All this talk of mind-control lead me to make the latest celebrity tarot card: The Sleeper!

The Sleeper is a combination of several popular myths. One is Sleeping Beauty who lies reclining on her couch, amidst her entire kingdom which has fallen asleep. She awaits the kiss of a prince to rouse her from her slumber. Above that we see our very own modern-day Sleeping Beauty variant - Terri Schiavo, being kept alive in a vegetative state thanks to unnatural use of technology. Speaking of unnatural technology, behind her we see the pods from The Matrix, which the machine race uses to raise and enslave humans in - filling their minds with an artificially constructed womb-world. Perched atop Schiavo’s hospital bed is another creepy little character, the demon who can be seen sitting atop the sleeping woman in Henry Fuseli’s famous Nightmare painting. He symbolizes the dark purposes which may overtake those who are asleep.

This card can also be interpreted as the “Ignorance is bliss” card - what you don’t know can’t hurt you. In the Matrix, it is both Neo before he is freed from the Matrix (gnosis - enlightenment), and Cypher as he longs to return to the comfort of sleep. It can be a card of self-indulgence, or of completely withdrawing from the exterior world - as in the Hermit card in the Rider-Waite deck. It could also be a card for lucid-dreamers, psychonauts, and other explorers of the realms of darkness.

In Buddhism, one of the traditional poses of the Buddha is reclining or sleeping. It depicts him as he was near death, teaching still to his disciples. And it depicts the nearness of his return to the bliss of nirvana. Conversely, here’s a great quote on the Sleeper card as spiritual awakening:

Once we begin to initiate the Awakening process, we start to have different perceptions, and those perceptions may not harmonize with the perceptions of the people around us, maybe not even with the people closest to us. So, right away a conflict arises. We find ourselves in a dilemma. Seeing the structure of the Illusion we are surrounded with, it is no longer possible to comfortably continue living within the confines of that Illusion, yet there is a strong force working to keep us enfolded there. That force is generated by the people we know who still live within the confines of the Illusion.

The next natural impulse is to share the truth of our new perceptions with someone else, generally someone who we care deeply about, and who we want to share our excitement with. We present them with our new found sense of awareness in the hope they will get the picture. We may go around trying to save everyone we know.

Anyone who attempts this will soon discover that their new found perceptions of truth will probably not be well received. Those who have not yet awakened are not interested in having their “sleep” disturbed. It is not yet time for them to awaken.

Going back to the dark side of this card - when combined with perhaps the Secret Society card, this card becomes about mind-control. About planting hypnotic suggestions into a “sleeper” and later providing them with triggers or cues to fulfill their commands. Supposedly there is an elaborate technique to create “sleeper assassins”. Similarly, this card could also stand for forgetfulness or Philip K. Dick’s amamnesis - the loss of forgetfulness. In Dick it occurred when he witnessed the Christian fish necklace of a delivery girl.

Also depicted in this card is a photo of a young woman with two symbols on her. On her brow is a burst of light. It may indicate either gnosis or the “trigger” of secretly encoded instructions within her. Near her heart she clutches a small plant - the eternal promise of the sleeper. “Tomorrow is a new day.” The seed of a new beginning, which sleep prepares one for. This card may also be a warning to “sleep on it” - to wait a while before making any decisions. Or, it may mean that you’ve waited too long - you’ve overslept and missed your opportunity.

This card could also potentially be read as referring to reincarnation - the sleep of death followed by rising to a new birth.

[For more info on the pop culture tarot and a complete card listing, go here.]