Alexander Dunlop The Esoteric Secrets of Playing Cards

[Speaker 3] (0:00 - 0:08) You are now listening to the Here for the Truth podcast hosted by Joel Rafiti and Erasmus Skelionesis. [Speaker 2] (0:13 - 1:37) Welcome to the new year everyone. We're really excited to bring you a new year of episodes. We're 50 episodes deep and you're about to watch episode 51. We have a really special guest for you today, Alexander Dunlop. He's someone I consider a close friend, a teacher, and a mentor and you're going to learn the true meaning of a deck of cards, which we can't wait to share that and so many other awesome things that we talked about. Self-knowledge, personal responsibility, and all these other conversations are really, really cool. And as always, for all your divination needs, getting into tarot, astrology, go to JoelRafiti.com to work with Joel. If you want a more specific human design reading or if you're really into body work and working with your nervous system and you're based in Los Angeles County, give me a holler. Also, we're really, really excited to let you know that we are launching our website soon, HereForTheTruth.com. You'll be able to watch our episodes, listen to our episodes. We have a merch store there too, which is gonna be really cool. You can get hoodies and t-shirts and support us in that way. There's also other ways to support us through PayPal, joining our Patreon community as well where we have monthly community calls. We're building community there and other things. Joel, if you want to add anything, please do. [Speaker 3] (1:38 - 1:40) Well said, bro. Let's get into it. [Speaker 2] (1:40 - 1:42) Cool. Alexander Dunlop, everyone. [Speaker 3] (1:43 - 2:11) A little bit about Alexander. Alexander is a guide and teacher who helps people play their cards right from darkness to light. He's the Amazon best-selling author of Play Your Cards Right, The Sacred Guide to Life on Earth. A charismatic speaker and workshop leader who provides life-changing counsel to clients located on six continents. Alexander powerfully guides people towards the fullest expression of who they are. Wow. [Speaker 2] (2:12 - 2:18) Welcome, brother. So listen, I want to start off first because I guess got to talk about how I met Alexander. [Speaker 3] (2:18 - 2:18) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (2:18 - 2:47) All right, and then we'll get into it. So we're going on 10 years now, I think. 10 years ago, I had a friend who I met for dinner. I was telling her about an astrology reading I had. Her name was Liz. And she goes, oh, you got to go see Alexander. He does a reading based on playing cards. And I was like, what? Playing cards? You mean like that you play like poker and games with? He's like, yeah. And I was like, all right, cool. Like I'll go do that. And so I went and I met with Alexander probably around 10 years ago. [Speaker 1] (2:47 - 2:48) Yeah, I think so. [Speaker 2] (2:48 - 3:34) And you sat me down and you went over my three main cards. Now, of course, we'll get into all this, but just for the people watching. And they resonated so, so deeply. And I remember at the end of our session, you go, well, actually I do like a six-month, I mean at that time, a six-month coaching program. And I was going to be moving to Los Angeles seven months after that. And I went, oh, this seems like great timing. And I said, let's do it. And so Alexander and I went on a journey for six months where we talked about my cards and how I can play my cards better. And we've stayed in touch over the years. I have the deepest respect for you as a friend and as a teacher and as a critical free thinker. And I'm grateful to know you and I got a lot of love for you, man. So thank you for joining us. [Speaker 1] (3:35 - 3:59) It's really my pleasure. I feel honored to be invited here to talk to you both. I love what you're both up to. It's so important to be here for the truth right now. I like the name of your podcast. Truth is a revolutionary idea right now. And so I want to support anyone who's speaking the truth and do my best to speak the truth as well. [Speaker 2] (4:00 - 4:42) Yeah. Well, on that note, because Joel and I also are students of just self-knowledge, we preach self-knowledge, we preach personal responsibility so much. And, you know, we're lovers of different cool tools and esoteric sciences and divination arts. And, you know, you're a teacher and I would say an expert of the source cards, of readings based on playing cards, the things that we've all grown up with. And so just to start off, before we get into even your whole story and how you found them, I just want you to talk about what are the source cards? I know they go by different names. You can talk about that if you want, but the four. [Speaker 1] (4:43 - 12:58) Yeah, thank you. So, yeah, the quote unquote regular deck of playing cards. And I grew up playing cards, go fish, gin rummy. We were a card playing family. My dad, funnily enough, is like a bridge grandmaster. So he's playing cards all day, every day. And we joke that he's looking at cards more than I am on a given day. He loves playing bridge. So we've always been playing cards as a family. And then when I was 17, I had a spiritual awakening unexpectedly at my Roman Catholic high school. That was a retreat that they offered. It was during school chance to get out of school for three days. This was in Fort Lauderdale, where I grew up and the retreat center was on the beach. It was like, oh, go for three days to the beach and get out of school. Let me think about that. Sign me up. So I went on this retreat my senior year. And on the last night, the priest came to talk to us. It was really powerful. He was talking to us about walls around our hearts and how we put up walls and block out God's love. It really moved me. And I had come from a divorced family and some emotional trauma stuff. I was really touched by what he had to say. And I went to go sit with him in a face to face confession style. It was the first time I'd ever actually wanted to see a priest having grown up going to church, being forced to go to church. But so anyway, I went and sat in front of him. And I don't remember what I said to him at this point. But when I was done, he stood up to pray for me. He put his hands on my forehead like this. And the moment that he did, something went whoosh right through my body. This like water, electricity all at once, split second, but unmistakably from head to toe. And I felt washed clean. And I'm like, whoa, like, what was that? And it changed me, totally transformed me. My family recognized a different me when I came back from the retreat. And it launched me on a quest because I wanted to know what was that that moved right through me that was tangible was real was energy. So it was from that that I started a long spiritual quest that led me through evangelical Christianity, I became a born again Christian, then back to my Roman Catholic roots. Meanwhile, I was studying philosophy as a student at Harvard trying to piece things together. And the great thinkers, you know, I ended up going, coming to New York for work, I worked on Wall Street, but I was still searching. And I found psychedelics. And I started trying everything and anything that I could and a lot of it. And it was everything that was verboten to a good Catholic boy growing up, I dove in. And then, you know, morphed through that, ended up getting laid off in the.com bubble burst, took my severance and my savings, I went to India and was meditating there eight hours a day. I took initiation as a Swami came back penniless, homeless. And through a few different twists and turns, I signed up for a juice fast, where I met the woman who became the mother of my children, and we started a holistic health center together. And then I was doing ayahuasca ceremonies and studying everything, human design, gene keys, palm reading, Mayan astrology, everything, I was studying everything. I was dabbling, like still looking, still trying to find answers. And then the day after, I found out we were getting divorced. And I was heartbroken. And my kids were really young at the time. I was like, fuck this, I got to get out of here. I got to go to a party and clear my head. I've just been working, working, working and being a parent and I need to blow off some steam. So I went out to a party in Brooklyn. And I walk in and I see an old friend from Burning Man that I knew when I was going to Burning Man. And he's like, Hey, what's your birthday? Like August 30. Why? He's like, Oh, your birth card is the nine of hearts. It means that in your life, you're going to move through tragic endings of the heart, you're going to have to learn how to let go and move on. I was like, I actually had a deja vu and the air got thick, my knees got weaker. And I was like, what? You know, because that's exactly what I was going through at that moment in my life going through my divorce. And that was my first introduction to the real meaning of the playing cards. And I was skeptical. I was definitely skeptical. I was like, playing cards, I don't know about all that. But I think because I had already looked everywhere else, I had literally turned over every stone I could find, I'd met every guru I could find going on every retreat I could go on, that that left me that little bit of opening that I needed to pursue it a little further. Because the way I was first introduced to it, it was kind of hokey. And it was like part of a fortune telling sort of system. But I kept looking, I kept digging. And then what happened for me was I was doing ayahuasca ceremonies. As I mentioned, I started getting direct downloads in ayahuasca ceremonies about what these cards really are and what they really mean. And that's when it really came home to me. And I realized that the cards are actually what used to be known as the Book of Life, or the Book of Toth. And before that the tablets of destiny in the Sumerian myth. These are ancient symbols and tools to understand who we are and why we're here. And it predates Christianity, it predates Judaism. It's like literally the underneath fabric of reality. So I started sharing it with people. And I was doing health coaching at the time. I had a degree from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. And so I'd be coaching people to eat kale and do the breakfast challenge, you might remember the erosimus, those things we learned. And like bit by bit, I would bring in the cards. And then people would be like, yeah, I know I need to eat kale, but tell me more about that six of diamonds. You know, so just like pivoted my practice went from health coaching, to coaching people to play their cards right. And I was kind of making it up as I went along. And my family thought I was crazy. They're like, wait, what? Like, Mom, you don't understand like, this is the Holy Grail, I found it everything I've been searching for. And now I want to teach it to people and share it with people. And she's like, yeah, but when are you going to get a job? I'm like, Mom, this is it. This is what I'm doing. So it was it was difficult in the beginning. It was definitely a struggle, you know, being a parent trying to make ends meet in New York City doing that work. But bit by bit, get the get it rolling, eventually put my book out. And then we just recently launched a whole new web portal for the source cards. And they do go by many different names. You mentioned that you're awesome. Most people have a lot of different names for what these cards are. And I think that's actually a good thing. Because it's like open source knowledge, basically, no one owns it. I mean, it's literally open source knowledge that anyone can tap into. And that's what happened for me, I was meditating on them, I was doing ceremonial work, and just the knowledge started coming in. And I believe this knowledge is available for anyone. And I think it's come back to us now. And it was buried for so long, because we're at a an awakening point on the planet. And we are on the verge of this quantum leap of consciousness. And I believe these cards are going to play an instrumental role in that, in providing us a metaphysical model of being that we can understand ourselves and be in harmony with each other and create more harmonious dynamics on the planet, interpersonally and socially. So I think it's part of the apocalypse, part of the awakening that's happening. [Speaker 2] (12:59 - 13:03) Cool. Amazing. Joel, I don't know if you want to talk about that. [Speaker 3] (13:03 - 13:52) Yeah, if you don't mind, I think it's something that can't really be avoided in this conversation. I'm personally a student of the Tarot myself and of the Mystery School tradition. And many people think the Tarot was created as a Christian tradition in the 1400s, 1500s, and the medieval times, whatever it was. Obviously, it isn't. The Tarot is tens of thousands of years old. It is incredibly ancient. These images can be seen in the Temple of Thebes, in the Book of the Dead. And students of the Mystery School would also refer to the Tarot as the Book of Life or the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. This is what alchemical students would refer to as the Book of Life. So I'm wondering, what have you come across in your research in terms of the relationship between playing cards and the Tarot? Is there a connection? Bob, what's your views on that? [Speaker 1] (13:53 - 14:53) Yeah, it's a good question. You know, the playing cards represent the mathematical model of our solar year, the 52 cards, the 52 weeks, four suits, four seasons. So that's one difference, is that the deck of playing cards, quote unquote, is actually a mathematical model of our space-time matrix of our solar year. I've often wondered, and this is my own speculation, if the Tarot deck is that for a different solar system, for a different galaxy, that some master species or master race, that is their equivalent. And it's basically then an import from another time and space that's been imported into our time and space dimension. That's my own speculation about the Tarot deck. [Speaker 3] (14:54 - 15:42) Yeah, well, with the Tarot, when you remove the 22 cards of the Major Arcana, you have the 16 Court Royals, which are, you know, the knights, the queens, the princes, and the princesses, which are the, quote unquote, kings, queens, jacks, and aces. And also you have the Minor Arcana, which is ace to ten in the same suits, you know. So you have wands, which Tarot students would refer to as equivalent clubs. You have cups, which is emotional, which would be equivalent to, I guess, hearts. You have diamonds, right, which would be equivalent to discs in the Tarot from our perspective. But yeah, it's fine if there's nothing there. I was just curious as to if there's something we could unravel in terms of the historical connection. [Speaker 1] (15:42 - 17:56) I'm sure there is. Yeah, I'm sure there is something to unravel there. Yeah, I don't know the answer of what is exactly there to unravel. You know, you make a good point that contained within the Tarot deck is a similar structure based on the way that the suits are set up. One interesting thing that I don't really talk too much about publicly, but I have done that in, I've done it in the deck that I made, is I've actually separated out the royals of each suit. So, for instance, here's three Jack, Queen, King. And then this is actually the 13. And this is the 12. And this is the 11. So that actually in the deck that I have, there are 64 cards, there are the 52 symbols, and then there are the 12 court cards. Because I think that's actually really helpful. And when I'm doing readings for people, like for instance, like Erasmus, you're born to play the king of clubs. Nowadays, what I do for people is I show them the king of clubs, but also I'll show them, for example, like this is the number 13. And so that's the symbolism of the king. And there's some meaning in unpacking the symbolism. So I've separated them out. And so now it's a little more like a Tarot deck. It's 64 cards. And interestingly, there are 64 hexagrams and the 64 codons. So the numbers all start to map and add up. You know, it's another interesting question for me of why I gravitated so much to these cards, because I really did study everything. It was just something about the resonance of these cards has grabbed me, maybe because of my background growing up playing cards, or the mathematics of it. I like the fact that there were mathematics that I could kind of hang my hat on and be like, there's some mathematical matrix here, some mathematical model. So that appealed to me as well. [Speaker 2] (17:56 - 18:09) Can you just because for people that are watching, I don't know how much of our audience knows the true meaning of the deck of cards. I'm familiar with some of the other things we talked about, like gene keys and human design and whatever. So can you talk about the mathematics a bit? [Speaker 1] (18:10 - 19:44) Yeah, sure. So there's 52 cards in the deck. I mean, as I mentioned, I separated them out, but there are 52 in the basic deck. And there are 52 weeks in the year. There's the four suits in the four seasons. There are 13 cards in each suit and 13 weeks in each season. And then when you add up the numbers, you have the aces are one, and then the two through 10. And then Jack, Queen, King is 11, 12, 13. When you add up all the numbers, one plus two plus three, all the way up for all the four suits, you add them together and you get 364. And then you have the Joker is the 53rd symbol, and he's the fifth element in the four part system. So his mathematical representation is as a fraction of five over four, his interplay with the four part system. So that reduces to one and one fourth. So when you put Joker back in the deck, you get 365 and a quarter, which is the exact solar year. So it's a model of the earth going around the sun. And in ancient times, books didn't have bindings. So this little thing would have been known as a book. And from what I understand, it was known as a little book of our life on earth, because that's what it does. It reveals the patterns of life on earth, and it shows the life cycle of the earth going around the sun. So that's the basic math of how it represents the solar calendar. [Speaker 3] (19:45 - 19:58) So curious, so interesting. And I love the connections that keep propping up, even new ones, you know, like we've been, we've been diving deep into these topics for a while now, but even more and more connections become rampant throughout these different, these different arts. [Speaker 2] (19:59 - 20:15) So real quickly on that, real quickly on that. I also, I didn't know that you had done the thing with taking the court cards, but then bringing the symbols of the 11, 12 and 13 and as well, and then the 64 and how that correlates with the 64, you know, codons and 64 hexagrams. It's just, it's just fascinating to think about. [Speaker 1] (20:16 - 21:03) Yeah, well, absolutely. And I mean, one of the things I love is when all the different esoteric systems start telling us the same thing, then we can, we can overlay them and map them. And as I mentioned, I studied everything I could get my hands on. And you know this, you're us most, but I made the conscious decision that I wanted to be the master of one of these tools. And so I focused on the playing cards for a couple of reasons, one, because I was drawn to the visual of it, but two, because there was so little that was written about it and talked about, you know, people have developed human design and gene keys and tarot. There's a lot more development of those esoteric systems. And there's very little about the playing cards. So I was like, okay, let me do this. Let me focus on this and I'll bring forth this knowledge. [Speaker 3] (21:03 - 21:14) I love it. So Alexander, how, how can we apply these are the source cards, the playing cards in our life on a general level for those listening? How does it work applicably? [Speaker 1] (21:15 - 23:24) Well, thank you. Yeah. That's, that's, that's it. That's the question. It's based on our birthday. So, and then on our new website, the source cards.com, we have this wonderful lookup you put in your birthday and it'll tell you your two most important cards in your life. And then we created a visual journey to see what are the patterns of your life. And so the first thing that happens is awareness, seeing our patterns of life. And so then with that awareness, it's like having a mindfulness, like we are no longer ruled by these patterns. We can create some space and see, oh, these are the patterns that are repeating over and over again. And then part two, and the most important part is consciously choosing how we want to play out those patterns. Once we start to recognize them more clearly and what happens, and I've seen this over and over again is when we start to consciously play our cards, right? Life becomes magical and miraculous. People tell me this all the time that they're in the right place in the right time, the doors open for them. Suddenly everything falls into place. They meet their soulmate, their business suddenly grows. It really is like plugging in and lining up to the underlying frequencies that are in the quantum field all around us. And these cards give us a mental map, like a mental construct. So we can mentally map onto what are the energies that are present that we might not otherwise be aware of. Now we have a tool that helps us to resonate with and feel into what exactly is going on in our life. And then we can consciously interact with these energy patterns like tools and crayons and our toolbox. And we can consciously construct the life that we want based on our cards to play, which we can't change once we have them. Based on our birth date, we have certain cards and we have a set of 13 cards, but we can choose how we play them. And that makes all the difference. And that's what I like to help people with, is show them how to play their cards right. [Speaker 3] (23:25 - 24:04) I love it, man. I've looked up my own on your website and I am the jack of hearts. And the key words that come up here are spiritual, adept, independent, playful, creative, charitable, passionate. I mean, all those things that are resonant in my life. And these are things that are echoed to me in other divination arts as well, actually, pretty much the same basis. So what is the correlation? How does that come about? What's the connection? Is there an astrological link? How is hearts linked in, for example, from my birthday? A little bit about the construction. [Speaker 1] (24:05 - 24:19) I can feel the passion behind your question. Definitely a spiritual adept. I want answers. So ask me the question again, I already slipped my mind. [Speaker 3] (24:20 - 24:32) Yes. I'm just curious about the connection. What is it that makes me a jack of hearts? What is it? Is there an astrological connection? I'm just trying to think of what the roots would be that would make me, I guess, because hearts would be emotional, I guess. [Speaker 1] (24:32 - 24:33) Right. Yes. [Speaker 3] (24:33 - 24:44) Love. And so Scorpio, for example, is a water sign. What is emotional? Would that be a connection? I'm just curious as to how it comes. [Speaker 1] (24:44 - 26:16) No, that's not how it connects. There is definitely an astrological overlay, though. And it is intertwined with astrology, this system. Your personality card of the two of hearts is determined based on your sign Scorpio. So there are other birthdays in the year that are the jack of hearts, but they will have a different personality, a different way that they show up. So that's one of the ways that astrology interacts with this system. The system really is a numerology based system. It's based on numbers. So how we get the jack of hearts as your birth card is based on the numbers of your birthday. And each card has a quote unquote, solar value. And the jack of hearts is number 11. In the deck, there's one through 52. And based on the numbers of your birthday, we do a simple calculation that spits out the number 11. And so then we know that your birthday is the birthday of the jack of hearts based purely on numbers. So that part is numerology. And then your personality is based on the astrological sign that you're born into. And then you have planetary cards in your life path, you have a Mercury card, you have a moon card, you have a Venus card. So there's a lot of astrology overlap there as well, in terms of understanding the different planetary influences in your life. Interesting. Yeah, I think so. [Speaker 3] (26:17 - 26:58) It is. It's fascinating. I mean, I don't know if everyone feels the same way, but this stuff just blows my mind. It really does. Each time that I dive deeper into one of these arts, it just reaffirms to me the fact that nothing in existence is a coincidence. Nothing is here by accident. Everything is intricately and uniquely designed with purpose. And I mean, these arts, these are just peepholes or gateways for us to try to get a glimpse of what that design possibly could be. And to me, there's nothing that's more fascinating than that topic personally. [Speaker 1] (26:59 - 27:15) Yeah, I 100% agree. I went on a long journey. I literally climbed the mountain in India to meet the guru. I went everywhere, to anywhere. There's someone over there that might know something, running over there to try to find out what he knows. [Speaker 2] (27:15 - 27:30) It makes me think about the story of the alchemist, that book where he goes on this long journey and realizing that what he had was there at his home all along. And for you, it's like, oh, what was there all along is now I don't have the deck cards with me. It was like just in this. [Speaker 1] (27:31 - 27:36) Yeah, exactly. It's so funny to me underneath my nose all along. [Speaker 2] (27:37 - 27:59) Yeah. And also I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think something that also resonates hearing you tell your story, obviously they are around your whole life, but also when you think of legacy, like you talked about your father, your father plays cards all the time. So when you think about this like epigenetic inheritance, like there's this deeper connection even to what these cards are. I'm just throwing that out there. [Speaker 1] (27:59 - 28:06) I don't Yeah, no, it's, it's true. And it's funny because he makes fun of what I do. He calls it my woodsy woodsy. [Speaker 2] (28:06 - 28:07) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (28:07 - 28:19) He just cannot get his mind into anything spiritual or, or so he pretends anyway. He calls it my woodsy woodsy. And I tease him that he's looking at cards more every day than I am. [Speaker 2] (28:19 - 30:07) Yeah, I think, listen, I love it. And what you said earlier, Joel resonates because, and it's something I tell people often I go, look at every single thing around you right now. Everything has a purpose. This mug has a purpose. This microphone has a purpose. My phone here has a purpose. This, this pen here has a purpose. My desk has a purpose. And to think that each human being on this planet, it doesn't have this specific purpose as well. I think it's just, it just seems silly to me, you know? And so this is where these, these esoteric arts and the cards, they come in where they highlight your unique essence, your, your soul's fingerprint, you know, and it's really powerful. Like I would have to be, I'd be lying if I said that knowing my cards that I got from you initially, going into human design, some of these other things, the information Joel has shared with me, like it has been so empowering. Okay. And has allowed me to love myself and accept myself in such a deep way. But most importantly, get out of this compare and contrast game that we are conditioned into in so many ways through culture, through society, through social media. It's like, you know, we see all these people that are doing this and they're posting this and they're starting this business and doing that. And you're like, well, wait, maybe I should be doing it. Well, maybe I should be doing that. And it's like, we remove ourselves from this deep inner knowing of who we are. And we, and we're like, we don't have a solid grounded nature and we allow the wind to take us wherever, as opposed to like, no, this is what I'm about. Can I fully accept it, fully embrace it and then move forward from there. And I think this knowledge is ancient wisdom really supports you in that. [Speaker 1] (30:08 - 32:34) Totally. And one story that I like from a student of mine, she used to visit a Zen monastery in upstate New York, and she got to know the Zen abbot and she really liked him. She thought he was a cool dude. And she asked him his birthday one day. And so she knew his cards to play. And then later on, she was asking him, she's like, how did you find your way? How did you know what you're here to do and, you know, your life's purpose and who you are? And he said, well, when I was a young man, I got together a deck of index cards and on each card, I wrote a single sentence of one trait or gift or something that I thought I might be here to do. And I created this deck of cards and then I meditated on the cards and I slowly like took them out and slowly whittled it down, slowly whittled it down until I had two cards left. And that's how I knew this is what I'm here to do. And my student was totally cracking up when she told me the story. She was like, Alexander, it was his two cards to play. Like he figured it out by meditating on it and came to the same conclusion that he would have gotten if you told him his birth card and personality card. And I love that story for many reasons, but we can figure it out. We can use these esoteric tools. I needed it. I needed these esoteric tools. But this guy who was a Zen abbot, he figured it out through meditating, but it took him a while. He was meditating for a long time. So I feel like these tools give us a shortcut. And especially for those of us who need it, a little hard headed, a little confused. It helps us, like you're saying, you're awesome. Let's get grounded in who we are. And then at a certain point, maybe we evolve past any of these. Maybe we don't ever need them anymore. But right now, it's essential that they've come back and they're coming out. And even the word esoteric just means hidden. You know, and so bringing it out into the light, this is what I want to do with these cards, bring it out into the light. So it's not esoteric anymore. So it's mainstream. So it's obvious, like everybody grows up knowing their cards to play. And then we all have a self knowing, we don't go through an identity crisis, trying to figure out who we are and why we're here. And we can support each other to be our best self, I can support my kids to be their best self, it's becomes effortless. [Speaker 3] (32:35 - 33:28) It really is. I think that's one of the greatest dilemmas that most people face. Why am I here? What am I here to do? Who am I? I mean, these giant philosophical questions, which we ask ourselves, and something I asked myself for a long time as well. And yet it was only truly through the feedback that I got through these esoteric cards and through divination, that gave me the confirmation to move forward with confidence in knowing, having these little hints, these glimpses as to what I'm actually good at, what I'm here to do, what I'm actually like, you know, and it is grounding, these are grounding tools. And so, so often in conventional terms, they're pitched as woo woo, or something astral, something outside of ourselves, you know, but really more than anything, they ground us into reality, and they help provide a framework as to how we can put our best foot forward in our life. Yeah. [Speaker 1] (33:30 - 33:31) Absolutely. [Speaker 2] (33:32 - 34:35) Yeah, I love your book, Alexander. I'm so happy that you wrote it, because I feel like up until your book, it was always like that one book by Robert Lee Camp. And there were some things I liked about it. But when I got your book, it just felt so, just like there was a profound nature, there was structure, there was a, it just really resonated. And it's the book that I tell everyone I tell people about, you know, and I tell you this, people come over, friends of ours come over, and I'll pull out that book, what's your birthday? And then I'll read their pages to you. And people just are like blown away. And then they text me next day. I just ordered the book. I'm sharing it with my friend, because it's just cool stuff. And I like like this, this simple and profound nature of the cards. And because they've been associated with games, and fun, there's like a fun element to it as well that I really, I really love, you know, it's, there's a depth, it's deep. And yet there's a lightness to it that I think people really appreciate. [Speaker 1] (34:36 - 36:06) Yeah, thank you. And I hope to keep it that way and keep it in the fun light way. And that's what we're doing in our new website, thesourcecards.com, keeping it fun, because it is and one thing that I'm often telling my private coaching clients, is that life is a game that we've overcomplicated. It's a challenging game. If it wasn't challenging, we'd lose interest, we get bored. But it really is a game. And that's one of the things among many that the real meaning of the cards show us is that our reality is a game construct. You know, Elon Musk is onto something. The difference, though, I would say is that it is a benevolently designed game construct. And the reason why we know it's a benevolently designed game construct is that when we start to play our cards right, life aligns for us in wonderful, magical ways. So whoever designed this, you know, to your point about how everything has a purpose and nothing is out of place, this intelligently designed construct that we're in, was designed so that we could flourish, so that we could find joy and harmony and peace and love. And we've got a rulebook to follow, but it was lost, it was hidden for so long. You know, and something you said, Joel, about how this question that everybody asks of who am I and why am I here? One thing that I found is that some people are afraid to ask that. [Speaker 3] (36:07 - 36:07) Definitely. [Speaker 1] (36:07 - 36:26) They don't even want to ask it because they don't think there's an answer. So they'd rather just put it away because it hurts them too much to ask that question because they don't think there's any answer to it. You know, they think they're stuck without an answer to that question. So that's one thing that I hope to change. [Speaker 3] (36:27 - 36:31) So do you think it's possible that we're in a simulation and these cards are the cheat codes? [Speaker 2] (36:32 - 36:40) You just took the term, first of all, you took the term that I love to say about the cards or even some of these other divination or human design, like I feel like they're cheat codes to really like winning. [Speaker 1] (36:42 - 37:18) Yeah, well they are. And you know, and again, I needed it. I'm grateful to have it, you know, in my relationship with my wife, you know, we tease each other about our cards to play and we're like, oh, you're in your shadow. There's that four hearts coming out. And my shadow is the king of clubs. She'd be like, yeah, you're coming out, bopping me on the head with your sword again. You know, so it's such a helpful, such a helpful, simple, shorthand lingo to support us in our relationship. And yeah, it is. It's like a cheat code. It's the rule book and it's necessary. I need it. [Speaker 2] (37:19 - 38:28) Dude, I love it. Sophie and I, we joke about him too, because, you know, we knew our cards and, you know, she's an eight of hearts on the king of clubs. And so just, and another thing I love about your book too, is a lot of, some of these tools, they just want to focus on like the positive, you know, everything that's working and how amazing you are. And I just love how there's this weaving in and out of these example expressions of these archetypes of these individual cards and symbols and what they're like, it's like, oh, I'm grateful to play as my primary card, the king of clubs. I love being that. And yet there's times where I'm clubbing people over the head with knowledge right now. You know, I'm not coming at it from a much more grounded way, or I'm shying away from my power and my responsibility, which is something I think you helped me with, where it was like, you're like, here are your two main cards. You have the jack and the king, and you're overplaying your jack card where you just want to like be the prince in the palace and not have a lot of obligations and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it's like, well, you know, your birthright is to step into this deeper masculine power of authority and to be a thought leader, et cetera, et cetera. So I just, I love the dance and the interplay, especially in partnership where I'm like, okay, your heart's tied up in knots right now, Sophie, you know? [Speaker 1] (38:30 - 38:35) Yeah. Well, you're a truth teller, Yerasimos. That's the king of clubs and you're here for the truth. [Speaker 3] (38:36 - 38:41) Yeah. So tell me, Alexander, how can I play my cards right? [Speaker 1] (38:44 - 40:31) Sure. You're born to play the jack of hearts, right? Yeah. You are here as a student of love. The jack of hearts is famously a one-eyed jack. Here, let's bring the jack of hearts up. And so you may get stuck on a one-eyed perspective and you may think you have all the answers. And it's interesting because you're so loving and so giving and so generous that you can actually get stuck inside of your own giving sacrificial generosity, you know, and then you become a martyr for your own cause and no one can tell you different because you think you've got it all figured out. So being a true student of love means allowing other people to illuminate your perspective, opening your heart wider, because there's no bound to love. Love is infinite and unconditional. And so it's not bounded by your own perspective of it. So the pathway for you is to always open your eyes and open your heart wider to more love. And then you experience more and more love. And then you have more and more love to give. And with all that love that you have to give, you can create whatever you want. Jack of hearts, you can be super creative, super talented, creating anything, writing, music, cooking, whatever. You just have so much passion to use as the fuel to create whatever you want. And you get more of that, the more you open your eyes, the more you look and see more. I mean, here you are right now doing that, even asking me that question. So then it feeds your heart and gives you more energy to create more. [Speaker 3] (40:32 - 41:32) Yeah, you're absolutely spot on, man. And it's interesting because each time you get one of these readings, these are things that you recognize within yourself. These are pathways you've already kind of tapped into. But it's that confirmation time and time again, that you were born for a reason. You were born for a purpose. You were born to play a certain game, as you might say. And even in the other divination arts, for example, the tarot, my cards are seven of cups. And that would also indicate that my shadow is excessive altruism, right? Overgiving, overcharging as well. So it's just curious how you mainly do these things, can continually align. But in terms of that creative passion, there's no denying that. I've always tried to lead my life that way, sometimes to my detriment with too much passion in the things that I think are most important. And it's about bringing that balance and that grounding and finding ways to, yeah, man, play your cards right. As you say, I love it. Thank you for that. [Speaker 1] (41:32 - 42:13) Yeah, you're very welcome. Yeah. So one thing is the Jack of Hearts, you can be a hopeless romantic too. That's the other thing, like a little bit lovesick, like love, love, love, being in love with love. So you mentioned the word grounding, that's really important for you is to ground all that passion in what is authentic and what's real. Because anyone born to play a Jack, you can have an end justifies the means approach. Like whatever my goal is justifies, because my goal is so noble, it justifies whatever my approach is. And so then you get ungrounded. Yes. Yeah. Being grounded. [Speaker 2] (42:13 - 42:17) Why does the Jack, because I'm born to play, this is my personality card. [Speaker 1] (42:17 - 42:18) You got a Jack of Diamonds. [Speaker 2] (42:19 - 42:26) Why does a Jack has this reputation of being a little slippery and slimy or manipulative and Machiavellian? [Speaker 1] (42:27 - 42:50) Because it's true. That's why. Because the Jack is the prince who lives in the castle and doesn't have any responsibility. The king and the queen do the governing, the ruling, and the Jack just wants to play. No, don't tie me down. Don't fence me in. Just let me do what I want. And don't fuck with me either, because I'm the prince. [Speaker 2] (42:53 - 43:01) Oh, man. I love the interplay between the Jack, the king. I mean, all of this. It's just, it cracks me up, man. I love it. [Speaker 3] (43:02 - 43:24) Yeah, man. I mean, what you just said, I grew up in a family business, a successful family business for a while there. And I just wanted to play. I just wanted to do my thing. My dad, I guess, wants me to be in the business and do as he says and follow in his footsteps, et cetera, et cetera. It doesn't work for you. I had other interests in mind. [Speaker 1] (43:24 - 43:34) Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Jack wants to, you want to do your own thing. You want to find your own way. The Jack, it's independent. You want to do it your own way. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (43:35 - 43:49) I think it would align Joel and me as well, even for this podcast. We like kind of doing our own thing. We like speaking about truth. We like sharing information and knowledge and not allowing people to tell us what to do, you know, do it our own way. [Speaker 1] (43:51 - 44:14) Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, there are some other connections that the two of you have too. Joel, your personality card, the two of hearts. So you would work really well in partnership and your Asimov's, your Jupiter card is the two of space. So you thrive with partnership as well. So you both thrive with partnership. You both seek it out. And you like, there's a synergy and an alchemy that you would both have in partnership. [Speaker 2] (44:15 - 44:18) My moon card is also the two of clubs. My moon card is the two of hearts. [Speaker 1] (44:18 - 44:20) Yeah. You got a lot of twos in there. [Speaker 2] (44:20 - 44:20) Yeah. [Speaker 3] (44:21 - 44:37) But you know, the thing is like in, in astrology, I've got Libra in house six, house six being Virgo is the house of work. Libra is the house of partnership. So astrology also tells me that while my working life thrives in partnership, you know, it's just keeps getting more and more curious. [Speaker 1] (44:37 - 44:55) Another, another example when the knowledge is saying the same things. Yeah. Love it. I'm curious when you say your tarot card is the seven of cups, how do you get that? Is it based on divination or is there a different system where you determine that? [Speaker 3] (44:55 - 46:42) Yeah. So this is all based on Michael to Sarah and his periscope system, which basically he flushed out as best as he could the way that the ancients conducted divination and he discovered and he put out there that the four ancient divination arts of tarot astrology, numerology and Kabbalah, they were designed to be used together. These are the four pillars, right? We've got four, we've got four corners of the, of the great pyramid. We have four suits of the deck. We have four suits of the tarot. These can be said to be these four ancient arts. And basically the ancient Egyptians charted 36 smaller constellations, which rule 10 day periods and 10 degree windows, as opposed to the 12 major constellations ruling 30 days and 30 degrees. And by no coincidence, that's 36 cards of the minor arcana of the tarot. So by understanding these correlations, the seven of cups rules, the 10 day period that I was born to and the seven of cups echoes very similarly to what the jack of hearts says. It's about passion. It's about creativity. It's about all, all, all those sorts of things. And the shadows are similar shadows as well to what you mentioned. So yeah, it's all, it's all very interesting. So the seven could be said to be my true esoteric numerology from, from, from that lens as well. And the seven is the individual, it's the independent, it's the first prime number. It doesn't fit anywhere else. Right. It was very individualistic. So yeah, I actually, if I actually looked up your personal deck and not say from the tarot as well, and yours is the, is the eight of discs. So the eight is highly energetic as you probably already know from a numerological standpoint, but the eight of discs, let me pull up this card. [Speaker 1] (46:42 - 46:47) What are the discs? Are those diamonds correlated to diamonds, pentacles coins? [Speaker 3] (46:47 - 47:21) Right. So that's this card right here. For those listening, I know you can't see this, but I'll explain in a minute. Basically, this is indicating interesting work projects being underway, a time of creativity, lucrative ideas and deals, discipline, paying off, detail and skill, concentration, consistency, apprenticeship, meeting demands, providing a unique product or service. Right. I mean, I'm sure these things, they echo to me, certainly. I mean, what could be more unique than what you're doing and what you're providing at the moment? So, yeah. [Speaker 1] (47:22 - 47:33) Well, and the eight, isn't that good luck and good fortune as well? Yeah. Well, it's, I'm saying that it is. I'm just kidding. [Speaker 3] (47:34 - 47:55) Well, yeah, man. I mean, it's the lemniscate upright, right? It's the infinity symbol upright, but eight is energy, it's creativity, it's action, it's extroversion. It's not being afraid to go out there and try to put something out there, right? Eight can be an indicatory of Leo, if you want to look at it from that perspective as well. Yeah. Yeah. [Speaker 1] (47:57 - 48:25) Yeah. Thank you. I mean, it certainly has been a lot of effort and a big labor of love to bring forth this knowledge, as I mentioned, and it wasn't easy in the beginning to make a living doing this when very few people knew about it. And still not that many people know about it. Interestingly, even within the new age world or divination world, still relatively unknown in comparison to the other divination forms. Yeah, man. [Speaker 3] (48:25 - 48:44) And that's everything this symbology says is chipping away, right? It's bit by bit by bit chipping away at what it is. So this is a bit of a life theme as well. I mean, just the visual symbology of the tarot as well, is can tell us so much. But I love these different angles. [Speaker 1] (48:45 - 48:52) And yeah, you know, well, I'm interested. I want to learn more. I'll take the conversation with you offline. I'm curious to learn more. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (48:53 - 49:24) I just love all this, man. I really do. I love having these conversations. I love having these dialogues. It's just like, for me, it's hard for for me to think about someone like not wanting this knowledge or to just completely like, I'm pretty skeptical. People know me. I'm a skeptic. Yeah, very open minded as well. Yeah. You know, and so for someone to not want to have a little light shined on to potentially who they are and what they're meant to be, it's like, it's interesting to think about. But you know, we're all on a path. We're all doing different things. [Speaker 3] (49:25 - 51:10) I mean, I think deep down, it's what people thirst for more than anything, whether they recognize it or not. To me, this, this is the underlying search. What am I doing here? Whether it's conscious or unconscious, you know, and that was my path for a long time and nothing could tell me nothing. I couldn't get any answers. You know, I was I was yearning for some kind of confirmation as to what my purpose is. Why am I here? And part of the malignant culture, they they want us to believe that we're nobodies, that we're nothing, that we're just floating in the ocean, we're just floating in the abyss. You know what I mean? We have no boundaries. We're boundarylessness. The world can tell us who we are and we can tell us who the world are and vice versa. But until these arts come into your life, which I don't ever believe is by coincidence, I do believe there's always higher guidance involved when someone comes into the true nature of the esoterics. You realize that you are an individual. You are a cosmos unto yourself. You're a planet unto yourself. No one needs to tell you who you are or what you like. You have a unique blueprint, unlike anyone that's ever lived before you or anyone currently in existence. And you don't have to look to the world to get that feedback of who you are or how you should live your life. You know, it just reaffirms that everything is internal. It's inside. It's as within, so without. And by turning our gaze inward and by doing the reflective and the contemplatory work to figure out, to understand our true nature, then we can begin to create a life of alignment. And we as you mentioned, get out of that contrast and compare game, which so many people are stuck in. And I mean, I'm incredibly grateful for these gifts, you know, and they are gifts. They're here for a reason. And it's not by coincidence. [Speaker 2] (51:11 - 51:54) Well, there's also with that, that I appreciate about these gifts and the cards, especially too. It's like, you know, you can be conditioned. Like you might have, know that you're really good at something, but because your friend group, or like you saw someone on TV or, or there's this new spiritual thing out there, you're like, well, maybe I should be doing that. Maybe that should be my, my, my, I I'd be more cool if I did that, as opposed to like, you know, I can build things really well. You know, I'm really good at doing that. So how do you find Alexander that that shows up? Like when you work with clients where it's like, they're denying their innate gifts and who they are because of this perceived idea of what's the right thing or the cool thing or the hip thing to do or be. [Speaker 1] (51:55 - 53:07) A hundred percent. I see it all the time. And interestingly, I see it a lot with people trying to be spiritual and then discounting their basic organizational gifts or financial management gifts. One story I love to tell is a woman who came to see me who was a financial accountant and she's like, I think I should be more spiritual. And my mother wants me to become Ricky certified and become a Ricky practitioner. And I'm not sure I kind of like my work. And I looked at her card. She's born to play the queen of diamonds, financial management, being good at financial management organization. And I'm like, you have a gift for that. And she's like, oh my God, thank you. You know, I always thought I was weird that I liked being a financial accountant, that I didn't do something spiritual with my life. It's like, I actually like being a financial accountant. I'm like, well, you're perfectly suited for it. You have a gift for it. You can do that kind of thing. And so it was such a relief for her to be able to accept herself as a financial accountant and do that. So yes, I see that all the time. [Speaker 3] (53:07 - 53:38) And this is just the beauty of self-knowledge. That's really all it boils down to. And I mean, what other knowledge is there than self-knowledge? It's the root of all knowledge in existence to me personally. Be able to accept ourselves. Exactly. It helps to connect us with our primary environment, being where we are in our body, in this time, in this space, and being content to be our own person. [Speaker 1] (53:39 - 54:27) Well, that's it. And the other thing it does and you want to segue a little bit into this because this is a hot topic for me that I think about a lot. Why do so many people buy into the scientific technocratic narrative that that is our savior and that's our solution? It's because they don't know any other way. They are so divorced from any self-knowledge and self-awareness, self-healing, that the body is a self-healing wonder, miracle instrument that we have and totally divorced from that self-knowledge that we're talking about. And so then looking for something to be transcendent, something that they can look up to and science and technology is not the answer for that. [Speaker 2] (54:28 - 54:32) I couldn't agree more, man. It's something I talk about often and we talk about. [Speaker 3] (54:33 - 54:41) It's the savior, right? That's the quote unquote, you mean, the savior that's here to fill that void in the absence of you filling yourself with who you actually are. [Speaker 1] (54:41 - 54:41) Yes. [Speaker 3] (54:42 - 55:08) And that has taken place the entire time is for us to be removed from who we are, from us to be open and available. Even the whole new age spiritual yogic circles and ideas, it's for you to become boundarylessness, for you to be nothing, for you to be absent-minded, think no thoughts, be no body, have no desires, have no passions. This is all just creating the void for you to be told who you are, for that space to be filled from my perspective. [Speaker 1] (55:09 - 55:31) Yeah, I completely agree. It says to me, to your point of how much people are yearning for transcendent answers. Yeah. They just don't know where to look for them. And so they turn to the only thing that they think is there, which is science and technology. And that's what they put their hope in because they really want to put their hope in something. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (55:32 - 55:39) But ultimately isn't the driving force for transcendence, the need to escape, the need to escape reality, right? [Speaker 1] (55:41 - 56:27) Depends on how we define it. I would say that we have a yearning for transcendence because we are transcendent beings, right? We're not confined to this human construct. We are much more than that. We're a limitless and timeless being here having a human experience. So the transcendent is our nature. It's just as we're talking about finding our truth, finding what really is who we are, as opposed to what the world may define as our transcendent nature or putting our false hopes in science and technology, which is not transcendent at all. So it depends how we define it. To me, it's not escapism. To me, it's actually the truth of who we are. [Speaker 3] (56:28 - 56:42) Yeah. I guess what I was referring to by transcendence is that you mean that drive to externally seek satisfaction in answers outside of oneself, you know? But yeah, I completely understand your concept as well. [Speaker 1] (56:42 - 56:45) Yeah. That's to me, that's giving away our power. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (56:46 - 56:47) Oh, of course. [Speaker 1] (56:48 - 56:58) Of course. Giving away our power. It's the claim that I have no power. Ultimately, that's what it is. Yeah. Just listen to the experts. Just do what they say. Yeah. No. [Speaker 2] (56:59 - 57:26) Yeah. And yet we have this expert that we live with 24-7. Ourselves, our bodies, do we tune in? Can we really know what's going on in our nervous system? Can we sit and observe our thoughts? Can we be that present? Can we take this knowledge that we get, you know, that represents like the essence of who we are? Can we meditate on it? Can we see how we can move forward in the world with that knowledge and be uniquely ourselves, you know, to be an individual? [Speaker 3] (57:27 - 57:33) You know what the problem is? They don't trust that expert. [Speaker 1] (57:33 - 58:12) They don't know that so much conditioning, so much conditioning to not trust our own expertise. You know, and that's what I hope to create some change around that. And that we're all doing that together. And you guys are doing it too, to empower people to be their own expert, to be the leader of their own life. We all inhabit our own universe. And we are all the author of our own harmony or not. And so realizing that, I like what you said, Yerasimo, is that we're living with an expert 24-7 and being in touch with our own expertise. Yes. [Speaker 2] (58:13 - 59:27) Yeah. And it's like, how do we allow ourselves to do that? This is where silence and meditation and spending time in nature, contemplation, et cetera, helps. And I think why also, you know, these divination arts, and I'm just thinking about this right now, are so important now, more than ever, is because we live in a society of so much distraction and a culture that wants us to be so many things, where it's almost, it's becoming a luxury to even have that time of stillness and time with ourselves to just be. Yeah. And so I think with this knowledge, it kind of helps us kind of go, okay, I know you're being distracted and I know there's all this crazy stuff happening in the world, but here, we got the cheat code for you. Like, let me help you out. Whereas, you know, thousands of years ago, or even in the story of the abbot, where he had that time and he just wrote a few things and he's just sitting in meditation eight hours a day, or just glancing at the stars for like several hours a night. And you know, it was different, the world back then, whereas now things aren't the same. So maybe these tools are a benefit in a new way. [Speaker 1] (59:27 - 59:32) I like that. Because of how distracted we are, these tools become even more important. [Speaker 3] (59:32 - 59:53) Yeah. And isn't it also an issue of self-esteem, which of these tools help to solve, you know, self-esteem, self-love in knowing ourselves, in recognizing that we have inherent purpose. And this is often while we are distracted because of the lack of self-esteem, you know? [Speaker 2] (59:55 - 59:56) Yeah, potentially. [Speaker 3] (59:56 - 59:57) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (59:57 - 1:01:18) I also like that knowing your cards to play, having this wisdom and knowledge, it really has allowed me to almost like laugh at myself at times too, like not take myself so seriously when I notice these shadow elements come out, like, oh, okay, that part of me is out again. Or to know like, wow, these are my gifts, let me continue to like nourish them and feed them because this is a big piece of who I am. And Joel, you said it earlier, is that what I love, and even in our first meeting 10 years ago, Alexander, when you shared with me King of Clubs, Jack of Diamonds, and Queen of Hearts, which is my shadow card, Pluto card, I don't know if you call it anything else too. And they were like, you provided me answers to like this deep yearning and like this deep knowing and even like some things I had a lot of shame around, around like, you know, some of the shadow elements or things that were really hard for me or that were like a struggle or a challenge. I was like, what the fuck is wrong with me? You know, and yet you highlight them in this, you know, let's say in the shadow card, we go, well, these are things that you, you know, through life you, you work with, and they ultimately become a gift to you, but they may be a challenge at times. And if I'm not explaining it in the right way. [Speaker 1] (1:01:18 - 1:01:19) Yeah, you got it. [Speaker 2] (1:01:19 - 1:01:56) Yeah. And, and also, when you have a certain level of self knowledge, or you've been on a path, like this information, it is affirming, like you kind of in the back of your head, like, you know, these little things about you and you, you assume, and then to have this provide a little bit of a framework is really, really empowering. Yeah. And it almost like gives you even more permission to let your flag fly, you know, whatever the, your individual freak. And I say by freak, I don't, I mean, like the freakiness of being yourself, truly yourself, a unique individual, like you're like, this is me, this is who I am. I'm going to just own it even more. [Speaker 1] (1:01:57 - 1:03:37) Yes, absolutely. And that's what it did for me to know my cards to play. Excuse me. I'm born to play the nine of hearts. And my personality is the seven of clubs. And I've been on this spiritual journey, like I mentioned, and always searching for answers. And yet, I was running a holistic health center at the time with my my now ex wife. And I was surrounded by healers and spiritual people, new age people surrounded by healers, but I got to call myself the business owner, because that was my ego construct, that I wanted to be the business owner. And then I come to find out that the nine of hearts is about lifting other people up. And the seven of clubs is spiritual knowledge. And so I've always been searching for how to lift myself up with spiritual knowledge and come to find out that my cards to play are to lift other people up with spiritual knowledge. That's what I'm here to do. And so it gave me permission to actually own that. Like, okay, what does that even look like? Well, that probably looks like counseling. And it's kind of like being a priest in the world with no religion. And I had gone to Roman Catholic seminary to be a priest at one point, because I was fascinated by this idea. But I never had the courage to actually do it, to actually be that person who is a healer, teacher, coach, counselor for other people, lifting them up with spiritual knowledge. And it wasn't easy. As I mentioned, it was a struggle in the beginning to get it going. But it fully it gave me permission to fully own it to do the work that really satisfies my soul. [Speaker 2] (1:03:39 - 1:03:58) I love it. Just because I'm curious now. Because I know you have little two lines that you do for like the two cards and yours is like lifting people up with spiritual knowledge. What would it be like? And I don't want to put you on the spot unless you already have it. What would be like two lines like that for the King of Clubs, Jack of Diamonds and for the Jack of Hearts? All right. [Speaker 1] (1:03:59 - 1:04:00) All right. Let's see what I got. [Speaker 2] (1:04:00 - 1:04:02) Let me try to milk all this knowledge out of you. [Speaker 1] (1:04:02 - 1:04:35) So the King of Clubs is you're the truth teller. And the Jack of Diamonds is about generating value. So you want to be telling the truth that creates real value. So it's truth, not just in a vacuum. It's not like in an ivory tower, because the Jack of Diamonds is about generating something that's really valuable, pragmatic and useful. So you're here to tell the truth that's going to generate something really valuable and meaningful for people. [Speaker 2] (1:04:36 - 1:05:22) Thank you for that. And sometimes I get caught up with the diamonds of just being valued from a monetary standpoint only, even though I think I obviously value that. And Joel earlier was sharing the most amazing monologue from Atlas Shrugged. We were talking about money, but that's for a side conversation. And so it's good to hear that, because I've always loved doing that. I love even sharing truth to people, because even when I read your book about the cards, I'm sharing this truth with them, because I want them to gain value from it and bring it forth in their life. And even with all the body work I do in this podcast, it's just, I love sharing information with people. I come up to something and I just send an email to someone because it feels like it resonates with truth and I want to provide value. So thank you for that. [Speaker 3] (1:05:22 - 1:05:46) I think I made a mistake before I mentioned that clubs might've been related to ones, but it must be swords, because swords is knowledge. And actually your decanate is the 10 of swords, which literally means no more lies. It means truth at all costs. This is the end of illusion. This is truth above all else, truth or death. [Speaker 1] (1:05:47 - 1:06:16) And that's the king of clubs. I mean, that's the truth teller, 100%. So Joel, Jack of hearts, two hearts, you're here to generate love that links people together. Yep. Because the two of hearts is about creating union, creating connection at a heart to heart level and the Jack of hearts generating love. So generating love that connects people together. That's what you're here to do. [Speaker 2] (1:06:17 - 1:06:19) That's like our conversations we have here with people all over the world. [Speaker 3] (1:06:20 - 1:06:45) Yeah. I mean, I've learned more and more about myself that you mean connection and bringing people together is the value that I bring. Even again, I mean, just to echo this from an astrological point of view, I've got Gemini in house two, Gemini being connection. The second house being Taurus, which is value. So my value is in my connection. Yeah. There we have it. [Speaker 1] (1:06:48 - 1:07:41) That's it. So yeah. So that's to answer your question, Yerasimos, that's the quick one-liners and it comes just by knowing the basic meaning of each card and then putting them together, like stringing them together. Sometimes it leads to like awkward constructions when I string the one sentence together with the other sentence, but I've gotten good over the years at making it grammatically flow together. But I do love the simplicity and you referenced that Yerasimos, the simplicity of this knowledge that each card has a single basic meaning to it. But then when we add it all together with all the 13 cards in our life path and the different constructions, and then we have yearly cards, it does start to get complex, even though it's really basic to begin with. So it'd be a lot of fun to dive in. [Speaker 2] (1:07:42 - 1:07:55) What do you think is the, like, if you work, you've worked with people in a coaching model or, you know, however you work with people, what do you think is the biggest challenge for people like taking in this knowledge and applying it to our lives or really owning it? [Speaker 1] (1:07:58 - 1:10:10) The biggest challenge probably is all the past conditioning. And we referenced that before. And it could be all kinds of conditioning, um, that for better and for worse, you know, ego attachments, ego constructs, but traumas. I see that a lot in my work. Um, and I see also that it dovetails. Um, so the things that people were shamed for in their household or felt shame around growing up or in their religious heritage or their social heritage, the things that they felt ashamed of, or were traumatized around are often things that we would see that they would be ashamed of in their cards to play. You know, you referenced certain things that you were feeling shame around your osmosis. I've noticed that, that there's this like dovetail, like synchronicity. We talk about nothing is an accident and everything happens on purpose, but the things that people have struggled with in their life and their family and people who wouldn't even know their cards to play, but who play out a certain role for them that you would predict based on their cards to play that they would have that kind of trauma and that kind of experience in their life. Um, so getting over the past, healing the wounds, you know, that's often the big challenge. I think even just believing that it's possible, maybe even the bigger challenge is believing that it actually could be that a lot of, because I see this a lot and maybe you guys have seen this too, people have an idea that, oh, that esoteric tool, that's great for you, but that wouldn't work for me. You know, that's nice that you found that, but that's not going to do anything for me. There's this idea that I'm kind of stuck and nothing's going to help me and all that, blah, blah, blah that other people have found, you know, it's not going to work for me. Oh, yeah. It's great that you found your soulmate. I can't find my soulmate. You know, there's that idea of we're stuck and we're doomed. I think maybe even more basic. [Speaker 2] (1:10:11 - 1:10:56) Well, yeah. And I think that's where, you know, what you talked about earlier about, you know, healing, you know, I feel like it'd be more challenging for a person to really embrace the wisdom of this esoteric knowledge if they're, if they haven't done a certain amount of work to heal their nervous system, to heal past trauma, et cetera. And even just being in that mindset of, well, you know, you, you, if things are going well for you and you have this relationship, but that's not going to work for me. I mean, especially if a person's used to, you know, grew up in a family where there was chaos or the partnerships weren't good, you is possible because there is so much possible with the beauty of this wisdom that's provided for us in these esoteric systems. [Speaker 1] (1:10:57 - 1:11:28) Yeah, no, I think you're right. And I think, as I mentioned, it was only because I had already done so much work on myself and searched high and low that I was even able to take in the idea that the playing cards could be a profound spiritual tool of awakening and not just a fortune telling gimmick. But because I had done so much work on myself, I think it opened up the possibility of me receiving it as a profound tool of awakening. [Speaker 2] (1:11:28 - 1:12:18) Yeah. And a great example too, I want to share is that I mentioned earlier how I can't even tell you how many times I've pulled out your book and read people's cards to them so many times. And yet only one time where I read it to someone, it was like a girlfriend at the time of a friend of mine. I didn't really know her that super well, but I did know that she had dealt with severe, severe trauma and felt a little checked out. She was the only person that was like, oh, none of this really resonates, you know. So that's an interesting correlation there too, where other people who I've come across, obviously just imagine the people who come through my doorway, friends of ours are on a similar path and they swallow up this knowledge, they swallow it up and they just, they're so empowered by it and also blown away, you know, blown away. [Speaker 1] (1:12:18 - 1:12:21) Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:12:22 - 1:13:33) Which is crazy to me too, like my mind wants to go into, especially in human design, I'm a 5'1", I'm an investigator. So I go like, what are these patterns? You know, because it's just like, I can't even get my head around it. And then there's a part where I just go, well, I don't need to, it resonates and it feels like truth to me. And that's what's important. Does it add value to my life? Does it empower me more? And one of my favorite games I love to play back in the days, not really on Facebook much anymore, except posting occasional things about this podcast. But back in the days, especially when I first learned about these cards and had a good foundational knowledge, understanding of it, you know, on Facebook where the birthdays, like whose birthdays come up. I would love seeing like, Hey, five people have this birthday, four people have that. And I'd go and I'd, and I, especially if I knew them, I'd like, where's the thread? Where's the through line? Obviously they're going to show up in, in different ways based on like culture, however they're raised. But I would notice very often, I was like, Oh yeah, totally that dude, King of Diamonds, King of Diamonds, King of Diamonds, like in a certain way, or, Oh, that person's the shadow, the shadow of the King of Diamonds is definitely present. So I don't know. It was a fun game I like to play. [Speaker 1] (1:13:33 - 1:14:05) Yeah. Yeah. We like to look up actors and actresses when we're watching movies. We have a game that we play where we guess and we're getting, we're getting good at it. We can see someone on the screen, see how they move, see how they operate. Like, Oh, that's an eight of clubs, eight of clubs, 10 of diamonds, you know, and sometimes we're totally off, but then we're spot on. So we, and then we'll stop the movie and we'll like quickly look up their birthdays, see who's right. Yeah. It's fun. [Speaker 3] (1:14:05 - 1:14:06) I've, I've been doing those things too. [Speaker 2] (1:14:06 - 1:14:24) Real quickly. Cause I'm curious and I know each day, another thing that I know you do, and you used to send out, or you still send out emails that every day, obviously if your birthday today was June, January 3rd, everyone would be playing the card of the Jack of spades, correct? [Speaker 1] (1:14:24 - 1:14:25) Correct. [Speaker 2] (1:14:25 - 1:14:42) So how does, well, I wanted to say in general, how does that play in the collective? Everyone kind of playing with these energies, but also the fact that we chose to have this podcast on this day and it's a Jack of spades day. How does that relate to play to us all playing our cards right on this day? [Speaker 1] (1:14:43 - 1:17:13) That's a good question. So yes, anyone born today is born to play the Jack of spades, January 3rd, the rest of us are passing through this prism of energy just for the day. And the Jack of spades has a magic wand and the spade represent consciousness. So it's playing with consciousness and it can be like a fun house of mirrors. We can get lost in our own illusions or we can generate something beautiful and magical. And again, it's a Jack energy. So it's about generating and it's creating, and there's an independence to it where what often happens is, I'll show you, the Jack of spades is another one-eyed Jack. So on a day like today, there can be a clash of perspectives. Like one person sees it one way, the other person sees it the other way, and my wife and I had that earlier today. We had a little tussle where we're looking at things differently. I wanted her to come with me to this protest that I'm going to on Wednesday and she's like, I never agreed to go to that. I'm like, we talked about it and you said you wanted to go. She's like, I never agreed to that. So we had this miss where she had one perspective and I had another perspective. So that would often happen on a day with the Jack of spades or the Jack of hearts, whenever the Jack of hearts shows up too. So what's important today is a meeting of the minds. Even like when we're talking about the cards versus tarot cards, like we have two totally different perspectives and how can we have a synergy where we are learning from each other's perspective and then collectively creating something that's a little more beautiful, a little more magical because we're open to seeing someone else's consciousness and how someone else assumes things to be because that's what our consciousness is, are the assumptions that we make about reality. So yeah, I think it's fun and I do write a daily email about it. It's called the daily game and people can sign up for that if they want and every day pass through a different energy and how do you play that? And then we created meditations for each day. So you can meditate on the energy of the day as well. It doesn't work for Australia. It's just hindsight as to what yesterday was like. Well, we send it out based on time zones. So you get it a day ahead. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:17:14 - 1:17:15) All right. I've been following on Instagram. [Speaker 1] (1:17:15 - 1:17:24) Are you a January 4th already? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So you're playing a different day. You're on the tennis spades already. You're having a different experience than the rest of us. [Speaker 3] (1:17:24 - 1:17:28) How's that work for me? The rest of us each day interacting as well, different prisons. [Speaker 1] (1:17:29 - 1:17:40) Well, I wonder, do you guys sometimes, how does it work for you guys? Do you guys sometimes feel like you're speaking across a divide and you're going to connect across different energies? How does that work? [Speaker 2] (1:17:41 - 1:17:50) Well, I think so, but I think we're both very good at hearing each other out. Hearing each other out. Okay. [Speaker 3] (1:17:51 - 1:18:02) I don't know. Yeah. I definitely feel it is like, I mean, we're coming from different energies on the day, but at the same time, we understand that we're coming from different worlds, you know? So yeah, for sure. This makes sense. It does make sense. [Speaker 1] (1:18:03 - 1:18:20) I imagine if you're both really curious to learn, which I think you both are, then you would actually really dig that. You would love that. You're like, oh, I'm getting something fresh. I'm learning something from across like around the other side of the world. So as long as you're both open-minded and curious, it'll actually be invigorating, I imagine. [Speaker 2] (1:18:21 - 1:18:22) Yeah, for sure. [Speaker 3] (1:18:23 - 1:18:30) All right, Alexander, where can people find you? How can they start playing the game? How can they get into the Source Cards? [Speaker 1] (1:18:31 - 1:19:04) Well, the sourcecards.com, and you can put your birth date in there and look up your cards to play. We created a whole portal to look up your cards. And then my book is called Play Your Cards A Sacred Guide to Life on Earth, and that's on Amazon. That's the book that Erosmos is mentioning. And then, like I mentioned, we do have the daily game where you can join in and play along every day. So we've created that as well. Beautiful. A lot of fun things to do on the website, sourcecards.com. [Speaker 2] (1:19:05 - 1:19:20) Yeah, it's really fun too. I've gone through it a little bit, but I want to go deeper into it and just see. Because there's a lot to learn there, and you provide a lot of free information, which is really, really valuable, I think. [Speaker 1] (1:19:20 - 1:19:34) Yeah, thank you. I started a non-profit years ago because I wanted this to be a non-profit organization and share this knowledge as far and wide as possible, because I think it's so necessary and so helpful. [Speaker 2] (1:19:34 - 1:19:38) Yeah, cool. So any final words you have for people watching? [Speaker 1] (1:19:39 - 1:20:14) Again, final words? Well, here's something that I like to say. This has become like my truism, my kind of standard sign-off, is I like to say, may you live your life like it's your favorite game to play. That's my life for myself as well, to engage my life as a game that is my favorite game to play that I've chosen to play, because here I am. I'm incarnated here now. And it's my own reminder to myself to live my life like it's my favorite game to play. That's potent. [Speaker 3] (1:20:15 - 1:20:46) That is very potent indeed. I feel that. And it's just such a stark reminder that there's different ways that you can engage with life, different ways that you can engage with reality. If you recognize, I mean, that you can play the game and have enjoyment in the trials, tribulations, the ups, the downs, the journey, the adventure of whatever that game might be, and play it like it's your favorite game to play. I love it. [Speaker 1] (1:20:46 - 1:21:09) Yeah, it's how we look at it. And I need this reminder for myself as well, especially what we've been going through the last two years on this planet, to really remind myself of that. How do I look at it? How do I approach it? You know, it's easy, or it can be easy to slip into the mire of a different way of looking at things, let's say. [Speaker 2] (1:21:10 - 1:21:24) Brother, it's so grateful to start the new year off with you, to have you on here and to share a little bit about this, this awesome information, and to share a piece of who you are, and just grateful to be connected, grateful to know you. [Speaker 1] (1:21:25 - 1:21:33) Thank you, brother. I really feel that I really appreciate that. And Joel, it's a real pleasure to get to know you a little bit today. I look forward to talking with you further. Yeah, likewise. [Speaker 3] (1:21:34 - 1:21:47) Guys, thank you so much for listening to episode 51 of You For The Truth. This is Alexander Dunlop. Check out thesourcecards.com. All the show notes will be, all the links will be in the show notes, and we'll see you guys next time. Take care.