Intricate brightly colored kaleidoscopic computer-enhanced natural images adorn the little (5" x 8") cigar-box case. The provocative subtitle promises "Seeds of a Turned-On World." At first it seems to be an oracle deck, a post-modern Tarot. Upon further inspection, it is also hip, playful, and prophetic, sometimes presenting itself as a magical toolkit that was time-teleported back to us from a highly evolved spiritual future.

Taken together, it's a remarkable creation. First, it's extremely elegant; printed and packaged with exquisite taste, the GaiaStar Codex is a pleasure to look at and touch. Equally arresting are the images themselves, computer-enhanced mandalas and portraits adapted from photos of natural forms like stones, flowers, feathers, wood, crystals (and even a cat) all in incredible detail -- more than the eye can absorb in a single viewing. (Revisiting the deck, I find myself repeatedly noticing new aspects of these very alive icons.)

But the package is more than the sum of these parts. It clearly expresses an intent to seed the user's intuitive growth into living in the "turned-on world" referenced in its subtitle. It declares itself to be something like a strange attractor toward an awakened ecstatic planetary awareness and destiny into which we all are growing, however slowly or quickly. The book accompanying the deck reminds the reader again and again that there are bountiful sources of support and grace on all sides -- including that of the GaiaStar Codex itself.

When you open the case, you find three items. First you see the deck itself: 64 large format cards adorned with these striking images, each carrying a short but evocative name, such as "Emerge", "TranceForm", "Get Down", "TechnoTantra" or "Chief Roots". Then you see the 104-page book full of mystically inspired, poetic descriptions of each card and the vision of the "global being" that the deck's creators see "forming in our midst" containing "countless diverse species and life forms" "coalescing into a new kind of planetary unity." The book also offers a series of open-ended suggestions about how to understand and use the deck for guidance and/or empowerment. Finally, a 16" x 20" poster arrays all the cards' images in meaningful order along with their names.

Paradoxical qualities -- here's what would ordinarily be so much detail as to be chaotic -- an amazingly rich riot of life, color, and cosmic vision -- but the total package, although witty, wild, and unlike anything you've ever seen before, is anything but agitated. Instead it conveys a spiritually-informed cosmic serenity, a sweet confidence in Being, and an inspired intuition of an emerging trans-species ecstatic planetary consciousness.

The GaiaStar images are examples of a unique art form -- a marriage of natural light, shape and color (via nature photography, much of it very close-up) and technology (via computerized image manipulation). It all began, say its creators, Bonnie Bell and David Todd, when they noticed a powerful effect emerging when the image patterns in natural forms (including shapes, lines and colors) were unfolded opposite their mirror image along an axis. Seen over against its mirrored other half, the natural patterns no longer seem bereft of meaning; the human brain suddenly sees a lot of information that previously remained hidden from view. It is as if a deep array of visible spirits has lain hidden in the twists of tree fungi, the whorls of feather markings, the patterns of flowers and leaves, and the striations of colored rocks. Once unfolded and symmetrical, a host of recognizable faces, bodies and forms become visible, and the feeling spirit expressed in theses natural shapes can be taken in and felt. The creators expanded upon the power of unfolding images to create symmetry, so the images seen in the GaiaStar Codex are formed by unfolding the images not just along a single axis, but along a series of axes, creating radial mandalas, unfolded "chambers", aperspectival textures and wild collages. In this way, a whole genre, a new visual art form of arresting "meta-natural" visuals was born.

The original discovery at first piqued the creators' curiosity. "Is this coincidence, or revealing a deeper actuality? What is that actuality?" They came to feel that these visual patterns reveal the natural world's hidden character in a way that helps to quicken the "evolutionary love affair between the human and spirit self and the living elements of the earth." So the images all have names, and the accompanying book offers descriptions of the images' meanings. The meanings are all about transformation. In 64 ways, they express different aspects of a single vision: an ecstatic planetary reunion of myriad dissociated elements. These cards presume, envision, invoke, and intend an evolutionary renaissance, blessed by and embracing both spirit and matter.

To engage the deck as I began to write this review, I tried a quick "one-card" version of the "empowerment" approach to using the cards, and I immediately found myself confronting a card named "Ease." On it I see an image in which a sensuous field of rose petal-lips, floating like clouds in a yellow-orange sky, hold a calming green-and-orange six-pointed star of leaf forms. Looking in the book, I'm advised to "Take refuge in the power of ease and the nurturing nature of plants...Slow down and take it all in. Feel your roots in the Earth and your light-catching limbs spread to the sky. Everything you need is around and in you. Relax into the web of life, and let it soothe your soul." This is probably a good reminder to anybody on any morning, but somehow it feels particularly fitting to me today. After a few moments of silence, feeling into what that image and those sentiments offer, I indeed find myself integrating the qualities it invokes, feeling more easeful and trusting, appreciating the "uplift" conveyed by the card .

Each card offers reminders of unique and particular energies, principles or elemental qualities, but they're all phrased in positive language, affirming trust in spirit and in earth. Here's some language from the book's description of the card "Matter Manna":

"Afloat on turquoise waters, a continent of sustenance is yours for the asking. This manna comes not from heaven, but from matter itself. You need never be depleted on your journey of emergence. Here is a plate that is ever full and always within your reach...Sometimes you need support from below, something to bear you up like a mother's arms. You need to feed on the source that springs from the ground beneath your feet. Not only nutrient energy and information but also sweet comfort come from this material domain. It is time to debunk the notion that matter is dark and somehow opposed to spirit. Both are radiant sources within the emerging world. Whenever you need a boost, feast on Matter Manna. Its pure vibrational essences are soul food for the being you are becoming."

A note to skeptics: This reviewer comes to this material with no background or history of interest in tarot, astrology, or interplanetary intuitions. My spiritual background is grounded in Vedanta and Non-Dualism; my professional and intellectual perspective is scientific, evolutionary, and integral. I have no stomach for the starry-eyed occult idealism at the low end of the so-called "new-age" product category, invoking "new paradigm" or "new consciousness" as if the difficult work of self-understanding, self-transcendence and maturation were less important to human progress than getting stoned and affirming utopia. Nonetheless, I understand the very real power of intention, ritual and invocation, and this is how I perceive and understand the GaiaStar Codex.

Some of the more critically-minded will be provoked. Some of the GaiaStar language raised my eyebrows, at least briefly. (There are consistent affirmations, such as "Global being feels good" which at first glance are reminiscent of uncritical new age talk.) After all, no serious practitioner wants hard-won spiritual understandings confused with idealistic babble. But when the reader contemplates this book and deck in totality, it becomes possible to relax and notice a higher (and more grounded) intelligence embodied in it all. This is poetic language, expressing and invoking an evolutionary leap in human consciousness, and a new relationship with nature. (And after all, we're not opposed to expecting or intending the best, are we? For example, is it anyone's considered opinion that global being does NOT feel good -- that it feels bad, for instance? Of course not.) So there is something rather profound in the cards' pervasive unabashed affirmations. These words are not diagnostic language, designed for precision accuracy, but shamanic language, with words chosen for their power to help call forth what they are describing. The cards' descriptions are thus helping to create the evolutionary leap they affirm.

But you can forget about all that if it troubles you. It's all in the images, according to the text. We needn't believe or understand any of it. The cards' "meta-natural" images directly communicate a profound alchemy that is inherently transformative, whether or not we buy any of the rest of it. Magic? Or maybe it's better understood as extremely well-organized prayer...

So what do you make of the unique, elegant and utterly wild GaiaStar Codex? Is it an oracle? A magical spell? A missive from our next evolutionary reality? The enclosed book offers its own perspectives:

"The GaiaStar Codex lets you sample the future. Through its imagery you can taste the pleasures of the turned-on world and harvest seed-jewels from its endless treasuries. Earth empowers ecstasy.

...Novelty is the power of the new, the face of the future gazing at you now. The present is not just an extension of the past; it is also created by the future. Time flows in two directions.

The GaiaStar Codex is a Rosetta Stone from the future. When you decode its visual text, its novelty liberates you from the past and births you into the next world."

There's a communication here, a very new frequency, and it's worth experiencing directly. There's something unique and unusual to encounter, even for experienced inner-space explorers. Wherever you've traveled, it's very unlikely you've visited the domain wherein the GaiaStar Codex was spawned. The future and the present seem to have met in secret in nature's garden, and this is the map to the earthly temple where they're waiting for you. No need to become credulous. Instead, I'd counsel a guileless, simple openness. In that mood, this turned on deck is likely to affect you deeply, perhaps in ways that words don't touch. At the level that can be described, it is likely to leave you feeling peaceful, amused, touched, and also, subtly, profoundly Amazed.

A. Terry Patten is a writer, designer of biofeedback tools, and restorative forestry activist. He is best known as the founder and, for a decade, guiding spirit behind Tools For Exploration, the first comprehensive catalog of technologically advanced tools for enhancing energy, consciousness and health. He lives in San Rafael, California.