TAROT

The Tarot pack comprises 78 highly illustrated cards ¾ twenty-two major cards, or Trumps as they were traditionally called, forty numbered cards in four suits and sixteen Court cards. The first twenty-two cards form the Major Arcana, (arcana means hidden wisdom). Many people use these alone, since they represent the main archetypes known to mankind in all times and places, the father, the mother, the wise man, the fool or child, the trickster, the divine sacrifice, the judge, the hero and the virgin, as well as Fate, the Sun and Moon and the eternal quest to confront the basic human dilemmas of finiteness and being (except in the mother’s womb or when pregnant), ultimately alone.

The Minor Arcana includes 40 numbered cards from Ace (or one) to ten in each of four suits. Pentacles, coins or discs, Cups or chalices, Wands, spears or staves and Swords correspond with the four traditional playing card suits: Diamonds, Hearts. Clubs and Spades. But these suits also represent what the ancients regarded as the basic elements Earth, Water, Fire and Air – and the spiritual qualities associated with these elements. In a reading, these number cards tend to refer to specific issues and courses of action.

Pentacles, Earth, represent the dish from which Jesus ate the paschal lamb. In Celtic tradition it represented the ancient Stone of Fal, on which the High Kings of Ireland stood to be crowned. The Stone was on Tara, the sacred Hill of the High Kings of Ireland and before them the hero Gods.

Cups, Water, are symbols of the Grail cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper, and the Cauldron of the Dagda, the Celtic father God, that was never empty and had great healing powers.

Wands, Fire, symbolise the sacred lance that pierced Jesus’ side. In Celtic tradition it is the spear of Lugh, who slew his own grandfather the old solar God Balor with it and so brought about the new order.

Swords, Air, stand for the Sword of King David and in Celtic tradition, the sword of Nuada of the Silver Hand whose sword hand was cut off in battle, but who had one fashioned of silver and went on to lead his people to victory.

There are also sixteen court cards – four more than the usual playing card deck – because the Jack takes on two aspects: the Page and the Knight (sometimes the page is regarded as the feminine side of youthfulness). The court cards can have different names such as Princess and Prince, Daughter and Son, even Priestesses and Shamans instead of the traditional Queens and Kings. These cards usually refer to personalities or aspects of personalities and, as such, focus on relationship issues.

Almost more than any other form of divination, the Tarot has been unfairly regarded as dark magic, the stuff of malevolent clairvoyants in B horror movies because of the erroneously literal interpretation of the Death, Devil and Tower of Destruction cards.

The Origins of the Tarot

Tarot cards in their present form seem to be a mediaeval creation, although the images and themes are much older. The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris has seventeen ornate cards, sixteen of them Tarot Trumps, originally believed to have been made for Charles VI of France around 1392, but now thought to be Italian, dating from about 1470.

One suggestion is that Tarot cards sprang from the north of Italy, in the valley of the Taro River which is a tributary of the River Po. This could have influenced the Italian name for the cards Tarrochi and the French name Tarot. The modern Tarot pack comes directly from an Italian version, the Venetian or Piedmontese Tarot which has twenty-two Trumps. The same form is found in the French pack called the Tarot of Marseilles that is still sold. Both designs were in popular use by about 1500 in Northern Italy and France.

The four suits represented different strata of society: the swords as the aristocracy, cups or chalices as the clergy and monastic orders, coins for the merchant and batons for the peasants.

Another theory claimed that the gypsies brought the Tarot with them in their long trek to Europe from India via the Middle East. In 1781, a time when Egypt was seen as the source of all knowledge, Antoine Court de Gebelin, a French Protestant clergyman who became fascinated by the occult, found some friends playing with Tarot cards. He identified the cards as containing the secrets of the priests of Ancient Egypt, the lost Egyptian magical wisdom written by Thoth, the Egyptian God of inspired written knowledge, encoded in Tarot symbolism to protect this wisdom from invading barbarians.

The Arabic word Tariqua (the way of wisdom) bears some resemblance to Tarot and the Ancient Egyptian word Ta-rosh means the Royal Way. Some believe that the Tarot was named after Taueret, known to the Greeks as Thoeris, the Great One, Taueret, the Egyptian hippopotamus goddess who was protective deity of childbirth. It was said she gave birth to Tarot wisdom.

A third root was seen in the Kabbalah, the source of Hebrew esoteric wisdom. Torah is the Hebrew name for the first books of the Old Testament. In Golden Dawn interpretations of the Tarot, much significance is attached to the Latin world ROTA meaning Wheel engraved on the Wheel of Fortune card. When reversed it gives Tora(h), and can be rearranged as Taro. By learning the Tarot wisdom, one can step off the Wheel of unremitting Fate.

In 1856 Eliphas Levi made the first connections between the Tarot and the Kabbalah, linking the 22 Major Arcana cards with the twenty two letters of the Hebrew alphabet that each possessed inherent esoteric significance. Eliphas Levi Zahed, usually shortened to Eliphas Levi was the pseudonym for Alphonse Louis Constant, born in 1810 and originally a Catholic priest who became interested in the study of magic and coined the word occult. Indeed he considered that were one only to have a Tarot pack, it was still possible to acquire a great deal of knowledge through using them. including the Kabbalah and the Bible.

Other explanations link the origin of the name with the Celtic Tara, the sacred Hill of the High Kings of Ireland from ancient times until the Sixth Century. This view was given credence by Robert Graves, the historian and novelist, who believed that the twenty-two Tarot trumps were derived from the ancient twenty two symbol Tree Alphabet of the Celts.

The greatest influence on modern Tarot reading is Arthur Edward Waite who in 1891 joined the Order of the Golden Dawn, a mystical group whose members included the poet WB Yeats. The Tarot was important to the Golden Dawn which traced its traditions back to the mysterious Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century, who in turn drew on alchemical and Kabbalistic traditions, traceable, it is said, back to Moses. The Rider Waite Tarot pack with its richly illustrated Minor Arcana, was intended to promote visions as well as being used for divination and this pack has influenced countless others, especially with Minor Arcana meanings. It was Waite who associated the four suits with the four sacred objects of the Holy Grail quest.

Some Tarot practitioners do identify the Tarot journey with the quest for the Holy Grail, with for example the Emperor as the Fisher King whose wounds have caused the land to become barren, the High Priestess as the female guardian of the Grail and the Fool himself as the seeker, for La Folie Perceval was written around 1330. Perceval needed to attain wisdom though experience before he was ready to inherit guardianship of the Grail. The Hermit. Charioteer and Lovers also feature in early Grail legends.

For much more in-depth information on divination techniques, join the Cassandra Eason School of Thought.

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