What everyone calls a deck of playing cards is actually the ancient Book of Life & older than the Bible. In fact, the Bible refers to it more than 20 times. It forms the basis of Kabbalah, Hermetic Philosophy, the foundation of the entire Western Spiritual tradition.

The playing cards represent 52 archetypes or symbols of consciousness (+ the Joker). These patterns are played out in this lifetime in this 3-D of reality. The number 52 is the number of weeks in a year. Adding 5 + 2 = 7. So, the number 52 reduces to the number 7. There are 7 days / week.

There are 4 suits (Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades) & 4 seasons in the year. 13 cards in each suit from Ace King, & 13 weeks in each of the 4 seasons. Also 13 lunar cycles each year of 4 weeks long.

Adding all the values of the cards together -- Kings worth 13, Queens 12, Jacks 11 & Aces 1 – multiplied by the 4 suits (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13) = 364. All of the cards of all 4 suits add up to 364. There are 365 ¼ days each year. The Joker anomaly makes up the remainder.

So, the deck of cards really comprises an abstract representation of our calendar year. It symbolically depicts the cycles the Earth makes around the Sun each year. It shows the life cycles of the Earth & humanity’s place upon it. Now, imagine for a moment the deck has a binding on one side. It is a little book of symbols & numbers that represents the cycles of our life. Take the binding off, leaves the loose leaves of a book. An open book that symbolically depicts time on Earth. The Book of Life.

Ironically, in the Middle Ages, the Church banned it as “the devil’s picture book.” And so it was hidden in plain sight to protect it; hidden as an object for idle games of chance.

Which flies in the face of Tex Ritter’s expanded version in his spoken-song about a soldier titled a Deck of Cards:

the Ace reminds that there is but one God, & the deuce that the Bible is divided into 2 parts -- the Old & New Testament.
See the trey, think the Father, Son, & the Holy Ghost;
4 = 4 Evangelists who preached the Gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John);
5 stands for the 5 wise virgins who trimmed their lamps (there were 10... 5 were wise & were saved; 5 were foolish & were shut out);
6. In six days, God made Heaven & Earth;
7. On the 7th day, God rested;
8. The 8 rightous persons God saved when he destroyed Earth (Noah, his wife, their 3 sons & their 3 wives);
9. The lepers Jesus cleansed;
10. Commandments
King of Heaven; Queen the Blessed Virgin; Jack of Knaves is the Devil.

Cards serve as a Bible, an Almanac, & a prayer book.

Fascinating archetypal lore, all these symbols of consciousness & calendar, also presented in Jung’s books on Tarot cards. The immensity of it echoed in the work of the Jungian scholar turned ecumenical mystical spiritualist & medium Caroline Myss, who brilliantly casts the wheel of archetypes, finding out the sacred contracts & shadow contracts in one’s life that a person agrees to before s/he reincarnate, & other ideas once considered farfetched, but after recent events, experiences, & experiments compels to suspend judgment about a lot of phenomena, correspondences, coincidences & ways of obtaining meaningful information without always defaulting to science & its direct empirical method.

Note too the irony that Monaco, Vegas, Reno, AC, London, et.al., are filthy with Books of Life used exactly for the opposite purpose. Perhaps if the incorrigible gamblers realized a little more wisdom tradition as they play different kinds of poker & blackjack in completely simulated environments nowadays that insulate them from the shocks of life, with the lights turned low, & provide drinks to rapaciously take their money, they might find a lot more significance in their pathological form of self-destruction. The performance of William Macy as Bernie Lootz in The Cooler taking away people’s luck at a down & out casino in Vegas because he can literally stop an aleatory roll with life-deadening dis-animating power he has to cool a hot streak explores this theme. What’s great for gamblers is that they don’t have to buy a Tarot pack with Major & Minor Arcana to get a satisfying ‘reading’ of their life.

Better still they could just keep out of Vegas & other “Deserts of the Real”, in Matrix terms, if they want to understand what's in store for them. Unless of course they can avoid the tables & the wheels of fortune while hanging there. But that defeats the purpose of a visit to Vegas, now doesn't it?

These 4 bars reviewed here, along with others from this barsmith located in the Upper Amazon, means that Kallari-Sacha might be building a deck of bars with chocolate – a substance once revered by early Americans as the very life-force. Just bite to play ‘em & maybe get a read on your life about when to hold or fold.

       

The following summarizes Kallari-Sacha's recent Flavored releases that fill the slot between a bar & a bombone (the shape of the former & usually the taste of the latter). In the Flavor Section below, individual bars are listed with a brief synopsis & rating of each. The general rating (at the upper right) reflects their composite average.