Egyptian Tarot No. 1: The Examination / El Examen

Last year I decided to sign up for a "Taller de Mediumnidad" --- a workshop for learning to be a medium.

Our instructor was a bona fide medium.  She connects very easily with the deceased and can transmit messages.  Later, when I went to see her with another of the class, she told us that our loved ones who have passed on are always around us.  So it's very easy for her to connect with them.

She did different exercises with the class to help us to develop our intuition.  She also did a lot of readings of each of us.  She told us what our virtues and weaknesses were.  More our virtues, less of our bad sides!  So unlike in other zoom meets, we grew in esprit de corps, because we were also revealing our real selves.  Of course, there were so many there, and even in the second workshop when there were fewer participants, I didn't talk much.  

One exercise: she had cards with drawings of geometric figures in different colors on one side.

On the other side they were blank.

One by one, we had to guess what the geometric figures and their colors were.

I did okay with that one.

Another exercise:  she showed us a picture of a person and we had to tell her what we perceived about that person.  Catha said, "Say the first thing that comes into your mind."

She also said, "Relax.  This is play.  Enjoy it.  It doesn't matter if you don't get it right.  It's a game."

I wasn't that good with the photos.

Later on she gave us homework:  to buy a deck of Egyptian Tarot cards.  They are great for connecting with the symbols and just feeling what the card is saying.  Catha said it was a tool of self-knowledge and knowledge of who the other truly is.

We would form dyads.  Say I formed a pair with Juan.  Juan would pick a card that would tell him the answer to a question about me.  For example,  "How is your energy?"  Then I would do the same, this time to describe his energy.

I realized through the workshop that I have good intuition, better than I had thought.  Not so much as in having an inborn talent like a lot of the others.  Some of them were already out-and-out psychics.  Some of them could look at a picture and know that the person had cancer, for example.  Or had lost their father recently.

I am very good at interpreting images and symbols.

Best of all: the Egyptian Tarot cards have esoteric meanings, and I am studying them.  Fascinating.  Even better than the classic Rider Waite or Marseille decks.  There is a website that gives the meanings of the symbols of the 78 cards.  Believe me, they are esoteric.  The website is in Spanish.

Today I did a reading for myself.  It's been a very tricky trimester for me.

Here is the reading:

1.  El examen:   Refers to the need to examine, observe oneself, see the weaknesses of the ego and resolve them. Not to identify with insult, offense, etc.  Never to respond in kind.  Remember that such things pass. Psychological man is full of vanity, weaknesses and vices.  Self-observation leads to understanding and non-identification.  (This is a very basic summary.)

AM: El Principio del Libre Debate. AT: “Rebusca tu viña y recoge los granos caídos; mas no rebusques rencores, ni recojas agravios”.

AM: The Principle of Free Debate. TA: "Glean your vineyard and gather the fallen grains; but do not glean grudges, nor gather grievances".

SYMBOLS IN ARCANA 54:

Upper part:  THOT, the scribe of the gods, sits on a square throne, symbol of the philosopher's stone, the perfect cube of the alchemists.

Central part:  MAXA, the Balance.  The central rod and vertical arms form a Cross. At the base of the Balance is AMMET, Thot's baboon.  On one plate of the Balance is a container, that holds the heart of the deceased.  On the other plate is a feather.  Upon death, our heart will be weighed against a feather.

Lower part:  AMMIT, the Devourer of Human Hearts, the Devourer of the Dead.

The deceased will go through a Judgment before the god ANUBIS and his 42 judges.  To one side of the Balance, Ammit will await the verdict.  If the dead person's heart is lighter than the feather, the deceased will obtain Eternal Life.  If not, their heart will be thrown to the monster Ammit.