2023-11-25
Tarot probably isn't what you think
If you stumbled on this page by accident, more context is provided in this short book review I wrote.
I took an interest in tarot cards/readings to try to gain some understanding of why so many people have found [it] accurate/valuable/prophetic (or, on the other hand, witchcraft), and what "it" really even is. Growing up in Christian churches, the formula was something like:
{not talked about in the Bible} + {appears to be related to other religion(s)} = {instantly bad or even "demonic"}
Furthermore, cinematic depictions of tarot cards invariably place them in the context of fortune telling/divination, which Christians view as witchcraft. If divination is the purpose of the tarot, it would be safe to say that the use/practice thereof falls far outside of the Biblical directive. But at the same time, my understanding of tarot was that it was just a deck of pictorial cards, laid on a table in a solitaire-type spread... How could this lead to any sort of meaningful "divination"? And if it's not meaningful divination, is it "divination" at all? And if it's not divination, should it be considered taboo by Christians/other religions? But if it's not divinatory at all, why has it been around for [so long] and why is there still a pervading question of whether or not it carries any divinatory weight? If the spreading of tarot cards is meaningless, I would expect the practice to have been relegated to some form of harmless child's game, no different from this "divinatory" pass-time I used to play en route to evangelical missions.
With a little research, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot surfaced as a seminal work on the meanings of the tarot cards; partly because the author, Arthur Edward Waite, was also the one who planned and commissioned the art of a specific deck of tarot cards, which have become the single most famous and recognizable artwork of tarot cards, by a long shot.
While reading this book, I was surprised to learn that Waite actually seemed to have been quite upset that anyone claimed a divinatory nature in the tarot! As examples, see these two excerpts directly from his book:
The Tarot embodies symbolical presentations of universal ideas, behind which lie all the implicits of the human mind, and it is in this sense that they contain secret doctrine, which is the realization by the few of truths imbedded in the consciousness of all...
...[T]hat which is extracted from the [cards] by the divinatory art is at once artificial and arbitrary, as it seems to me, in the highest degree... The allocation of a fortune-telling aspect to these cards is the story of a prolonged impertinence.
ref.A (top of page)
ref.B (bottom of the page)
So, the claim by Waite is that original tarot was intended as a set of symbols;* and, I believe, the intimation also present that there is attained some compound/higher meaning derived from algebraic combinations or permutations of groupings of these symbols. (What exactly such "higher meanings" might entail is left largely obscure throughout the book, except for hints that sound like, "If you know, you know." What a jerk.) Waite was disgruntled about the rampant abuse of the tarot symbology as fortune telling, and the veering away of the cards' art from intuitive connection to the original concepts.
There are religious and even Christian terms throughout the book (and cards' art), and direct Scriptural allusions abound: a reader familiar with his Bible will find numerous implicit and explicit references to Biblical passages and long-held Christian ecclesiastical doctrines. But the relationship to non-pagan religions is impaired by the frequency of other terms, such as alchemy, astrology, Kabalism, Hermeticism, "Ceremonial Magic," "Secret Doctrine," etc.
Now, I've arranged the preceding list in order of increasing peculiarity/interest to me. Notice the evolution of topics: early scientific aspirations of pre-modern chemistry, pseudo-scientific astronomical studies with a sprinkle of mysticism, Jewish mysticism, Christian mysticism, and finally magic and "Secret Doctrines," the latter of which smacks of Gnosticism (and here) and the Christian occult.**
For his part, Waite was once a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (pictured at right), before breaking off and forming his own [order], known as the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross (and alluded to throughout The Pictorial Key to the Tarot).
Seeing the Rose Cross felt redolent of the Order of the Eastern Star's emblem. While the emblems' visual similarities might be might be a bit of a reach, the notion did lead me down the path to recognize the connection of both organizations as relatives of that ever-enigmatic order of Freemasonry. This connection especially piqued my interest because my own grandmother was a long-time member of the Eastern Star, though I can't claim to know anything more of her involvment than this basic fact.
Emblem of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, known as the "Rose Cross of the Golden Dawn"
There's certainly more to be explored on this topic!
Tarot has wishful ties with Christianity and Judaism (more rightly-- to their mystical bastard offspring) through Gnosticism. In turn, Gnosticism ranges from a mere description of extra-Biblical ancient texts to the amalgamation of mystical pseudo-science with traditionally non-pagan religions, forging in-roads for magic and occult practices. Today, the echoes of these ideas sound all the way from the more familiar Masonic lodges to more ostentatious new-age conspirators.
* It's worth noting that a standard deck of tarot cards is a combination of two sub-decks, known as the Trumps Major/Greater Arcana and the Lesser/Minor Arcana. Waite is clear that the profound symbolism and original intent of the tarot is exclusive to the Trumps Major. The Lesser Arcana were initially just a set of ordinary playing cards, Frankensteined onto the Trumps Major, creating a bastardized "tarot" deck better suited to fortune telling.
** If you're like me, you may not realize that "occult" simply means abstruse, concealed, secret, or matters regarded as involving the action or influence of supernatural or supernormal powers or some secret knowledge of them. I.e. it is not a synonym of "cult," as I thought throughout much of my early life.