Madam Lichtenstein's Cosmic World

Salvador Dalí’s Tarot Cards Will Tell Your Surreal Future

I want these cards!!

The deck was originally created for the 1970s James Bond film Live and Let Die, starring Roger Moore and Jane Seymour, but it never appeared in the picture.

If you think you already know everything there is to know about Salvador Dalí, this lesser-known factoid might change your mind: In the early 1970s, the surrealist artist ventured into the occult with a custom deck of tarot cards featuring himself and his wife, Gala, as mystical figures. The deck was originally created for the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die, starring Roger Moore and Jane Seymour, but it never appeared in the picture.

In 1973, Albert R. Broccoli, a producer for the 18th James Bond spy thriller, approached Dalí with an offer to create the tarot deck for a scene in the film. The cards were needed as props for the character of Solitaire, played by Seymour, a psychic who works for a menacing drug lord. As Bond films typically go, the psychic changes sides to become the spy’s collaborator and love interest.

Dalí accepted the offer and started working on the cards, possibly encouraged by his mystically inclined wife Gala, but it was rumored that the contract fell through when the artist demanded an astronomical fee that was too high even for the film’s $7 million budget.

The deck’s 78 cards combine classic tarot themes with Dalí’s signature motifs: dissected faces, ants, roses, and butterflies. The deck features the artist himself as the Magician, while his wife poses as the Empress. Dalí’s Ten of Swords card — which can represent betrayal, backstabbing, or the death of a relationship — is a depiction of the assassination of Julius Caesar. The Queen of Cups is a play on François Clouet’s portrait Elisabeth of Austria, Queen of France (circa 1571), whom Dalí dresses with a goatee and mustache. The Moon is a woman’s face looking down on at a modern metropolis and Death is an ominous skull in a floating, cut-off cypress tree.

Queen of Cups (© Cartamundi, Turnhout Belgium © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019)

Death (© Cartamundi, Turnhout Belgium © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019)

As a poke at the producers of Live and Let Die, Dali gave the Emperor’s face to actor Sean Connery, who was the first to portray Ian Fleming’s literary spy character in a film. Connery and Moore were in public rivalry at the time, each criticizing the other’s performance of the secret service agent.

Taschen Books’s edition of the deck comes with an explanatory booklet authored by tarot expert Johannes Fiebig. It includes an introduction about Dalí and a guide explaining the meaning of each card and how to perform a reading.

Salvador Dalí as the Magician on the cover of Taschen Books’ edition of the artist’s tarot cards (courtesy of Taschen Books)

Musings on Tarot

For those seeking a way to make sense of the world, I recommend a tarot reading with a reputable reader. I have found that tarot cards are really good at telling you what you already know but may not be ready to hear. And when someone reads your cards, you can also see what is revealed and discover something that may not be said to you.Knowing what certain cards mean can give you added insight into what is what.

 

If you see the following cards, you will get your wish:

The Sun

The Nine of Cups

 

If you see the following cards you can make your own success - I call them Grit cards:

Two of Pentacles

Strength

 

If you see the following card you need to pull back and meditate. You know the answer - you just have to hear it:

The High Priestess

 

Online Tarot Course Starting in June

The Centre for Psychological Astrology is offering a new online course in Mythic Tarot with Juliet Sharman-Burke that starts in June.

Mythic Tarot Course
A Five Week Webinar Course in Mythic Tarot with Juliet Sharman-Burke covering the 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana
Dates: Tuesdays from 18^th June to 16^th July    Time: 18.45 - 21.15 BST (UK Time)

Aim: To give you an overview of the divinatory and symbolic meanings of the whole deck with a view to being able to use the cards to clarify situations and act appropriately.

This online course is presented by Juliet Sharman Burke. This is a wonderful opportunity to hear Juliet explain the tarot live from wherever you are in the world! The five week course will start with a brief overview of the Tarot’s origins. We will then examine the Mythic Tarot in depth as well as referencing other decks.  We will look at the meanings, divinatory and symbolic, as well as the myths associated with each of the twenty two Major Arcana. The sixteen Court Cards, Page, Knight, Queen and King, will be discussed separately, linking them with the astrological signs and qualities as well as their myths. The forty cards comprising the four suits will then be discussed, noting their correlation with the astrological elements of Fire, Water, Air and Earth, and the myths associated with each suit. The final session will be putting it all together with readings which students can send in. Group questions and participation are encouraged. This course will be suitable for beginners as well as more experienced readers who would like a refresher or new perspective.
 
Session 1 = Introduction and Major Arcana
Session 2 = Court Cards
Session 3 = Suit of Wands & Cups
Session 4 = Suit of Swords & Pentacles
Session 5 = Readings

Cost: £170 for the full course

Full Details and Booking at: https://www.cpalondon.com/tarotcourse.html
Places are limited and booking will close on 10th June.

Don’t forget to also check out our weekend webinars happening this term here: https://www.cpalondon.com/seminars.html

Online Tarot Course from the Centre for Psychological Astrology

If you are ever interested in learning tarot, here is an online course offered by the London based Centre for Psychological Astrology on Mythic Tarot, taught by Juliet Sharman-Burke.

Mythic Tarot Course
A Five Week Webinar Course in Mythic Tarot with Juliet Sharman-Burke covering the 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana

Dates: Tuesdays from 18^th June to 16^th July    Time: 18.45 - 21.15 BST (UK Time)

Aim: To give you an overview of the divinatory and symbolic meanings of the whole deck with a view to being able to use the cards to clarify situations and act appropriately.

This online course is presented by Juliet Sharman Burke. This is a wonderful opportunity to hear Juliet explain the tarot live from wherever you are in the world! The five week course will start with a brief overview of the Tarot’s origins. We will then examine the Mythic Tarot in depth as well as referencing other decks.  We will look at the meanings, divinatory and symbolic, as well as the myths associated with each of the twenty two Major Arcana. The sixteen Court Cards, Page, Knight, Queen and King, will be discussed separately, linking them with the astrological signs and qualities as well as their myths. The forty cards comprising the four suits will then be discussed, noting their correlation with the astrological elements of Fire, Water, Air and Earth, and the myths associated with each suit. The final session will be putting it all together with readings which students can send in. Group questions and participation are encouraged. This course will be suitable for beginners as well as more experienced readers who would like a refresher or new perspective.
 
Session 1 = Introduction and Major Arcana
Session 2 = Court Cards
Session 3 = Suit of Wands & Cups
Session 4 = Suit of Swords & Pentacles
Session 5 = Readings

Cost: £170 for the full course

Full Details and Booking at: https://www.cpalondon.com/tarotcourse.html

Tarot is Trendy According to Dior

Tarot decks have a beauty unto themselves. And now it seems that designers are incorporating tarot themes in their fashions. That is because tarot is having a resurgence in popularity. Of course, I believe that tarot has never gone out of fashion...

This article from the New York Times explains it all. Here is a short excerpt of the article:

 Vicki Noble, who with Karen Vogel created the Motherpeace Tarot Deck in the late 1970s, hasn’t really kept up with the latest happenings in the community of divinatory playing cards. But when Maria Grazia Chiuri, the artistic director of Christian Dior, called and said she wanted to incorporate the Motherpeace into a fashion line, she and Ms. Vogel agreed. Both felt that it could breathe new life into their 40-year-old deck.

Almost six months after Dior’s fashion show in Santa Monica, Calif., Motherpeace sales have skyrocketed, up 263 percent from last year, according to Stuart Kaplan, the chairman and owner of U.S. Games Systems, a global distributor.

Tarot-deck sales in general are up 30 percent this year, after rising 30 percent in 2016 — the highest in 50 years, according to Lynn Araujo, the editorial and communications director for U.S. Games Systems. The company sells hundreds of thousands of decks a year, including Motherpeace, the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck and 123 other varieties.

The tarot boom comes as no surprise to Libby Edelson, a senior editor at HarperCollins. In 2015 an unusual new deck called the The Wild Unknown caught her eye. With images of plants and animals instead of people, the deck had attracted a dedicated following and was selling out with each new edition. Ms. Edelson acquired the rights to sell the deck with the accompanying guidebook and watched this package climb best-seller lists.

“Now there’s this whole new wave of tarot,” said Kim Krans, the creator of the Wild Unknown Tarot deck. “People are saying things like, ‘I’m going to quit my job and become a tarot reader.’”

 

“Tarot is very trendy right now, but more people are coming in with inquiries that are very thoughtful and beyond themselves,” Ms. Mack said. Contrary to popular belief, she said, and opposed to the fortuneteller’s Crystal Ball, tarot has never been about predicting the future. “It’s a mirror,” she said. “It’s an invitation into the present moment.”