Translator’s Introduction
We present an excerpt from Tchalaï’s work, from the article Le tarot: comment s’en servir? (The Tarot: How to Use it) published in the journal Question De, no. 30, May-June 1979. This is a stand-alone piece from the article, dealing with her method of studying a single card in depth.
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Study of a Card: Force
Tchalaï
Observe the name, the shape of the letters, the number, the shape of the numbers. Allow whatever general ideas you may have on fortitude/power/strength[1] to come to you, and try not to become attached to any preconceived image, positive or negative. Contemplate this spectacle.
Allow whatever numerological knowledge you may have (e.g. the number 11 in your life) to come to you, without becoming attached to any absolutes.
Observe the card in question between card X and card XII. (Later you will have to find the common denominators between X and XI, between XI and XII, as well as between XI and every other card, including the minor arcana.)
Allow the colours and shape to permeate you, and every detail to impress itself upon you, without intellectual commentary. If that is pleasant or unpleasant, merely note it, and that is all. Be sensitive to the design, to the apparent volumes (true or false?). This is to be done every day for 10 minutes, for at least a month (either continuously or discontinuously) until such a time as you have completely memorised the card and all its details, without exception. This may take years.
Once again, at the moment of falling asleep, look at the card as though it were an icon or a mandala. Express the hope to see it in your dreams. Note these dreams, even those which at the time do not seem to have a direct relation with Force. Later, this type of task will have to be accomplished for every single card.
Then, after this period of sensorial impregnation, objectively assess the extent and placement of the colours, according to the basic symbolism, the placement of the shadows and hatching. Count every stroke, every fold in the coat, every ‘tooth’ of the hat, and the teeth of the animal. What is this person doing?
Then, adopt the attitude of this person. You cannot. This body is lopsided. Take a closer look as to where the foot is placed (above the ground), and the shoes – assorted to the outfit? How many toes? Or straps? See how the head and arms are nice and well-drawn (the position of each finger), but the rest of the body, less so. Is it a woman, as the head and outfit would have us believe? And what of that line at the base of the neck? The head is placed on the rest of the body. Is it a body? Compare it with the other feminine bodies of the major arcana and of the Honours of the minor arcana. Is it a clothes hanger, or a scarecrow?
Return to the foot. Why does it not touch the ground? (Loss of contact with reality?)
Look at the animal. Dog? Lion? Its fierce eye and fearsome teeth (how many?), carefully drawn. Its curly mane. Look at the bottom of the card. It has no paws. It is a stick. (A broom? A witch on a broomstick?) Is it the pelt of a lion or a dog on a stick? It does not exist, or rather, it is also an illusion. When force is exerted on an illusion, it loses contact with reality. But who is applying this force? What theatrical play is being played upon the scene of Arcanum XI? Allow this to settle in you like wine. Take up the card every now and again. Take it as a subject of reflection, a support of meditation. Imagine how the character’s movements might flow. Use it as the point of departure for Ichazo-style exercises.[2] Engrave it within yourself. Become Arcanum XI. And, as Jodorowsky says, “breathe her, manducate[3] her, drink her, make love to her.”
You will hate her, love her, then forget her. When complicity arises, that is when knowledge begins.
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- [1] In French, la force. – Ed.
- [2] Visualisation exercises used towards the goal of reducing and sharpening the imagination and sensoriality, practiced in the Arica School founded by Óscar Ichazo.
- [3] The apparent colloquial hispanism, “to eat, to chew,” masks a rare religious term generally only found in reference to the consumption of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, both in English as in the original French. – Ed.
Traditional Tarot 