I was reading one of my tarot books the other day, feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the rules and regulations.
That is when I thought to myself: If this is madness, then it is a very well-structured madness.
And I kept thinking about that, about how we search for meaning, and spend years creating systems that, in the end, only hold the meaning we choose to give them, and only for as long as we keep believing in them.
Think of all those people who invest time in the tarot, who write books, who shaped the modern decks, Waite, Smith, Crowley, and the countless others who devoted their lives to something that cannot be proven, yet still holds so many of us under its spell.
And yet, such pursuits often lead to other discoveries, small revelations about ourselves and the world.
I am no expert in alchemy, but it feels like the perfect example of this idea.
Alchemy may have started as a strange mix of science and mysticism, but thanks to those who truly believed in it, it ended up giving birth to both chemistry and psychology.
Alchemy was not just about turning lead into gold, that was the public bait. The deeper idea was transmutation, transforming impure matter (and, symbolically, the impure self) into perfection.
The ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ was not only a magical catalyst, it was a metaphor for enlightenment.
Alchemy had two sides:
Practical: experiments with metals, acids, and glassware- the ancestors of modern chemistry.
Spiritual: inner purification and quest for immortality- the ancestor of psychology and mysticism.
But I digress.
My thoughts continued to wander in the direction of spending time and resources, and maybe mostly our attention on something that has no immediate result in our daily life. Or doesn’t it?
I think that the useless pursuits are essential to our development and happiness.
They might not translate into immediate gains, but they sustain our minds well being, and without that we would be quite in a pickle. Plus, like Alchemy, the activity might lead to significant discoveries. While I am writing this I am wondering if I am making sense or I am just rambling on. I hope I do make sense, even if just a little.
To go back to Alchemy, it was never only about metal, it was about the soul under pressure. Something we are all familiar with!
To the ancients, every furnace was a mirror: what boiled in the flask was what burned inside the heart.
The Magnum Opus, the Great Work, unfolds in three eternal acts: death, union, and rebirth.
First comes the Crow, when all structures collapse. Then, the Wedding, where opposites meet and reconcile. And finally, the Phoenix, the proof that what dies purified returns as gold.
🜄 The Black Crow (Nigredo)
The death of the old self. All transformation begins in decay.
The crow represents the first stage of the Great Work, the descent into shadow, confusion, and dissolution. What must die here is illusion: the false self, the unpurified matter. Out of blackness, light will be reborn.
Followed by:
☉☽ The Chemical Wedding (Albedo)
The sacred union of opposites, the marriage of Sun and Moon.
The red King and the white Queen meet in the alchemical bath, symbolizing the reconciliation of reason and intuition, masculine and feminine, matter and spirit. Their union births clarity, the purified soul emerging from chaos.
Ending with:
🔥 The Phoenix (Rubedo)
Perfection through fire. The soul reborn as gold.
The phoenix rises from the flames of its own destruction, the final transmutation. This is the red stage, rubedo, where all contradictions dissolve and the perfected being stands radiant and whole.
Maybe that is the real magic of it all, these things we call useless. Tarot, alchemy, the endless tinkering with symbols and signs, none of them put food on the table, yet they feed something deeper. They give us a language for wonder, a way to hold the mystery without having to solve it.
We build these intricate systems (decks, rituals, theories, formulas) and then, after all the effort, realize that what we were really trying to understand was ourselves. Maybe we never needed the gold or the prophecy. Maybe it was always about the process, the devotion, the strange joy of chasing meaning where none is guaranteed.
In the end, that is what makes us human: our talent for turning the useless into the beautiful, and for finding just enough sense in the madness to keep going.