NMR ISSUE 43

Antilion Fly, Abalone & Grouse
Astrological Forecast 43
Chant for the Goddess
Colm and the Unicorn
Dark Passages
Editorial 43
Esoteric Symbology of the Tarot
Evolution
Healing for Mild Depression
In the Fire
Meditation
Meditation is the Key
Midsummer's Eve
Mouse
Namaste Part I
Pathworking
Ravel Magick
The $ Word
The Deserted Castle
Working with Your Shadow, II

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Authors
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Book Reviews
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The Esoteric Symbology of the Rider-Waite Tarot:

A Pig in a Poke

By Gary Shook

In this article in his series, Gary addresses not the little known Pig In The Bag card, but an important issue easy to overlook in one's enthusiam for the Tarot and Metaphysics.

In this issue I depart somewhat from my normal series to talk about a Tarot discussion panel that was held at this year's PantheaCon. PantheaCon is an annual convention held in San Jose, California. It is put on by Ancient Ways, a metaphysical/craft shop located in Oakland. The convention's focus is on all facets of the Pagan way of life and offers a wide variety of workshops, concerts, and rituals. The facilitators of the convention's activities include some of the best known and most respected names in the Pagan community. Just a few of the many who participated in this year's convention included; Starhawk, Oberon Zell, Victor and Cora Anderson, Diana Paxson, and Pat Califia. Members of the Tarot community who presented workshops were: Ellen Cannon Reed (Witches Tarot), Mary Greer (Tarot for Yourself), Ed Buryn (The Blake Tarot Deck), and Shekhinah Mountainwater (Daughters of the Moon).

Due to some last minute cancellations of prescheduled workshops, the event staff put together a few unlisted and unannounced replacements. One of these replacement workshops turned out to be a discussion panel on the Tarot, which I had heard about just by chance. It seems that I was just about the only person at the convention that knew about it because only one other person (who showed up thirty minutes into the panel) attended. One of the panel members joked about this being the first Montessori Tarot panel, as there were five panelists and only one audience member. Because of this, the panel decided to have a general discussion and bull session on the Tarot rather than canceling the event.

One of the items that came up during this discussion was a group called the ATA, or American Tarot Association. I queried the panel members if they had either heard of, or had dealings with this group. Their reply was a general chuckling and almost in unison asking me, how much did they want from you? Every member of the panel knew about the group, although not all had first hand experience. As it turned out the panel's contacts with the ATA and mine had been very similar.

My first contact with the ATA came a few months after I began writing this series of articles, when New Moon Rising forwarded a letter they had addressed to me. The letter was from the executive director (or some such title) of the group and, in brief, stated that he had been enjoying my articles and thought I might be interested in participating in this new association. The group was being formed from the ashes of two other, now defunct, Tarot guilds—one having been active in Philadelphia and the other in New York city. He further explained that the goal of the group was to bring a level of legitimacy to the profession of Tarot reading. This was to be accomplished through a series of Tarot classes offered by the group and a degree system where qualifying applicants would be granted titles ranging from Tarot Apprentice to Tarot Grand Master. The group was also to become a focus and forum for the exploration of the intellectual and esoteric aspects of the Tarot.

After the brief explanation of the group, the letter's author invited me to get on board by becoming a member. As (his words) it was obvious that I was well qualified he offered to grandfather me as a Tarot Grand Master that would allow me to use TGM after my name. (I think one of the panel member's comments reflects my opinion of this fairly well when she sarcastically stated you know I just stay awake at nights wishing I had TGM after my name!) Not only was I to become an officially sanctioned Grand Master, but they were also offering to make me a member of their board of directors with the chair of the educational committee? All this after they had read a couple of my articles in this magazine.

At the end of the letter, almost as an aside, was a request for twenty five dollars to cover my first year's membership fee. But the best way, the letter continued, was to pay your lifetime membership fee up front and get it out of the way. The lifetime membership fee was $250.

Having been raised in a very down to earth home, where one of the earliest lessons was never to buy a pig in a poke, I was more than a bit skeptical about this offer. My reply to the letter stated that although the group sounded like something I would be very interested in becoming a part of, there were some questions that needed to be answered first: Who is on the board and how do I contact them? Who controls the money and where does it eventually go? And how many members are in the group as a whole? If I were to hold the education committee chair then it might also be appropriate for me to examine some of the lesson materials that were to be the basis for the group's classes. In short, please send me something that would give credence to the ATA's existence beyond a laser printed letterhead and a phone number that rang to an answering machine.

I never received anything. Well, they did send me a photocopied newsletter, but that didn't do much to further my belief in their legitimacy. I was finally contacted by someone else (at least the letter had a different name and was postmarked from another city) that provided no further information other than urging that I send my membership fee in soon or the grace period for being grandfathered in would run out and my seat on the board of directors would have to be given to someone else. This person refused to provide a phone number because she just didn't do that.

After the first letter the yearly price of membership went up to thirty five dollars and the membership forms which were sent made no provision for anything other than a lifetime membership. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time signing a membership form which commits me to making payments for years, especially when I know next to nothing about the group. Finally in their last correspondence, in response to my voiced concerns, a new form was sent with a non-lifetime option of payment.

The one thing about my experience with the ATA that differed from those on the panel, much to their amazement, was that I was able to talk to a representative of the group on the phone. While he was very pleasant, and repeated the group's plans that were stated in the letter, he was not overly informative about other aspects of the association.

To be fair I must admit that this is a distillation of material from several letters I received. Also, some of the original phrasing may be a little inaccurate as the correspondence from the ATA was placed in the round file sometime ago.

So what is the bottom line? The American Tarot Association may very well be a legitimate group, with a leadership that is working hard to accomplish some very worthy goals for our community. But then again they may not be—and nothing in any of my contacts with them gave me the assurance that they wanted anything more than my money. Of the five members of the panel, each seemed to have either been solicited by the ATA, or knew of someone who had, and none of them knew anything more about the group than I. To those of you in the ATA, I really do hope you are on the up and up. We need more positive groups out there working to change the negative public image we readers must live with. But you certainly blew it with me, and it seems with other more influential members of this small Tarot community we live in. To others of you who may come into contact with the ATA, another bit of folk wisdom seems appropriate: When something seems too good to be true, it usually isn't.