INTRODUCTION   

  ORIGINS OF THE TAROT   

  Around the middle of the fifteenth century, not so long after thefirst written references in Europe to cards of any kind, an artistnamed Bonifacio Bembo painted a set of unnamed and unnumberedcards for the Visconti family of Milan. These pictures comprise theclassic deck for an Italian game called 'Tarocchi': four suits of fourteen cards each, plus twenty-two cards showing different scenes andlater called 'trionfi' - in English, 'triumphs', or 'trumps'. 

Now, of these twenty-two images many can be interpreted assimply a catalogue of medieval social types, such as (to give themtheir later names) 'the Pope' or 'the Emperor', or else commonmedieval moral homilies, such as 'the Wheel of Fortune'. Somerepresent virtues, like 'Temperance' or 'Fortitude'. Others showreligious-mythological scenes, such as the dead rising from thegrave at the trumpet call for 'the Last Judgement'. There is even acard depicting a popular heresy, the image of a female pope, whichwe can describe as a joke on the Church with rather deeper significance than most ecclesiastical humour. Still, we can view thisheretical picture as deeply rooted in popular culture, and thereforeobvious to someone representing medieval 'types'. 

One figure, however, stands out as rather strange. It shows ayoung man hanging upside down by his left leg from a simplewooden frame. His hands are held casually behind his back to forma triangle with his head at the bottom, his right leg is bent behindhis knee to produce the figure of a cross, or else the numeral four.The face appears relaxed, even perhaps entranced. W here didBembo derive this image? It certainly does not represent a criminalhanged at the gallows, as some later artists have assumed. In Italytraitors were sometimes hanged upside down, and in fact manymodern Italian decks call this card L'Apezzo, the Traitor. But thereis no evil implicit in Bembo's figure. The young man appearsbeautiful, and at peace. 

Christian tradition describes St Peter as being crucified upsidedown, ostensibly so he could not be said to be copying his Lord.The Elder Edda describes the god Odin hanging from the WorldTree for nine days and nights, not as a punishment, but in order toreceive enlightenment, the gift of prophecy. But this mythologicalscene itself derives from the actual practice of shamans, medicinemen and women, in such places as Siberia and North America. Inthe initiation and training the candidates for shamanism are sometimes told to hang upside down. Apparently the reversal of thebody produces some sort of psychological benefit, in the way thatstarvation and extreme cold will induce radiant visions. Thealchemists - who, with the witches, were possibly the survivors ofthe shamanist tradition in Europe - also hung themselves upsidedown, believing that elements in the sperm vital to immortalitywould thus flow down to the psychic centres at the top of the head.And even before the West began to take Yoga seriously everyoneknew the image of the yogi standing on his head. 

Did Bembo simply wish to represent an alchemist? Then whynot use the more common image, that of a bearded man stirring acauldron or mixing chemicals? The picture, titled 'the HangedMan' in subsequent decks and later made famous by T.S. Eliot inThe Wasteland, appears not so much as an alchemist as a younginitiate in some secret tradition. Was Bembo himself an initiate?The special crossing of the legs would suggest so. And if he included one reference to esoteric practices, might not other images,superficially a social commentary, in reality represent an entire bodyof occult knowledge? Why, for instance, did the original deck contain twenty-two cards, not say, twenty or twenty-one or twentyfive, all of which are more commonly given significance in Western culture? Was it chance, or did Bembo (or perhaps others whomBembo simply copied) wish to slyly represent the esoteric meaningsconnected to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet?And yet, if any evidence exists anywhere connecting Bembo or theVisconti family to any occult group no one has produced it forpublic scrutiny.

A brief look at the stunning correspondences between the Tarotand the body ofJewish mysticism and occult knowledge, called collectively the Kabbalah, will demonstrate the way in which Bembo'scards seem almost to demand an esoteric interpretation, despite thelack of hard evidence. T he Kabbalah dwells very deeply on thesymbolism of the Hebrew alphabet. T he letters are connected tothe paths of the Tree of Life and they are each given their ownsymbolic meanings. Now, the Hebrew alphabet contains, as noted,twenty-two letters, the same number as the trumps of Tarocchi.T he Kabbalah also goes deeply into the four letters of God's unpronounceable name, YHVH. T hey represent the four worlds ofcreation, the four basic elements of medieval science, four stages ofexistence, four methods of interpreting the Bible, and so on. T hereare four court cards in each of Bembo's four suits. 

Finally, the Kabbalah works with the number ten - the TenCommandments and ten Sephiroth (stages of emanation) on eachof the four Trees of Life. And the four suits contain cards numberedfrom one to ten. Do we wonder then that Tarot commentatorshave claimed that the deck originated as a pictorial version of theKabbalah, meaningless to the masses, but highly potent to the few?And yet, in all the thousands of pages of Kabbalistic literature, notone word appears about the Tarot. 

Occultists have claimed secret sources for the cards, such as agrand conference of Kabbalists and other Masters in Morocco in1300, but no one has ever produced any historical evidence forsuch claims. Even more damning, Tarot commentators themselvesdo not mention the Kabbalah until the nineteenth century. And ofcourse, the names and numbers sequence, so vital to their interpretations, came after the original images. 

If we accept Cad Jung's idea of basic spiritual archetypes structured into the human mind we can perhaps say that Bembo unconsciously tapped hidden sprmgs of knowledge, allowing laterimaginations to make the conscious connections. And yet, suchexact and complete correspondences as the twenty-two trumps, thefour court cards and ten pip cards in the four suits, or the positionand ecstatic face of the Hanged Man, would seem to strain evensuch a potent force as the Collective Unconscious. 

For years Tarrochi was seen primarily as a game for gambling,and to a much lesser extent as a device for fortune-telling. Then, inthe eighteenth century, an occultist named Antoine Court deGebelin declared the Tarot (as the French called the game) to be theremnant of the Book of Thoth, created by the Egyptian god ofmagic to convey all knowledge to his disciples. Court de Gebelin'sidea appears far more fanciful than factual, but in the nineteenthcentury another Frenchman, Alphonse Louis Constant, known asEliphas Levi, linked the cards to the Kabbalah, and since then people have looked deeper and deeper into the Tarot, finding more andmore meanings, wisdom, and even, through meditation and deepstudy, enlightenment. 

Today, we see the Tarot as a kind of path, a way to personalgrowth through understanding of ourselves and life. To some theTarot's origin remains a vital question; for others it only mattersthat meanings have accrued to the cards over the years. 

For Bembo (and whoever his predecessors might have been) didcreate an archetype, whether consciously or from deep instinct.Beyond any system or detailed explanations, the images themselves,changed and elaborated over the years by different artists, fascinateand entrance us. In this way they draw us into their mysterious worldwhich ultimately can never be explained, but only experienced. 

DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE TAROT                 

  Most modern Tarots differ very little from those fifteenth-centurysets of cards. They still contain seventy-eight cards divided into thefour suits, Wands, Cups, Swords, and Coins or Pentacles, called collectively the 'Minor Arcana', and the twenty-two trumps, knownas the 'Major Arcana' (the word 'arcanum' means 'secret knowledge'). True, some of the pictures have changed considerably, buteach version usually keeps the same basic concept. For example, there are several widely varying versions of the Emperor, but theyall represent some idea of an Emperor. In general, the changes havetended towards the more symbolic and the more mystical. 

This book uses as its primary source the Tarot of Arthur EdwardWaite, whose very popular Rider pack (named after its British publisher) appeared in 1910. Waite was criticized for changing some ofthe trump cards from their accepted version. For instance, the common picture of the Sun shows two children holding hands in a garden. Waite changed it to one child on a horse riding out of agarden. The critics claimed Waite was altering the card's meaningto his personal vision. This was probably the case, since Waitebelieved more strongly in his own ideas than those of anyone else.But few people stopped to consider that the earliest version of theSun, that of Bembo, in no way resembles the supposed 'traditional'version. Indeed, it seems closer to Waite's; the picture shows a single miraculous child flying through the air, holding up a humanhead radiating light. 

The most striking change Waite and his artist, Pamela ColmanSmith, made was to include a scene on all the cards, includingthe numbered cards of the Minor Arcana. Virtually all previousdecks, as well as many later ones, have simple geometric patterns forthe 'pip' cards. For example, the ten of Swords will show ten swordsarranged in a pattern, much like its descendant, the ten of spades.The Rider pack is different. Pamela Smith's ten of Swords shows aman lying under a black cloud with ten swords stuck in his backand legs. 

We do not really know who actually designed these cards. DidWaite himself conceive them (as he undoubtedly did the MajorArcana), or did he simply tell Smith the qualities and ideas he wanted and allow her to invent the scenes? Waite's own book on theTarot, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, makes little real use of the pictures. In some cases, such as the six of Swords, the picture suggestsfar more than Waite's stated meaning, while in others, particularlythe two of Swords, the picture almost contradicts the meaning. 

Whether it was Waite or Smith who designed the pictures, theyhad a powerful effect on later Tarot designers. Almost all deckswith scenes on every card rely very heavily on the pictures in theRider pack. 

    Waite called his deck the 'rectified Tarot' . He insisted that hispictures 'restored' the true meanings of the cards, and throughouthis book he scorns the versions of his predecessors. Now, by 'rectified' many people will think Waite's membership in secret societiesgave him access to the 'original' secret Tarot. More likely, he simply meant that his pictures gave the cards their deepest meanings.W hen he so drastically altered the card of the Lovers, for instance,he did so because he thought the old picture insignificant and hisnew one symbolic of a deep truth. 

I do not mean to suggest that Waite's cards are simply an intellectual construction, like a scholar rearranging some speech ofHamlet's in a way which makes more sense to him. Waite was amystic, an occultist, and a student of magic and esoteric practices.He based his Tarot on deep personal experience of enlightenment.He believed his Tarot to be right and the others wrong because itrepresented that experience. 

I have chosen the Rider pack as my source for two reasons. First,I find many of its innovations extremely valuable. The Waite-Smithversion of the Fool strikes me as more meaningful than any of theearlier ones. Secondly, the revolutionary change in the MinorArcana seems to me to free us from the formulas that dominatedthe suit cards for so long. Previously, once you read and memorizedthe given meanings of a Minor card you could not really add toit; the picture suggested very little. In the Rider pack we can allowthe picture to work on the subconscious; we can also apply ourown experience to it. In short, Pamela Smith has given us something to interpret. 

Above I wrote that I chose the Rider pack as my 'primary'source. Most books on the Tarot use one deck alone for illustrations. This self-limitation perhaps stems from a desire to representthe 'true' Tarot. By choosing one deck and not another we are really declaring that one is correct and the other is false. Such a declaration matters most to those writers, like Aleister Crowley or PaulFoster Case, who consider the Tarot a symbolic system of objectiveknowledge. This book, however, looks upon the cards more as anarchetype of experience. Seen that way no deck is right or wrong,but is simply a furthering of the archetype. The Tarot is both thetotal of all the different versions over the years, and an entity apart from any of them. In the cases where a version other than Waite'swill deepen the meaning of a specific card we will look at bothimages. In some cases, Judgement for instance, or the Moon, thediff erences are subtle; in others, the Lovers, or the Fool, the diff erence is drastic. By looking at several versions of the same experience we heighten our awareness of that experience. 

  DIVINATION 

Today, most people see the Tarot as a means of fortune-telling, or'divination'. Strangely, we know less historically about this aspect ofthe cards than any other. Judging by the comparatively few historical references to divination as opposed to gambling, the practice didnot become common until some time after the introduction of thecards themselves. Possibly the Romany, or 'gypsies', came across thegame of Tarocchi on their travels in Europe and decided to use thecards for fortune-telling. Or individuals developed the concept (theearliest written references are individual interpretations, thoughthey might have derived from some earlier system, not writtendown but in general use) and the Romany took it from them. People used to believe that the Romany themselves brought the cardsfrom Egypt. The fact is, the Romany probably came from India,and they arrived in Spain a good hundred years after Tarot cardswere introduced in Italy and France.

In the section on readings we will consider just what divinationdoes, and how such an outrageous practice could possibly work.Here we can simply observe that people can and have told fortuneswith anything - the smoky innards of slaughtered beasts, bird patterns across the sky, coloured stones, tossed coins, anything. Thepractice stems from the simple desire to know, in advance, what isgoing to happen, and more subtly, from the inner conviction thateverything is connected, everything has meaning and that nothingoccurs at random. 

The very idea of randomness is really very modern. It developedout of the dogma that cause and effect is the only valid connectionbetween two events. Events without this logical joining are random, that is, meaningless. Previously, however, people thought in terms of 'correspondences'. Events or patterns in one area of existence corresponded to patterns in other areas. The pattern of thezodiac corresponds to the pattern of a person's life. The pattern oftea leaves in the bottom of a cup corresponds to the outcome of abattle. Everything is connected. The idea has always claimed itsadherents, and recently even some scientists, impressed by the wayevents will occur in series (like a 'run of bad luck'), have begun tolook seriously at it. 

If we can use anything for fortune-telling why use the Tarot?The answer is that any system will tell us something; the value of thatsomething depends on the inherent wisdom of the system. Becausethe Tarot pictures carry deep significance all by themselves, thepatterns they form in readings can teach us a great deal aboutourselves, and life in general. Unfortunately, most diviners over theyears have ignored these deeper meanings, preferring simple formulas ('a dark man, one disposed to help the querent'), easily interpreted and quickly digested by the client. 

The formula meanings are often contradictory as well as blunt,with no indications of how to choose between them. This situationholds true especially for the Minor Arcana which is the bulk of thedeck. Almost no works on the Tarot have treated this subject fully.Most serious studies, those which deal with the deep meanings ofthe Major Arcana, either do not mention the Minor cards at all, orsimply throw in another set of formulas at the back, as a grudgingaddition for those readers who will insist on using the deck forfortune-telling. Even Waite, as mentioned, simply gives his ownformulas to the remarkable pictures drawn by Pamela Smith. 

While this book will deal extensively with the concepts embodied in the cards and their symbolism it will also look carefully at theapplication of these concepts to Tarot readings. Many writers,notably Waite, have denigrated divination as a degenerate use of thecards. But the proper use of readings can greatly increase our awareness of the cards' meanings. It is one thing to study the symbolismof a particular card, it is something else to see that card in combination with others. Many times I have seen specific readings open upimportant meanings that would not have emerged in any other way.

Readings teach us a general lesson as well, and a very important one. In a manner no explanation can possibly equal, theydemonstrate that no card, no approach to life, is good or bad exceptin the context of the moment. 

Finally, giving readings gives each person a chance to renew hisor her instinctive feeling for the pictures themselves. All the symbolism, all the archetypes, all the explanations given in this book orany other can only prepare you to look at the pictures and say, 'Thiscard tells me ...