Tarot Magic Mini-Course: Lesson 7: The Fourfold Rite Meditation
Welcome to Tarot Magic — a revolutionary new way to use the archetypes of the tarot for powerful personal transformation, practical enchantment, and spiritual growth.
In this mini-course, I’m providing free access to selected material in the full Tarot Magic course. If you enjoy this material, please consider signing up for the complete course here.
- Tarot Magic Mini-Course Main Page
- Goals of the course
- Creating sacred space
- Definitions of magic
- How Tarot Magic is different
- The aces and the classical elements
- The Fourfold Rite meditation (you are here)
- Breathing the Elements meditation
- Four weeks with the aces and elements
- Tarot altars
- Tarot Magic at the Crossroads
Here is a simple but surprisingly powerful meditation that activates and harmonizes the elemental energies of earth, air, fire, and water within you. Don’t be fooled by its simplicity — regular practice of this mediation can have profound effects.
You can also find the video on YouTube here if you want to access it outside of the course or share with someone.
Note: The best way to do this meditation is seated in a comfortable chair with your feet on the ground. When you get to the Coins/Earth visualization, focus all your energy on your feet rooting you and pulling you into the earth. But if you are physically constrained or disabled, you can do this lying down — in that case, feel your entire body sinking/being pulled into the earth.
During the fours of elemental work you will be doing (one week for each element), do the Fourfold Rite once per day, or twice if you wish. Morning is good, but any time you can find 10 minutes is fine. Morning and before bed is idea, if you can make that work.
I had developed a variation of this ritual/meditation, but when I discovered Chic and Tabatha Cicero had created something very similar, I realized they had made some improvements, so want to give them credit and kept their name for it.
After you have become comfortable with the basic mediation (to the point where you can do it yourself, without following the video or audio), please incorporate and experiment with the following additions.
Addition of symbols
Visualize the aces associated with each step (i.e., visualize the Ace of Swords when you inhale, the Ace of Cups when you hold the breath in, the Ace of Staves/Wands when you exhale, and the Ace of Coins/Pentacles when you hold the breath out).
And here’s an interesting method of localizing the cards and elements physically (when lying down). Place the Ace of Swords on your forehead, Ace of Cups on your heart, Ace of Wands on your groin/dantien and the Ace of Swords on your feet. As you breathe in or exhale the energy, feel it at those locations and visualize the symbol of the ace overlaying your body at that location.
Focus on individual elements
When you are comfortable doing the Fourfold Rite, consider doing the exercise while focusing on only one Ace/element. In this case, inhale AND exhale into and out of the appropriate part of your body (Swords/Head, Cups/Heart, Wands/Lower belly/genitals, Coins/feet (if standing, perineum/root chakra if sitting).
For example, if you’re about to head off to do an important presentation, do a few minutes focusing only on Air/Swords to energize your mind and speech as you inhale and exhale from the head. Or if you’re going on a date and want to exude sex appeal and confidence, spend a few minutes inhaling and exhaling from your lower stomach/genital area while focusing on the Ace of Wands.
Audio version
Please feel free to download the audio-only version. You can add this to your phone and listen to it whenever convenient. But after a week or two of daily practice, you’ll be able to do it without prompts, any time, anywhere.
Notes
There is some crossover and utility in linking the elements to the chakras or dantiens from Asian spiritual systems, especially if you already practice yoga or Qigong. Feel free to experiment.
Michael M. Hughes is a writer, speaker, game designer, and magical thinker. He is the author of Magic for the Resistance: Rituals and Spells for Change(coming soon in a revised and updated edition), the Blackwater Lights Trilogy,as well as numerous other works of fiction and nonfiction, and he speaks and teaches classes on magic, tarot, pop culture, psychedelics, and more.
His comprehensive tarot course, The Art and Magic of the Tarot: Foundations, is available here, as well as his most recent course on Tarot Magic.
Michael’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, CNN, The L.A. Times, Rolling Stone, Comedy Central, Wired, Elle,Vox, Cosmopolitan, The Tamron Hall Show, and even the ultraconservative The American Spectator, which wrote: “He may play footsie with the devil, but at least the man has a sense of humor.”
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