Until the 18th century, tarot cards were simply playing cards. It was then that occult researchers became convinced that these cards in fact held magical properties
Yep Carl Jung's and your take. He noted essentially the same regarding the I Ching, with which I'm much more familiar than the Tarot.
There is, for want of a better word, much magic, that which defies rational explanation, in the world. Observation and personal experience of such leaves me quite convinced.
None the less it's a mundane world, Reason and rationality gets us through day to day. We can depend on it. Usually.
Magic on the other hand, hhit sappens but my take is don't bet your life on such or try to take it to the bank. No harm in wearing a St. Christoper's medal but still look both ways when you cross the street.
Hum. I just tossed the coins & asked I Ching what it thought of this Tarot essay: Got hexagram 18 wherein the judgement notes; "What has been spoiled through Man's fault can be made good again through man's work." So! Keep on truckin' Chen!
Great research on a useful tool. Agree with Jung’s, and your, summary. I’m not a consistent user of tools. My challenge involves clearing my headspace so heart can breathe and spirit can explore.
But my sister is a reader, and she’s shown me how a perceptive, adept “reader” may present the cards in such a way that one is drawn deeply into a self-reflective state, and how this shows up in - and indeed, reflects- the world.
In that state both the cards and the seeker represent far more than mere imagery suggests… if that makes sense.
Cards and tools of this nature can mean nothing, or a great deal.
I’m glad to see you cut bravely through the advice of some respectable elders to stay away from “the occult,”to tamp your curiosity as if it were offensive to G-d or Divinity. After many decades of life I believe open-hearted curiosity and seeking is itself the path to, not everything there is to know in the inscrutable world - but exactly what we need to know to live this life abundantly and well (despite inevitable tragedy and sorrow).
Most scholars think playing cards originated in Asia, very early, like, second century. Through trade, card games spread to Europe, etc. Fancy, wealthy Italians made their own deck to play a bridge-like game, because that's what rich nobles did, I guess. That's the oldest known tarocchi deck, the Visconti-Sforza deck. The idea of tarot being a fortune-telling device is down to sheer racism, courtesy of Antoine Court de Gebelin, a French protestant pastor with an orientalist fetish. He shoehorned his interpretations of Egyptian mythology into tarot because he saw Romani women using similar fortune-telling methods, and, because they were dark skinned, he thought they were Egyptian. (The Romani are from India.)
Enter Eliphas Levi years later, a failed priest who built upon Antoine Courts weird fetish with eastern mysticism and convinced a bunch of people he knew the occult secrets of the world by co-opting eastern ideas, including astrology, and blending them with his Catholic interpretation of Jewish mysticism.
Years after THAT, Crowley compounded this with still more poorly syncretized ideas about Egypt, Kabbalah, and astrology. The Thoth Deck is the result of an independently wealthy white man's dilettantism and self-importance, and I'm surprised he got around to it at all amidst drinking his way across the continents and convincing Golden Dawn members that sex with him was the most efficient of all magic rituals. (I obviously loathe Crowley, and much prefer the Waite Smith deck and rubric, which has a clearer narrative structure thanks to Patricia's illustrations. I ignore the Kabbala cosplay symbolism in readings, myself.)
In my opinion as somebody who has been reading cards professionally for a long time, Jung gets closest. The power in tarot is in it's ability to reach the subconcious - it is beautiful Rorschach with a narrative that echoes the human life cycle. It helps people step outside of themselves, to be a viewer of their own life narrative, which helps them make decisions in a way that SEEMS like it is divine intervention, but really they just needed to think about a problem in a different way.
This doesn't negate the power of a reading for me or the client - quite the contrary. People feel more clear-headed after a reading not because I am a magician, but because I am an empath who gave them a different medium with which to view their issues, and I listen and talk about archetypal parallels in order to help them reach conclusions. It is a magical process...but not in the way most people shoehorn all the WOOO into it. It is magical because the human mind is magical. The cards are just that. Cards.
I would say it is the manifestation of occidental archetype. An ancient occult Hesperian tradition which found in the Italian renaissance a worthy vessel to reincarnate.
Have you read Michael Dunmet’s books on the history of the esoteric tarot?
Aside from that, I’ve long ago made peace with the idea that Tarot’s esoteric properties and correspondences have been acquired over the centuries rather than designed. That they are deeply resonant symbols is undeniable. The Golden Dawn, of course, never met a system it didn’t want to syncretise! Scholem, btw, did grudgingly give AE Waite credit for knowing his stuff. He’s hilariously dismissive of Crowley, though.
As for Scholem, the man was hilarious when he criticized others for not understanding Jewish mysticism, which I get—he was a scholar who was already looked at with some suspicion by other academics for studying their "weird" subjects. But I ask myself—where do you draw the line? Crowley had very interesting ideas. I recognize that he invented most of them or mixed different schools and philosophies, but isn't that what every occultist does in a sense? So he wasn't historical correct, but I don't think the Kabbalists were either. The Hebrew Bible doesn't really teach about the Ten Sefirot, even Scholem would agree with that.
fascinating! i particularly like your conclusion. i think that the relationship between mysticism and psychology is yet to be fully explored… by me at least, but maybe society at large.
it’s curious to me how the tarot serves very different functions to very different people, perhaps based on need… a divining source in times of trouble versus a pastime or a game and nothing more.
Regarding the connection between mystics and psychology….i was stricken by the hard work made by post-Shoah junghians (archetypal school) to heal “the guilt of the surviivors.”. Great!!!
One question about Carl Jung: when you say "Jung proposed to view Tarot as a direct path to our subconscious", that seems to fit very well Jung's way of thinking, but I am not aware of him mentioning the Tarot directly in his writing: can you share in which book he talks about that?
On the other hand, I think Marie-Louise von Franz, one of Jung's collaborators, mentions the Tarot in one of her books (I don't remember which one though! Maybe in "on divination and synchronicity").
Another interesting thing is that there are other ways to think of using Tarot without buying into the supernatural, one is considering it an application of a technique for creative thinking called "conceptual blending": here the late Vincent Pitisci explains how: https://youtu.be/_dKdR2SYBHo?si=JD1IcWfJxVen2OE-
Thank you for this. I'm actually referencing a book in Hebrew about the Tarot, written by Ruth Nezer - she quote Jung there as saying that while he didn't study the Tarot deeply, he saw in them a tool for personal development through the unconscious. I'm sorry that the book is not near me... But if I came across it again I'll give the correct reference.
If you understand Hebrew, I've recorded a very interested episode in my podcast with Ruth about Jung's the Red Book. If not, I talked with the editor Prof. Shamdasani in English :)
Once again, Jung hit the nail on the head. The Tarot is a cipher, its archetypal imagery a decryption key to the unconscious. They divine the future insofar as our thoughts become our actions which then shape our reality. But then again, I know nothing lol
Was originally introduced to the Rider Deck, and while could work with it, the amount of Christian symbolism in it, am not and was not raised in Christianity, like a very heavy gloss upon the cards.
Whereas the Crowley deck, seemed amazingly open and easy to work with.
Everybody has their choices, and the variations in Tarot deck have vastly multiplied since first being introduced to it in 1969, through a friend of an ex-girlfriend.
As for Crowley, have read a great deal of his works. He seemed almost reckless, in that he left the knowledge open to all, with no safe guards. Seemingly to allow those who possessed it, to either use it wisely or be destroyed in the process. Have seen both results over the decades.
Your review is fascinating and instructive. The tarot cards have always fascinated me, and the interpretation of the selection of one card received by the wise men on the Internet never fails to astound me. I use the internet tarot reading as a dialogue with myself, and each time, I'm taken aback by the uncanny accuracy with which it defines my current situation. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
I think all the approaches - philosophical, psychological, religious, mystical, etc. - are elegantly reconciled in Valentin Tomberg's seminal work, Meditations on the Tarot. It is definitely worth acquiring and working through.
Yep Carl Jung's and your take. He noted essentially the same regarding the I Ching, with which I'm much more familiar than the Tarot.
There is, for want of a better word, much magic, that which defies rational explanation, in the world. Observation and personal experience of such leaves me quite convinced.
None the less it's a mundane world, Reason and rationality gets us through day to day. We can depend on it. Usually.
Magic on the other hand, hhit sappens but my take is don't bet your life on such or try to take it to the bank. No harm in wearing a St. Christoper's medal but still look both ways when you cross the street.
Hum. I just tossed the coins & asked I Ching what it thought of this Tarot essay: Got hexagram 18 wherein the judgement notes; "What has been spoiled through Man's fault can be made good again through man's work." So! Keep on truckin' Chen!
Clearly, the I-Ching is brilliant! 😀
Great research on a useful tool. Agree with Jung’s, and your, summary. I’m not a consistent user of tools. My challenge involves clearing my headspace so heart can breathe and spirit can explore.
But my sister is a reader, and she’s shown me how a perceptive, adept “reader” may present the cards in such a way that one is drawn deeply into a self-reflective state, and how this shows up in - and indeed, reflects- the world.
In that state both the cards and the seeker represent far more than mere imagery suggests… if that makes sense.
Cards and tools of this nature can mean nothing, or a great deal.
I’m glad to see you cut bravely through the advice of some respectable elders to stay away from “the occult,”to tamp your curiosity as if it were offensive to G-d or Divinity. After many decades of life I believe open-hearted curiosity and seeking is itself the path to, not everything there is to know in the inscrutable world - but exactly what we need to know to live this life abundantly and well (despite inevitable tragedy and sorrow).
Thanks Linda. I agree - we should explore and encourage exploration. Love this perspective
I love a good tarot article !
Most scholars think playing cards originated in Asia, very early, like, second century. Through trade, card games spread to Europe, etc. Fancy, wealthy Italians made their own deck to play a bridge-like game, because that's what rich nobles did, I guess. That's the oldest known tarocchi deck, the Visconti-Sforza deck. The idea of tarot being a fortune-telling device is down to sheer racism, courtesy of Antoine Court de Gebelin, a French protestant pastor with an orientalist fetish. He shoehorned his interpretations of Egyptian mythology into tarot because he saw Romani women using similar fortune-telling methods, and, because they were dark skinned, he thought they were Egyptian. (The Romani are from India.)
Enter Eliphas Levi years later, a failed priest who built upon Antoine Courts weird fetish with eastern mysticism and convinced a bunch of people he knew the occult secrets of the world by co-opting eastern ideas, including astrology, and blending them with his Catholic interpretation of Jewish mysticism.
Years after THAT, Crowley compounded this with still more poorly syncretized ideas about Egypt, Kabbalah, and astrology. The Thoth Deck is the result of an independently wealthy white man's dilettantism and self-importance, and I'm surprised he got around to it at all amidst drinking his way across the continents and convincing Golden Dawn members that sex with him was the most efficient of all magic rituals. (I obviously loathe Crowley, and much prefer the Waite Smith deck and rubric, which has a clearer narrative structure thanks to Patricia's illustrations. I ignore the Kabbala cosplay symbolism in readings, myself.)
In my opinion as somebody who has been reading cards professionally for a long time, Jung gets closest. The power in tarot is in it's ability to reach the subconcious - it is beautiful Rorschach with a narrative that echoes the human life cycle. It helps people step outside of themselves, to be a viewer of their own life narrative, which helps them make decisions in a way that SEEMS like it is divine intervention, but really they just needed to think about a problem in a different way.
This doesn't negate the power of a reading for me or the client - quite the contrary. People feel more clear-headed after a reading not because I am a magician, but because I am an empath who gave them a different medium with which to view their issues, and I listen and talk about archetypal parallels in order to help them reach conclusions. It is a magical process...but not in the way most people shoehorn all the WOOO into it. It is magical because the human mind is magical. The cards are just that. Cards.
Thanks for this awesome reply
I see using Tarot as a dialogue between myself and the cards. It's a conversation with possibilities.
So Jewish Kabbalists are going to come up with a series of images and figures that represent the Pope, Emperor? What a load of garbage.
It does sounds funny when you put it like that
I would say it is the manifestation of occidental archetype. An ancient occult Hesperian tradition which found in the Italian renaissance a worthy vessel to reincarnate.
Enjoyed this a lot :) You might enjoy this essay on one fool/magician, as some of the imagery in the story is reminiscent of the major arcana www.gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/grsm_simon_magus.htm I tried exploring this a bit more here too https://fairytalesfromecotopia.substack.com/p/revolutionary-magic-for-a-free-society looking forward to reading more soon!
Have you read Michael Dunmet’s books on the history of the esoteric tarot?
Aside from that, I’ve long ago made peace with the idea that Tarot’s esoteric properties and correspondences have been acquired over the centuries rather than designed. That they are deeply resonant symbols is undeniable. The Golden Dawn, of course, never met a system it didn’t want to syncretise! Scholem, btw, did grudgingly give AE Waite credit for knowing his stuff. He’s hilariously dismissive of Crowley, though.
I have! great work, fantastic really.
As for Scholem, the man was hilarious when he criticized others for not understanding Jewish mysticism, which I get—he was a scholar who was already looked at with some suspicion by other academics for studying their "weird" subjects. But I ask myself—where do you draw the line? Crowley had very interesting ideas. I recognize that he invented most of them or mixed different schools and philosophies, but isn't that what every occultist does in a sense? So he wasn't historical correct, but I don't think the Kabbalists were either. The Hebrew Bible doesn't really teach about the Ten Sefirot, even Scholem would agree with that.
I like Schliemann . He really “opened” to “lay people” the Jewish mystical world! Even if mystics is “ a way” an initiative way….
fascinating! i particularly like your conclusion. i think that the relationship between mysticism and psychology is yet to be fully explored… by me at least, but maybe society at large.
it’s curious to me how the tarot serves very different functions to very different people, perhaps based on need… a divining source in times of trouble versus a pastime or a game and nothing more.
Regarding the connection between mystics and psychology….i was stricken by the hard work made by post-Shoah junghians (archetypal school) to heal “the guilt of the surviivors.”. Great!!!
Very interesting read!
One question about Carl Jung: when you say "Jung proposed to view Tarot as a direct path to our subconscious", that seems to fit very well Jung's way of thinking, but I am not aware of him mentioning the Tarot directly in his writing: can you share in which book he talks about that?
On the other hand, I think Marie-Louise von Franz, one of Jung's collaborators, mentions the Tarot in one of her books (I don't remember which one though! Maybe in "on divination and synchronicity").
Another interesting thing is that there are other ways to think of using Tarot without buying into the supernatural, one is considering it an application of a technique for creative thinking called "conceptual blending": here the late Vincent Pitisci explains how: https://youtu.be/_dKdR2SYBHo?si=JD1IcWfJxVen2OE-
Thank you for this. I'm actually referencing a book in Hebrew about the Tarot, written by Ruth Nezer - she quote Jung there as saying that while he didn't study the Tarot deeply, he saw in them a tool for personal development through the unconscious. I'm sorry that the book is not near me... But if I came across it again I'll give the correct reference.
i think i know the book you’re referring to - at least it reminds me of one i have called ‘alchemy’ by MLVF
If you understand Hebrew, I've recorded a very interested episode in my podcast with Ruth about Jung's the Red Book. If not, I talked with the editor Prof. Shamdasani in English :)
Once again, Jung hit the nail on the head. The Tarot is a cipher, its archetypal imagery a decryption key to the unconscious. They divine the future insofar as our thoughts become our actions which then shape our reality. But then again, I know nothing lol
Was originally introduced to the Rider Deck, and while could work with it, the amount of Christian symbolism in it, am not and was not raised in Christianity, like a very heavy gloss upon the cards.
Whereas the Crowley deck, seemed amazingly open and easy to work with.
Everybody has their choices, and the variations in Tarot deck have vastly multiplied since first being introduced to it in 1969, through a friend of an ex-girlfriend.
As for Crowley, have read a great deal of his works. He seemed almost reckless, in that he left the knowledge open to all, with no safe guards. Seemingly to allow those who possessed it, to either use it wisely or be destroyed in the process. Have seen both results over the decades.
My dream is to design a deck for the Digial world... the Fool as user, Magician as programmer
Interesting, would be open to seeing where this takes you.
Yes thank you for this article, I had no idea! Such a fascinating read!
I had no idea about this fascinating history of Tarot. Thank you so much for sharing. 🤩
A very interesting article
Your review is fascinating and instructive. The tarot cards have always fascinated me, and the interpretation of the selection of one card received by the wise men on the Internet never fails to astound me. I use the internet tarot reading as a dialogue with myself, and each time, I'm taken aback by the uncanny accuracy with which it defines my current situation. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
I think all the approaches - philosophical, psychological, religious, mystical, etc. - are elegantly reconciled in Valentin Tomberg's seminal work, Meditations on the Tarot. It is definitely worth acquiring and working through.
Were cards ever not “magical”?
They are chaos generators, dice, bones, birds flying in the sky.
Tarot is an example extension of this, a way to tell a story, a structure in which to cast a prophesy.
Those who do not believe in gods do not, cannot, see it.