STATE SHUFFLER
Entering the In-Between with the Hoodoo Pilot Bardo Tarot
Kyle Fite
The HOODOO PILOT BARDO TAROT was my first “complete” series of Tarot images. Prior to this, I had created a multitude of paintings and prints around Tarotic themes. I even carved a print block containing all the Major Arcana as conjoined images, intended to be cut apart with scissors as was done with old woodblocks for an expedient production of a pack of cards. Still, until the Bardo Tarot, I had never carried my designs through to a full and complete Tarot set.
I can recall the precise moment when I began these images. It was 2014. I sat alone on a warm, damp hill, thick with mist, in the mountained forests of British Columbia, bristol board on my lap, pencil in hand.
The designs came pouring out.
As will be evident from the accompanying booklet (and the cards themselves), this is not a “typical Tarot.” I didn’t attempt to forge an analog with the classic Pamela Coleman Smith deck nor was I working in context of the glorious images of Frieda Harris with her second-to-none Thoth designs. Please don’t misunderstand. These majestic works stand, in my mind, as the Two Terrific Towers of Tarot. As interesting as any other deck may be (and there are MANY!), these two Picture Galleries of the Soul form an essential foundation for all extended studies. Of course, the Tarot of Marseilles served as a critical forerunner with Occult Luminaries such as Papus and Levi revolutionizing how we might apply this captivating set of images.
Waite and Crowley expressed their genius in giving the Tarot Machine a type of Symmetry. It would be their respective artists, however, who imbued these Concepts of the Mind and Universe with rich, delicious and enduring life!
There is no point trying to improve upon perfection. To this day, I adore Smith’s images as nothing less than Archetypes of a Divine Initiatory Path. I tend to disdain variants on her Tarot as I feel they can only lead one away from the power and presence of her amazing and soul-filled inkwork and outline. Likewise, the paintings of Frieda Harris cannot be profitably imitated by any other. The way in which her forms flow into their meta-geometries is unsurpassed.
It would, however, be Stuart Kaplan’s Encyclopedia of Tarot which opened my mind to the glorious phenomenon of the Magical Book of Thoth and WHY so many decks must exist.
I knew there were a LOT of Tarot decks out there. I used to write to U.S. Games and request their yearly catalogues, pouring over all the intriguing cards they offered. It would only be on a winter’s night, sometime in the early 90’s, dog on leash and cigar in mittened hand, that I would gaze up into the brilliant clarity of the stellar dance and realize that there was no “one true Tarot.” No, the Tarot was the Living Universe Itself. All these pictures and systems of operation were expressions of a Reality which was Above-yet pulsing through-It All!
From this vantage point, I enthusiastically embraced Ed Buryn’s William Blake Tarot. I was-and remain-fascinated by how so many diverse minds approach this Grand Mystery. As Above-So Below. There are the Platonic Realms of Pure Forms and the myriad expressions of the same in our Spacetime jaunt. We don’t need to flee any so-called deformities of the latter for the perfection of the former as the Body-Hating Schools of Old were wont to do for “Kether is in Malkuth after another manner!”
In 2014, I picked up my pen and paint and walked through the Temple.
This Tarot would be followed with the Metamorphic Tarot of the Spirits and the (still incubating) Space Buddhaa Angelic Contact Tarot. But the Bardo Tarot was my first and I am more than pleased to announce its second incarnation, remastered by the eminent Dr. Sean Woodward (Tarot of the Emmisary, Grimoire of ZAL etc).
When this deck was first released, we would take the template of paintings to be reproduced to the printers with each and every order. At a certain point, this involved a day’s voyage over water and land. Each sheet of 16 cards would be cut by hand with a papercutter. The process was paintstaking and laborious to say the least. Our patrons from this period received a true labor of love, as D.I.Y. as it may have seemed upon arrival. We had circumvented the usual process of submitting to a publisher and done it outselves. This approach had both benefits and drawbacks.
With the HOODOO PILOT BARDO TAROT v 2.0, we have added a unique design to the reverse of each card where previously “flip sides” were only an unprinted white. Each deck comes packaged in its own box as opposed to the plastic bags previously used. The accompanying booklet reproduces the text of the original with the inclusion of the essay GARDEN GNOMES AND ROCKET LAUNCHERS. The cards are machine cut and allow for better shuffling.
This deck does not attempt to take a singular theme and lay it into the Hyper-System of Tarotics. Rather, it looks at that Grand System and extracts from it particular, even idiosyncratic, expressions of its component points. Thus, we will find, for example, ODIN appearing in this sequence of images-but not the extended pantheon of Scandinavian Gods and Goddesses. These are all linked in by association (or “contagion” as some occultists might be wont to say). With this approach, we cover a good deal of ground.
The HOODOO PILOT BARDO TAROT brings together a variety of focus points for myself as an Artist and “Voyager.” This deck offers linkage ports with Radionics, Gamespace, Bhakti Yoga, Dream Yoga and the Power of Myth. One of our patrons connected the cards of the first edition with several radionic machines to great effect. At Space Hoodoo HQ, we are always more than happy to answer questions about this deck. Reception of these cards should be as a beaming into an Interzone Hub (“rezzing” in Gamespeak). Use of the deck should be nothing less than a Magical Spacetime Projection into Alt-Realms of History, Experience and Initiation. Use of the HPBT should not be along the lines of a Celtic Cross for the gratification of vain, curious or superficial inquiries. Rather, the images are intended to serve as Invocatory Oracles.
When drawing an image (“pulling a card”), one is opening to a Karmic Influx from which there can be no convenient dismissal. This can be an unnnerving thing for some. There are things we really do NOT wish to know. And there are certainly things we do NOT wish to confront.
This deck forces both issues.
I wouldn’t expect anyone to enter into this field of exercise without having done it myself. In my own experience, as I have previously related, I drew a Tarot Card to represent the rest of my human life on earth. I was using the Crowley-Harris Thoth deck. As much as I could have drawn a self-gratifying card, I could have pulled a complete disaster. No take-backs. No re-do. Roll the dice, throw the Runes and get the message, whether that be Blessing or Curse!
What card did I draw?
It doesn’t matter. Not to you. You’ll draw your own oracle if you choose to make this movement. The HPBT book offers some other advice on how to work with these images. But you can enter the cave and speak to the Oracle if you wish. The point is that you establish the INTERFACE.
This is not too different from Fight Club:
You don’t talk about it. You remove shirt and shoes. And if this is your first night…you HAVE to fight.
Furthermore, the fight will go on as long as it takes.
Guess who you’re fighting?
I strongly feel that brutality should be balanced by beauty. Encountering the figures and forms of this Tarot is never intended to lower the tone in your life. The Fist of God is meant to break your armour and free your SOUL. Thus, the Rosicrucian Emblems of Daniel Cramer open with a hand holding a hammer and striking a heart. The inscription is: “I grow soft.” Did not Crowley express something of the same dynamic when he wrote that he works upon gold-but must use ACID?
Lest we romanticize the blows to our face (and ego), we wish to emphasize:
There is a Soul which seeks the More, the Beyond, the Ever-Increasing and the Endless Lust for Life. The Dojo and Training Grounds are embraced. This Wild Spirit doesn’t work to protect its position on the hill. It welcomes the blows which blast it into the valley.
Again, we will turn to Fight Club.
Pick a fight-and lose.
Have you ever done this? With YOURSELF???
This lesson is well expressed in the words of Jaz Coleman/Killing Joke in their song “Struggle”:
“Getting Knocked Down
Every Moment You Get Up…
Until YOU LOVE GETTING UP…”
This “getting up” is much more than an expression of the resolute and indomitable spirit of the fighter. Getting up is an entry into Vision and Joy. The artist, poet, musician, writer and creator of any ilk “gets up” every single time they engage with their craft.
I knew a college professor who advised her students to take a disciplinary approach to their art, to set aside a specific time to work and to reward themselves after with chocolates or a hot bath.
Even as a young man with much to learn, I recognized this approach as something both absurd and abhorent. Was the burning desire for the Kingdom of Heaven to be rewarded with chocolates….or a BATH? Did the Merkabah Mystics of Old pamper themselves in this milquetoast manner?
If your Spiritual Path requires such paltry incentive, you might not be Fight Club material. Best to hit the pause button and contemplate the Diamond Sutra until one realizes that the only Merit is No Merit. This may take several lifetimes.
In the erstwhile, the Hoodoo Pilot Bardo Tarot begins and ends its sequence with the card traditionally known as the FOOL and herein called the VOYAGER. The small spiral in this painting is not insignificant. The Spiral is Key to the entirety of the Tarot Voyage. It is an Emblem of Death and Rebirth along the Royal Road.
We don’t need to wait until our vegetative vehicle succumbs to dissolution for our engagement with Death and Rebirth practice. This is one reason why the Tibetan Book of the Dead has such enduring value. The observances and recitations given in this text apply to much more than the deceased. The In-Between States will be found to be ALL STATES. Our task is to FLOW IN WILL.
When encountering an obstruction, we may PROJECT INTO AND THROUGH IT. This takes practice. Most people flinch. There are elements which, although unknown to-and unseen by-any other, cause the mind to shrink and turn away. The deeper we go, the more subtle and refined the Dweller on the Threshold becomes. He grows invisible, unnoticed, even as his pernicious presence permeates the very scent of ambrosia (or Immortality). Bold as we may be in our enthusiasm and hubris, it is exceedingly difficult to give that “last drop of blood” unto the Cup of Crowley’s Babalon.
But here’s the thing:
Are we in such a terrible rush to do so? To attain to some kind of A.A. Pedigree or Status? To go off and “write a thesis” as a “Master?” Or proclaim our “Word” as a “Magus?”
And what are we expecting to happen when that final drop splashes into the ruddy pool?
The giver of blood is beneath the Abyss-and things beneath the Abyss may be untrue to those above.
0=2 is ever our formulae.
Trascendence and Immanence are ONE THING. The BEYOND and the INDWELLING are the same.
This wisdom opens doors to very practical and potent MAGIC!
The HOODOO PILOT BARDO TAROT is an instrument intended for the Stateshifter willing to SUMMON, ACCEPT and PROJECT unto IMMANENCE UNFOLDING, what we may call The NOW BECOMING.
The forms of this Tarot will be discerned in the private and individual life of the Initiate who is also an AGENT of the CULTUS which is the PENTAGENCY.
As the Artist and Author of this deck and gallery, I can recommend it from all the personal experience which saw it manifest on the shores of the Kootenays in British Columbia. Kyler “blew up his own apartment” to bring this Dojo to the city.
Let’s FITE.
What’s the worst thing that can happen? You lose some blood?
The Cup of Babalon will catch every single drop.
And re-member: Her Cup holds the Blood of the SAINTS.
That would be YOU.
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An exercise for users of the Hoodoo Pilot Bardo Tarot:
Each card in this deck may be used as a Projective Field. Each image in this collection may serve as a Target and Gateway in ever deepening arenas of Mindspace.
Here’s how:
Astral Projection Specialists have both solid techniques and shared experiences which may be clearly communicated to beginning students.
One technique involves setting up what may be called “Targets” in physical Spacetime. These are often simple images such as Tattwas which can be drawn on cardboard or paper and placed across the room. They can also be basic objects such as a bowl, a plant or a chair. You set up the object and focus on it from a distance. Then, opening to a total awareness of the experience of movement and vision, you simply walk toward the object, moving from A to B. This exercise is repeated until you can replicate the visual experience of moving toward the object without actually moving. This is done by recalling the practice space from memory and “re-living” the simple movement. Try moving from your start point to the chosen object and then turning around and moving back. This practice can be built up further by establishing quadrant points in the room and developing a series of movements in relation to them.
Another helpful sub-exercise is to develop an acute awareness of your own stability and fundamental immobility as you seemingly move through environments. When taking a walk, shift awareness so you feel that it is the landscape around which is moving, not YOU.
At first, both of these exercises may feel quite awkward. Persistence will grant one “success.” It will, however. be a disciplinary continuance which will bring about an applicable skill-and this is what we are aiming for. There are many who have “trippy” or “weird” paranormal experiences which, as interesting as they might be, are doomed to exist only as entertaining remembrances. We are looking to develop something much more enduring in our lives. Instead of a lucky punch, we wish to be well-trained warriors exemplifying remarkable adaptability in any circumstance.
In this case, the circumstance is Spacetime as a Projective Field of your Mind (and your Mind as a Projective Field of MIND ITSELF).
In our experience, the rise of the classic First Person Shooter provided one of the best and most effective tools for developing this skill. QUAKE 1, 2 and HALF LIFE all present ample opportunity for Astral Training. There are significant elements to this period of game design. Refinements in graphic development, now approaching photo-realism, are NOT necessarily helpful with utilizing what we call “Gamespace” as a Spiritual Training Tool. This has to do with how the human mammal engages with sensory input from the “world” according to rudimentary and hard-wired survival mechanisms. DOOM unwittingly offered the Player a new way to Navigate the 3-D Universe by attempting to replicate it on the computer screen!
The exercises given above may be reproduced in Gamespace.
At first, Spiritual Gaming may begin to affect Dreaming. What was previously experienced as a disjointed phantasmagoria becomes a continuity of mapped voyaging. The next step is what is called “Lucid Dreaming.” At this stage, one should also be engaged with Magical Techniques which orient oneself on the Tree of Life. The individual who truly enters this Timezone will need to address a variety of dangers-for the Dreaming is NOT “just a Dream!”
From this working point, we may now begin to apply the Tarot.
The Images of the HPBT may serve as Targets but the are intended to function as GATEWAYS.
When one has mastered Projective Movement, one should then “feel” the Target Space BEYOND the Image Gate and move toward THAT. This practice will have multiple effects.
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You can draw a card in a consecrated environment to reveal the very specific and precise GATE which lies before you. The image before you is then projected THROUGH and the subsequent LANDING PAD becomes the Lodgeroom of your next Initiation. Please note that the description of Degrees given by Crowley in his A.A. (see One Star In Sight) contains many sub-degrees and States. We should not hastily assume that a personal SHIFT is an entry into a new Degree.
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When one has demonstrated adequate prowess as a STATESHIFTER, one may apply this skill to ANY apparent and seemingly outward circumstance. One can launch straight through people, situations and thoughts to hit the LANDING PAD and reorient. This practice transforms the Wizard into a veritable Juggernaut when it comes to what has been called “the shocking ambushes” of the Bardo. Performing one’s “Will,” no other shall say “Nay.”
We suggest no less than one year of daily practice along these lines. If this sounds formidable, it shouldn’t. One who chooses to go to college or university sets hand to the plow of at least FOUR YEARS of work and study. Not only is that not “too much,” it can be a wonderful and fondly remembered time in one’s life, a source point of re-surging power.
We can see that drawing a Tarot card is not simply a matter of being presented with a picture to interpret. It is receiving a Key intended to unlock Itself. This must be accomplished through direct experience. To have such an experience, one must possess the skill-set to enter it. This CAN be developed and the QUAKE engine remains a powerful tool for doing so. We have experimented with a large variety of such platforms and have found that many others may be adapted for this purpose. Active Worlds, Second Life and Sine Space are all great environments to work within IF one understands the underlying metaphysics. I found the CUBE (Sauerbraten) engine, in all its retro glory, to be a remarkable space to BUILD in. Builds can be structured according to the needs and desires of the Cyber-Mage who understands how and why Magical Gamespaces work. One may also develop the above-described disciplinary practices in such spaces.
This brief discussion of Spiritual Gaming is necessary as many aspects of the HP Bardo Tarot derived from working in these spaces. It is not, however, incumbent upon the Tarotologist to have this background before putting the HPBD to use but it will, most definitely, prove helpful.
This deck will serve an intrepid user as a gauge, a compass, a Bapho-Meter (if we recall that one interpretation of Baphomet is “Absorption into Wisdom”). For this Tarot has been acknowledged and known as the Book of Thoth, the Ibis-Headed God of Magic, Writing and Wisdom. Thoth is also the God of the Moon. This Ultra-Symbol for the Supreme Goddess reflects the Light of Gaia-Sophia who is both the Immanence of the omnipresent Anima Mundi and the Transcendence of the Sophianic “Correction,” as it has been sometimes described. Without this Lunar Magic, the Life-bestowing Solar Logos is but the spilled seed of Onan, a withdrawal into darkness, a passing of Power unto Weakness.
The book HOODOO PILOT (which includes the previously serialized Stateshifter essays 1-4) is available from Edgar Kerval’s Sirius Esoterica Limited here.