Naomi Ozaniek - The Watkins Tarot Handbook: The Practical System of Self-discovery

Naomi Ozaniec has worked within the Western Mystery tradition since 1975 after a dramatic spiritual awakening. This event propelled her life into a new dimension taking her from teaching within the classroom to teaching within the Mysteries. She began writing in 1989, and since then has written extensively and taught many aspects of practical spirituality. In 1993 she was a delegate at the World Parliament of Religions. Naomi is currently the custodian of The House of Life and runs a practice as a spiritual therapist. She lives in Chandlers Ford, Hampshire.

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THE PRACTICAL SYSTEM OF SELF-DISCOVERY

NAOMI OZANIEC

Frontispiece: The Wheel of Correspondences

To all the Good Companions in the House of Life

I would like to acknowledge all those whose work has helped to establish the Golden Path of Insight. I salute those who serve Wisdom by holding open its door for those who seek. I acknowledge my debts to Paul Foster Case, Gareth Knight and Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, who in their own way held open the door for me.

I would like to thank the following authors and publishers for permission to reproduce material from their publications.

Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, The Shining Paths, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Paul Foster Case, The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order, Samuel Weiser Inc., York Beach, Maine 039100612.

Gareth Knight, A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, S. Weiser, York Beach, USA/Kahn and Averill, London. Experience of the Inner Worlds, S. Weiser, York Beach, USA/Kahn and Averill, London.

Stan Tenen and the Meru Foundation, PO Box 1938, San Anselmo, CA 94979, USA. Tel. (415) 4590487.

Strephon Kaplan Williams, Jungian Senoi Dreamwork Manual, Journey Press, Berkeley.

This book is intended to be interactive. So be prepared to become actively involved in your reading. The text invites you to undertake a journey of discovery and creativity. Here there are no fixed answers, only a multitude of possibilities.

The text is divided into two parts. Part 1 provides a series of exercises which are designed to inform the intellect, awaken intuition and precipitate insight. Work through them at your own pace and keep a record of your realisations in a journal. Do not rush through the chapters; here is an instance where speed is no virtue. Instead, as in creating a good wine, allow time for the fermentation and inner processes to take place.

Part II, The Serpent of Wisdom, offers a meditative text which can be used in a variety ofways. It may be read aloud with good effect, either as a whole or in parts. The text may be profitably incorporated into a Tarot workshop or used by a small group of Tarot enthusiasts as poetic invocation. The Serpent of Wisdom is intended to be a finale and culmination to your period of study, so do wait until you or your group have worked through the first part of the book.

If you have benefited by the exercises and challenges presented in this volume, you might wish to deepen your understanding yet again by engaging with The Kabbalah Experience. Together these two companion books present a modern Mystery School curriculum where the sacred images of the Tarot and the inner landscape of the Tree of Life combine to lay down the road to Wisdom.

The Tarot has risen in popularity to become the singular form of Western divination, but the images of the Tarot have a deeper significance as icons for meditative reflection and as keys to unlock the creative potential of the mind. These sacred icons provide the means with which to navigate the hidden realms of the unconscious and with which to create links to the domain of higher consciousness. This is its initiatory function. The Tarot is both a psychic mirror and, as a multifaceted symbol system, it is also a spiritual powerhouse which can be entered and explored. Its archetypal images hold guidance, advice and insight but simultaneously these same images open the doors to the inner world of the psyche through the path of initiation.

The originator of the immensely popular Rider-Waite Tarot, Arthur Waite, understood this well. As a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Waite designed the deck to encompass and portray a magical philosophy. In The Pictorial Key to the Tarot he wrote, The Tarot embodies symbolical presentations of universal ideas, and, it is in this sense that they contain secret doctrine. In other words Tarot images express a practical spiritual philosophy which will disclose its truths to the reflective mind in contemplative meditation. The initiatory path begins with this understanding. Divination, on the other hand is most often a commercial exchange where power remains in the hands of the Tarot reader. Initiation takes place in sacred space through an act of commitment not commerce. Divination guides but initiation empowers.

It should be clear that the sacred images of the Tarot serve a spiritual purpose. In common with the vast variety of worldwide spiritual icons, the sacred images of the Tarot serve to feed the reflective and contemplative instincts and as such have rightfully earned a place within the spiritual traditions of the west. The sacred icons of the Tarot form a key aspect of a Mystery School curriculum as doorways leading into the realm of the Ageless Wisdom. This is deeper gift of the Tarot.

Studying the Tarot is not a matter of memorising a collection of meanings but rather its sacred symbols are inwardly absorbed and digested to release a spiritual nutrition. This is not a single event but an ongoing, self-propelling process of dynamic change. In the fullness of time this process of forward momentum effects a cycle of deathrenewalrebirth, this is the essence of initiation. This is the way of the Tarot, this is the way of the Mystery School. Once we have awakened to Tarots greater function, we, like the spiritual pilgrims of old, may also be stirred to go in search of initiation and discover its timeless yet totally personal importance on the road to Wisdom.

It is hoped that these few words may inspire you sufficiently to dare, to know, to will and to be silent in Wisdoms name.

If you would like to know more about becoming a companion in The House of Life, visit:www.thehouseoflife.co.uk

PART ONE

The Wheel of Correspondences
(from The Shining Paths by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki)

To have the benefit of this wonderful invention, the Keys must be inside you. This means that you must be able to call up the images of any Key by a simple act of will. When you can do this, the Tarot will be part of your very flesh and blood, and it will begin to effect far reaching transformations in your thinking and thus in your living.

Paul Foster Case

The Tarot is too often associated with fortune telling. This misrepresents the place, and diminishes the significance, of Tarot within the Western Tradition. The Tarot is primarily a vehicle for initiation. It is a means of divination only in a secondary role.