Book of Tarot

Introduction
The Tarot is an ancient picture book which is drawn to understand the sum total of human experience.
It has close ties with the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. Kabbalah, like Tarot, is a system
created for understanding and assimilating the vagaries of a mans life and rectifying the inner
landscape of the man to make him better adjusted to the world.
Kabbalah
If Torah is the holy writ of the Jewish Faith, Kabbalah is the orally transmitted
truth of the Jewish Faith. It is understood in the kabbalah that the universal will
or consciousness operates from ten different spheres of activity also known as
the Sephiroth. In the adjacent figure, the ten spheres are shown.
The white sphere named kether is the sphere of thoughtless instinctive
awareness as is found in all lifeforms inclusive of amoebas and the blue whales.
The grey sphere is also called Chokmah and is the world of underlying pattern
of symbols that forms the labyrinth of life. You could call it the world of mental
qualities like Archetypes and supramundane consciousness like the feelings of
altruism and motherhood.
The reddish brown sphere is the sphere of mundane mental structures like
familial ties and roles of a person in the society and the family. It is called
Binah. Binah and Chokmah together form the basic mental structure of a persons inner faculties
inclusive of emotions, attitudes, and psyche.
The blue sphere is also known as Chesed and is the external personality and the intellect that a man
projects into the world. All the business and commerce is born of the activity of mans intellect and is
therefore linked to Chesed.
The red sphere is the sphere of conflict. It is also the sphere of inherent drive in a man and the desire
to change things that arent working for him. It works in tandem with the blue sphere of Chesed and is
called Gevurah.
The orange gold sphere in the centre is the sphere of Tiphareth. It is the bare essential a man expects
to get out of the world in order to function as a sane and balanced individual. If this expectation is not
fulfilled, the man becomes unbalanced and feels lost and depressed.
The yellow sphere of Hod is the sphere of academic skill and intelligence.
The green sphere of Netzach is the sphere which holds the blue print for the things a man takes
pleasure in or feels pained about.
The Indigo sphere of Yesod is the subconscious mind at work. It is a place of dreams, unconscious
drives and subdued desires.
And finally the black sphere is the waking awareness that is also known as Malkunth.
This is a very short introduction to kabbalah. Other books give a more detailed description and should
be read if the reader wants to know more about these spheres. This book is meant to be a book on
Tarot and therefore will discuss tarot at great length and will generally make only small allusions to
Kabbalah.