When I finally got around to studying and dissecting the tarot years ago, I thought it would be somewhat simple. As an astrolo-phile, it was necessary to understand it, not because I wanted to do tarot readings at the local bazaar, but because the occult-minded mentors I knew used the tarot as a sort of sister tool of divination.

Of course, what I did learn is that there is nothing simple about the tarot. In actuality, it has multiple “occult” facets operating simultaneously, and the deeper I went, the more fascinated I became. The tarot may be many things to many people on a cursory level, but it offers a level of occult and symbolic sophistication that rivals anything else, such as runes or even the I-Ching.

In short, the cards are more than just a handy little medium for fortune-telling. Rather, they are a codex of Renaissance-era cosmology that reveals itself to the seeker in so many “a-ha” ways. It is quite the genius invention, and I’m sure I’m not finished finding all the goodies.

In the first three parts of this series, we began by asking the simple questions of why the three astronomical cards are contiguous and also why they are in that part of the sequence and not some other parts. As it turns out, that was a good place to start.

We learned that some special mathematical “things” were going on, with both prime numbers and the so-called Fibonacci series – related to the Golden Mean, or “phi” – and then the concept of “pi,” or the ratio of a circle to its diameter.

In this part, we will look at a third numerical sequence, which should tie everything together.

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