Learn the path to enlightenment and inner peace encoded by the Cathar in the Major Arcana of the Marseille Tarot • Reveals how the secret wisdom teachings of the heretical Cathar sect were hidden in plain sight in the imagery of the Major Arcana of the Marseille Tarot deck • Decodes each of the cards in detail and shows how they offer clear instructions for recalibrating human consciousness and achieving enlightenment • Shares the author’s self-development program, based on the wisdom of the cards, for creating a lifestyle filled with peace, joy, good health, and meaning The Holy Grail has been discovered. Not a cup or chalice as myth leads us to believe, the Holy Grail is sacred knowledge of the path to enlightenment and inner peace. While author Russell Sturgess was conducting research on the Marseille Tarot, he found evidence that this tarot deck, while masquerading as a simple card game, held the teachings of an ancient heretical religious group from southern France, the Cathar, believed to be the keepers of the Holy Grail. To avoid persecution by the papacy, this sect used portable art like illuminations to convey their Gnostic Christian teachings, in the same way the stained glass windows of churches spoke to their congregations. This portable Cathar art then inspired the creation of the Tarot. After his breakthrough discovery of a hidden key on the Magician and Strength cards, Sturgess examined the Major Arcana cards further and used the key to unlock their symbolism, discovering clear instructions for recalibrating human consciousness and achieving enlightenment, with specific cards representing pivotal points in making the journey from ignorance to awareness. Decoding the cards in detail, the author shows how they reveal a journey of transformed consciousness that can result in finding what the Cathar called “the kingdom of heaven.” Calling this sacred knowledge “the Cathar Code,” Sturgess reveals his personal development program based on the Code that opens access to a meaningful lifestyle filled with peace and joy and that naturally fosters health and well-being. He shows how these teachings offer a clear path that transforms a life burdened by fear of failure, rejection, and scarcity into one with clarity of purpose, self-honoring, kindness, and the abundance that comes with making a fulfilling difference in the world.

A profusely illustrated history of the occult nature of the tarot from its origins in ancient Persia • Thoroughly examines the original historical source for each tarot card and how the cards’ divinatory meanings evolved from these symbols • Provides authentic 18th- and 19th-century spreads and divination techniques • Reveals the divinatory meanings of the cards as understood by diviners in the Middle Ages and Renaissance The origins of the tarot have been lost in the mists of time. Most scholars have guessed that its origins were in China, Egypt, or India. In Mystical Origins of the Tarot, Paul Huson has expertly tracked each symbol of the Minor Arcana to roots in ancient Persia and the Major Arcana Trump card images to the medieval world of mystery, miracle, and morality plays. A number of tarot historians have questioned the use of the tarot as a divination tool prior to the 18th century. But the author demonstrates that the symbolic meanings of the Major Arcana were evident from the time they were first employed in the mid-15th century in the popular divination practice of sortilege. He also reveals how the identities of the court cards in the Minor Arcana were derived from a blend of pagan and medieval sources that strongly influenced their interpretation in tarot divination. Mystical Origins of the Tarot provides a thorough examination of the original historical source for each card and how the cards’ divinatory meanings evolved from these symbols. Huson also provides concise and practical card-reading methods designed by the cartomancers of the 18th and 19th centuries and reveals the origins of the card interpretations promoted by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and A. E. Waite.

Filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s insights into the Tarot as a spiritual path • Works with the original Marseille Tarot to reveal the roots of Western wisdom • Provides the key to the symbolic language of the Tarot’s “nomadic cathedral” • Transforms a simple divination tool into a vehicle for self-realization and healing Alejandro Jodorowsky’s profound study of the Tarot, which began in the early 1950s, reveals it to be far more than a simple divination device. The Tarot is first and foremost a powerful instrument of self-knowledge and a representation of the structure of the soul. The Way of Tarot shows that the entire deck is structured like a temple, or a mandala, which is both an image of the world and a representation of the divine. The authors use the sacred art of the original Marseille Tarot--created during a time of religious tolerance in the 11th century--to reconnect with the roots of the Tarot’s Western esoteric wisdom. They explain that the Tarot is a “nomadic cathedral” whose parts--the 78 cards or “arcana”--should always be viewed with an awareness of the whole structure. This understanding is essential to fully grasp the Tarot’s hermetic symbolism. The authors explore the secret associations behind the hierarchy of the cards and the correspondences between the suits and energies within human beings. Each description of the Major Arcana includes key word summaries, symbolic meanings, traditional interpretations, and a section where the card speaks for itself. Jodorowsky and Costa then take the art of reading the Tarot to a depth never before possible. Using their work with Tarology, a new psychological approach that uses the symbolism and optical language of the Tarot to create a mirror image of the personality, they offer a powerful tool for self-realization, creativity, and healing.

Now in a fully corrected edition, one of the true spiritual classics of the twentieth century. Published for the first time with an index and Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar’s afterword, this new English publication of Meditations on the Tarot is the landmark edition of one of the most important works of esoteric Christianity. Written anonymously and published posthumously, as was the author’s wish, the intention of this work is for the reader to find a relationship with the author in the spiritual dimensions of existence. The author wanted not to be thought of as a personality who lived from 1900 to 1973, but as a friend who is communicating with us from beyond the boundaries of ordinary life. Using the 22 major arcana of the tarot deck as a means to explore some of humanity’s most penetrating spiritual questions, Meditations on the Tarot has attracted an unprecedented range of praise from across the spiritual spectrum.

The Tarot is one of the few books that cuts through conventional misperceptions to explore the Tarot deck as it really developed in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Europe-not, as some would suggest, in the far reaches of Egyp-tian antiquity. Mining the Hermetic, alchemical, and Neoplatonic influences behind the evolution of the deck, author Robert M. Place provides a historically grounded and compelling portrait of the Tarot's true origins, without overlooking the deck's mystical dimensions. Indeed, Place uncommonly weds reliable historiography with a practical understanding of the intuitive help and divinatory guidance that the cards can bring. He presents techniques that offer new and valuable ways to read and interpret the cards. Based on a simple three-card spread, Place's approach can be used by either the seasoned practitioner or the new inquirer.

Unlock the secrets of the cards! For hundreds of years, the tarot has been an essential tool used in witchcraft--from divining the future to aiding in spellcasting. As tools to aid a witch's natural clairvoyance, the tarot and witchcraft are entwined, with the cards and the craft sharing many symbols and roots in the elements. Learn how to interpret and connect with the cards. From reading spreads to using your deck during spellcasting, you will soon grasp the full power of the tarot.

Could the teachings of an 13th Century heretical sect be revealed in a deck of tarot cards? Robert Swiryn's The Secret of the Tarot provides a fascinating look of how the Cathars, a group of religious heretics targeted for destruction by the Roman Catholic Church and the King of France, may have managed to preserve their history and spiritual messages in the Tarot of Marseilles. Besides a gripping exploration of the history of the Cathars' fate, this thought-provoking book offers a unique vision of the tarot as it examines the ideas, spiritual messages, and colorful personalities behind each card. www.thesecretofthetarot.com