Sacred texts

I was reading the other day a book about tarot, but not any kind of tarot, it was the guide for ‘Tarot in Wonderland’, a tarot deck created by Barbara Moore based on the Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass stories by Lewis Carroll.

It is a beautifully drawn deck by Eugene Smith and the guide book in itself is very insightful and useful.

I found it fascinating that when talking about the choice of this story as a basis for the deck, Barbara Moore writes about certain books that have become sacred texts, like the Bible and the sort.

Books that people keep reading and continue to find meaning in them with each new read.

I had read about something similar, in a different book, by Ruth Rendell, book in which one of the characters uses John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ as a divination method. He opens the book, chooses a line with his eyes closed, then finds meaning in it.

I thought it funny then, but now I understand it better, and it goes to show how powerful books and stories can be, even hundreds of years after they are written.

In her guide Barbara Moore gives examples of other sacred texts like Harry Potter, talking of how the Harry Potter books are read and re-read as sacred texts.

Of course my mind flew by association to JK Rowling, wondering what it must be to have created something so impactful, that it has been risen to the status of sacred by its readership.

I have never read a Harry Potter, but I might. I have read though some of the Strike novels and really enjoyed them. It just goes to show what a great writer JK Rowling is, to be able to create so different and such amazing stories.

It is wonderful to think that stories hold such greatness and that with each read, by new or the same readers, new meaning and joy can be unearthed in the same text.

I think it is just wonderful and it makes me feel so grateful that I get to enjoy some of it.

Do you have a text you go to again and again to search for meaning or just to enjoy it?