Learn Tarot - Class 1: Elements

with my new tarot series The learn tarot series you're going to learn how to read the cards without memorizing anything get comfortable get cozy get your tarot Journal out get your tarot cards out because you are going to learn tarot once and for all yes everything you need to know to start reading tarot everything hi my name is Joe Monteleone I'm a modern Mystic and metaphysical Misfit and founder of the tower mysticism Academy an international school for advanced Tower training mystical philosophy and a million and one other things I'm super excited to be working with

you today and to get you reading tarot so what will you need for this course four things one you're going to need a Tarot Journal that can be a virtual Journal like Google Docs or a physical Journal you need one don't skip this seriously my tarot Journal is now hundreds and hundreds of pages like I could probably publish it the second thing you're going to need is a Tarot deck obviously the third thing I've made a couple guides that will support your learning in this course as well as give you more information for the next

step in your Tower education Beyond you can download those guides in the links in the description below and finally the last thing you need is your attention it might sound corny but tarot doesn't exist outside of you the art form of tarot is a subjective discipline all the methods all the techniques all the skills are things you generate and grow within you within your attention and your focus that's why card number one is the magician it's all about attention focus so if you have your Tarot deck if you have your Journal if you have the

guides and you're ready to give me your attention we can begin let's do it now you might know the elements are ready but I highly recommend you go through this thoroughly because what I'm going to describe here is the foundation for a lot of more advanced tarot work I will also have another video I will link below on a more advanced and mystical interpretation of the four elements but don't go there until you've really taken your time to move through this video because there's a lot here to cover the four elements were popularized in the

west by a philosopher named impedicles they found their way into tarot through various interesting philosophical and esoteric Roots but have become a way through which we can organize our experiences especially our human life experiences as opposed to what we'll get to that in another video so the four elements are life and what aspects of Life do they represent the big four how do I get paid how do I get laid how do I stay unafraid and how do I enjoy life's parade the four elements fire water air and Earth are represented by the four suits

of the tarot the Two of Wands the suit of Cups the suit of swords and the suit of Pentacles discs or coins I am using the Ryder weight Smith deck in this course you can use any Tower deck you want most tarot decks are based on this Rider weight Smith System many tarot decks are also based on the Thoth tarot tradition and I have courses on that on my channel and of course there's the Marseille tradition and I'm sure many others but the cool thing is once you understand the four elements you could really use

them with almost any deck we're starting with the suit of Wands which is the element of fire the suit of Wands shows us the part of our lives that are actively creative now I'm saying actively creative because the thing is everything is a creative process you watching this video now is a creative process you're interpreting your thinking you're sensing your processing you are creating an experience for you it's important to note is that the whole Tarot deck is an expression symbolically archetypally esoterically of a creative process and that creative process is you and your life

that creative process starts symbolically with a suit of Wands and it is active because it is what initiates the whole process the suit of Wands shows us our life purpose our career our passions our desires our will our goals and generally what we want to achieve for ourselves it often shows us what we are meant to do what we are meant to contribute to this world and because of that oftentimes it manifests as career as job as business the suit of Cups which represents water on the other hand is passive creativity I use the word

passive creativity to give the context of reactive creativity in the sense that in the suit of Cups we're looking at collaboration the suit of Cups and the element of water symbolize our relationships uh the people in our world our family our love our emotions unlike the suit of Wands where we are initiating and actively directing a creative force in the suit of Cups we are taking that creativity and working with it through others whether that's falling in love making a family collaborating with friends in a suit of Cups we are not alone and so it

requires more listening and responsiveness and responsibility now something really cool happens when these two elements get together and this is what you don't learn as much in Tarot books so pay attention when you have will and you have personal desire and you have a creative process that you initiate whether that's your life purpose or a business or a talent that you want to cultivate when you take that and you combine it with other people with relationships with collaborators that appear in the suit of Cups you start to form a personal identity and that identity is

represented by the suit of swords and the element of air the element of air is the element of the mind it's the element of logic and the intellect and the ego and in a larger scale it's the element of society which is itself a large-scale expression of the mind like if you study the fluid dynamics of cities and urban planning and engineering and stuff you will see that that's like a model of the mind the intellect so in the suit of Swords we begin to build an identity and a set of ideals and belief systems

around what we are creating and Desiring and who we are creating with now that set of ideals that set of goals identifications and even ego begins to shape our material world and our material world is expressed by the suit of Pentacles and the element of Earth the gag is everything you experience physically in your world including your body including the things around you including your financial situation has a direct relationship with your mind with your thoughts I'll get into all of that in more detail on my other video on the mystical analysis of the four

elements but for now we can just notice how the physical world the material world is either a result of your mental world or at least has a strong correlation if you don't want to go that far the suit of Pentacles representing Earth also represents our physical body our Wellness our health and also money it symbolizes money because money is an abstract measurement of stuff of material of effort and energy and work which is another attribution of the suit of Pentacles now the next exercise I'm going to teach you is going to show you how to

understand the meaning of over half the Tarot deck without memorizing anything what I'm about to teach you is something I developed to help new tower readers start reading the cards without having to memorize a million and one things without having to memorize symbols and history and systems and numbers and all this stuff all you have to know like I said are the four elements now this works for the minor Arcana the majors we're going to get to in another video Two Steps step one you're going to notice the suit symbol and recall the element step

two notice the relationship between that suit symbol and the rest of the card where is that suit symbol in relation to the other symbols of the card how is that suit symbol Incorporated in the illustration that relationship will give you the context to the subject matter of the element which makes the divinatory meaning it's so simple you're gonna love it let's look at an example the Two of Wands step one notice the suit symbol we see the ones and recall the element fire we know that wands and fire represents career life purpose passion will now

let's notice the relationship of the suit symbol with the scene we notice somebody holding one of the wands and the other wand is bolted to a castle the person holding the first wand is also holding a globe and he has his sights sit onto some location could also interpret him as looking out into the distance thinking of something looking in a specific Direction so we might say that this is somebody who holding firmly to their career to their passion to their life purpose is Now setting their sights on a new location on a new goal

we can interpret this wand being bolted to a castle as symbolizing somebody who has firmly set up their career in a successful way who has built something for themselves that brings them power that brings them protection that brings them direction another way to interpret it is that the energy of the wand which symbolizes fire and career and purpose is running through his hands to his eyes and into his Mind's Eye into his intention into his goal wherever he is looking at whatever he is focused on and notice how I didn't use any esoterica I didn't

use any Kabbalah any numerology all I'm using is the suit symbol and the scene you can also use this method to draw in some more esoteric influence without having to study a bunch of occult books I'll show you how you can notice that on this crenellation of the castle there appears to be a red rose and a white lily you can interpret this as a number of things and everything from opposites to Sex Magic to passion and Purity you could take any of those things and say that the balance of these two extremes draws in

energy going through the wand through his own passion through his own will through his own purpose and allows him to set his sights somewhere on the globe in part two of the series we'll be going through the suit of Wands using this technique to generate divinatory information for each car so make sure you subscribe and look out for that if you have any questions let me know and I look forward to seeing you in part two much love