstanding it more.

And then do my lovely thing about making the esoteric,

Ectoteric.

If that makes sense.

Absolutely.

And I'm excited to see that deck once it's ready to come into the realm.

Tom,

I've had access to some of your overstanding materials.

And quite early on at the beginning,

There's a section called Flavours of Thought,

Which I think is also named after one of the books that you have written.

And one of the cards,

Well,

A lot of the ways that you that you frame things in there struck me,

I enjoyed it,

Because it's a slightly different perspective from what I'm used to.

But what I thought would be really,

Really useful for a lot of the people who study tarot with me,

Some cards are quite uncomfortable cards.

And one of those is the Tower.

And I believe you described the Tower as excitation and the way you frame that I found quite empowering.

So is that something you'd be willing to share with our meditators here on how you frame the Tower?

Oh,

Yes.

So for those that we can read,

You would have heard because I asked you me about the Flavours of Thought course.

Now,

This course is the is a first free step on my path to overstanding.

You can get access to it through my website,

Which I'm not allowed to promote here.

But I want to share before answering the question last time we're on the call just at the end of it,

Because I let me know that Insight Time are launching video courses.

And I got on the beta,

I was very lucky to get on the beta,

I had loads of stuff off app,

Including the Flavours of Thought course in video.

And so I'm going to upload it as soon as I can,

It will be available on the app.

And what I did in Flavours of Thought is I replaced every single tarot key with a single English word.

Now,

Some of them I took from The Wizard of the Wisp of Ages,

Because you're asking about the Tower specifically,

Funnily enough,

The card that I first saw.

And what I did with it is a massive reframe.

I like putting things in the positive,

Not the negative.

So you could think the death card is about death.

Well,

Actually,

It's all about birth and rebirth,

Which is important.

And without death,

We wouldn't have birth and we need that lovely cyclical knowledge.

And I called the Tower Excitation,

Because Paul Foster Case refers to it as the exciting intelligence,

Which is very interesting.

I'm just about to do more work on the intelligences and reveal more about that,

Because I'm exposing the Tree of Life,

Which is a tree of intelligence.

Very,

Very fascinating work.

So the exciting intelligence takes the old,

Gives it a lovely injection,

And it fires it off in a brand new direction.

And all you need to do,

If you want any of this magic in your life,

Get any deck of cards,

Any tarot deck,

And pull out the Tower card,

Leave it in front of you for the day,

And you'll get a new injection in a positive direction.

Yeah,

I second that.

Using the cards deliberately for manifestation is definitely a practice I would recommend.

Tom,

I'm wondering if you've had any other questions from the meditators?

I can't see what's on there.

I will ask that question.

So the first,

Because I use cards for manifestation.

And if you want to really get into the depth of every single card,

I really highly recommend Kazaya's daily tarot meditation ritual.

Yes,

So if you want magic to come into your life,

What a treat.

78 days when you can get introduced to each of the magic between all the major arcana and the minor arcana.

Recommend it highly.

And I've got a question for you,

Kazaya,

Which I'm going to answer is that I see you've also got several workshops coming up as well.

Your Reiki Master,

17th of September,

Fully booked.

That's amazing.

9th of October,

4 p.

M.

You've got five spots left in your Reiki One self healing.

And in the 26th of February,

I guess that's next year,

Eight spots next year for Reiki Two.

Victorias asks,

Would that be a daily free tracks or a course?

It's a course.

So you get access to that if you've got insight,

Timer,

Premium.

I believe also you can buy courses individually as well nowadays too.

Yeah,

I think you can buy them individually on the website.

But the I usually say that the premium is much better value because then you get access to all the courses.

That's right.

And remember what goes round comes round.

I mentioned about the runa.

The reason I have so much runa in my life is that I give out tons for free and then from a different source,

It comes back just what I need to keep doing that.

So when you sign up for insight,

Timer,

Premium,

You help every single guide on the app to keep producing.

And what goes round comes round.

Hope that helps.

Any other questions?

Ah,

This is a great question.

What would you say is the relationship between NLP and the Tarot?

P.

S.

My fancy is making his own Tarot charms and we love listening to your course together.

I'm guessing that's your course.

And this is Amy.

Jonay is also enjoying the course.

So I hope you can all make the event tomorrow,

Which is the launch party for the course.

I've signed up for it too.

Yes.

So I'm going to ask,

Cause I have her view on that NLP and the Tarot.

What's your thoughts?

I tend to link them together.

I'm a certified trainer of NLP.

So I use NLP and pretty much everything that I do.

And I would say that what the Tarot can offer is a set of,

Well,

It can offer many things,

But one of the things that offers us access to your internal resources or signposting to your internal resources and what NLP can do is help you to access those resources once you've been signposted to them.

So that is one of the ways I use NLP with Tarot.

And I use that in the course with a lot of the meditations there.

What I do is I use the concept of reframing from NLP.

So looking at something from a different perspective perhaps.

So you can see a glass is half empty or half full.

I prefer my glass to be over brimming of course.

And what you can do with Tarot is go like,

Well,

Okay,

Well acting the death card,

That doesn't make much sense.

So what word in the English or any language would make more sense than calling it death.

For example,

Both the Osho Zen deck and the Creative Ideas deck have done versions of that.

So I had a different version of that too.

I call it imagination,

The imagination to bring in new life effectively.

But then when you combine sets of cards together,

They become spells.

I call them recipes,

Flavors of thought,

Recipes for fresh thinking.

And the spells take you in entirely different directions.

But what I'm doing right now is to delivering two master reframes,

Where you're taking the whole of the deck,

Either 22 cards or 23 cards,

And one master spell that's got them all in one.

And this is a tool you can use for karmic advancement.

But you can also put them into a configuration,

Which is the Tree of Life,

Where you've got the minor arcana and the master arcana together.

And this gives you a completely holistic view of us.

So our modes of consciousness,

The way that we think,

The way that we act,

And the way that we act,

We interact with the cosmos.

Imagine that in this little deck of cards,

Which we normally see vertically stacked on on top of each other.

When you put them all together in these configurations,

It reframes and it gives you major access to the best of you.

So few little comments on your course.

So,

Siri just said she's finished the course.

That's amazing Siri,

You only started a few weeks ago.

And it helped us see herself from a totally different angle as a tarot reader.

And she wants to know how Tarot can help children.

Oh,

Well,

There's a big question.

Yeah,

So I would say Tarot can help children same as it can help adults.

And you know,

For adults,

If we come to the Tarot with that childlike frame of mind,

Then that's how we can best be helped by it.

I am a mother,

I've got a 12 year old who will be sometimes interested sometimes not in coming and drawing,

She knows I do a card of the day,

She'll come and draw a card of the day herself.

She is adamant that no one can tell her what it means.

She's going to look at the picture and say what it means,

Which is a brilliant way of approaching it.

For children and for adults.

That's just a nice way to have a moment to reflect on where you are.

And how do you respond to the card which presents itself to you on that particular day.

And that's what I've done.

I've gone like,

I'm not an expert in Tarot.

But this is what I feel about it.

And let me just share what I feel with you to see if it resonates with you.

And I'm quite honoured that you as an amazing Tarot master,

Like my interpretation of the tower,

Which is just the essence of excitation.

And put some great other questions and thoughts coming in on the on the course.

So Amy says that the eight of swords has become a favourite used to see it as a negative.

And that the reframe of the devil card is so enlightening.

But this is what I'd like you to address here.

He says she panics when she draws the three or nine of swords.

Any insight on that?

So these are some of my favourite cards because they need to reframe same as the eight of swords and the devil.

The three of swords.

Well,

Firstly,

Not everything's 100% happy all the time.

So if we are in a three of sword state,

We need to acknowledge that.

But also,

Yes,

There's hurt in the three of swords,

But there's always healing.

And now we're looking at the three of swords.

So yeah,

This deck,

This is a Druidcraft three of swords.

So it's Druidcraft by Philip and Stephanie Cargill and Will Worthington.

And it's one of my favourite decks.

And you see in this image,

The three swords have been in the tree can see the holes where they've they've come out.

And so the tree has been damaged,

But it's had this new growth come over it.

And how I like to read that is that yes,

We are shaped by our traumatic experiences,

But we're not defined by them.

And we can have new growth.

And we can grow in our own shape despite and as well as these traumatic experiences.

Before I became a meditation guide,

I helped hundreds of authors write their books.

And we use the writing as catharsis,

People's life stories and that sort of stuff.

So you'd have that be the front cover of your book.

I'm shaped by the the damage,

But new growth is going to come from it.

And I'm going to take three swords.

Not defined,

I think.

Yes,

Thank you.

Because I said shaped,

But not defined.

Love that.

Love that.

So thank you,

Mary Jo.

Beautiful reframe.

More questions,

Please.

We're at your disposal.

Tom,

I would just like to know about,

I know you have a workshop coming up on the 21st.

What exactly will people learn in that workshop?

Oh,

Yeah,

Thank you for that.

On the 21st of September,

I am running my second workshop on Insight Timer.

The first one was on attention management.

I'm going to run them on the equinoxes and the solstice.

So we got 31st of September.

I haven't got any topic for the winter solstice or the spring equinox.

So all the meditators out there that listen to me,

What would you like me to rattle on about a bit more that I'm not talking about on the app?

Because the workshops allow us to do things we can't do in meditation.

So for example,

I can share things with you and resources with you.

Everybody who signs up for the workshop gets the flavor of thought PDF book anyway,

With all the recipes for fresh thinking to get that free too.

And I'm going to share with you what the tarot is really about when you look at it from a really holistic context.

So for example,

Let me just hold this up for you.

This is the pattern of the major arcana.

So you get the 22 cards in a deck,

You don't see this pattern where you've got one card at the top,

The full and three rows of seven.

Only then can you overstand its structure.

The bottom row shows seven ways we take in external thought forms.

The middle row shows how we process internal thought forms from our lower mind centers.

And the top row shows seven modes of thinking.

And that's an example of overstanding the tarot.

And you get that in the in the flavors of thought book that you get when you access the course.

But I'm going to share some other stuff in there with you about a glyph called the tree of life,

And a glyph called the cube of space.

Does that answer that question?

There's another question that's just come in in the remaining question about addiction.

These are always good questions.

How did the tarot help you heal?

When you got sober in AA,

I realized under every defect of character,

There's an asset which is the reframe we're talking about before in the devil and the death card and the tarot card and in the three of swords.

And similar to the tarot,

When I pull a negative card,

I asked myself what story I'm telling about myself about this card.

I now I have the awareness and opportunity to reframe the story.

So I'd like your thoughts on that.

Because I also just share some light about reverse cards that you turn upside down.

Yeah,

So the reframing is really a wonderful gift of the tarot.

And I don't know the AA program,

Specifically,

But I know that having some agency over your thoughts,

Beliefs and hence behaviors is always going to be helpful for people who have addictions or have had addictions.

So it unlocks things that you were not consciously aware of.

And that's why it's pictorial.

Because there's an evocable story about when the tarot was formed,

All the adepts and sages in the world came together,

They spoke different languages,

But they want to use the one language that cuts right through to our unconscious mind.

Again,

Connection between tarot and NLP,

Which is NLP is all about how we can marshal the forces of our unconscious mind and for our and that's why this pattern of the flavor is really important because it's not just the card,

Per se.

It's the influences that card has on modes of consciousness around it.

And this is the stirring up.

So one card with no knowledge of the tarot at all just left on your desktop will change your day.

And it's up to you,

Whether it changes it positively,

Or not so positively,

You'll notice,

I never use the word negatively,

I always say not so.

I don't think that there's anything like negative thoughts.

I think they're positive thoughts not quite pointing in the right direction.

Yeah,

Positive and positive intentions misapplied,

Perhaps.

So my favorite time of the day 1444.

So 15 more minutes.

Any other questions,

Observations from these two people who are students of the tarot?

We can't call ourselves tarot masters because we're still learning.

Tom,

What's your take on reverse cards?

I'll be honest with you,

I never use them.

I don't know whether they got a place in my world and in my model.

Is there a reason for that?

Or is that just how it happens to have fallen?

Well you were saying about fallen,

The only time I'll ever leave a reverse card up is if one falls on the floor when I'm shuffling,

And it falls upside down.

So I leave it as it is.

And I quite enjoy not knowing everything.

There's something that's happened recently.

I'll give you an example of that.

I'm re-studying the tree of life at the moment.

And the tree of life has got 10 circles,

And they call them the Sephiroth.

They're emanations,

They're portals in and out of higher levels of consciousness.

And it's got 22 interconnections,

Which are the major arcana in some people's models.

And they call them the 32 paths of wisdom.

Well I don't think they're paths at all,

Because in isolation,

How could it be a path?

But I know in the tree of life,

Or it's known,

There are 16 hidden pathways.

And I'm a bit of a techie nerd.

I found a mathematical formula that tells you how many hidden possible interconnections there are between 10 things,

10 circles,

Right?

And it's 23.

So the esoteric school that I learned from,

Saying that there are 16,

Where mathematically,

I discovered another seven,

There must be another seven.

And then I found the paths as well.

And you can only find the paths by looking at the tree three dimensionally,

Which you'd ever do,

Because it's always drawn in two dimensions,

Noticing there's a tree right over your shoulder there,

Which is just amazing,

Right?

And so I found the seven hidden pathways,

In addition to the 16 hidden pathways.

And I don't know what any of them are for.

And I really enjoy that.

So took that reverse card thing on,

I've just taken it up a little bit.

Yeah,

I don't know what it's all for.

But I know when I'm ready,

If I'm ready,

In this lifetime,

It will be revealed to me.

And I know,

Because I'm good at doing the esoteric into the exoteric,

I'll make practical sense of it,

And and sort of frame it so people can use it in their daily lives for good.

And talk about some serendipities,

Like the tree behind you only just seen.

Siri said 23 is my power number.

And Victoria is that two plus three is her birth month.

And it's noticing these things that we don't previously notice.

So when we know everything,

One thing we know for sure is there's loads of stuff we don't know,

Which I think is a joy in its whole self,

The joy of life.

Ah,

So someone said here,

And I answered a question.

Mary Jo can't attend the workshop live,

But will there be a replay if you're available to register and creative said yes,

There is.

You get I think for three months afterwards,

There is a replay there.

And you'll definitely get the PDF of the you'll get the PDF of the flavour of thought anyway.

So thank you for that creative agent.

Realize that.

And Mary Jo,

I hope you can make it virtually if not in in person.

Any thoughts from you,

Kazah?

Well yeah,

You've done admirably with that being the the Oracle,

I suppose,

Relaying different things coming in and turning into coherent,

Something coherent or or seems coherent to me anyway.

Wow.

You just give me that lovely spark of the idea.

And something I've not shared that much before.

So I know you can use the tarot and very specifically the minor arcana as an Oracle.

So you can answer the question to absolutely anything about that.

Is that potentially a good subject for my winter solstice workshop?

Question for you?

Because I is it something you and I should be exploring?

But that's our third conversation.

Yeah,

Question for you all.

Yeah,

A question for you all listening.

When would you like that as a as a thing to appear?

So Siri's just said she'd like something to appear on the 11th of November.

That would be a good time to discover how we could use the tarot in an oracular fashion.

And it's her birthday.

So we can we can we can make Siri the the chief receiver of the oracular wisdom.

How about that?

Oh,

And Amy shared the most amazing gem,

That intimacy to her is into me.

I see.

Anything coming up in your world that I haven't shared yet?

Because I'm no,

The launch party is the next thing which is the same time as our conversation today's been but tomorrow.

And the Reiki courses,

And of course,

The circle is the place to find out about that.

But thank you,

Tom,

For a lovely conversation.

And I'm sure your workshop will go down really well.

I know it will get the right wisdom to the right people.

So I know it will go well in that way.

So thanks,

Kaziah.

My next appearance live on Insight Timer is the Overstanding the Tarot course workshop on the 21st.

And who knows we might be doing some something special on the 11th of November in an oracular fashion.

It's been a real joy.

And thanks everybody for all your lovely comments.

It's been a joy and a pleasure,

As always.

Deep down,

Deep out.

And we'll see you soon.

And big thanks to you,

Kaziah,

For sharing so much wisdom yet again.

Reviews

Thank you both for sharing yourselves with the world