Word: tarot
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...exhausting and massive novel, mind-fogging in its range and permutations, its display of knowledge and virtuosity-a metaphysical, phenomenological, technological Mad Comic. The author seems to have read and understood everything from quantum mechanics, probability theory and engineering manuals to the labels on bottles of 1920 Schloss Vollrads, Tarot cards and rock lyrics. This, and much more, Pynchon catalogues and tickles into fantasies so elaborately detailed that most of his readers will come away feeling illiterate in the terms of the 20th century...
...Luke, the winged man for Matthew, the winged lion for Mark, the eagle for John. The standard 13-card suits prevail, designated one through king, but every card is a "picture" card, decorated with a biblical quotation and a full-color Gospel scene that seems a cross between tarot cards and Peter Max art. From the ace of Luke to the king of John, the scenes tell a chronological story of Jesus' life. The king of Mark, for instance, is the Crucifixion. The jokers are "fools for Christ." A booklet accompanying the deck suggests variations on standard games...
...takes no tarot deck to foresee a day, 30 years hence, when the last surviving movie theaters will be mounting Woody Allen festivals containing hours of the best sight and sound gags of the epoch...
...good deal of the activity focuses around occult bookshops, which often offer subsidiary courses and services as well. One of the busiest is the Metaphysical Center in San Francisco. Its book department sells out 65% of its $25,000 stock every month. The center also presents tarot-card readings, daylong crash courses in palmistry (at $25 each), reincarnation workshops, and classes in astral projections, numerology and the esoteric Hebrew mystical system, the cabala. There is even a gift shop that sells
...other ancient methods of divination. The I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, provides one of them?an elaborate and complicated casting of sticks (or in another variation, coins). Their random order of fall directs the inquirer to appropriate passages in the book, which then guide his actions. Tarot cards are another favorite. The standard tarot deck has 78 cards, 56 of the "minor arcana," similar to and forerunners of modern playing cards, and 22 "major arcana" cards depicting such mystical symbols as The Devil, The Fool, The Lovers and The Hanged Man, each of which has many interpretations...