Tarot Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Followup-To: alt.tarot Date: 20 Feb 1995 12:56:50 -0600 Organization:
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Summary: All the Tarot you need to know... Xref: nic.iii.net
alt.tarot:2282 alt.divination:3554 alt.magick:38750 alt.magic
k.tyagi:1750 alt.pagan:92452 Archive-name: tarot-faq Posting-Frequency:
monthly Last-modified: 1995/1/20 Version: 1.2 Frequently Asked
Questions about the Tarot Written by Mark Danburg-Wyld First
release: 22 October 1993 Posted monthly to alt.tarot,alt.divination,
alt.magick, and alt.pagan Send comments, suggestions, additions,
etc. to: danburg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu All rites reversed. This
entire document, or properly attributed portions thereof, may
be freely distributed by any medium whatsoever. Peace to all
who read this. 1. What is a tarot deck? 2. Where can I get one?
3. How do current decks differ? 4. How does the Tarot work? 5.
How do I use a Tarot deck to 'tell the future'? 6. How do I use
a Tarot deck for meditation? 7. How do I use a Tarot deck to
play a game? 8. What is the history of the Tarot? 9. Is the Tarot
related to Kabalah? 10. How is the Tarot related to other forms
of divination? 11. Is there a Tarot reading program for IBM/Mac/Unix/Whatever?
12. What books might I read if I wanted to learn more about Tarot?
1. What is a tarot deck? The Tarot was originally a deck of 78
cards, divided into 4 suits of 14 cards (the standard ace-10,
then page, knight, queen, and king) and 22 un-numbered 'triumphs'
or 'trumps'. Over the years, the trumps got numbered 1 to 21,
with one card (the fool) remaining un-numbered or sometimes being
0. The 4 suits are commonly called the 'Minor Arcana' and the
trump cards are called the 'Major Arcana'. More loosely, any
deck of cards designed for 'fotune-telling', divination, meditation,
contemplation, or other non-game uses is popularly called a Tarot
deck. The most commonly found suits for Tarot decks are cups,
swords, wands or staffs (probably originally polo-sticks), and
pentacles (originally coins). The names of the Major Arcana cards
frequently change from deck to deck, but historically they've
been The Fool (un-numbered or 0), The Magician (I), The High
Priestess (originally the Popess) (II), The Empress (III), The
Emperor (IV), The Heirophant (originally the Pope) (V), The Lovers
(VI), The Chariot (VII), Strength (VIII, originally XI), The
Hermit (IX), The Wheel of Fortune (X), Justice (XI, originally
VIII), The Hanged Man (XII), Death (XIII), Temperance (XIV),
The Devil (XV), The Tower (XVI), The Star (XVII), The Moon (XVIII),
The Sun (XIX), Judgement (XX), and The World (XXI). The Major
Arcana cards are usually illustrated, frequently the Minor Arcana
cards are, as well. 2. Where can I get one? Most 'new age' or
occult bookstores carry a variety of Tarot decks. So do many
'mainstream' bookstores. So do many 'new age' catalogs. So does
U.S. Games Systems and a few other card dealers. For a secret
source of wisdom from the distant past, it's pretty widely available.
3. How do current decks differ? Mostly in artistic style. Tarot
decks come in a bewildering variety these days. You can find
oversized, undersized, or round decks. Some have more than 78
cards, some less. Some are based on a particular mythic cycle.
Some are based on a particular psychological theory. Some are
based on channeled information. Some are just hard to describe.
A 'historical' deck has simply one, two, or however many wands,
cups, or whatever for the number cards. A.E. Waite first popularized
a deck which has illustrations on all 78 cards (painted by Pamela
Colman Smith), which has become the model for the greatest number
of other currently available decks. A. Crowley popularized a
deck which had arcane symbols, but not real 'illustrations' on
the number cards (painter by Lady Frieda Harris). Decks which
follow those basic setups are decendants from these earlier ones.
For the beginner, it is probably best to choose a deck which
is stylistically appealing over any other consideration. But
it is also probably best to pick a 'standard' deck (78 cards,
etc.), if only so that if you later choose to study of other
people's writings won't seem hopelessly obscure. 4. How does
the Tarot work? If you mean how do you use them, see the next
several questions. If you mean what explains their predictive
powers, stay here. There are a number of different theories on
this, which is the eloquent way of saying no-one really knows.
One theory is that the reader acts as a channel through which
God (or whoever's in charge) transmits the information. One theory
is that synchronicity (of the Jungian kind) explains the connection
between what's in the cards and what's in the querent's life.
One theory is that there is no connection between what's in the
cards and what's in the querent's life, that we just sort of
project our situation onto whatever story comes up in the reading
-- but that this is nonetheless useful. And of course, there
is the theory that it is all shysterism, the reader just says
what they think the querent wants to hear. If you wish to argue
for one or more of these theories, well, that's not a FAQ. 5.
How do I use a Tarot deck to 'tell the future'? Study the cards
and learn their meanings. Practice a lot, on yourself, friends,
or total strangers as suits your personal leanings. Eventually,
you should get pretty good. Some people prefer to learn the cards
intuitively, by studying the illustrations, meditating on them,
and carefully recording their reactions to them. Most people
just read the little booklet that inevitably comes with the deck.
For people who prefer a more detailed learning process, I recommend
starting with Butler's _Dictionary of the Tarot_, which contains
a summary of the interpretation each card has gotten from some
of the major historical figures associated with the Tarot. The
most common 'spread' for Tarot readings is called the 'Celtic
Cross'. It's probably described in the booklet that came with
your deck, but just for completeness, it looks like: 4. 10. 5.
1&2. 6. 9. 3. 8. 7. 1. Represents where the querent is at
the time of the reading. 2. Lies across 1. and represents what
holds the querent where they are. 3. Represents the 'base of
the question' - why it is being asked. 4. Represents how the
querent has been thinking about the question. 5. Represents the
'recent past' (usually considered as 1-3 months) 6. Represents
the 'near future' (ditto) 7. Represents what the querent has
to bring to the situation. 8. Represents what the situation has
to offer the querent. 9. Represents the querent's innermost hopes
and/or fears. 10. Represents the final outcome of the situation,
unless deliberately changed. And again, practice, practice, practice.
6. How do I use a Tarot deck for meditation? One simple technique
is to select a card and use it as a miniature mandala. Or put
out an array of cards and do the same. Some people pick a card
in the morning and use it as a 'focus point' for the day - looking
for aspects of that cards meaning in the events that occur to
them. Some people have created 'guided meditations' that take
you through the entire Major Arcana. 7. How do I use a Tarot
deck to play a game? There are actually many different games
involving Tarot cards. Here is a simple one. Taking a standard
deck and four players, deal everyone 18 cards. Starting with
the person to the dealers right, cards are played in tricks.
The winner of each trick begins the next round. You must follow
suit if possible, high card takes the trick, trumps beat suit
cards, high trump wins if more than one gets played. You can
start with a trump. The number cards and most of the Trumps are
worth 1/2 point, the pages 1 1/2, the knights 2 1/2, the queens
3 1/2, and the Kings and the Fool and the Magician and the World
4 1/2. Numerous variations exist, including games that involve
bidding, etc. See Micheal Dummett's book _The Game of Tarot_.
8. What is the history of the Tarot? No-one knows the 'true'
origin of the Tarot. The most common myth is that it was brought
to Europe by the Gypsies - but this myth come from the fact that
very early occultists who used the Tarot fancied that it came
from Egypt. They were as wrong about that as they were about
the homeland of the Gypsies. In fact, the Tarot came to Europe
about the same time as any other form of playing card, in the
early/mid 1300's. It is most closely related to the 'Mamluk'
deck of the Islamic world, which had suits cups, coins, swords,
and polo-sticks. The Tarot was originally used for a game called
'tarocchi' in Italy, which is sort of a distant cousin to Bridge.
Tarocchi is still played in some parts of the world, not usually
with the same decks the 'fortune tellers' use. The game was quite
popular for a time among the royalty in Italy, and sometimes
a duke would commision an artist to create a really nice deck.
Some of the earliest surviving Tarot decks come from this source.
Plainer decks existed, but were not well made enough, or well
thought-of enough, to survive the intervening 600 years. The
Joker of 'standard' card decks is _not_ related to the Fool of
Tarot. The Joker was invented as a wild card for Euchre in the
1800's, in a part of the world where the Tarot was virtually
or totally unknown. The Tarot was first associated with the occult
by Antoine Court de Gebelin, a relatively obscure Parisian mason
who wrote about the deck in 1781. He invented a lot of the standard
myths about the Tarot which were later popularized by others
(it comes from ancient Egypt, the Major Arcana is related to
the Kabalah, etc.). The first big popularizer of the deck was
a contemporary of de Gebelin, called Etteilla, who published
the first 'revised and corrected' Tarot deck for divination.
The fad was caught up by Eliphas Levi, Oswald Wirth, and Papus,
among others. From Papus, the Tarot caught on with some English
mystics, such as S.L. Mathers (whose mistranslation of Levi brought
us the suit of pentacles), A.E. Waite, and A. Crowley. The Tarot
received a lot of attention from these folks, and they created
a fairly large body of writing on the use of Tarot. For the most
part they thought that divination was a 'lower' use of the cards,
that ideally it should be used to put you in touch with eternal
verities, usually in conjunction with whatever magickal order
they happened to be involoved with. But of course, divination
was the most popular use for the cards. Most of the Tarot decks
on the market were created this century, most of those in the
last 20 years. 9. Is the Tarot related to Kabalah? de Gebelin
fancied that, since there were 22 Major Arcana cards and 22 letters
of the Hebrew alphabet, the two must be related. Most of the
people who followed him went with this assumption. There's been
considerable disagreement as to how exactly this should work
(which letter with which card), and if you're interested in using
this connection, you should probably just go with whatever correspondance
the creator of your deck settled on. 10. How is the Tarot related
to other forms of divination? Basically, it ain't. Historically,
at least. But many people who have some skill in one of these
other arts have sometimes tried to find correspondences between
them and the Tarot. Of the people I've talked to who are skilled
in runes/astrology/i ching/etc., most of them wish the people
who made such decks wouldn't bother. But, some people like them.
If you're already familiar with one of these other systems of
divination and wish to study the Tarot as well, it may be a worthwhile
'shortcut' to pick one of these decks. For a novice, it is probably
more confusing than illuminating. 11. Is there a Tarot reading
program for IBM/Mac/Unix/Whatever? Yes. The following was cribbed
off of a posting by wog@eskimo.com [begin] Here's a fairly complete
list. Oddly, you find a lot of listings for wtarot.zip, although
I personally prefer tarotf.zip (a little further on down the
list of anonymous sites). Download them both and you'll see why.
Host ccsun.unicamp.br Location: /pub/pc/windows3/games FILE -rw-r--r--
201105 May 27 1993 wtarot.zip Host freebsd.cdrom.com Location:
/.3/games/msdos/training FILE -rw-rw-r-- 38523 Aug 12 1986 tarot.zip
Host ftp.iastate.edu Location: /pub/frp/incoming/Archives/Varia
FILE -r--r--r-- 26683 Feb 16 1993 tarot.tar.Z Host ftp.sunet.se
Location: /pub/pc/windows/mirror-cica/games FILE -r--r--r-- 201105
Feb 25 1993 wtarot.zip Host ftp.technion.ac.il Location: /pub/unsupported/mswin/cica/games
FILE -rwxr--r-- 201105 Feb 26 1993 wtarot.zip Host monu6.cc.monash.edu.au
Location: /ftp2/games FILE -rw-rw-r-- 201105 Jan 11 1994 wtarot.zip
Location: /pub/win3/games FILE -rw-rw-r-- 201105 Jan 11 1994
wtarot.zip Host slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com Location: /pub/magick/INCOMING
FILE -rw-r--r-- 316211 Apr 27 1993 tarotf.zip Host wuarchive.wustl.edu
Location: /systems/ibmpc/win3/games FILE -r--r--r-- 201105 Feb
26 1993 wtarot.zip [end] 12. What books might I read if I wanted
to learn more about Tarot? Below is a subjective, and massively
incomplete, list of some of the books about Tarot currently on
the market. _Common_Sense_Tarot_ by Camden Benares - includes
a nice section on how to go into business reading cards. _Dictionary_of_the_Tarot_
by Bill Butler - lists the meanings of each card given by a number
of other authors and includes his own. _Tarot:_A_Handbook_for_the_*
by Eileen Connolly - rather popular. _Book_of_Thoth_ by Aleister
Crowley - learn about Tarot from the Beast himself. _Complete_Guide_to_the_Tarot_
by Eden Gray - basically follows earlier writers. _Tarot_for_Your_Self_,_Tarot_Constellations_,_Tarot_Mirrors_
by Mary Greer - another popular series. _Encyclopedia_of_Tarot_
by Stuart Kaplan - a three volume series which has the drawback
of being somewhat expensive but the advantage of being very nearly
complete. _The Game of Tarot_ by Michael Dummett - a thoroughly
anti-occultist book, but very good history section. _Pictorial
Key to the Tarot_ by A.E. Waite - get back to the roots of the
Tarot with this one. Not really a 'fun' read. |