FOREWORD \t/

l\ /[ agic, like coffee, wakes you up and helps you get things done. Like
lVI music, it is a universal with powers that exist
language that works
within each of us. Rituals, talismans, trances, spells-the tools and tech-
niques that magicians use to achieve their ends-are many and varied, but
there is one tool which has proved remarkably effective for both the sea-
soned magician and for those who have very little knowledge or experience
of the subject. You have it now in your hands-the tarot.
The tarot emerged out of Renaissance Italy in the fourteenth century,
but who knows how deep its roots lie? Theories abound-it draws on the
wisdom of the East, it originated in the ancient Egyptian mysteries, in the
lost continent ofAtlantis. \Therever the tarot draws its power from, whether
in this world or the Otherworld, what we do know for certain is that it was
in England, at the end of the nineteenth century, that magicians first began
to use the tarot in a precise, magical way that went beyond the use of it as a
fortune-telling device.
In France, during the Occult Revival of the nineteenth century, writ-
ers like ehph"s L6vi and Papus began to see connections berween the tarot
and the Jewish mystical system of the Cabbala. They associated the leners
of the Hebrew alphabet and the paths of the Cabbalistic Thee of Life with
the rwenry-rwo cards of the tarot's Major Arcana. Members of the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn in London took these associations, and created
out of them a powerful magical tool: a technique known as path-uorking,
which involves the magician strongly visualising tarot images to project
themselves along each of the rwenty-rwo paths of the Tlee of Life. In addi-
tion to using this technique to make contact with the inhabitants and pow-
ers of the Otherworld, the Golden Dawn magicians also believed that the
tarot could illuminate their understandirg of their own spiritual develop-
ment. Two members of the Golden Dawn in particular were responsible for
infuencing the way the modern world now works with the tarot: Aleister

vll
.t, Crowley who worked with the painter Lady Frieda Harris to produce the
Thoth Deck, with its powerful Art Deco images, and A. E. 'Waite who
inspired the artist Pamela Colman Smith to create the Rider-W'aite deck,
whose genius lies in the way each of the forty pip cards reveals an imaginary
scene. Before this deck appeared, tarots displayed only the relevant number
of symbols in each of the suits.
The English Magic Tizrot builds on the tradition established by the
Golden Dawn, and on the inspiration of Pamela Colman Smith and A. E.
\Waite in their use of illustrated pip cards, but it does somethirg more than

that. It invites into its book and deck of cards a whole host of images and
ideas, energies if you will, that come from the colourful history of English
magic.
\[hy the little country of England has come to be home to such a
rich and varied range of magics is a mystery. Perhaps it is simply because
of its history of empire and conquest. Perhaps it is because England has
been a meltirg pot of cultures from the very earliest of times. Or, perhaps,
somethirg more mysterious is at work-its very location acting like some
hidden magnet, its ley lines and stone circles drawing towards it every kind
of arcane discipline.
Here, with this deck and book, you have the chance to explore the
world of English magic directly, engaging with its peculiar charms and
eccentricities. And with what excellent guides! Andy Letcher offers mean-
ings for the cards, and ways of workitg magically with them, which are
exciting and original. Even if you know the tarot bachvards, his insights and
suggestions will surprise you. The images of Rex Van Ryt and Steve Dooley
play on the imagination, evoking memories of drearnS, of the past, of some
of the danger and fascination of a fairground in earlier times. Above all, The

English Magic Throt invites you to engagewith it, to enter into its world, and
to trust it to work its magic on you.
Carr-Gomm
-Philip

vlll The English Magic Tarot

\t/ Friends.
Tlear
\Welcome
I-,, to Magic Tizrot! This deck places the tarot in
The Engllsh
the heyday of English magic, the period that lies between the end of the
Renaissance and the beginning of the Early Modern. It offers a new way to
appreciate the mysteries of the tarot, treating the cards as a powerful tool
with which to take control of the stories you tell about yourself, It opens
a pathway into the rich yet largely unexplored traditions of English magic.
\Thether you are a seasoned hand or an eager newcomer, we trust that this
deck will deepen your understanding of the tarot and open up some of the
rich possibilities that lie within the English magical tradition.
Do you have to know anything about English history to use the cards?
No, though do read the short slrnopsis that follows if youd like to know a
little more. Do you have to be English to practice English magic? Absolutely
not! English magic is for everyone. Do you have to live in England or have
visited these shores? Again, the answer is no! All thatt required is that you
feel an openness towards the traditions of English magic and a willingness to
'With
let the cards speak to you. regular handling and careful study, the cards
will help you navigate your way through the vicissitudes of life and become
a valuable tool in your own magical practices.

A LITTLE ABOUT THE PERIOD

The cards are ser in the colourful and turbulent period of English history that
stretches from the time of the Tudor Kitg Henry VIII, to the Restoration
of the Monarchy, some hundred years later. This was a remarkable time of
great upheaval. The stories we told about who we were and how we saw
the world were all up in the air and often the cause of impassioned debate
and even armed conflict. As the monarchs and mountebanks, visionaries
and fools, knights and vagabonds that shaped England are all present in
the im agery of the tarot, the period seemed a natural settitg for the cards.
Furthermore, as we shall see shortly, it was also a time during which English

The English Magic Tarot

magic fourished: it was this aspect of English magic that we particularly {,
wanred ro explore and draw out through the tested images of the tarot.
If you're like dull that you longed to
rrr€, and history lessons were so
be anywhere else but in the classroorrl, don't be alarmed. You don't need
to know anyrhing about English history to use the cards. The images stand
alone and will speak for themselves. That said, just occasionally the cards do
depict actual historical characrers and it may deepen your understanding to
know who they are. So here, very briefy, is a summ ary of the period.
It begins with Henry VIII's accession to the throne in 1509. In his

youth, Henry Tudor was muscular, athletic, and charismatic: very far from
the portly and irascible monarch we know from the portraits, and by reputa-
tion. He was a lover of music, kept a full-time Fool, and employed a Master
of Revels. It is possible that a joustitg accident, which left him Permanendy
lame, contributed to his change of personaliry. He is most famous for hav-
irg had six wives ("divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived"
as the rhyme has it) and for instigating the Reformation. Henry was married
first to Catherine of Aragon, but she was unable to provide him with a male
heir. \7hen the Pope refused ro grant him a divorce, Henry took the radical
srep of breaking from the Roman Catholic Church, and establishing himself
as the head of the new, Protestant, Church of England. (Those events were
vividly broughr ro life in the BBC's 2015 adaptation of Hilary Mantelt Wolf
Hall.) The religious turmoil that followed this decision had profound effects
on England, and the world, and we live with those consequences to this d^y.
However, with his marriage annulled, Henry was free to wed Anne Boleyn,
with whom he had a daughter, Elizabeth. Henry appears in The English

Magic Tarot our Emperor.

as
Henry was succeeded by his son, Edward VI, in 1547, the only child
of his third marriage, to Jane Seymour. Edward was just ten when he came
to the throne, and though he was a monarch in name alone, he was a zeal-
ous Protestanr who continued his father's work, attempting to eradicate all
rraces of Catholicism from English culture. He died just six years into his

Introduction
v reign. He was followed by his half sister M"ry I in 1553 who was every bit
as zealous a Roman Catholic. She instigated a vigorous and bloody counter-
reformation. Her reign, too, was destined to be as short as it was turbulent,
and she died having ruled for only five years.
By contrast, the Elizabethan era (1558-1603) is regarded by many as

somethitg of a golden age in English history. Elizabeth I was shrewd and

cunning, had a thirst for learning, was a great orator, and was more than
able to hold her own in a male-dominated court: all her life she resisted con-
siderable pressure to marry. Her navy defeated the Spanish Arm ada (with
a little help from the English weather) and thanks ro her spymasrer, Sir
Francis Walsingham, she cut short a Catholic plot ro ropple her from the
throne. The arts prospered, especially music and poerry and Elizabeth was
immortalised as The Faerie Queene by the poet Edmund Spenser. Drama
fourished in the capable hands of Christopher Marlowe and one Villiam
Shakespeare.
The Elizabethan era was also the heyday of English magic. Elizabeth
employed the archerypal Renaissance magus, John Dee, as her courr astrolo-
ger (and as a spy) and he advised her on the mosr auspicious momenrs
to begin her undertakings. Dee devised a form of magic, called Enochian
Magic, with which he used techniques of scryi.g ro converse with angels. In
1564 he published his Monas Hieroglypltica, a work that detailed his com-
plex magical beliefs. Beyond Dee, magical ideas were so prevalent that some
scholars believe Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was nor just a playhouse, but
a symbolic model of the Neo-Platonic cosmos (Neo-Platonism, a branch
of philosophy from Late Antiquity, was revived during the Renaissance,
and underpinned magical, Hermetic, thought and practice). Shakespeare
famously wrote that "All the world's a stage," bur his stage was also meanr
to represent the world.
On Elizabeth's death in 1603 the throne passed to her cousin and Kirg
of Scotland, James I. This paved the way, ultimarely, to the Act of Union,
and the creation of the United Kingdom. By conrrasr with Elizabeth, James

The English Magic Tizrot

was rather dour. He had a terror and loathing ofwitchcraft, and published a .1,

book on the subjecr, his Daemonologie of 1 599. He advocated the persecu-

tion of witches, who were, he believed, in league with the devil. James also
survived the so-called Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when Gty Fawkes and his
co-conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. The plot
was foiled and Fawkes executed, though he has recendy been reincarnated as
((V"
the antihero in Alan Moore's graphic novel Vfor Wndena. (Alan Moore
happens also to be an English Magician.)
England was wracked by civil war during the reign of Charles I
(L625-I649), James' son. The war was fought berween Puritan-leaning
Roundheads and the aristocratic establishment, nicknamed Cavaliers,
largely over the question of how the country was to be governed. The
Roundheads won, and then caused shock and consternation by executing
Charles in 1649: Kings were, after all, supposed to be divinely
"ppointed.
You'll see Charles I lookirg forlorn in the Five of Swords. His death left
the bluff gentry-man Oliver Cromwell-our King of Swords-to rule as
Lord Protecror, king in everything but name. A different kind of English
magic obtained durirg these turbulent times, when, as one Broadside bal-
lad put it, the world had been "turned upside down." Learned and ascetic
Renaissance magic was replaced by the more practical astrological need to
find order in the heavens, order that might make sense of the chaos below.
As trusr amongsr communities was eroded, so fear of witchcraft prolifer-
ated. Many felt the world was assailed by malevolent magical forces. Such
is the unsettling effect of war.
Finally, after Cromwell died, the innately conservative English decided
that they preferred things the way theyd been. In 1660, the monarchy was
resrored and Charles II was brought back from exile in France. Charles appears
in our Ten of Coins. After the gloomy fun-free days of Cromwell's rule, the
Restoration was a kind ofproto-1960s (at least, for diarists like Samuel Pepys).
Itsaw innovators like Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke spearheading the
Scientific Revolution, though Newton also practised alchemy as diligently as

Introduction
v he did calculus: he appears in The English Magic Tarot as the Srar. There was
also a resurgence of interest in the magic of our prehistoric past. Antiquarians
like John Aubrey began to survey the ancient monumenrs of Avebrry and
Stonehenge and suggest that they belonged, nor ro the Romans, but to the
ancient British Druids. It turns out he was wrong-stonehenge predates the
Iron Ag. Druids by thousands of years-but his work led to the revival of
Druidry that is so prevalent in England, and around the world, today. Charles
II died in I 658 at which poinr our historical period ends.
That concludes the summary. Obviously, there's much more to know
about the period but I'll leave it for you to pursue. For no\ /, we need ro
move on to the question of whar, exactly, is English magic.

WFIAT IS ENGLISH MAGIC?

*.
. .of oll the countries in tlte world, England has the richest history
of magical lore and practice. "

Prirrrp Cnnn-GoMM AND RrcHano HEvGRTE,

The Book of English Magic

English magic is a distinctive, local branch of natural magic. It has evolved

through many iterations, from prehistoric times ro the presenr d^y, and
freely blends high and low magic (more about this in a bir). One consrant is
that it regards the cosmos as animate, and our place in the world as signifi-
cant. It calls us to rediscover a magical connection with the land upon which
we hapPen to live, whether that be England or elsewhere. It supposes that
through practice and study (not least, of the tarot!) we can attain a grearer
understanding of the disparate parts of the self, and the magical connections
that permeate the universe. Through English magic we can attain a state of
gnosis and true knowledge of the world.
There are many definitions of magic but the one I find most helpful is
"the art of causing change to occur in accordance with will." Thaditionally,

The English Magic Tarot

there are two kinds of magic. Demonic magic is concerned with the con- .1,

juration of demons or spirits to do a magician's bidding. For obvious rea-

sons, it's had somethirg of a bad press over the years, and, as messing with
demons is a risky affair, most magicians have avoided it. By contrast, natu-
ral magic assumes that the world is full of forces, or connections of cause
and efFect, that happen to be hidden or "occult." In learning to manipulate
those connections (for example, by making the right talisman or performirg
the appropriate ritual) the natural magician can send change coursing out
through the world and so affect the way things unfold. Divination, through
a system like the tarot, is seen as a particularly good way to discover these
occult forces, with each reading serving as a kind of "snapshot" of the divine
energy as it manifests in the world.
A trip to a good anthropological museum (like the Pitt Rivers in Oxford,
which is absolutely stuffed full of magical objects, charms, and spells) shows
that magic is universal. English magic is simply the English dialect of a
language that's shared by all human cultures. It is our particular, regional
way of doing it. It stands to reason that if magic is natural, then it will be
shaped by the land it belongs to and the language and culture of the people
living there.
No one really knows *hy, but this small country named England has
produced a great many magicians. The foundations of English magic go
right back to the earliest days, to the architects who aligned Stonehenge to
the midwinter sunset, to the Druids with their ogham tree-lore, and to the
early Anglo-Saxons with their runes. The traces of our ancestors' magical
practices lie etched across, and buried within the English landsc?pe, and
if you look carefully you'll see those traces in T/te English Magic Tizrot cards
too. Magic was practised in the Middle Ages, positively fourished during
the Renaissance, and helped steer the Scientific Revolution in the Early
Modern.
Despite the apparent success of the scientific worldview which is
somewhat antithetical to magic, magic persisted through the nineteenth

Innoduction
v and twentieth centuries and continues today. The list of famous English
magicians and occult orders from the last hundred years is impressive. The
Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, Lady Frieda Harris, Dion
Fortune, the great tarot innovators A. E. 'Waite and Pamela Colman Smith,
Austin Osman Spare, Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente (who respec-
tively invented and shaped modern \Wicca), Ross Nichols and his succes-
sor Philip Carr-Gomm (who effectively created modern Druidry), Peter J.
Carroll (who invented Chaos Magick), and now the graphic-novelist Alan
Moore, to name just a few. To these illustrious names, w€ must add the
many, many people whose names we'll never know, who practised magic
away from prying eyes.
Two streams or currents run through English magic, as ennvined as
coiling snakes. One is high or learned magic, which traces its roots all the
way back to Hellenistic Egyp, and the texts attributed to the legend ary
Hermes Trismegistus. High magic incorporates astral magic, the Jewish sys-
tem of magic known as Cabbala, and a good smattering of Neo-Platonic
philosophy. Consequently, it requires much book learning and extremely
complicated rituals, performed with exacting precision at the correct astro-
logical time, with the correct incense, with the right ritual tools, and so on.
John Dee was a high magician, as was Aleister Crowley. High magic was
epitomised by the Order of the Golden Dawn.
By contrast, low magic, the magic done by ordinary folk, consists of a
body of lore and practices that have simply emerged through the passage of
time, handed down through the generations. These practices include wort-
cunning, charms, dowsing, divination, healing spells, the liftirg of curses,
and apotropaic devices to ward offthe evil eye. Practitioners of low magic-
who might have included your grandmother, curtseying to the new moon-
were called cunning men and women.
The streams of high and low magic cross repeatedly through the history
of English magic-Wicca, for example, mixes both-and they also cross in
the tarot. On the one hand, the cards have been traditionallv used in that

The English Magic Throt

classic low magic kind of a way as an oracle, to read peoplet fortunes, ar .t,
psychic fairs and in Romany caravans. On the other, nineteenth century
magicians came to see the tarot, with its synchronistic numerical correspon-
dences to the Cabbala, as the k.y to unlocking the secrets of high magic. The
tarot pack that has come to be the most popular, the so-called Rider-W'aite
deck, is replete with Cabalistic imagery. It was designed by the great Pamela
Colman Smith under the guidance of Arthur Edward \Waite, both members
of the Golden Dawn.
Though we, the crearors of The English Magic Tarot, have studied high
magic at length, our approach here is distinctly low. The danger is that as

tarot symbolism becomes ever more complex, it serves more as a barrier to

understanding than a gateway. Thus, we have, naturally, retained the tra-
ditional structure of the tarot, of a Major Arcana consisti.g of twenry-rwo
trump cards, and a Minor Arcana split into four suits of ten numbered
cards, each with an additional four Court Cards. As with so many tarot
packs, our debt to Pamela Colman Smith is obvious. However, we have
chosen not to include much of the heavy-duty Cabbalistic symbolism. The
images of the tarot together represent a kind of distillation of the Western
esoteric tradition, an endless story. \Whether you use them as an oracle, or
meditate with them to penetrate their deeper mysteries, we believe the cards
should simply speak for themselves without the need for complex commen-
taries or arcane knowledge.

THE ENDLESS STORY

One of our most famous, and indeed outspoken, English magicians is the
writer of graphic novels, Alan Moore. In various articles and interviews,
he asks the difficult question, "\fhat is the point of magic in a scientific
age?" After all, the traditional magical idea of occult connections permeat-
irg the universe is harder to square with modern cosmology than it was
with Renaissance Neo-Platonic philosophy. If we want to effect change in

Introduction
v the world, mightnt we be better off doing it through the laws of physics?
Moore's answer is that magic, being an art, should be used in the service of
Art. As fellow storytellers, we agree wholeheartedly. \il7hen magic affects the
world, it does so as much through stories as through any occult forces. \7hat
the physicists forget is that stories are among the most powerful forces on
Earth.
\We ve already met some powerful stories. The idea that a complete
understanding of the world can be achieved through the scientific method,
through experiment, is one such story. It caught hold during the seven-
teenth century and utterly changed the world. Not for nothing do we call it
"the Scientific Revolution." Likewise, Henry VIII's break with the Roman
Catholic Church and his ushering in of the Reformation radically changed
the way the English saw themselves and their place in the world (not for-
getting the many people who died in the resulting religious conf icts). The
stories changed and so did they.
The tarot, too, is replete with stories. Some say that the cards emerged
in fifreenth century Italy as an exotic card game. Others say that the cards
contain the key to a secret tradition of esoteric wisdom that stretches back
to ancient Egypr. The truth, I think, is less importanr than the fact that the
cards affract stories.
\7e, too, are made of stories. \7hen we tell our friends about that l.g-
endary parry we went to at the weekend, we turn the events of a whole night
into a narrative that lasts but a few minutes. (Listen the next time you hear
someone doing it. I can guarantee that they'll tell the same story, over and
again, in exactly the same way every time). Ve tell stories about who we are ,
what we like doing, where we came from, how we grew up. \fle are Homo
nnrrnns, the storytelling creature.
But we also have a whole libra ry of inner stories that we tell only to
ourselves. Some are bequeathed to us by our parents. Some are the product
of our particular psychology and life-experiences. For the most part, these
inner stories are unconscious, to the extent that we are simply in them, like

10 The English Magic Throt

the characters in a movie, projected onto a cinema screen. Just occasionally, at,
if we go into therapy or follow a path of magical practice, we are able to
step outside our stories, from the screen to the auditorium as it were, and
see them for what they are. Magic gives us the abiliry to change our stories.
The raror consists of a set of archerypal images, meanitg that each is
a porenr, super-condensed story, brimmirg with possibiliry. These images,
honed through centuries of retelling, are close to the fundamental elements
of story. When we use the tarot, when we lay the cards out in a spread, w€
are presented with a unique arrangement of these elements, an arrangement
that tells a bigger story. \(/e see our inner narratives refected back to us in
'We
the narratives laid out in the cards. We see their structure. can name
them. And as folk tales remind us, once you've named something, you have
power over it. You can change the way the stories go. You can cause change
to occur in accordance with will.
Let me give you a personal example. I had piano lessons at school and
failed miserably at music. In fact, my teacher told my parents that I had
no musical ability whatsoever and that they were wasting their money. Of
course I believed her. \7hen I left school, I stayed with a friend who played
tin whistle. Perhaps, I thought, even a musical klutz like me could pick up
a rune on such a simple instrument. In any case, I d hardly break the bank
when I inevitably failed. Do you see? I was simply repeating the story I d
been told. I believed it to be true.
To -y surprise I found I could pl^y a tune. The whistle led on to my
playing English bagpipes. I also picked up a mandolin and started writing
songs. And now, nearly thirry years later, when asked, I call myself a musi-
cian. I changed the story.
Most of us will never split the atom, write the novel of the centuryt ot
run a four-minute mile. But all of us can perform acts of magic that, while
only acting upon ourselves, are equally great. \We can name our stories and
re-author them. Through the power and mystery of the tarot, the endless
story, we can rewrite ourselves.

Innoduction 11
.t, ON THE GENESIS OF THE ENCLISH MACIC TAROT
Let me tell you a story, the sto ry of how these cards came to be made.
I discovered the tarot when I was a boy, in the Nemesis strip that ran
in the British sci-fi comic, 2000AD. I ve been fascinated by the cards ever
since. I gave my first readingatthe age of eleven and over the years have used
a variery of packs, includirg the Rider-W'aite and Crowley Thoth decks. I
was therefore delighted when a mutual friend introduced me to the occult
artist and fellow tarot enthusiast, Rex Van Rytr, not least because Rex began
his career as an artist at 2000A.D. \7e got on famously. He invited me back
to his granite Dartmoor longhouse, where in front of his wood burner, and
over a bottle of fine whisky, we talked late into the night. Arranged around
the walls are portraits Rex has made of English magicians. He calls it his p,-t
"Hall of Magicians." With the firelight dancing about their faces, it proved
a most conducive atmosphere.
We both agreed that the tarot cards were like frames from a graphic
novel, or stills from a movie, but unlike either of these art forms, the
"viewer" has the power to move the cards, to rearrange them at will, and so
change how the story goes. Why couldnt a character from one card reap-
pear in another? Mightn't seve ral cards show the same scene from different
angles, or the same location at different times? Each card would be more like
a window onto a complete world than a static, standalone image.
Then, as the effects of the whisky began to be felt, our conversation
got more effusive. Ve started talking about how Isaac Newton had been
an alchemist and though we were quite sure he d never used the tarot,
we started wondering what a deck of cards used by Newton would have
looked like. I imagined Newton pickirg up a deck of well-thumbed cards
at some horse fair, and applying his quizzical mind to their strange imag-
ery.That idle notion was, I believe, the genesis of Tlte English Magic Tarot.
Rex, who d always wanted to make a tarot deck, thought it might be fun
to create Isaac Newton's non-existent cards-set, of course, in the heyday

The English Magic Throt

of English magic. A fool's errand, perhaps, but then the tarot is nothirg v
without the Fool.
'What I hadn't realised was that our conversation was somethi.g of a
job interview, for shortly afterwards, Rex wrote to me and invited me to
collaborate on the deck. Would I write the accompanying book and help
advise on magical content? Naturully,I agreed.
Rex is deeply versed in English magic, both high and lo*, and he has
also studied shamanic techniques in Northern Europe and Peru. He arrived
at each card using a personal blend of high and low magic techniques. He
cast a protective circle at an appropriate astrological moment, journeyed
out into the astral realms to the accompaniment of repetitive drumming,
invoked the great stream of English magic, and waited until he received an
image. On his return, he put pencil to paper and drew what he d seen, no
matter how bizarce or unorthodox the image appeared. Later, at my sugges-
rion, he added various other bits and bobs to the pictures (about which I
shall say more shordy), and then, when he was satisfied, he inked them in.
Rex is a good, old-fashioned comic artist. Though he is a fine painter,
he prefers to leave the colourirg process to someone else, and this is where
Steve Dooley steps in. The way Steve has coloured the cards is entirely his
artistic response to the images. His was the very first reading of the cards,
if you will, and he's expressed his interpretation through colour, often with
surprisi.g results.
If you have thumbed through the cards, you will doubtless have noticed
there are riddles, references, and lore scattered through every one, the bits and
bobs I mentioned a moment ago. You may have spotted sffange writing, or
books with unusual titles, or that some letters are printed in odd colours. All
these are significant and have been placed there deliberately.On one level,
they are there simply to encourageyou to look more closely at the cards. It is
our hope that they will entice you to research English magic more deeply, for
if therek something you see but do not understand, we trust you ll look it up!
On another level, we wanted there to be an overarching theme to the cards,

Intoduction L3
v somethirg that ran through them all and bound them together, somethitg
unique to English magic. So the riddles do all point to szmething.It's a kind of
treasure hunt, if you will, and there is an actual answer at the end.
Here, we took our inspiration from the English artist, Kit Williams,
who, in the L970s, electrified the nation with his treasure-hunt book,
Masquerade. Readers had to solve the puzzles in the book to find some genu-
ine treasure, a beautiful and priceless golden hare that Kit had buried deep
within the English counrryside.
Well I'm afraid there's no actual treasure to be found by solvirg the
riddles of The English MagicTarot, other than the inner treasure of the magi-
cal quest, and a deeper, more nuanced understandirg of English magic. It
will takeyou manyhours of research to follow up all the pointers, but ifyou
do, your understandirg of both the tarot and English magic will undoubt-
edlv be enriched.

T4 The English Magic Tarot

WI.u. arrived at what is traditionally considered the most important V
W p"r, of a tarot book the description of the cards. Howwer, it's acru- ,

*lly the least important part, because what matters is the meanin gs lou dis-
cover for yourself, For example, you may find that a certain card appears,
without fail, whenever someone is about to change jobs. That should become
your default meaning fot the card, even if it rides roughshod over what the
book says. Or you might find your attention is drawn to some tiny detail at
the periphery of the card. No matter. Trust your intuition.
tVhat follows is simply
-y interpretation of each card. Although my
interpretations are based on long conversations with Rex, on many years'
study of the tarot, and a fair bit of life experience to boot, they remain my
interpretations. If what I ve written is helpful to lou, then that's great-read
on. But if any of my interpretations jar, dont hesitate to put yours first.
This approach makes sense, for if symbols were of the kind that image
'We
A has meaning B, *hy would we actually need them? could simply write
them down in a long list and read off their answers like a snippet of com-
puter code. A = B. No, symbols arent like that. They're supposed to catalyse
the imagination in ways that can't quite be put into words. That's why Rex
and I dont talk about doing tarot "readings." \7e prefer "tellings." We want
the cards to speak to you.
To reach the point where the cards "speak" requires putting yourself
in the appropriate magical state of consciousness. taditionally this has
been achieved in a number of ways: by sitting quietly or dancing to ecstatic
music; through the magical theatrics of dim lights, candles, and incense; or,
for the brave, the ritual use of power plants. The method is less important
than where it leads you and what you do with your experiences afterwards.
The magical state of consciousness is a kind of remembering because it's
somethirg we all know from childhood. Itt the state we were in when we
were lost in play, when, without a hint of self-consciousness, we could impro-
vise stories for hours at a time. Sadly, most of us lose this abiliry as the wild
shoots of our imaginations get hacked back by school, peer pressure, and the

The Cards and Their Meaning

.t/ humdrum cares of the modern world. I'm quite sure that none of us ever lose
it entirely; we just have to coax it back. The fact that you are reading this sug-
gests that you are alre ady well on your way.
All the paraphernalia that have grown up around the tarot-wrapping
the cards in a silken cloth, lighting a candle, sitting quietly in a darkened
room, burning incense, invoking gods of divination and far-seeing-all of
them exist to put your adult mind back in the magical state of consciousness
you knew instinctively as a child. For when things are fowing, you will be
able to look at the cards and simply start telling what they mean. The cards
will speak to you. Your querent will be am azed and wonder how you can
possibly know so much.
One thing that I think
is unique about Rex's images is that none of
them are stable. By this I mean that the possibiliry of change, and what is
needed for the story to advance, is written into every picture. To that end,
while I have included meanings for when the cards are reversed, these arent
strictly If , like fir€, you prefer not to use reversed meanings, then
necessa ry.

that's fine. I recommend a fluid approach whereby you simply notice when
the less positive aspects of a card are comirg to the fore. Reversed meanings
can help in the beginni.g, but with time and practice you will learn to judge
a card's significance by the overall feel of the spread. Remember: every situ-
ation, good or ill, will change.
Here, without further ado, are my pointers to the cards of The English
Magic Tarot. I hope you find them useful. Itt time to take your part in the
endless story.

The English Magic Tarot