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The Spiritual Roots of the Tarot: The Cathar Code Hidden in the Cards
Learn the path to enlightenment and inner peace encoded by the Cathar in the Major Arcana of the Marseille Tarot
• Reveals how the secret wisdom teachings of the heretical Cathar sect were hidden in plain sight in the imagery of the Major Arcana of the Marseille Tarot deck
• Decodes each of the cards in detail and shows how they offer clear instructions for recalibrating human consciousness and achieving enlightenment
• Shares the author’s self-development program, based on the wisdom of the cards, for creating a lifestyle filled with peace, joy, good health, and meaning
The Holy Grail has been discovered. Not a cup or chalice as myth leads us to believe, the Holy Grail is sacred knowledge of the path to enlightenment and inner peace. While author Russell Sturgess was conducting research on the Marseille Tarot, he found evidence that this tarot deck, while masquerading as a simple card game, held the teachings of an ancient heretical religious group from southern France, the Cathar, believed to be the keepers of the Holy Grail. To avoid persecution by the papacy, this sect used portable art like illuminations to convey their Gnostic Christian teachings, in the same way the stained glass windows of churches spoke to their congregations. This portable Cathar art then inspired the creation of the Tarot.
After his breakthrough discovery of a hidden key on the Magician and Strength cards, Sturgess examined the Major Arcana cards further and used the key to unlock their symbolism, discovering clear instructions for recalibrating human consciousness and achieving enlightenment, with specific cards representing pivotal points in making the journey from ignorance to awareness. Decoding the cards in detail, the author shows how they reveal a journey of transformed consciousness that can result in finding what the Cathar called “the kingdom of heaven.”
Calling this sacred knowledge “the Cathar Code,” Sturgess reveals his personal development program based on the Code that opens access to a meaningful lifestyle filled with peace and joy and that naturally fosters health and well-being. He shows how these teachings offer a clear path that transforms a life burdened by fear of failure, rejection, and scarcity into one with clarity of purpose, self-honoring, kindness, and the abundance that comes with making a fulfilling difference in the world.
• Reveals how the secret wisdom teachings of the heretical Cathar sect were hidden in plain sight in the imagery of the Major Arcana of the Marseille Tarot deck
• Decodes each of the cards in detail and shows how they offer clear instructions for recalibrating human consciousness and achieving enlightenment
• Shares the author’s self-development program, based on the wisdom of the cards, for creating a lifestyle filled with peace, joy, good health, and meaning
The Holy Grail has been discovered. Not a cup or chalice as myth leads us to believe, the Holy Grail is sacred knowledge of the path to enlightenment and inner peace. While author Russell Sturgess was conducting research on the Marseille Tarot, he found evidence that this tarot deck, while masquerading as a simple card game, held the teachings of an ancient heretical religious group from southern France, the Cathar, believed to be the keepers of the Holy Grail. To avoid persecution by the papacy, this sect used portable art like illuminations to convey their Gnostic Christian teachings, in the same way the stained glass windows of churches spoke to their congregations. This portable Cathar art then inspired the creation of the Tarot.
After his breakthrough discovery of a hidden key on the Magician and Strength cards, Sturgess examined the Major Arcana cards further and used the key to unlock their symbolism, discovering clear instructions for recalibrating human consciousness and achieving enlightenment, with specific cards representing pivotal points in making the journey from ignorance to awareness. Decoding the cards in detail, the author shows how they reveal a journey of transformed consciousness that can result in finding what the Cathar called “the kingdom of heaven.”
Calling this sacred knowledge “the Cathar Code,” Sturgess reveals his personal development program based on the Code that opens access to a meaningful lifestyle filled with peace and joy and that naturally fosters health and well-being. He shows how these teachings offer a clear path that transforms a life burdened by fear of failure, rejection, and scarcity into one with clarity of purpose, self-honoring, kindness, and the abundance that comes with making a fulfilling difference in the world.
368 pages, Paperback
Published November 3, 2020
13 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
Russell A. Sturgess
2 books2 followersThroughout his formative years, Russell’s father was also his church minister. This foundation inspired Russell’s life-long interest in spirituality. Through his maternal line, Russell was exposed to complementary health and by the age of 15 was being trained in Osteopathic massage and manipulation. Spirituality and healing became the two key areas of focus in Russell’s life, running parallel to each other, until their paths crossed when Russell was 29. In the July of that year, his father passed away.
Besides the priority of his family, Russell devoted the balance of his time to his successful clinical practice in natural therapies, and fulfilling his role as a lay minister at church. Some weeks after his father’s passing, Russell had a series of dreams in which his father appeared, and taught him about love and spirituality, in ways that were different to how he had been raised. In what was to be the last dream, his father asked him if he had anything he wanted to know. Russell replied, “You raised me in a church with it’s own ‘take’ on spirituality, and yet what you have been teaching me here is significantly different. How does the spirituality of my upbringing fit into truth?”
With that his father explained, “It’s easier for me to show you.” He then raised his right arm to shoulder height and placing his palm forward, drew a large circle that resulted in the formation of a ball of brilliant light, about two to three meters in diameter. It was so bright, it seemed to more brilliant than the sun, yet one could look at it. It’s radiance made everything it touched transparent. His father then explained, “This is truth!” Removing his hand, he then extended his index finger and proceeded to draw a circle just a few centimetres wide, the circumference of which remained darker in colour. He then revealed, “The small circle represents the spirituality of your upbringing. It’s a small part of a much larger truth. My advice to you, go in search of the bigger truth.” At that moment the dream finished, and for Russell, there were no more dreams with his father.
His father’s explanations about love and spirituality continued to play in Russell’s mind, and the idea of searching for a truth beyond his formative religious teachings presented Russell with a conundrum. Where was he to begin looking for this ‘bigger truth’? When the student is ready, the teacher appears. A couple of months later, Russell’s mother gave him a copy of Gerry Jampolsky’s book Teach Only Love, as a Christmas present. As he began to read Gerry’s book, the words seemed very familiar. Russell realised immediately that everything his father taught him in his dreams was here in Gerry’s book. Immediately Russell knew which path his spiritual journey would take.
The floodgates of learning opened, and over the next decade Russell’s spiritual journey became inspired by A Course in Miracles and more particularly Gerry’s simplified interpretation, which he named Attitudinal Healing. With time, it became clear to Russell that his Osteopathic approach to healing and this spiritual approach to life could be blended. The harmonising of these two aspects of Russell’s life became the curriculum of a course of healing that Russell called Fascial Kinetics, which he taught throughout the 90’s, in the USA, New Zealand and Australia. It is still taught in Australia and New Zealand.
With conscious teaching comes expanded awareness. In 2006, Russell chose to live in southern Italy for almost a year, while he researched and wrote his first book, Metanoia, Renovating the House of Your Spirit. It was from this that Russell was inspired to create his mindfulness mentoring approach that he called the Enhances Awareness Program (EAP). Russell has trained other like-minded people throughout Australia and New Zealand to use his work, and they in turn now work with clients from all over the world.
In 2018, Russell published a small autobiography entitled, Get Out of Jail Card, A Jou
Besides the priority of his family, Russell devoted the balance of his time to his successful clinical practice in natural therapies, and fulfilling his role as a lay minister at church. Some weeks after his father’s passing, Russell had a series of dreams in which his father appeared, and taught him about love and spirituality, in ways that were different to how he had been raised. In what was to be the last dream, his father asked him if he had anything he wanted to know. Russell replied, “You raised me in a church with it’s own ‘take’ on spirituality, and yet what you have been teaching me here is significantly different. How does the spirituality of my upbringing fit into truth?”
With that his father explained, “It’s easier for me to show you.” He then raised his right arm to shoulder height and placing his palm forward, drew a large circle that resulted in the formation of a ball of brilliant light, about two to three meters in diameter. It was so bright, it seemed to more brilliant than the sun, yet one could look at it. It’s radiance made everything it touched transparent. His father then explained, “This is truth!” Removing his hand, he then extended his index finger and proceeded to draw a circle just a few centimetres wide, the circumference of which remained darker in colour. He then revealed, “The small circle represents the spirituality of your upbringing. It’s a small part of a much larger truth. My advice to you, go in search of the bigger truth.” At that moment the dream finished, and for Russell, there were no more dreams with his father.
His father’s explanations about love and spirituality continued to play in Russell’s mind, and the idea of searching for a truth beyond his formative religious teachings presented Russell with a conundrum. Where was he to begin looking for this ‘bigger truth’? When the student is ready, the teacher appears. A couple of months later, Russell’s mother gave him a copy of Gerry Jampolsky’s book Teach Only Love, as a Christmas present. As he began to read Gerry’s book, the words seemed very familiar. Russell realised immediately that everything his father taught him in his dreams was here in Gerry’s book. Immediately Russell knew which path his spiritual journey would take.
The floodgates of learning opened, and over the next decade Russell’s spiritual journey became inspired by A Course in Miracles and more particularly Gerry’s simplified interpretation, which he named Attitudinal Healing. With time, it became clear to Russell that his Osteopathic approach to healing and this spiritual approach to life could be blended. The harmonising of these two aspects of Russell’s life became the curriculum of a course of healing that Russell called Fascial Kinetics, which he taught throughout the 90’s, in the USA, New Zealand and Australia. It is still taught in Australia and New Zealand.
With conscious teaching comes expanded awareness. In 2006, Russell chose to live in southern Italy for almost a year, while he researched and wrote his first book, Metanoia, Renovating the House of Your Spirit. It was from this that Russell was inspired to create his mindfulness mentoring approach that he called the Enhances Awareness Program (EAP). Russell has trained other like-minded people throughout Australia and New Zealand to use his work, and they in turn now work with clients from all over the world.
In 2018, Russell published a small autobiography entitled, Get Out of Jail Card, A Jou
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 4, 2023
POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT.
A deeply, comprehensively researched and fascinating book on the spiritual origins of Tarot cards. As a Tarot user myself I was particularly interested, as my favoured decks are Tarot de Marseille, not the later Rider-Waite cards dating from the early 20th century (which were at least partly inspired by the late 15th century Sola Busca illustrations from northern Italy).
The theory of the book is that what are known today as the 22 cards of the Major Arcana of the Tarot de Marseille, have their origin in the demise, yet ultimate clandestine survival of Cathar philosophy and spirituality, which was thought to have been eradicated by the Catholic Church, that regarded the Cathar religion as a heresy. It would seem that the philosophy was transferred, albeit covertly, to Lombardy in northern Italy, and began to reimerge in the nascent Renaissance in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the areas ruled by the Visconti Sforza families.
This is hardly unprecedented; for example, it is usually admitted that the Knights Templar, officially taken out in the early fourteenth century by the King of France and the Pope, survived in the background, to re emerge in various philosophies and secret societies later.
The author's interpretation of each of the major arcana of 22 cards is fascinating and multi-layered and may well have a lot of credence. Placing card 21, the World, at the centre, he traces a clockwise semi circle from bottom to top of the world, beginning with card 1 The Magician, ending with card 10 The Wheel of Fortune. This is essentially the early more worldly path of the Fool (card), which is not given a number as such, but a zero. A second counter clockwise semi circle of the remaining major arcana cards, from 11 the Strength card up to card 20 the Judgement card, traces the more advanced path of the Fool (the individual neophyte) on a more profound course towards ultimate enlightenment, which, invariably, must also take in a dark night of the soul.
It is all fascinating, largely esoteric information, and has certainly made me think more deeply about the meaning of each card, their use for individual revelation, as well as in more conventional divination practices. The history of the tarot has been significantly deepened and enriched with this work.
A deeply, comprehensively researched and fascinating book on the spiritual origins of Tarot cards. As a Tarot user myself I was particularly interested, as my favoured decks are Tarot de Marseille, not the later Rider-Waite cards dating from the early 20th century (which were at least partly inspired by the late 15th century Sola Busca illustrations from northern Italy).
The theory of the book is that what are known today as the 22 cards of the Major Arcana of the Tarot de Marseille, have their origin in the demise, yet ultimate clandestine survival of Cathar philosophy and spirituality, which was thought to have been eradicated by the Catholic Church, that regarded the Cathar religion as a heresy. It would seem that the philosophy was transferred, albeit covertly, to Lombardy in northern Italy, and began to reimerge in the nascent Renaissance in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the areas ruled by the Visconti Sforza families.
This is hardly unprecedented; for example, it is usually admitted that the Knights Templar, officially taken out in the early fourteenth century by the King of France and the Pope, survived in the background, to re emerge in various philosophies and secret societies later.
The author's interpretation of each of the major arcana of 22 cards is fascinating and multi-layered and may well have a lot of credence. Placing card 21, the World, at the centre, he traces a clockwise semi circle from bottom to top of the world, beginning with card 1 The Magician, ending with card 10 The Wheel of Fortune. This is essentially the early more worldly path of the Fool (card), which is not given a number as such, but a zero. A second counter clockwise semi circle of the remaining major arcana cards, from 11 the Strength card up to card 20 the Judgement card, traces the more advanced path of the Fool (the individual neophyte) on a more profound course towards ultimate enlightenment, which, invariably, must also take in a dark night of the soul.
It is all fascinating, largely esoteric information, and has certainly made me think more deeply about the meaning of each card, their use for individual revelation, as well as in more conventional divination practices. The history of the tarot has been significantly deepened and enriched with this work.
July 1, 2024
I saw Russell Sturgess present about this book and was intrigued enough to purchase it and read it. I'm glad I did so. Sturgess doesn't use the Marseilles Tarot for divination, but rather as a spiritual map. He focuses on the symbolism in the Major Arcana cards only; dating to the Cathars. His theory is that the lemniscate (infinity symbol) present in the hats on the Magician and the Strength cards provides a clue for how to lay out the cards and interpret the symbolism not just on each of them, but between them (e.g., the directions in which the eyes of various characters on the cards are looking are significant). Sturgess includes a lot of European religious history, so I learned a lot about that as well. I am only giving the book four stars, because I think the text could have been a bit more clear throughout the book. If I had not seen his presentation first, I think I would have had a hard time following the book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews