Platonic Academy Tarot Booklet

PLATONIC ACADEMY TAROT

PUBLISHED BY ALCHEMIST PUBLISHING, LLC. For World Of Tarot™ www.WorldOfTarot.com Copyright ©2010 Londa Marks

PLATONIC ACADEMY TAROT™ Published By Alchemist Publishing LLC For World Of Tarot™ Copyright ©2010 Londa Marks ISBN-13: 978-1-935615-30-9 ISBN-10: 1-935615-30-0 Concept & Design By: Londa Marks Written By: Londa Marks Credits: Commons Wiki, Wikipedia, Genre: Visionary/Metaphysical Collectable Tarot Cards PRODUCT DETAILS Designed & Written By Londa R. Marks • Full Color Major Arcana Deck • 2 Extra Cards • Size: 2.75” x 4.75” • 66 Page booklet; download after purchase • Deck comes beautifully packaged in shrink wrapped box

PUBLISHED BY ALCHEMIST PUBLISHING, LLC. For World Of Tarot www.WorldOfTarot.com Copyright ©2010 Londa Marks

Dedication The Platonic Academy Tarot deck and book are dedicated to those intellectual minds who question, wonder and search for answers beyond the obvious to make themselves more enlightened like The Platonic Academy of Athens, Greece and Cosimo de’ Medici and Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Platonic Academy of Florence, Italy.

Thanks Many thanks goes to my son Edward who works day and night on my tarot projects. His patience is that of Job’s and his diligence in inventing methods and perfecting printing and packaging of my work is nothing less than that of a Renaissance craftsman. Without him my tarot decks such as: The Alchemist, Medici Tarot, Fiorenza Tarot, Ancient Magick to The Platonic Academy and more would not have been possible.

Tarot Card Graphics The Platonic Academy Tarot deck consists of ancient paintings graphically composed through cutting and colorizing, manipulating original images through replacing characters, item placement, architecture or character placement, costumes, scenes and overall atmosphere to present a montage of images related to the card title and description. The images were created before the text was written.

About Artist, Author Londa Marks (born 1952) is an American artist, author published by U.S. Games Systems for Crow’s Magick Tarot which has been in print since 1997.

Londa Tarot also published by U.S. Games Systems which was in print from 1993 to 2004. As of 2011 she

has created a total of 9 tarot decks with over 220 original paintings and drawings along with over 70 montages. Alchemist Publishing has published her works since 2001.

She studied under New York artist Murray Stern (19271985) from 1972 - 1974, an art professor from Athens, Ohio, whose work is in the Kennedy Museum of Art Collection. He encouraged her to focus on her original characters and worked closely with her at West Virginia University and his studio to help her cultivate her unique talent. Influenced by Italian history especially from the 15th century, the majority of Londa’s tarot decks are centered around or inspired by elements of the Renaissance and medieval period. Londa grew up in a Catholic environment in Ohio where Italian history was omnipresent and not only a constant reminder of the Renaissance period but of the importance of old world quality craftsmanship. As a perfectionist she incorporated her son Edward Nichols, a student of Italian art history, former craftsman of reproduction medieval period furniture and former set builder for movies and commercials in Burbank, CA, into her studio in 2002 to print and package her tarot decks to adhere to her strict quality guidelines.

An antique library case that held Shakespeare, Plato and Aristotle’s works was in her father’s library during Londa’s childhood years. As an artistic child, those books intrigued her. The library case was kept locked though, adding even more intrigue to the mysteries it held.

But, her father’s answer was always the same. “They’re over your head” he would say. Relentlessly, she pursued and each time she could talk her father into opening the creaky door to the book case so she could just look at them and touch them that old world smell would lazily drift out and surrounded both her and her father. It was as if they were looking into a time- machine and being

lured back in time by the seductive smells of history. It was intoxicating being that close to ancient minds and to be able to touch their works and the frail pages that held their ideas and thoughts.

Londa continued to watch the bookcase daily with wonder and hopes that it had been left unlocked by mistake so she could consume more of Plato and Aristotle’s esoteric knowledge. She looked forward to the day that she could have a relationship with all the knowledge that was inside those crumbly old books.

After her father died, she inherited the precious books he carefully collected throughout his life then she understood why the case was always locked. The brittle pages were written for a mind that had created and experienced much more than just a twelve year old starry eyed artist would have. Experience was key to understanding at least fragments of the historic insight.

To read any aspect of their works allows one a glimpse of ancient thought that was indeed over Londa’s head as a child, though she believed if her father had spent time explaining the works to her that she would’ve been engrossed in the essence of their messages. He was not a teacher though. And, apparently he felt that they were light- years ahead of what she could comprehend at the time. For Londa, though it was the forbidden that probably held magick and she swore to herself that the day would come when she would connect with historic figures that her father held in high regard.

Treasures Though many years since those days have passed that childhood curiosity still drives Londa’s life’s work; not

only about Plato, Aristotle and the many scholars who carved momentous marks in our civilization, but that which they stood for: questioning existence, who we are, what we are about, what magick is and how can it be used to benefit mankind?

On July 1, 1990, Londa’s father died and her husband told her he wanted a divorce the same afternoon she buried her dad. Her world crashed down around her in a big way. She was devastated, lost and horrified by life’s wrath. Londa carried a few of her father’s books back home to Los Angeles. Tarot became her refuge and place to find answers. After searching for tarot decks to receive them she found a few that spoke to her but all she could think about was that she wanted to create her own tarot deck with her own answers. She began working on finding a publisher to publish her idea of a tarot deck and discovered U.S. Games, put together a couple of ideas and mailed them.

A week later, Stuart Kaplan from U.S. Games Systems, called her and said he wanted to publish my tarot deck and call it, Londa Tarot, after he asked her if it was her real name. She said yes, and soon thereafter, received a contract then moved to San Francisco to cloister herself away from everyone she knew in LA. Her focus was to complete the deck of cards even though it proved to be another huge challenge but buried herself in her work.

A Catholic church she went to there seemed to give her signs that her dad was watching over her. He was a devout Catholic and he knew that Londa’s curious nature would understand the omens he so aptly sent to her with each visit to the Church. A light near a statue of St. Joseph would flicker each time she would go in and pray in the afternoons. It didn’t flicker until she was there for

about 10 minutes or so, then would start up for a little while then stop until she left. Her father’s name was Joseph. To Londa, it was not a question of whether it was him or not. It was him. And he was letting her know that not only was he was watching over her, but that there is far more to life than we are able to know or comprehend.

Apparently, her dear father knew it was time for her to delve into Plato, Aristotle and Shakespeare and proceed on a path of enlightenment with tarot and my philosophical artwork. Finally, he let her have the books. Finally, she was able to touch, smell and live with those books like they were her very own appendages. But, it was at a cost of a soul who consumed some of their insight then left this earth to go where the ancient philosophers have also gone, maybe.

Londa’s father died at a time that was actually beneficial for her. It was as if he was there for her more in passing than in physical because he still would’ve kept those books in his possession. But, he sent her answers that she needed at the time she was supposed to have them. We never seem to receive answers before their right time.

Chemistry of Like Minds There are certain periods in history where the stars align and a few people happen to be in the same place at the same time forming a group of like-minds, all in sync with each other and essentially becoming one while creating a new idea that changes the world.

Plato’s time and the Renaissance period saw this occur. Florence, Italy during the 14th and especially the 15th century had an alluring sort of

magnetism and vibration that brought together likeminds, mutually intelligent minds and many who were complimentary of each other. There was a chemistry like no other that formed the Renaissance. Florence radiates a kind of magick unmatched anywhere in the world. It did then, and it still does. Artist’s energies become enlivened there.

The souls of Cosimo de’ Medici and Lorenzo de’ Medici are still as powerful today as they were 600 years ago.

Artist’s drink in their creative insight and their appreciation for the arts and continue to try to please them.

The phenomenaof the Renaissance is unique unto itself.

Throughout time Londa Marks has seen over and over astrological combinations of successful relationships that prove to be powerful. Convergences that happen in certain places, times, gatherings, relationships and experiences seem to be in direct relation to astrology chemistry.

Everything matters for magick to occur; the right combination of people, the right place on the planet, the right combination of astrology. Then pure alchemy, true magick occurs.

In biology convergences mean that it is the tendency of different species to develop similar characteristics in response to a set of environmental conditions. If the astrology isn’t there however, it can be a bad chemistry or one that does not produce longevity.

Astrology of Tarot A fairly standard format of Tarot includes astrological aspects, among other aspects. In the Platonic Academy tarot deck figures that were important to the 15th century

Renaissance as well as during Plato’s time are included.

Their astrological importance may also be noted if it was available. Plato and some individuals who were influenced by Plato were incorporated into the Platonic Academy Tarot and there appears to be a an astrological chemistry that was powerful.

The Renaissance period was profound in that there have been few other times in history that has been so powerful for art and artists to bloom. The stage was set by Cosimo de’ Medici, grandfather to Lorenzo de’ Medici, also an artist. Lorenzo had the foresight to understand the power that comes from art and artists. Everything that is successful is derived from a type of creative thinking process and that formula was heavily applied during the Renaissance period. Further, there was a profound astrological chemistry. When combined with creative leadership the chemistry is timeless, again like that of the Renaissance.

With the Platonic Academy Tarot is included information about some of the key figures of the Renaissance when Lorenzo de’ Medici was in rule. It is interesting to see how this worked and what it took to make the Renaissance timeless while producing world treasures by artists of the time.

Astrology, was key in making a Renaissance kind of chemistry.

Mysteries of Tarot Discovering tarot, other forms of mysticism and beyond opens some doors for seekers and presents gifts and treasures, especially one; that which everyone is searching

for in life: What your purpose is.

It’s not one simple answer as Plato discovered and tried to convey. But, once you get close to the answers or find even one profound answer, a million more questions arise. Our daily lives present new ideas, thoughts and questions every day, each needing a key to find the answer to it. Tarot consists of the keys and if one is willing to stretch their mind towards creative ends finding different answers even with the same card is possible.

Each artist who creates their idea of a deck of tarot produces a shard of a mirror that reflects new perspective into the user of that deck’s soul; thus making the user a little bit different and a little bit like the artist since the artist’s soul is reflected into the tarot deck user’s soul.

Essentially, the holder of a tarot deck is looking into the mind of that deck’s creator. Whether it is a tarot deck of original artwork or a montage of artwork from days gone by, the deck holds the essence of that artist [the tarot deck creator]. The user connects with what the artist connected with to a degree. In turn it allows the tarot deck user to take a bit of the artists soul and make it part of who they are, somewhat like morphing.

It is not magickal, but it is. It is not mystical, but it is.

The absolute of tarot is that it is a set of keys that allow the user to enter a world of their own intellect by way of the tarot deck artist’s soul.

Analysis through lucid use of creativity can present a wide range of perspectives [from different artists], and cause interpretations that vary greatly even with the same

bits of information. This is much the same way Plato taught. He looked at everything from all angles. And, that is how each card in a deck of tarot should be viewed.

That is how magick is discovered. That is how tarot is understood.

Platonic Academy Tarot The Platonic Academy Tarot was chosen for many reasons but the recent tarot decks of Medici and Fiorenza Tarot are based around 15th century Florence, Italy and the Platonic Academy Tarot deck appropriately fits the series so far. There are others that will be added.

The School of Athens [Greece] greatly influenced the Renaissance. Though Tarocchi cards were used at the time as game cards, possibly Plato, Cosimo and Lorenzo would have welcomed the tarot deck as a useful tool in aiding them with connecting to additional alchemical ideas.

With the Platonic Academy Tarot Londa intended to connect with some of the greatest minds that have walked this earth, then show how they are related to the magick of tarot.

Symbolism has always taken on many meanings even if was intended to have one meaning, whether obviously esoteric or not. Plato had a love affair with mathematics including numerology, now a popular divination tool.

One of Plato’s magick tools was geometry; many of its forms and shapes are found in practically all talismans, seals and sigils including the pentagram or five-pointed star generally represented as the coins suit in the Minor Arcana. Renaissance artists and Ancient Greeks felt that the number five manifested the most ideal forms and is

found in all areas of life. Most people will draw a star with five points not intending it to be a pentagram, just a star, but still five is the amount of points. Historically the number five is seen in alchemy and magick to connect an individual with spiritual energies.

In classical times the Plynteria, or “Feast of Adorning,” was observed every May [5], it was a festival lasting five days. During this period the Priestesses of Athena, or “Plyntrides,” performed a cleansing ritual within “the Erecththeum,” the personal sanctuary of the goddess.

Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom was the chosen icon of Plato’s Platonic Academy in Athens Greece.

Daughter of Zeus, Athena affected Plato with her own kind of thunder. In Plato’s view she was the mind of God. He placed her embodiment in his sacred olive tree grove he inherited at age 30. Later, this was the spot where the Platonic Academy was developed.

Around the year 387 BC, after Plato returned from his first visit to Italy and Sicily he began his academy. The Greek Akademia property also doubled as a gymnasium until the fourth century. Though the school was more of a gym than an academy for several years, the Academic club was exclusive to intellectuals.

Above Plato’s Academy door a sign was prominently posted stating: “Let None But Geometers Enter Here.”

Even though he was not a mathematician Plato had creative views on mathematics. His creative views greatly influenced other mathematician’s too. He implored that mathematicians not use standard tools since they were mere workman’s tools not worthy of a scholar, but instead he wanted them to use compasses and straight-

edges.

Greek philosopher Aristotle, was a student of Plato’s.

But like Alexander the Great (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), who was a student of Aristotle. Alexander won a fierce battle against Darius III of Persia. Alexander fought with the Macedonian and Greek army of about 40,000, while Darius had approximately 250,000 soldiers. There is no doubt that Plato was also a student of Aristotle’s. All teachers learn from their students, especially one enlightened such as Aristotle. The brilliance of Aristotle’s accomplishments extended to a treatise he wrote on methods of reasoning used in deductive proofs; a project not improved upon until the 19th century.

The Metaphysics was the principal works of Aristotle which was studied and applied by those of the Italian Renaissance. Aristotle delves into various areas of questioning regarding life. He relied on Plato’s mysticism and science. The Metaphysics, one of the greatest philosophical works highly influenced the writer Dante, author of The Divine Comedy.

The word Metaphysics is derived from the Greek word: meta (beyond) and physics (a natural science studying matter and understanding behavior of the universe).

Aristotle is one of the most important figures in Western philosophy along with Plato and Socrates (Plato’s teacher) whose influence extended into the Renaissance period.

Plato did not charge anyone to attend his academy but did require membership. The Academy was more of a gathering place for intellectuals who relied on dialect for

the most part, but discussed far reaching ideas, problems and solutions rather than was a school with teacher and students. It was clear however who the elder members and junior members were. It is said by some that Plato’s Academy was a school for future politicians with extremely distinguished graduates but with an underlying principal of metaphysics. The Platonic Academy of Florence, Italy, also known as Humanist’s, was sponsored by Cosimo de’ Medici and included select members of the Renaissance era. Marsilio Ficino, a Medici family astrologer and Neo-Platonist was commissioned to translate Plato’s complete works into Latin and still used in the 19th century.

Lorenzo de’ Medici, sponsor for renowned artists such as Michelangelo Buonarotti and Botticelli, was grandson of Cosimo de’ Medici and led a group of intellectuals such as Poliziano (Politian), Pico della Mirandola, Cristoforo Landino and Gentile de’ Becchi among the esteemed members after Cosimo died. Botticelli and Michelangelo were also favorite painters of Lorenzo de’ Medici who included the artists, then known as intellectuals in his circle.

Renaissance Neo-Platonism and Hermeticism became fashionable in Renaissance humanism. Pico della Mirandola among others were close to establishing these areas as a new religion. He was not a humanist but was an Aristotelian trained in Paris. Pico worked to synchronize all religions but the Church authorities disregarded his attempts to do so. Dante and Petrarch were an important part of Florence’s literature in the 14th century especially after their works were reliably interpreted.

Hermeticism is attributed to a mystically enlightened

person with beliefs stemming from Hermes Trismegistus; the combination of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek Hermes.

Tarot Divinations Tarot in the 15th century was called Tarrochi. It was considered a game of cards rather than an oracle by most people who used them. The artists who created them had in mind several things. One was the Catholic Church and how they would react if they knew the cards were an oracle. The artist also was adept at hiding other meanings within the artwork. Thus, the enlightened could use the cards to divine the future.

Each of the tarot cards have brief divinations for succinctly determining the meaning of the card in a reading but the description includes a myriad of divinations. This is not a beginner deck though and does require thought for each divination derived from the information per each card.

Though some of the images in the tarot cards may appear to be familiar paintings many of them have been broken up, redesigned, colorized, extracted from paintings or the original painting and moved around to fit the design for the card. Some of the characters may come from other paintings too because they fit that particular card or are important to more than one of the cards.

While reading the divinations and information for that card understanding the depth of the artwork is important.

Understanding the characters, colors, what they may be looking at or how the are posed along with the astrological information will help round out your interpretation of the cards. All details are important.

Divinations of Platonic Academy Tarot consist of information regarding the featured characters of the card and how they relate to that particular card. The Platonic Academy is about utilizing as much of the brain as possible; stretching to discover the outer perimeters and what may lie there. If this is applied to readings with the Platonic Academy Tarot, receiving answers to questions will prove fruitful, and possibly beyond. All things in life matter and with reading tarot there is no exception.

Astrology is part of our life chemistry. If this is not taken into consideration when doing a tarot reading missing a successful formula for answers is possible.

0 - Humanism Featured Character: Francesco Petrarca, (July 20, 1304 July 19, 1374), in Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy. Also known as: Petrarch, Father of Humanism, also known as “The First Tourist.”

Astrological Sign: Leo/Cancer Card Astrological Sign: Aries, The Ram Element: Fire Divination: “Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure.” —Petrarch Renaissance humanism was a way of life practiced by Italian scholars, writers and intellectuals with focus on human concerns and values. Petrarch was a leader in this area. The first card of The Platonic Academy Tarot appropriately seats Petrarch to lead the pack... or deck.

He is firmly seated as if rooted in place while others admire his ability to practically disappear in his thoughts, fading into meditation as others watch in wonder.

With his treasured notebook in left hand, he is calmed

with spiritual intent and universal understanding. Poised with what appears to be a symbol of zero shaped in the air with his right hand, as if his spirit has to reduce itself to squeeze through it. Gradually he withdraws into the hums, or sounds coming from his throat and his mantra that takes him far away.

The symbolic gesture Petrarch indulges is instead one of the most important mudras or symbolic spiritual gestures of Indian religions used in the iconography (image writing) of Hindu and Buddhist art. The word mudra is derived from the Sanskrit words MudDhra, or bliss dissolving or dissolving duality while bringing together devotees with deity.

Petrarch dissolves into nonbeing as he “The eyes I spoke of once in words that burn, the arms and hands and feet and lovely face that took me from myself for such a space of time and marked me out from other men... I must burn for you and breathe through your eyes.”

—Petrarch Brief Divinations: Shingon takes the soul to a state of bliss. Symbolism.

I - Mysticism Featured Characters: Cosimo (12 September, 1389 – 1 August , 1464, Libra - Air), Lorenzo di’ Medici (1 January, 1449 – 9 April, 1492, Capricorn - Earth) Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano (14 July, 1454 – September 24, 1494, five feet tall, Cancer -Water) GuilianodiLorenzode’Medici(Lorenzo’sson) (12 March 12, 1479 - 17 March, 1516, Pisces - Water) Card Astrological Sign: Aquarius, (Air)

This card shows Cosimo di’ Medici il Vecchio (the Elder), Lorenzo di’ Medici, Angelino Poliziano and Guiliano Medici (Lorenzo’s son) by Cosimo’s side in the Cappella Sassetti (Sassetti chapel), in Santa Trinita church, Florence, Italy. An angel appears to oversee the surroundings while emitting a quiet confidance.

Divination: “Money like mysticism, thrives on ritual.”

—Cosimo di’ Medici Though the Medici family were the defacto rulers of Florence, Italy, they were also part of the magick that the universe must have pre-determined. It is unimaginable to think of Florence or the Renaissance without thinking of Medici as they were and still are the very fabric of the magick of the Commune di’ Firenze. The business genius of Cosimo de’ Medici merged with Lorenzo’s creative brilliance to create one of the most important eras in civilization. Cosimo’s magick was mostly money but included in that money magick was charm. As a networker he knew how to be on everyone’s level, or appear to be.

He was quite likeable which was part of his successful magickal chemistry.

The experience of Mysticism opens ones awareness to the universe but also beyond that which is obvious or known. The purpose of exploring mysticism is to find unearthly answers and broaden the scope of intuition and insight. Cosimo de’ Medici was keenly aware of the benefits of mysticism in its broadest form, as was the case with his grandson Lorenzo. He established the Florentine Platonic Academy with the aid of Marsilio Ficino translating Plato’s work into Latin. This aided Cosimo in luring top intellectual minds to his Academy.

Cosimo had a great appreciation of art and the nature

of artists but he did not have what Lorenzo had which was the ability to be on the artists level - equally. This ability gave Lorenzo a perspective of understanding artists which boosted the chemistry of the Renaissance fire. Lorenzo was illuminated in ways Cosimo wasn’t.

Though Lorenzo ruled with an iron fist it was softened by his romantic heart. Only an artist can truly understand another artist. More than that, as a Capricorn, Lorenzo had a steady, even flow personality that the artists he surrounded himself with needed and trusted. When Pisces, Michelangelo needed approval of something he was working on, grounded Lorenzo, was who’s opinion he sought. The same held true with Botticelli; also Pisces, and both were Lorenzo’s most prized artists. They worked together to create world treasures. So, when you view a Michelangelo work of art or Botticelli painting, you are also viewing Lorenzo de’ Medici in some form or another.

Though Lorenzo worked with another talented artist Leonardo da Vinci at some points, their astrological chemistry did not blend well. Eventually, Lorenzo sent Leonardo, an Aries, to work under the Sforza family, Dukes of Milan and allies of Medici.

Astrologically, Pisces and Capricorn are a solid match and can form an organic kind of spontaneous reaction that is capable of producing an experience like that of the 15th century Italian Renaissance, which it did. Water and Earth has the ability to be a unifying factor like that of ancient bricks thousands of years old, glued together infinitely. An example is the Museum of Ancient Bricks’ prize possession which is a three pound sun- dried clay unit that is between nine and ten thousand years old. It is one of the few bricks removed by archeologists from a

settlement discovered beneath the ancient city of Jericho.

The mystical qualities of Lorenzo go beyond knowing how to advise masterful creators like Michelangelo and Sandro Botticelli. He was a stellar poet and due to his musical talents, among many other talents, Lorenzo ruled rhythmically with precise timing. Lorenzo also continued Cosimo’s Florentine Platonic Academy and ran it mostly from Carreggi, the Medici palace where Cosimo, Piero and Lorenzo all went to die. It is just one of the Medici castles where the Humanist’s gathered to discuss the possibilities that extend beyond earthly life.

Marsilio Ficino, a Libra, and close friend Lorenzo was advised by astrologer Marsilio Ficino, a Libra, and close friend philosopher Pico della Mirandola, also a Pisces. Angelo Politian (Poliziano), Lorenzo’s closest friend for all his life, was also a water sign Cancer. He was a poet that Lorenzo’s mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni (also a Cancer water sign) befriended and sought critiques from of her own poetry. Angelo wept deliriously inside one of his poems for Lorenzo’s passing.

Mystical attainment is a level that can only be achieved after one truly understands and experiences enlightenment and illumination.

Excerpt From Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Carnival Song: “Here’s the Wine God and his Lady: see how they admire each other! They know time is brief and flighty, so they spend it well together. All these nymphs and other gentry, to enjoy themselves know how. If you want, be happy now; for tomorrow’s never sure.”

Excerpt From Angelino Politian’s Lament of the Death of Lorenzo de’ Medici: “O That my head were waters, and

my eyes a fount of tears, that I might weep by day and weep by night! ...Beneath whose spreading boughs Phoebus himself more sweetly played and sang. Now all is mute and there is none to hear.”

Brief Divination: Powerful souls resonate eternally.

II - Parallel Universe Featured Characters: Plato (428 – 427 B.C ) Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) Card Astrological Sign: Pisces, Element: Water Divination: “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.”—Plato Plato (birth name Aristocles) was Socrates’ prize student and Aristotle was Plato’s prized student. The take center stage at the Scuola d’ Atene (School of Athens) shown on this card.

Poised centrally on steps behind them is skeptical Diogenes of Sinope (c.412-c.323) among other scholars and philosophers busily working on ideas, engaging in constructive debate and discussing their findings with key members of the Academy.

Platonic Love was a term named after Plato’s Academy but his Platonic Academy was far more than that of platonic relationships. The Academy was a place to incubate ideas and stretch the mind beyond the obvious.

Human souls, Plato felt, contain a spirit with appetite and the ability to reason. Those three basic elements: spirit, reason and appetite are at the core of what everything else stems from.

Aristotle, teacher of Alexander the Great, wrote about many subjects including physics, metaphysics, music, theater, politics, biology and zoology, poetry and theology along with a plethora of other subjects. His father was a doctor to King Amyntas of Macedon and Aristotle probably went through extensive training in medicine from his father as well. Aristotle’s combined works constitute a virtual encyclopedia of Greek knowledge.

He went to Athens around the age of 18 to continue his education at Plato’s Academy and remained there for about twenty years. Twenty-three hundred years after he died he is still one of the most influential people who ever lived.

Aristotle believed that life had no beginning or end.

He was born in the Greek village of Stagira where a sculpted likeness of him stands eternal. Plato is seated in a thinking position in his stone likeness eternally residing in Athens, Greece.

In closer observation of the 2-Parallel Universe card one will find that Plato and Aristotle appear to be duplicated.

Behind the skeptic Diogenes, sitting next to his cup, they are seen in the same pose. As well they are in front of him at center stage. Are they the shadows or are they in the physical obvious world? Possibly their books Timaeus and Ethics are conduits for them to be rooted in the obvious world while the school helps them transcend from the physical world.

As if residing on two different levels of reality, that of the 4th century and the 21st century, Plato was far beyond his time with thought provoking ideas similar to the M-Theory (Membrane Theory) being entertained and accepted by physicists, scientists and mathematicians in

the 21st century.

Based on the idea that we are comprised of tiny strings vibrating in multiple dimensions M-Theory composes, similar to an orchestra, a harmonious relationship with us and with the law of attraction. The Theory of Law of Attraction maintains that what you think about and feel becomes your reality. This is possible due to the vibrations caused by thoughts and feelings which become a type of a magnet pulling to you that which matches your thoughts and feelings.

Plato believed that the world of other dimensions were shadows of the world of thought and ideas in the physical. Great philosophers like Plato theorized that human existence is knitted into metaphysical realms transcending science, astrology and philosophy. Souls exist in several realities of dimensions always changing with an ability to collect different forms of self while existing as one human being.

M-Theory defines humans as an energy mass within a universe that offers different realities with infinite possibilities. The point of Plato’s Academy was to convey the message that rather than existing on a physical level human beings exist on an intellectual level or possibly he meant: on the universal ‘brane (membrane).

Brief Divination: Focusing on that which is an idea of the highest form of existence is where you are even if it is more than one place. Limitations are self imposed.

III - Gemistus Pletho Featured Characters: Gemistus Pletho (1355 – 1452/1454)

Divination: During the Council of Florence in 1438-1439 Gemistus Pletho met Cosimo di’ Medici who found Gemistus’s Neoplatonic philosophies to be profoundly important.

Pletho’s visions included integrating the Twelve Olympians, or principal gods of the Greek pantheon into education. The Twelve Olympians were: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus and Hermes.

Gemistus’s credentials proved to be important to Cosimo since Pletho was a founding father of Greek schooling in Western Europe. Cosimo’s interest in Plato was piqued by this embodiment of Plato’s spirit to the point of setting sights on building the Platonic Academy. Marsilio Ficino was chosen to translate all of Plato’s works into Latin. The Platonic Academy modeled themselves as a modern day Plato’s Academy, all thanks to the meeting between Cosimo and Gemistus.

George Gemistos was so influenced by Plato that he took on the name Plethon which had a similar meaning to Plato’s. He taught philosophy, astronomy, history and geography and authored De Differentiis which compared Plato and Aristotle’s concepts of God. This resulted in heresy.

He also wrote a summary of the Doctrines of Zoroaster (golden star light) (born between the 18th and 10th century BCE) which detailed his own eclectic polytheistic beliefs. Zoroaster was considered a sage, magician, and one who could work miracles, but mostly Zoroaster was seen as the Astrologer Sorcerer.

Zoroastrianism, a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster (found in card XX1 Theory of Everything - holding the universe) maintains the belief that a minimum of two of the four elements of astrology: fire and water, are instruments of ritual purity.

Purification ceremonies are the foundation of rituals.

Zoroastrian’s believe that life as we know it is a temporary realm for souls to participate as mortals to understand the differences between truth and falsehood. Ancient Greeks decidedly understood that unusual wisdom was generally the best wisdom and Zoroaster appeared to have the most unusual but rewarding intellect.

Plethon lectured in Florence at the request of the humanists which turned into a temporary school. He focused on the differences between Plato and Aristotle. Cosimo de’ Medici regularly attended Pletho’s lectures all the while gathering ideas for his Florentine Accademia Platonica.

After the council ended Pletho’s students continued to teach and bolstered him as one of the most important influences in the Italian Renaissance. Florentine humanist, Marsilio Ficino, called Plethon the second Plato. Greek scholar Cardinal Bessarion felt that Plato’s soul occupied Pletho’s body.

Marsilio Ficino’s Orphic system of natural magic was most likely derived from Plethon’s lectures. Orphic Mysteries stem from Orpheus’s shamanism. Orphic Mysteries include Orphic rules; understanding and applying them can aid one in making the correct transition to the correct path at death to whether drinking either from Mnemosyne (memory) or from Lethe, the river of complete forgetfulness. If one drinks from Mnemosyne they

remember their previous life when reincarnated. Doing so enables the thirsty to understand the true nature of the purpose of one’s incarnation which opens doors for the reincarnated to receive liberation.

Brief Divinations: Rebirth. Renew. Regenerate.

IV - Academy Card Astrological Sign: Aries Featured Characters: Members of the Florentine Platonic Academy including Marsilio Ficino (October 19, 1433 – October 1, 1499), Cristoforo Landino (1424 –September 24, 1498), Angelo Poliziano (July 14, 1454 –September 24, 1494), & Gentile de Becci (all bottom left), and the wealthy political families of Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci who were masterful at commerce and banking. Among them were other select members standing about in repose while the Angel appears to Zacharias in the background.

Divination: The early Renaissance Quattrocento bridged the Medieval period to the Renaissance. Land was no longer the medium for exchange. Money was. Commerce grew populating Italy with merchants and trade classes.

The Platonic Academy included some of the prominent merchants like the Tornaquinci and Tornabuoni. Federico Sassetti, Andrea Medici and Gianfrancesco Ridolfi, members of the Medici bank stand on the bottom right of the card listening attentively to Politian discuss elevated astrological sciences with Marsilio. Just above them on the right are painters Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 – January 11,1494) and Sebastiano Mainardi, (1466 -1513) his brother-in- law who has the appearance of being a water element type of personality.

He is dressed in the rose cloak while Domenico is dressed in an umber color cloak. It is not known the day of either of their births but Domenico has a very earthy quality about him. Michelangelo Buonarroti was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. An excerpt of Ghirlandaio’s Tornabuoni Chapel series on the life of Mary, can be seen in the Medici Tarot by Londa Marks, on the VII Forza Card.

Domenico Ghirlandaio was an important figure in the 15th century. He painted portraits of Lorenzo di’ Medici and paintings for Lorenzo including paintings that no longer exist. He also painted portraits of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families, Politian, Marsilio Ficino and others along with Tornabuoni Chapel frescoes, Sassetti chapel of Santa Trinita frescoes and Santa Maria Novella during the 15th century. Ghirlandaio is buried in Santa Maria Novella.

Cabalistic calculations show Domenico Ghirlandaio’s name number as 1203, meaning: 200. Lack of Resolution 3. Mysticism, Platonic Love, Daydreams.

While contemplating various ideas bantered around the room four girls from Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families are found enthralled by analyses the men are discussing as they yearn to interject their own ideas.

The Academy consumes the spirit of their gathering as I Mysticism watches on overseeing the alchemical energies before them. This is a secret gathering of intellectual prowess.

Gemistus Pletho can be seen coming through the door on the far left, after he has left the III Gemistus Pletho card.

One of the key members of the Academy, not shown here because he was somewhat of an independent thinker much of the time, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (shown

on the VII Hermeticism card) was an important member of the Platonic Academy of Florence who contributed theses on magic and natural philosophy, philosophy and religion. Like Marsilio Ficino, Pico was one of the those who pursued communion with spiritual truth, intuition, instinct and insight. Hermeticism was felt to be an important ingredient to how one lived their life and to the Platonic Academy. As Sir Thomas Browne said in his Religio Medici of 1643, “Now besides these particular and divided Spirits there may be (for ought I know) a universal and common Spirit to the whole world. It was the opinion of Plato, and is yet of the Hermetical Philosophers.”

Brief Divinations: Intellectual prowess.

V - Thomas Aquinas Card Astrological Sign: Taurus Featured Characters: Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225– March7,1274).

Divination: Thomas of Aquino was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, philosopher, modifier of Aristotelianism, Augustinian Neoplatonism and Proclean Neoplatonism (Progression of a human soul yearning to be with the One; the course and goal of true existence).

Thomas Aquinas did not consider himself to be a philosopher but his philosophical practices were astute. Much of modern philosophy was developed as a result of either agreement with his ideas or disagreement with them, especially in the area of political theory, natural law and ethics. His family expected him to become a Benedictine monk but at the age of nineteen he was already committed to entering the Dominican Order. He taught writing and Old Testament in Cologne,

went to Paris to study for his master’s degree in theology then in 1259 he returned to Naples until 1261 when he went to Orvieto and was appointed conventual lector.

In 1265 he was ordered by the Dominicans to establish a studium for the Dominican Order in Rome where he wrote a variety of works.

Five Ways is one of his bodies of work which parallels Thomas’s ideas with Aristotle’s theory about motion.

Essentially, here are the Five Ways: 1. The First Way of the Five Ways is Movement. Everything is moved by something else, but what moves the first thing? For St. Thomas Aquinas it was God. 2. The Second Way of the Five Ways is First Cause. Our world is created by our perception of what caused or created it. If cause was not there before our perception of it then nothing exists prior to it. A first cause had to be created by God. 3. The Third Way of the Five Ways is Contingencies.

Nature offers things that are possible and not possible; contingent beings. Each contingent did not exist at some point. Some beings exists out of its own necessity and does not receive its existence from another being but causes them. This is God. 4. The Fourth Way of the Five Ways is Degrees. A degree of gradation is found in things. Some better or worse than others. The maximum in any genus is the cause of that genus. Therefore, there must also be something which is to all beings the causes their being. This we call God.

5. The Fifth Way of the Five Ways is Design. Natural bodies work towards a goal. This is not by chance. Generally, natural things do not have knowledge. That which has little intelligence achieves goals through a type of intelligence directing it. Thomas knew this to be God. Christian theology has changed dramatically due to Thomas’s philosophical thought including in the Roman Catholic Church and Western philosophy. Thomas is seen as a bright light in Dante’s Divine Comedy Heaven of the Sun. Brief Divination: Movement, Cause, Contingencies, Degrees, Design, God. VI - Dante & Beatrice Card Astrological Sign: Gemini Featured Characters: Dante, Durante degli Alighieri (May/June c.1265 – September 14, 1321) Divination: Dante was born in Florence, Italy, and claimed to be a descendent of ancient Romans. Beatrice (Beatrice “Bice” di Folco Portinari) (1266–1290) was the muse of Dante whose mortal love had guided him for thirteen years, and whose immortal spirit purified his later life, and revealed to him the mysteries of Paradise. Beatrice appeared as a character in his two greatest works—La Vita Nuova and Divine Comedy. Dante was buried, Ravenna, Italy. Tomb of Beatrice in Santa Margherita de’ Cerchi is in Florence.

In his Divine Comedy Paradiso section Dante may have left a clue that he was born under the sign of Gemini, “As I revolved with the eternal twins, I saw revealed from hills to river outlets, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious.”

In 1265 the Sun was in Gemini approximately during the period May 11 to June 11.

Known as the Father of the Italian language and Supreme Poet in Italy Dante was a favored poet in the 15th century. His Divine Comedy, written after 1302, is considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. Roman poet and pagan Virgil was the guide through Dante’s Inferno or Hell where they met Homer, Ovid, Seneca, Horace, Socrates, and Plato. Aristotle and Aquinas are obviously intertwined throughout the cosmology and theology of The Divine Comedy while Judas and Brutus are there of course among men like Cassius and murderers, thieves and gluttons. In Purgatory where man is purged of sin before he ascends to Heaven, if lucky, Dante and his guide are stationed before arriving in the Garden of Eden.

We have reached the First Way of Aquinas or, as Aristotle called it, the prime mover where Dante receives an angelic vision of man made in God’s image.

So, for Dante, the way to God is found in human life.

This was Abelard’s message. Abelard was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. It was the message of Aquinas as well that there are two roads to truth, not one.

Dante said he met Beatrice at age nine and fell in love with her at first sight before he even spoke to her. After age eighteen they only exchanged greetings in the street frequently but they never knew each other well. The French phenomenon called Courtly Love was popular in poetry preceding the poetry Dante wrote about Beatrice.

Dante fell in love with a young girl by the name of Beatrice, the daughter of yet another wealthy family. It has been said that this one event determined Dante’s career

as a poet. She was the profound influence on his work.

Dolce Stil Novo (Sweet New Style, a term he coined himself) was Dante’s unique style. It became the style of modern poets and writers began using it in their own themes of Love (Amore), which had never been so emphasized before.

Dante studied Tuscan poetry, Occitan poetry of the troubadours and the Latin poetry of classical antiquity, including Cicero, Ovid, and especially Virgil.

Beatrice died in 1290 and Dante buried himself in his work especially Latin literature like Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae and Cicero’s De amicitia. He then became devoted to philosophical studies at religious schools like the Dominican one in Santa Maria Novella.

“You shall leave everything you love most: this is the arrow that the bow of exile shoots first. You are to know the bitter taste of others’ bread, how salty it is, and know how hard a path it is for one who goes ascending and descending others’ stairs.” —Dante Brief Divinations: Intense passion, love and the pain the comes with it.

VII - Metaphysics Card Astrological Sign: Cancer (Water) Featured Characters: Plato (428 – 427 B.C ), Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), Petrarch (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 – 21 December 1375), Guido Cavalcanti (between 1250 and 1259 – August 1300), Marsilio Ficino (October 19, 1433 – October 1, 1499) and CristoforoLandino (1424–24September1498);a group of some of the most important minds in our civilization

gather to solve the puzzles of life. Divination: Aristotle believed that the first philosopher was Thales (c. 624 BC – c. 546 BC); a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Miletus in Asia Minor and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Aristotle’s Metaphysics explains that Thale’s belief was that the world started from water. Diogenes Laertius claimed that Thales insisted that water makes up the principle of all things, and Heraclitus Homericus said that Thales concluded such from watching moist matter turn into air, dirt and mucous atonepoint. Thalessaidthatallthingsarecreated from a single first cause, origin or beginning and that the first cause was water or some kind of moisture. Thales also believed that the world is harmonious; comprised of structures based upon harmony making it intelligible. Thus, being able to understand things rationally.

Metaphysics asks what is there and what is it like?

Though it is difficult to explain metaphysics there are few who disagree that it goes beyond physics.

The word Metaphysics was not used in Aristotle’s time, the actual word is derived from Aristotle’s fourteen books that are considered Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

Aristotle’s branch of philosophy was compartmentalized and he named four categories of his Metaphysics: first philosophy, first science, wisdom and theology.

It is thought that Andronicus of Rhodes, an editor of Aristotle’s works, titled the fourteen books “Ta meta ta phusika” (Greek plural noun-phrase that became the singular noun ‘metaphysica’ in Medieval Latin) meaning: after the physicals or the ones after the physical ones, the

“physical ones.” Metaphysics is the first causes of things.

This eventually has become a word covering many aspects and otherworldly problems of philosophy which may be even greater than what Aristotle’s Metaphysics covered. With this title “Ta meta ta phusika” those who were anxious to delve into Aristotle’s works were first forewarned that Metaphysics should only be approached after mastering the books about the natural world, natural change “the physical ones.”

Brief Divination: Problems can become solved through otherworldly approaches. Be aware of other problems that can arise from the solutions.

VIII - Hermeticism Card Astrological Sign: Leo (Fire) Featured Characters: Italian mercurial philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) (Pisces - Water). Pico’s astrological positions for his birthday are: Sun: Pisces, Moon: Taurus, Mercury: Aquarius, Venus: Pisces, Mars: Scorpio, Jupiter: Capricorn, Saturn: Aquarius, Uranus: Virgo, Neptune: Libra, Pluto: Leo, Ascendant: Libra, Midheaven: Cancer, Numerology: Birth path 22. Divination: At the age of 31 he died suddenly suspected of foul play.

His ardent supporter, Lorenzo de’ Medici, died two years earlier.

Hermeticism is associated with alchemy, magick and philosophical and religious beliefs especially during the Renaissance period. This movement was derived from the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus who is a combination of the Egyptian god Thoth with the Greek Hermes.

These beliefs have heavily influenced the Western Esoteric Tradition.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was a leader in Hermeticism during 15th century Florence, having greatly influenced Marsilio Ficino (October 19, 1433 – October 1, 1499, Libra - Air) as well as vice versa.

Fire over water governs this card though Cancer (water) is generally associated with Fire of Water, but in this case we are going to include Pisces because Pico’s Pluto was in Leo, a fire element. Fire, such as sun spots, can emit water vapor. Essentially, there is evidence that sun spots spit out water; lots of water, and steam is released on the sun near the fire.

Pluto in Leo, as is with Pico, urges one to take action from a positive base. And in Pico’s case leadership towards helping others realize their own reason for behaving in specific ways was important to him. Pico immersed himself with goals of expressing what he firmly believed he knew and felt. He had insight to Hermeticism and what it offers to those who understand and apply it.

When Pluto is in Leo, consciousness and will direct destiny like a magnificent symphony in action.

Pico met Lorenzo de’ Medici (1 January 1449 - April 9, 1492) and Marsilio Ficino when he first arrived to settle in Florence in November of 1484. It was the same day that Marsilio had chosen to publish his translations of Plato from Greek to Latin. Astrologically, the planets were aligned perfectly to orchestrate these life changing events.

Pico’s genius was admired by all including Lorenzo de’ Medici who watched over, supported and protected him for the rest of his life beginning soon after they met.

Lorenzo’s empathic support probably enabled Pico to

survive tenyears longer than he would have otherwise.

In 1485, Pico studied at University of Paris, the most important philosophy and theology centre in Europe.

Most likely, this is where Pico began his 900 Theses and realized he would defend them in public forum.

Pico blossomed as a child. He was mentally astute at an unusually early age showing advanced development and was schooled in Latin and Greek and knew Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic.

He had an incredible memory. At age 23, he wrote The Manifesto of the Renaissance (Oration on the Dignity of Man) to defend his 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magick. It is a keystone of Renaissance humanism. His interests also included: Politics and history.

In “De hominis dignitate” (Oration on the Dignity of Man, 1486) Pico made it very clear how important man’s journey is in search of knowledge especially of Neoplatonic ideas. “De hominis dignitate” was an introduction to his 900 theses — an example of creatively combining different humanist beliefs such as Platonism, Neoplatonism (modern term for religious and mystical philosophies developed in 3rd century AD, based on Plato and earlier Platonist’s teachings), Aristotelianism, Hermeticism and Kabbalah (strives to define the intrinsic qualities of the universe, the human being, the nature and purpose of existence and other philosophical questions of existence). Pico explored the arcane as he knew that’s where the truth was especially in regards to Plato whose extensive explorations for mystic cults of the gods revealed to him a wealth of knowledge and esoteric secrets.

Renaissance thought was altered by Pico’s influence causing all who surrounded him to analyze magick and

it’s profound effect on humanity. He felt that intellect combined with truth could elevate humanity and the philosophy of nature while mastering self.

In February of 2008, an article was released in Rome, Italy regarding Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s bones having been exhumed to discover how he died. They also exhumed Angelo Poliziano (14 July 1454 – 24 September 1494, Cancer - Water) at the same time. After extensive testing they concluded that Pico had been poisoned with a toxic level of arsenic. High levels of mercury and lead were found. They also said that the killer/s came from Pico’s closest circle.

Pico had befriended Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola (21 September 1452 – 23 May 1498 - Libra - Air) who became an enemy with Medici’s due to jealousy of their power. Savonarola was at Lorenzo’s side shortly before he died only because he convinced Lorenzo that he was a conduit to God. After Lorenzo died his son Piero ruled Florence for two years until he was exiled then Savonarola became the leader; combined with being a priest. One of his first acts was to make sodomy a capital offence whereas homosexuality had been tolerated before his rule.

The authorities have put blame on Lorenzo’s son Piero de’ Medici (15th February 1472 – 28th December 1503), also known as Piero the Unfortunate, for Pico’s death.

Even though Pico was friends with Savonarola he may not have held the same beliefs as him and the friendship may not have been as it seemed. As well, Savonarola had a way of coercing someone into a situation like a ‘friendship’ when it really was a self serving tactic. Savonarola seemed to collect people in any fashion he could so he would appear to have a lot of followers. And, Pico, was

capable of being persuaded by Savonarola like Lorenzo who bought into his Godly connections.

Still, Piero could’ve been suspicious or had other reasons to impose a death sentence on Pico and Angelo. And it is assumed that Piero had his secretary Cristoforo da Calamaggiore administer the poison. Calamaggiore admitted to giving Pico medicine because he was sick so authorities now blame him or both he and Piero for Pico’s death.

Then again, Savonarola may have told Pico something that he later regretted and fearing Pico could let it be known Savonarola could’ve poisoned Pico. Possibly though, Pico and Angelo accused Savonarola of killing Lorenzo and this may have put Savonarola in fear of losing his position of leader of Florence and had them both killed? Savonarola was quite adept at using trickery to deceive others. And his masterful ability to win loyalty through his contrived and convincing personality was dangerous to say the least. More things point to him having been sociopath than a caring priest. Savonarola was more like a rabid wolf in a Dominican Friar’s cloak capable of doing anything to get Medici power that he was so hungry for. And he eventually did in 1494 (the same year Angelo and Pico died), at least until Florence got fed up with him in 1497 when he was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI (Borgia Pope). Then in 1498 he was charged with heresy and other crimes called religious errors by the Borgia pope.

For a few weeks Florence had the pleasure of torturing Savonarola on a rack. They literally tore his body apart except for his right arm so he could sign his confession.

On the day of his execution, he was stripped of his clerical vestments, degraded as a heretic and literally burned

at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria; the exact same place that Savonarola held the Bonfire of the Vanities and convinced Sandro Botticelli (1 March 1, 1445 – 17 May, 1510, Pisces - Water) to burn some of his paintings.

It was ordered to mix Savonarola’s ashes with brushwood and be thrown into the Arno river beside the Ponte Vecchio so no one could claim any part of his body as a relic.

Angelo Poliziano - was also a poison victim exhumed at the same time Pico was. It was believed he could’ve been one of Pico della Mirandola’s lovers. Syphilis which had already killed thousands of others all over Europe at the end of the 15th Century has been considered as reason for death too; yet it is another reason to consider Savonarola.

Pico’s remains were re-buried in St. Mark’s Church after the exhumation. After examining his remains it was revealed that Pico had actually been well over six feet tall with a larger than normal skull, a strong and broad frame - unlike his portraits portraying him as frail. Angelo was five feet tall.

Note: While Piero was exiled from Florence he drowned north of Naples in River Garigliano as he tried to escape Louis de la Tremouille’s French forces.

Brief Divinations: The Latin word for eye is Oculus; the mind’s eye. With earthy Florence in the background grounding Pico, he is peacefully seated acting as a conduit drawing down magick from universal energies with his rod scribed with infinity symbols which appear to be oculus’s representing his ever present vigilant gaze.

Hermeticism. Magick. Alchemy. Strength. Source of

support. Potency.

Hermetic Secret: There are two symbols for Pisces. One is two fish swimming in opposite directions which form an oculus (eye) and, the other is two half moons when put together also forming an oculus.

There is a rod left over after the two half moons are flipped horizontally. It is the rod of Hermeticism; a conductor of magick.

Authors Note: I had no intentions of writing the information this card portrays before starting but as I researched and put together all the information I was overwhelmed with the feeling that Pico was imploring me to reveal that Savonarola was the one who killed both he and Angelo.

This is normally the Strength card in tarot. And, Pico was certainly conveying to me the amount of Strength he still has through Hermeticism; he practically wrote this card’s information, especially about Savonarola. In fact I thought I was finished with the card with the paragraph ending in mastering self. Then I began research for the IX-Soul card and came across the information about Pico’s bones being exhumed -- which had nothing to do with Petrarch IX-Soul card but Pico was apparently not finished with his card. Thus, Strength of Hermeticism and Pico, in action.

IX-Soul Card Astrological Sign: Virgo (Earth) Featured Characters: Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) (Cancer - Water) Virgo and Cancer can bring out the best in the other. Earth of Water; that which forms a solid. Divination: The process of developing the Renaissance included an alchemy of

intellect, philosophy, humanism and polemic environments. Petrarch was a favorite writer of 15th century philosophers to study. His influence was an important ingredient in the Renaissance chemistry which lasted for 200 years after he died.

Francesco Petrarch was a very introspective philosopher, humanist and writer who shaped curious minds of the Renaissance. His struggles became their struggles as they analyzed and picked apart his ideas and thoughts. They admired him and called him the father of Humanism and of the Renaissance.

Introspective Petrarch set trends with ideas such as combining abstract entities with religious philosophies.

Further, he emphasized that achievements outside of religion or anything spiritual in nature was not exclusive of having a genuine relationship with God; rather, as a devout Catholic, he rationalized that creativity and intellect was God-given, thus, should be used to its fullest capacity. Education in ancient history and literature he felt held practical value especially of thought and action and that it coincided with practical and moral value.

Renaissance students found that Petrarch’s sonnets opened doors for their fertile imagination to derive new ideas such as: The Petrarch sonnet, a verse form in poetry also called the Italian sonnet, was developed by Petrarch; a unique way to express love which is unobtainable. An original Italian sonnet includes or is based upon harmony while dividing a poem form’s 14 lines into two parts: an octave (first eight lines) and a sestet (last six lines).

Typically, a rhyme scheme for the octave(themeorproblem)is: abbaabba.

There are a few possibilities for the sestet (resolution),in-

cludingcddcdd,cdecde,cddec e,cdcdcd, c.Forexample: Two groups Octave - 8 lines Sestet - 6 lines 14 lines total • The Octave typically introduces theme or problem. cThe Sestet provides the resolution.

• The Octave (the 1st 8 lines) with a rhyme scheme of abba abba • The Sestet (the last 6 lines) rhyming variously, but usually cdecde or cdccdc.

• Below is one of Petrarch’s Sonnet translated into English by William Wordsworth, London, 1802: Example: Petrarchan Sonnet Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: - A • England hath need of thee: she is a fen - B Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, - B Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, - A Octave - Introduces the theme or problem Have forfeited their ancient English dower - A Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; - B Oh! raise us up, return to us again; - B And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. - A Octave - Introduces the theme or problem Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; - C Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: - D Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, - D So didst thou travel on life’s common way, - E In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart - C The lowliest duties on herself did lay. - E Sestet - Solves the problem Petrarch stands at center stage of the Platonic Acade-

my holding an opened version of Plato’s Timaeus as if releasing its magickal properties right off the pages and into the Platonic Academy. Geometric patterns outline stark differences between the physical world and the never changing eternal world while the purpose of the universe exposes a network of its properties; the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. All of which are components of Anima mundi, the soul of the world. Like the soul animates the human body, Anima mundi animates and enlivens the world. This idea of Plato’s became an important aspect of Neoplatonic systems.

Further, Plato felt that each of the four elements made up certain Platonic solids with the elements; of earth: a cube, of air: an octahedron, of water: an icosahedron, of fire: a tetrahedron. Each composed of triangles shaped 30-60-90 and the 45- 45-90 degree triangles. No other shape would be permitted.

Each element could be broken down into its component triangles then put back together to form the other elements. Thus, the elements would be interconvertible.

This idea was a precursor to alchemy.

Author’s Note: There are many things going on with this card as it combines the soul’s harmony, intellect, geometry and science. Petrarch’s sonnets combined with Timaeus’s universe and Plato’s geometry aids one in understanding the soul’s purpose. Petrarch fed his soul with many things including a collection of ancient Greek manuscripts he had in his library which contained most of Plato’s works. One summer’s eve, the day before his 70th birthday on July 19 in the year 1374 Petrarch died peacefully at Arqua, Italy, alone in his beloved library.

Many of his manuscripts have been stolen; some are now

in Rome and Vatican libraries while some are housed in Paris and London libraries. Like Petrarch, some of his beloved manuscripts and ancient books have crumbled to dust or have become petrified because of the way they were stored. And, there were some of Petrarch’s works that were even wadded into formless clumps stuck together as if by glue never to be read by curious philosophers and intellects of the future, lost to time.

Brief Divination: Harmonic convergence is when the nature of the universe unifies the soul and its purpose.

Soul’s purpose equals harmony. Elevated awareness.

X - Rhetoric Card Astrological Sign: Sagittarius (Fire) Featured Characters: Seven Liberal Arts.

Divination: Persuasive and effective language stems from knowing how to apply the art of Rhetoric. Plato’s dialogues have been used to teach this subject among others such as philosophy, ethics, logic and mathematics. Aristotle had a systematization of rhetoric. Three persuasive audience appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos are important aspects of rhetoric. Five principles of rhetoric are: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.

The High Middle Ages was a period when the first western universities were founded.

Curriculum included the seven liberal arts which were: the Trivium (education): grammar, rhetoric, logic. And, the Quadrivium (subjects or arts): geometry, arithmetic, music, astronomy. In order to study Theology, the seven liberal arts had to be mastered. By about 1500 the Renaissance humanists were able to include architecture, painting and sculpture in the liberal arts. Rhetoric,

derived from Greek word (rhetorikos) means oratorical.

Rhetoricians study discourses of broad scope including the natural and social sciences, fine art, religion, journalism, digital media, fiction, history, cartography, and architecture, along with the more traditional domains of politics and the law. Public relations, lobbying, law, marketing, professional and technical writing, and advertising are modern professions that employ rhetorical practitioners. Today rhetoric addresses a broader area than it did in ancient times.

Music plays on two musical instruments at the center top of this card. She touches the keyboard with her left hand while being helped by the boy. Her right hand rings a bell. Logic, in the bottom left teaches a student with Rhetoric; to the right with folded legs in front of two students. Brief Divinations: Education and discipline creates a chain reaction propelling one towards gains in all areas of life, seen and unseen.

XI - Pallas Athene Card Astrological Sign: Sagittarius (Fire) Featured Characters: Pallas Athene Divination: Plato said she was the mind of god; the Greek god Zeus. Athena was not born from a union of two people, rather, when Zeus had the idea of creating a world, through a word (logos), Athena embodied his initial ideas.

The word logos when used by Aristotle applied the term to “reasoned discourse� in the field of rhetoric. It was an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion.

Goddess of wisdom, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, female arts, crafts, justice and skill, Pallas Athene was worshiped throughout Greece. She was named Athena of the city.

Brief Divinations: To resolve issues her choice of weapon was wisdom.

XII - Mathematical Logic Card Astrological Sign: Pisces (Water) Featured Characters: Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), Archimedes (c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) born in Syracuse, Sicily, Magna Graecia (Great Greece). Divination: Various members of the Platonic Academy are shown with select characters from a fresco by Raffaello Sanzio entitled, School of Athens. Claudius Ptolemy holds an earth sphere near Archimedes’ head as he draws out mathematical solutions to questions like, “What is our purpose” on a chalkboard for all to see. Aristotle ponders the ideas being discussed as he gazes into the sky.

In the distance Saint Sebastian (died c. 288), a Christian saint and martyr, who is said to have been killed during the Roman emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians stands on a hill with arrows pierced through his body viewing the absorbed group of intellects as he fights for breaths of life. His feet are tied together preventing him from walking away from his position and his hands are tied behind his back preventing him to wave for help. Like the martyr on the hill, the school is lost in its own world trying to solve the problem of how to escape life’s boundaries of human existence. In understanding foundational principals like Mathematical Logic one understands aspects of mathematics. Philosophical logic then becomes clearer. The process of discovering the

relationship our lives have with numerology (mathematics) can open doors such as in the art of divination with tarot cards can. Their related numbers add a profoundly broader scope of any situation.

The School of Athens was busy with active minds problem solving and posing new questions with each newly found answer. Mathematical Logic and the power of numbers played a significant role in understanding life.

In ancient times Archimedes may have been the greatest mathematician. Modern day peers too say he was the most talented mathematician of all time. Plutarch wrote: “He placed his whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations where there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life.”

As a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer Archimedes is said to have remarked of the lever: “Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth.”

Brief Divination: The focus should be on solutions, not problems. Numerology, mathematics and calculations can be useful in determining the choice or decision at hand.

XIII - Death of Socrates Card Astrological Sign: Scorpio (Water) Featured Characters: Socrates (c. 469 BC–399 BC).

Divination: The development of self instead of pursuing material wealth was the way to live, Socrates believed.

Plato’s Dialogues hint at a mystical Socrates as he discussed reincarnation and religions of mystery, though this is considered to be Plato talking about Plato. Never-

theless, one cannot clearly draw a line as to where Plato’s views ende and Socrates began and vice versa.

The Socratic Problem stems from doubt that Socrates even existed. Further, Plato featured Socrates as a character to voice his own philosophies in his dialogues.

Thus, it has been difficult to know what is accurate about Socrates since he did not write about his philosophies, himself. Essentially those who did were his students, foremost was Plato — thought of as the most informed about Socrates’ life and philosophy. Contemporaries such as Xenophon, Aristotle and Aristophanes also provide us with insight to Socrates.

Though no one knows for sure whether Socrates worked or not, most feel he did not. Discussing philosophy was what was important to him and regarded as his occupation or, rather, his art.

He firmly denied accepting payment for teaching and felt that his proof for such was his impoverished state as money would’ve diminished his devotion and sacrifice to his art.

Shaped much like a Buddha, Socrates was referred to as the “gadfly” by Plato. And, like a gadfly Socrates would upset the status quo by posing disturbing or irritating questions. Gadflies sting a horse into action and Socrates certainly stung various Athenians with his irritating his ideas of justice and the pursuit of goodness. These very ideas and attempts to improve the Athenians’ sense of justice may have been the exact thing that sent him to his execution.

In Plato’s Apology, Socrates’ life as the “gadfly” of Athens started when his friend Chaerephon asked the Oracle

at Delphi if anyone was wiser than Socrates; the Oracle answered that no one was wiser. Socrates could not understand this because he did not think he was wise at all and decided to test this notion. Wise men, poets, artisans and statesmen of Athens were chosen to dispute the Oracle’s statement. After extensive questioning, Socrates felt that though they knew quite a bit, they really knew very little and were far from wise.

Socrates concluded that the Oracle, after all, was right.

He saw that those deemed wise and thought themselves to be wise, really weren’t. Yet, he knew he was not wise, which, made him the wisest one of all because he was the only person aware of his own ignorance.

Ultimately, Socrates’ paradoxical wisdom made the distinguished Athenians he questioned a publicly mockery. They turned against him accusing him of flawed standards and lack of morality.

Xenophon wrote that Socrates purposefully gave a defiant defense to the jury because “he believed he would be better off dead.” Further, Socrates justified his reasoning that he was aging anyway and didn’t want to go through the pains that came with it. Plus, he truly believed it was time for him to die.

Plato’s Phaedo describes how Socrates resisted Crito’s pleas to at least try to escape from prison and his death sentence, but Socrates drank down the Hemlock poison.

His accusers who cited two impious acts: One for failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledged and the other for introducing new deities sat by awaiting his demise. Obliging, Socrates walked around until his legs became numb then fell to his death bed. His foot was pinched by the man who gave him the poison but Soc-

rates felt nothing. Soon the numbness claimed his heart then body. With his last breaths Socrates said to Crito, “We owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please, don’t forget to pay the debt.” Asclepius was the Greek god for curing illness. Possibly, Socrates’ last words meant that “death is the cure and freedom for the soul from the body.”

During Socrates life he saw the Athenian decline, the defeat by Sparta and its allies in the Peloponnesian War. Brief Divinations: In order to understand one’s purpose, insight should be gathered from questions rather than extracting single answers. The soul occupies a body (with a particular chemistry, structure, composition, properties, and reactive characteristics of substances) in order to carry out one’s mission per that life sentence. When the mission is completed, soul leaves the body (shell) to go on to the next mission.

XIV - Oracles Card Astrological Sign: Sagittarius (Fire) Featured Characters: Libyan Sibyl named Phemonoe Divinations: Libyan Sibyl was the prophetic priestess presiding over the Zeus Ammon Oracle (Zeus represented with the horns of Ammon) at Siwa Oasis in the Libyan Desert. The Libyans gave her the name Sibyl. Zeus was dearly loved by his Libyan queen; the first woman to chant oracles. She foretold the coming of the day when that which is hidden shall be revealed. Thereafter, female prophets became known as sibyls. She lived most of her life in Samos, a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, rich and powerful in ancient times.

Poet of Athens, Serapion described in his verses the essence of Sybil’s magick in that the prophetess performed her divinations even after she left the physical earth

because she became of the earth. She became the cool waters and streams, the fields of grasses, flowers, and all that grew from the earth. She became a part of that which beasts fed upon and even that which left their bodies recycling with the earth again. Her mythological voice became oracular whispers and omens coming from the mouth of the moon which glowed the face of her soul.

Upon the Oasis of Siwa, Sybil is said to have pronounced Alexander the Great as the legal Pharaoh of Egypt and divine historical figure after he founded Alexandria.

“I feel as lit by fire a cold countenance That burns me from afar and keeps itself ice-chill; A strength I feel two shapely arms to fill Which without motion moves every balance.”

— (excerpt from a Michelangelo Sonnet written as an expression of his love, or Platonic affection, was given to Tommaso dei Cavalieri1509–1587).

Brief Divination: The bounties of life are rich with a blend of magickal properties if only one takes the time to see it, hear it and feel it.

XV - Inferno Card Astrological Sign: Capricorn (Earth) Featured Characters: Dante’s Inferno Divination: The nine circles of Hell include the first one known as Limbo where in the castle Dante meets the poets Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, the Amazon queen Penthesilea, the mathematician Euclid, the scientist Pedanius Dioscorides, the statesman Cicero, the first doctor Hippocrates, the philosophers Socrates, Averroes, and Aristotle, and many others, including Julius Caesar in his role as Roman general (“in his armor, falcon-eyed”), Electra, Camilla,

Latinus, Lucius Junius Brutus, Lucretia, and Orpheus.

Interestingly, he also sees Saladin in Limbo (Canto IV). Dante implies that all virtuous non-Christians find themselves here, although he later encounters two (Cato of Utica and Statius) in Purgatory and two (Trajan and Ripheus) in Heaven.

The second circle through the ninth circles of Hell are: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and finally Treachery where two poets escape Hell by climbing down Satan’s prickly fur, passing through the center of the earth with a consequent change in the direction of gravity, causing Dante to at first think they are returning to Hell — but then, down suddenly becomes up. They emerge in the other hemisphere just before dawn on Easter Sunday, beneath a glittering sky of stars.

Catholic religion specifies that materialism denies the existence of both deities and souls. Plato however, called Battle of the Giants, the battle of the ideas between the Materialists for which reality is only matter (coma) and the Friends of the Forms, for which exists an incorporeal reality; in other words, a world of ideas, superior, incorruptible, that nobody can see. Plato first described these in a pejorative way and qualified them as the “terribles.” Plato presented them as only attached to what they can see, touch or feel, such as sensualists. Plato’s criticism of materialism led him to try to integrate it with mathematics.

These criticisms were undoubtedly directed against Protagoras (485-410 BC), against the Cyrenaic (The Cyrenaics were an ultra-hedonist Greek school of philosophy founded in the 4th century BC) school of philosophy or perhaps against the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus. Plato was concerned with limits of human knowl-

edge. It tries to arrive at a knowledge of knowledge itself. It tries to answer such questions as: Is the world as people perceive it the basic reality, or do people perceive only appearances that conceal basic reality?

Knowledge may be regarded as having two parts. There is, first of all, what one perceives using the five senses.

Next there is the way these perceptions are organized ...

Materialists insist that all activities of mind and emotion are based on physical properties. One example of accounting for this is that thought is only the function of a material brain and caused by electrical connections within the brain tissue. Materialism states that all matter is made of atoms, which are limitless in number, and the different appearance of objects are a result of the difference in size and shape of atoms and by the different ways these atoms combine.

Inferno is the Italian word for Hell and is the first part of Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio (purgatory) then Paradiso (paradise). It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through what is largely the medieval concept of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. Dante’s Inferno puts the exact core at Satan’s groin Dante passes through the gate of Hell, region.

Dante passes through the gates of Hell which bears an inscription, the ninth (and final) line of which is the famous phrase “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate,” which translates to “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Dante made it his business to integrate learning into the vernacular forms, and to make it accessible even to the unschooled.

Brief Divinations: Thought processing can place one in either Hell or Heaven. Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, Treachery.

XVI - Purgatorio Card Astrological Sign: Sagittarius(Fire) Featured Characters: Dante (May/June c.1265 – September 14, 1321), & Florence, Italy “As I revolved with the eternal twins, I saw revealed from hills to river outlets, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious” —Dante Alighieri Divination: The second part of Dante’s Divine Comedy is Purgatorio (Italian for Purgatory) followed by the Inferno (Hell), and preceding the Paradiso (Paradise). Purgatorio describes Dante’s climb to the Mount of Purgatory with Roman poet Virgil as his guide. The journey through Purgatory’s seven levels of suffering and spiritual growth through the seven deadly sins eventually takes the soul to Earthly Paradise.

At the entrance of the nine circles is an angel. At the top of the nine circles are a happy and content couple who have made it through the tests that purgatory presented.

Dante, poised between the mountain of purgatory and the heavenly city of Florence, displays the famous incipit Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita (Halfway through the journey of our life). At the shores of Purgatory, Dante and Virgil meet Cato, a pagan who has been placed by God as the general guardian of the approach to the mountain. The seven terraces of Purgatory are: The Proud, The

Envious, The Wrathful, The Slothful, The Covetous, The Gluttonous, The Lustful.

Virgil guides Dante through the seven terraces that correspond to the seven deadly sins also known as the seven roots of sinfulness. The Divine Comedy describes a Christian’s life of all sin having arisen from love – either perverted love directed towards others’ harm, deficient love, or the disordered love of good things.

As the soul reaches each terrace for each particular sin, a sin is purged appropriately, and one can leave Purgatory if they choose —once they have corrected the reasons within themselves for having committed that particular sin. The structure of the poetic description of these terraces is well organized unlike that of the Inferno. Each terrace comes with an appropriate prayer, beatitude, historical and mythological examples of the relevant deadly sin and of its opposite virtue.

“From that most holy wave I now returned to Beatrice; remade, as new trees are renewed when they bring forth new boughs, I was pure and prepared to climb unto the stars.” —Dante Alighieri Brief Divinations: The Proud, The Envious, The Wrathful, The Slothful, The Covetous, The Gluttonous, The Lustful. Soul renewal process.

XVII - Theurgy Card Astrological Sign: Aquarius(Air) Featured Character: Latin-speaking philosopher, Roman Theologian and thinker, St. Augustine of Hippo (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430) (Scorpio (Water)

Divination: St. Augustine was influenced by: Platonism, Neoplatonism, Christian philosophy, Stoicism, Phenomenology and Hermeneutics Thomas Aquinas, Cicero, Virgil, Aristotle and Plato.

In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. Also featured is: Penitence clothed in a ragged dark Dominican habit and is seen next to St. Augustine pointing to heaven, taken from The Calumny of Apelles with the naked figure of Truth.

Augustine’s view of the Biblical text was that it should not be interpreted literally. Rather as metaphorical even if contradictory of what we know from science and our God-given reason.

The literal passages of Scriptures does not always mean that they are history but at times are extended metaphors.

In The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, St. Augustine wrote this excerpt: “It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience ... he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are.” – De Genesi ad literam 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [408] The Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion hold that St. Augustine is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church. He is also the patron of the Augustinian religious order and a memorial is celebrated on the day of

his death, 28 August. St. Augustine is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses.

During the years 373 and 374, Augustine taught grammar at Thagaste. The following year, he moved to Carthage to conduct a school of rhetoric. St. Augustine approved of the Neoplatonic thought which contributed to the rites of Greek thought as it entered into the Christian and European intellectual traditions.

St. Augustine’s writing about the human will and a central topic in ethics proved that he was influenced by the works of Virgil (known for his teaching on language), Cicero (known for his teaching on argument), and Aristotle (particularly his Rhetoric and Poetics). His descriptive approach to intentionality, memory, and language as these phenomena are experienced within consciousness and time anticipated and inspired the insights of modern phenomenology and hermeneutic.

As one of the first Christian ancient Latin authors, Augustine clearly had anthropological vision. In his eyes the human being is a perfect unity of body and soul. Made up of four elements, the body is a three-dimensional object whereas the soul has no spatial dimensions. Soul is a kind of substance, participating in reason, fit for ruling the body.

Augustine was not preoccupied, as Plato and Descartes were, with going too much into details in efforts to explain the metaphysics of the soul-body union. St. Augustine showed the differences between fire that burns away sin and the everlasting fire that consumes the damned. In this, he disagreed with Zoroastrianism who believed that

fiery purification will save humankind.

Union with The One, is the goal of any Saint. It was also the goal of Henosis in Platonism, and Neoplatonism. St Augustine may have had a limited knowledge of Theurgy but understood some aspects of it as it was used as a religious purification ritual in the magickal section of Platonism. The process included cleansing sin from self thus allowing for higher philosophical contemplation.

Chaldean Oracles of the second century Neo-Platonist’s shows the first recorded use of the term Theurgy which the intention is to invoke a magickal action while evoking a godly presence. Theurgy is the practice of rituals, a type of magick to call down divine and supernatural intervention. Education is important for comprehending knowledge of Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoras but also with the Chaldaean Oracles. Theurgist works ‘like with like’: at the material level, with physical symbols and ‘magick’; at the higher level, with mental and purely spiritual practices.

Theurgy is a type of magick consisting of magickal practices performed to evoke benevolent spirits in order to see them or know them or in order to influence them or provoke them to disclose mysteries.

Brief Divinations: The magick of a given situation stems from the ability to connect with the proper spirits. Proper education, knowledge and understanding of how to achieve magick returns highest results.

XVIII - Theory of Forms Card Astrological Sign: Pisces (Water) Featured Character: The Minotaur Divination: Plato’s Theory of Forms or theory of Ideas

asserts that non-material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.

The forms and ideas that enter into and go out of one resemble real existences modeled after their patterns in an inexplicable manner. Plato mentions these entities in his dialogues through characters such as Socrates suggesting that these Forms are the only tangible items to study which offer true knowledge. Forms, he thought, would aid in understanding universals.

The union of the moon spirit, part human, part bull, a mythological Form, represents a sacred marriage of soul and man who is in this case named The Minotaur, the infamia di Creti. The beastly Form makes an appearance in Dante’s Inferno where he forces his way through craggy boulders on the slope towards the entrance of the Seventh Circle.

Dante, along with his loyal guide Virgil, come upon a taurine (bull) figure, the agitated Minotaur, who stood among the Men of Blood; those with the violent natures that sent them there. They quickly passed by the enraged Minotaur to find the centaur guards of the flaming Phlegethon, also known as, the River of Blood. The river Styx flowed parallel. The goddess Styx was in love with Phlegethon, but was consumed by his flames and sent to Hades. Eventually when Hades allowed her river to flow through, they reunited.

Brief Divination: That which appears desirous may not quench their thirst for it or, at minimum be a temporary quenching.

XIX - Illumination Card Astrological Sign: Leo (Fire) Featured Character: The Satyr Mourning over a Nymph & Archangel Gabriel Divination: Cosimo de’ Medici il Vecchio (the Elder) chose Marsilio Ficino as his resident Humanist philosopher in the 1460s. Marsilio would translate Plato’s Platonic philosophies into Latin. He would convey that the natural universe was based on humanity; it was the center of it. And, that personal relationships with God were fraternal or platonic love. This would be the closest a human being could get to emulating or understanding the love of God. Or, is it?

In the Annunciation a revelation to Mary from the archangel Gabriel showed her that she would conceive a child to be born the Son of God. In Greek and Roman mythology a Satyr, half man and half beast, sometimes seen as companion of Bacchus the Graeco-Roman religion’s god of fruitfulness and vegetation was also known as the god of wine and ecstasy. He is tending to the woman who appears to be wounded in the bottom of the scene, or experiencing stigmata, possibly dreaming or foreseeing the future. Her belly seems full and she lies among dogs (the word: dog backward is God). One which seems to have empathy for her, Three others are in the distance, symbolical of the three crosses on the hill. The unearthly Satyr practically grows from the ground, or her dreams.

The Satyr seen in what appears to be the Death of Procris (Italian: Morte di Procri), may just be a hazy atmosphere of a waking dream or vision. She is below the Annunci-

ation angel, and the scene was inspired by Ovid’s tale of the death of Procris at the hands of her husband Cephalus, in Metamorphoses VII. Metamorphoses of course means: change of shape. The Latin narrative poem, Metamorphoses, is comprised of fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar completed in AD 8. Her blue and gold veil is barely seen but the color blue is always associated with Our Lady, Gold, represents royalty and is reminiscent of the pure gold city of the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:18). It is most often used for Eucharistic benediction at Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Red, the color of blood and her garment cover her loins where there will be a birth.

Metamorphoses, a transformation caused by supposed supernatural powers which may include each one of us as another version of God. Brief Divination: Immortality through Metamorphoses.

XX - Reincarnation / Resurrection Card Astrological Sign: Scorpio(Water) FeaturedCharacter: TheEnlightenedUniverse Divination: Neoplatonist’s agree that Plato taught reincarnation and believed the doctrine themselves. Not everyone agreed with the idea of a human soul transmigrating into that of an animal though. Plotinus’ student, St. Augustine, did agree with humans reincarnating into another human, but did not agree with human to animal reincarnation either. He did believe that if a a soul was purged of evil it could be with the Father and never need to reincarnate again.

Even though Plato has described reincarnation several

times throughout his work many believe that Marsilio Ficino, who acquainted himself with every major academic thinker and writer of his time, denied a Platonic belief in reincarnation. The earlier Platonist’s seemed to have not taken reincarnation as literally as the later Platonic philosophers.

Marsilio Ficino’s main original work however, was his treatise on the immortality of the soul (Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae). This did not gain him affections in the Roman Catholic Church who accused him of magick. Pope Innocent VIII demanded proof that it was not magick or he would condemn him to heresy.

Marcilio’s networker personality kept him from being ousted by Church. Fourteen years after Marsilio died the Catholic Church declared the natural immortality of the soul as dogma.

Marsilio Ficino, writing in 1492, proclaimed, “This century, like a golden age, has restored to light the liberal arts, which were almost extinct: grammar, poetry, rhetoric, painting, sculpture, architecture, music... this century appears to have perfected astrology.”

Brief Divination: Renewal through supernatural philosophies. Cycles and the return of a soul to live another life in a new body.

XXI - Theory of Everything Card Astrological Sign: Scorpio (Water) Featured Characters: The School of Athens, Zoroaster holding the universe sphere, Diogenes of Sinope, Pythagoras, Marsilio Ficino, Claudius Ptolemy holding an earth sphere, Timoteo Viti as Protogenes, Raphael as Apelles, Archimedes, Sculpture of Apollo.

“Seemingly laden with such endless cravings...And the sun was rising with those stars.” - Dante’s Inferno Divinations: Theory of Everything, is a theory that explains everything, links everything together, all known physical phenomena and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle. The School of Athens was way ahead of their time.

Most likely, Archimedes was the first scientist to describe nature with axioms (or principles) and then to deduce new results from them. He thus tried to describe everything starting from a few axioms. Many physicists, since the 1990s have believed that 11-dimensional M-theory (membrane theory) also known as string theory, is the theory of everything.

The philosophical implications of a physical Theory of Everything debates whether if physicalism is true, a physical Theory of Everything will coincide with a philosophical theory of everything. Some philosophers like Aristotle and Plato have attempted to construct all-encompassing systems.

In the Gathas, 17 hymns composed by Zarathusthra or Zoroaster (born between 8th and 6th century BCE), the most sacred texts of the Zoroastrian faith, Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle between aša (truth) and druj (lie). The cardinal concept of aša—which is highly nuanced and only vaguely translatable—is at the foundation of all Zoroastrian doctrine, including that of Ahura Mazda (who is aša), creation (that is aša), existence (that is aša) and as the condition for Free Will, which is arguably Zoroaster’s greatest contribution to religious philosophy.

Elements of Zoroastrian philosophy entered the West through their influence on Judaism and Middle Platonism and have been identified as one of the key early events in the development of philosophy. The purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain aša.

For humankind, this occurs through active participation in life and the exercise of constructive thoughts, words and deeds.

Brief Divination: Everything and everyone is connected.

That doesn’t mean we are all equal. Varying degrees of intellect are what separate everything and everyone.

Osmosis allows gradual, often unconscious, absorption of knowledge or ideas through continual exposure rather than deliberate learning.

PUBLISHED BY ALCHEMIST PUBLISHING, LLC. For World Of Tarot www.WorldOfTarot.com Copyright ©2010 Londa Marks

Card Spread Layout

All cards sum up your reading with the (the 5th card) showing you the outcome.

1. The card in first position represents the nature of your question. This will show you what surrounds your question or problem.

2. The card in second position represents what is influencing your problem.

3. This card is what is behind you and has influenced your problem or question.

4. This card indicates that which will influence your future in relation to your question or problem.

5. The fifth card has to do with the hopes of what the outcome will be.

6. In the sixth card you will find the answer to your question.