The afternoon I opened the UPS package and took out the first box of my tarot cards was one of the most magical moments of my life. The project had taken the better part of five years from design to manifestation. Oh, how I savored the moment! I sat down in my big papa-chair and turned the box over and over in my hands. I closed my eyes and held it up to my nose and inhaled the exotic incense of plastics and inks and resins. I tried to picture in my mind the factory in faraway Belgium where they were printed, cut, and packaged. I tried to imagine how all ten thousand boxes might look stacked up in a pyramid. For some reason, however, I was hesitant to open that first box and break the clear plastic wrapper that bound the deck into one perfect, virgin entity.
“Why can’t I open the box?” I asked myself.
Even as I mentally broadcast that question, the answer returned on the same thought-wave.46
A deck of tarot cards is a wondrous thing. According to tradition, tarot was designed, organized, and arranged to be a perfect reflection of the cosmic principles that create and sustain all things in heaven and earth.47 Tarot is a telescope through which we can gaze at the great macrocosmic world of deity; and it’s a microscope by which we can dissect the tiniest secrets of nature and our own souls. But, unless we are somehow cognizant of this Qabalistic perfection, either intellectually or intuitively, tarot is just seventy-eight pieces of printed card stock.
Sitting there in my big chair, I was paralyzed with the realization that this was a rare and magical moment. It would be weeks before the cards would be on the market—weeks before other hands would touch them and other eyes behold the images. For this golden moment, the deck I held in my hand was the virgin mother deck—the virgin father deck—the immaculate archetype of all the decks of my Tarot of Ceremonial Magick that would ever be printed and sold in the future.
For a magician, this was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had the chance to charge and attune this mother deck with all the powers and properties that lay hidden in all tarot decks. I had the chance to literally invoke upon (and evoke into) this deck all the spiritual forces, aspects of deity, archangels, angels, intelligences, and spirits that magical tradition informs us are resident in each card.
I had the chance—no—I had the responsibility to magically charge this deck as no deck of tarot cards has ever been charged, and, in doing so, transmit that charge to all its cloned children throughout the world!
(Perhaps you are hearing the “Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-hah!” of mad scientist laughter?)
This obviously would be a big job, requiring many hours, perhaps days, to complete. I would need to draw upon all the knowledge and skill a mad, narcissistic, and obsessed magician (with far too much time on his hands) could muster. Constance was out of town visiting her parents in Nebraska. I had the house all to myself. I had a three-day weekend before me … and of course, most importantly—I was just the mad, narcissistic, and obsessed magician who could do it!
I set immediately to work. I unplugged the telephone, then showered and dressed in clean black sweatpants and a white T-shirt. (This wizard needs to be clean and comfortable!) I then cleared the furniture from the center of the living room. “If Constance knew I was doing this she’d kill me! Ah, but she won’t know until she gets back from Nebraska. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-hah!” For the next two days, this space would be my temple.
I am pretty much a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants magician, but there are certain magical formulae that I never fail to acknowledge and incorporate in my operations. The most venerable of these concerns the preparations I make prior to an operation. I had already done the first prerequisite, that of bathing myself and putting on clean clothes. Now it was time to do something similar to the area in which I would work.
I thoroughly vacuumed the living room carpet, then proceeded with the more formal ceremonies. I started by anointing the top of my head with holy oil (Oil of Abramelin48), then I banished the temple with the standard Banishing Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram. These two ceremonies served the purpose of clearing the temple completely of elemental and planetary influences. The room was now, for the moment, a magical vacuum. From that moment on, the only magical forces to enter this sacred space would be those that I specifically allowed in.
Next I purified the temple with water. There are many elaborate ceremonies I could have used, but instead I went to the kitchen and grabbed my favorite coffee cup49 and filled it with tap water. I stuck the forefinger of my right hand in it and stirred it around for a moment. There! I had manufactured my own holy water. (As a duly consecrated bishop,50 I can do that.) I returned to the living room and sprinkled the floor east, south, west, and north. At each quarter I simply pronounced an impromptu, “I purify the temple with water.”
Next I consecrated my temple with fire. I took a votive candle off the fireplace mantle and lit it. I approached each quarter of the room as before and drew in the air an equal-armed cross with the flame with the words, “I consecrate the temple with fire and dedicate this space to the purpose of this act of magick.”
There. I was almost ready
