[The following commentary by Robert M. Place is adapted from his introduction to The Alchemical Tarot.]

It Starts with a Dream

I did not consciously choose the Tarot as my divinatory tool. The Tarot chose me. It started with a dream on a summer night, in rural New Jersey, in 1982. In the dream, I was walking through a room when the phone rang. The phone was also part of the dream, but its ringing woke me into a state of lucidity while I continued dreaming.

With a feeling of utter amazement - that another being could actually call me in a dream - I picked up the phone. An international operator was on the line, and she informed me that she had a person to person call for me from a law firm in England. I accepted the call, and then a secretary from the firm came on. She told me that she was sending me my ancestral inheritance. She could not tell me what it was, but only that it would come from England, it is kept in a box, and that it is sometimes called the key. She added that I would know it when I saw it. Then she ended the conversation with some precautions on its use and misuse, and mentioned something about a karmic debt connected to it.

I awoke that morning with a feeling of excitement and expectation. All through the week, I eagerly anticipated receiving my inheritance, but I had to wait until the end of the week before I received a clue. My clue happened when a friend came over with his new deck of Tarot cards. It was the deck designed, in England in 1910, by Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith. Although I was not unfamiliar with this deck, I now saw it in a new light - I knew that this was it.

Within a few days, another friend gave me a deck called the Tarot of Marseilles. That was my first deck, but soon I went into Manhattan and bought the Waite-Smith cards also.

I began experimenting with the cards. At first, I resolved not to read any books on the Tarot. I wanted to communicate directly with the images unhindered by preconceptions. I did remember being shown the Celtic cross spread in college. So, I decided to begin with that combined with Jungian techniques of dream interpretation.

The Tarot taught me a great deal directly, but eventually I realized that to unlock its secrets further I had to gather more information. I began reading everything that I could find on the Tarot, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, alchemy, and related subjects. Every table in my studio was soon covered with stacks of books reaching toward the ceiling, and I filled a large hardbound note book with charts, lists, and notes — at that time this seemed odd because I was not a writer, and had no plan to become a writer.

By 1987, my reading had become noticeably excessive to my wife and friends. I intuitively knew that I was on to something, but I was unable to explain what it was. One afternoon, I was sitting in the living room reading The Rosarium Philosophorum, a 16th century alchemical text, when a commentator on the radio began talking about the Harmonic Convergence. I had been hearing about this for a few weeks, but thought of it as just another New-Age curiosity. However this time it was different. The commentator said that during this period of spiritual transformation sensitive individuals all over the Earth would be experiencing a flood of information on spiritual subjects. Finally, someone had an explanation for what was happening to me, this intensity was a product of the time, in some way the soul of the Earth, “the Anima Mundi,” demanded it.

the Philosopher’s Stone Shortly after August 16th — the day of the Convergence — I was reading the Picture Museum of Sorcery, Magic, & Alchemy, by Emile Grillot de Givry, when I became fascinated by an alchemical hieroglyph representing the philosopher’s stone. The design depicted a heart in the center of a cross with images of the four elements assigned to each corner. In a flash, I realized that the symbolism in the design was entirely interchangeable with that of the World card in the tarot.

The heart surrounded by a thorn vine wreath, of course, was related to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but the design was drawn in 1636 — before the icon of the Sacred Heart became an official emblem of Jesus in the Catholic Church. This was an alchemical design, and the heart was clearly meant to be a symbol of the soul. That it was in the center of the elements meant that it was the soul of the world, the alchemical “Anima Mundi”, the matter of the stone which is also called the “quinta Essentia,” the essential fifth element that holds the other four together (this is the derivation of the word quintessence). I remembered that the pose of the figure on the World card is identical to the dancing figure that the Egyptians used as a hieroglyphic for one aspect of the soul, and that the symbols of the four evangelists that surrounded it are equated to the elements. Certainly, the World card represented this same anima of the world. This realization was like a key opening a lock. I sat mesmerized as it became obvious that the Tarot trumps are alchemical, and that the series of trumps outlines the alchemical opus. This insight happened in seconds, but it began a seven year journey that led me to design The Alchemical Tarot deck and to write the accompanying book.
Synchronicity

From the beginning, this journey was marked by synchronistic events that brought information to me, and led me on the right path. Synchronicity underlies all of alchemy; it is the place where the physical world and the psychic world connect. Because it imparts a personal meaningfulness to events it is often difficult to talk about. My dream of my inheritance is one example, I will try to give some others.

One evening while we were traveling, my wife and I made plans to meet a friend for dinner. Through a mishap involving a lost ring we arrived at the restaurant late and missed our reservation; this led us to browse in a near by book store while we waited for a table — if we had eaten dinner on time the store would have been closed when we were done, and therefore we would not have gone there. In the store I came across a book which would prove to be instrumental in leading me to a reprint of instructional documents originally intended for the members of the Golden Dawn. Because of my dream, and the resulting connection with the Waite-Smith cards, I came to think of A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith as my benefactors. I knew that both had been members of the Golden Dawn, and I felt that in some way their spirits had guided me to this book.

In this book, I read about a meditation technique, derived from a Renaissance technique and practiced by the Golden Dawn, in which a picture is visualized as a door, and in which opening that door, and entering, guides one to an inner realm (I describe the meditation fully in chapter 6). This was like a second key. I realized that using this technique with the Tarot I could progress through each trump card and perform the alchemical opus directly on myself. I started that day.

Although I could not explain why, I began the opus with the Magician instead of the Fool - the card that seemed like a more logical choice. After that conscious logic had less and less to do with the process, as I gradually allowed myself to be guided by unconscious wisdom. Sometimes I would perform the meditation on consecutive nights - one card after another - then a month might go by before I was called on again. At times I would find myself sitting up in bed before sunrise - I am usually a late riser - with that undeniable recognition that it was time for the next card.

The morning of the winter solstice, in 1987, was one in which I found myself sitting up before sunrise. With a feeling of being guided, I left the secure warmth of my bed and entered the studio. There I sat on the floor with the Wheel of Fortune card in front of me. I was facing south - as I had for the last few cards - but this time I realized that I must face east instead. So, I turned toward the east wall which was lined with casement windows reaching almost from the ceiling to the floor, and entered that inner door.

This time, however, the experience refused to be contained on an inner plane. My eyelids filled with a golden glow from the rising sun, and I gradually opened my eyes.

Years before, when I moved into that house, I had placed two rosewood figures on the window sill that was now directly in front of me. They were carved in India, and represented a man and a woman standing stiff and totem-like, nude, with their hands to their sides. Each was a foot high and identical in every detail except for their sexual characteristics. Now they stood there facing me as the sun rose directly between them. I continued to watch as it rose to form the apex of an equilateral triangle with the nudes at its base. The configuration was identical to the Lovers card designed by Smith.

This experience had a profound effect on me. I set those figures in place long before I was even involved in alchemy or the Tarot. How could I have known that they would mark the sun rise on this solstice, and create an image of the lovers? I was not usually even awake at sunrise.

The symbolism was obvious. It combined the Lovers, which marked the first alchemical conjunction, with the Sun, which was clearly the greater conjunction - the “hieros gamos,” or sacred marriage. That it happened with the Wheel of Fortune showed that this card was an overview, and a powerful pivotal point in the procession of the trumps. But for me the experience was more, it was a literal marriage of psyche and matter. My inner world and outer world had merged, I had experienced the hieros gamos.

On the vernal equinox, in 1988, I was standing in a natural foods store in Manhattan when I was astonished by the title of a magazine on the rack. It was called Gnosis. It surprised me that information on Gnosticism could be so readily available. Urged by my wife and our friend, I bought that copy, and then subscribed.
Collaboration

The following summer, I was reading Gnosis when my inner voice told me to submit copies of my drawings for publication. I did so, and within a week the editor called me. He needed an illustration to accompany an article on Sophia in issue #13, and my drawings arrived just in time. In November, my drawing for the Star was published along with a one-page article that I wrote entitled the Star.

A few weeks later, I received a letter from Rosemary Ellen Guiley, a well-known author. Rosemary was writing a book, called The Mystical Tarot and asked me to submit drawings of my cards. She agreed to include Temperance and the Devil in her book, and after it was published I received several copies.

At this time, I had been concentrating my research on the early history of the tarot, and was not as familiar with its history after the 18th century. Rosemary’s expertise were the perfect compliment to mine. So it was in her book that I read for the first time a quote from Court de Gebelin in which he recounted how his insight into the mystic origin of the tarot emanated from a flash of inspiration upon seeing the World card. The similarity with my own experience made the hair on by neck bristle.

Later in her book, I read about a quarrel between A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith over the placement of the Fool card. Smith wanted it at the beginning of the trumps, but Waite insisted that it should be placed before the World card - a kabbalistic placement based on Levi. I was inclined to agree with Smith, and it had puzzled me that I included the Fool in the latter position during my opus meditation. This more than anything convinced me that Waite’s spirit was guiding me in this endeavor and that he was the benefactor in my inheritance dream.

Rosemary and I recognized in each other kindred spirits, and we decided to collaborate on the Alchemical Tarot.

Art copyright R. M. Place 1995