The Psychosophy Cards combine knowledge from the worlds of spirituality, art, philosophy, and life experience, creating a playing and practicing space for thought and towards encounter and contact with the world, towards use.
The cards were written from the perspective of creative action as a model for human action. Meaning, from a perspective that sees life as a creation and humans as creators.
The Psychosophy Cards draw inspiration from tarot cards and build on the tarot format while imbuing it with specific and concrete visual and conceptual content. The tarot format lends itself to unique and effective knowledge organization and construction possibilities, which we harnessed to create a “thought generating machine.” A handy tool to use in accordance and in the context of our life. Like a platform into which we cast “our world” in order to contemplate it, to contemplate ourselves. In that sense, the Psychosophy Cards wish to reflect our “philosophical psyche.”
The origin of the cards
The structure of the package
(The pack contains 78 cards)
The core cards
the surface cards
(The core cards count 22 cards)
The Core cards relate to the archetypes that stand at the heart of Psychosophical thought.
(The surface cards count 56 cards)
The Ground cards relate to living in the world, actual experiences, and everyday life. To the manners in which we perceive and produce reality. To the ways in which we are subjected to values and judgements that exceed the laws of nature.
The Ground cards relate to our existence as conditioned beings who mediate the world through imagination and thought.
The Ground world is divided into four realms, based on the four branches of metaphysics – Ontology, Epistemology, Ethics, and Aesthetics – which formulate the core principles that shape the reality of our life.
In that sense, and despite the artificial distinction between them, the four realms share a common fate:
Human life.
Each realm (suit) includes fourteen cards and has its own distinguishing emblem: Hands, Eyes, Feathers, Consciousness.
The four Realms
(Each series has 14 cards)
The Realm
of Consciousness
The Realm
of Feathers
The Realm of Eyes
The Realm
of Hands
The Aesthetic (consciousness ) suit:
The Ontological (existence) suit:
The Ethical (morals) suit:
The Epistemological (knowledge) suit:
The Aesthetic (consciousness) suit: Focuses on relationships and emotions. A space that is totally personal and private yet belongs to the social and the common. This series concerns hope and promise, congruence, agreement and faith – being human. A space of inclusion and coexistence of dichotomies, where the imaginary flirts with the real and vice versa, where the effect is a reflection and echo of essence.
The Ontological (existence) suit: Focuses on the meaning of existence and the essence of things. On the ephemeral, forming, disintegrating nature of things, and their innate fleetingness. This is the realm of thinking time: the short-lived, changing, and recurring. Of thinking about ways of existing and tangibility, and about the meaning of existence.
The Ethical (morals) suit: Focuses on human action – that which could have been different or could not have been at all. Knowing things allows choice, and this in turn generates questions about the value of the action. How should one behave? What should one do? What should one choose?
The Epistemological (knowledge) suit: Focuses on our encounter with the world, organized as forms and ways of knowledge. What is knowing, how does it work, what are the values of knowing and judging?
The Suits Structure
(Four parallel series, in each series ten number cards and four royal cards)
Each suit has ten pip cards and four court cards.
The appearance of the emblem reflects the card’s number
(Three of Hands will feature three images of hands).
The consciousness suit – Aesthetics – does not follow this system.
Each series is constructed as a unique journey that unfolds from one card to the next when the Ace opens the story and the Ten ends it.
The pip cards are followed by the four court cards: knight, prince, queen, and king. All suits follow the same narrative template, creating correspondence between the same value cards.
This allows the readers to see how a moment of thought unfolds in parallel avenues in different contexts. For example: All two-pip cards will focus on an initial state of choosing.
All four-pip cards will focus on questions of structure. At the same time, it is worth remembering that these are different journeys that summon different moments at different junctures and offer a complex and different picture in each particular instance.
These intertwining journeys turn the Psychosophy Cards into a thought machine. A complex, evolving machine anchored in specific and concrete moments and concepts. Each card is conceived and created specifically for its placement, and at the same time, it becomes a part of immeasurably complex thinking.
Ace: entry cards
Initial encounter and orientation in the unique branch of thought.
Two: ego (“I”) cards
The beginning of the path, encountering the self and facing the experience.
Three: basic tools
Developing methods for dealing with the challenges.
Four: structure cards
Creating structures that allow one to step beyond oneself and meet the social.
Five: distortion/reversal cards
The (social) structure becomes restricting, manipulable.
Six: creative cards
Looking for a unique voice, self-expression, in a shared context.
Seven: belonging cards
Finding a place and forming relationships, constructing identity.
Eight: action cards
Fulfilling passions and desires as creation, the action gains and embodies value.
Nine: truth cards
Articulation in the face of the finality of existence, concrete and actual knowledge.
Ten: purpose cards
The ideal of the inquiry, seeing the big picture, “more than truth.”
Like the journeys, the court cards are anchored in a fixed template. They address four different “functions”:
The Knight – first encounter with reality, as a shock and a fight, being in danger, subjected to “external” circumstances and constraints. His very existence is threatened and therefore he must act, fight for his place, justify his existence through action, ensure the future. Do what needs to be done (rather than what one ought to do).
The Prince – his future and place are secure, whether by right or by grace. He is protected, marching towards a goal, even though he is free from any
responsibility. The Prince embodies the spirit of youth. Free, to some extent, to follow his heart, to make mistakes, to imagine the future, and to abandon previous commitments.
The Queen – associated with the regulation of existence and life, making sure to bring the action to fruition. The Queen is related to the maintenance of the present and the management of reality.
The King – sets the purpose and vision, motivated by an abstract and timeless sense of responsibility. The King is committed to the creation of a shared space where the potential can be expressed and fulfilled.
Court Cards
(Sixteen court cards - four per series)
