Winter Holiday Gift Giving Recommendation: Part III
Tarot hasn’t always been a divinatory tool. Originally of Chinese invention, playing cards were adopted as a form of entertainment in Egypt some time in the 14th century and from there launched their forays into Europe via Spain and Portugal. The Catholic Church, noted killer of fun and things that didn’t make it any money, was quick to label the decks, “The Devil’s Picture Books,” and banned them in many places despite the fact the cards featured predominantly Christian themes and may even have been used in Christian education. As is often the case, making them illicit only made them more popular.
When the decks arrived in Italy, they were dubbed “tarocchi” and used to play a game with the same name (its rules were first recorded in 1425). The oldest surviving cards are the partial Visconti-Sforza deck, commissioned in the mid-15th century and featuring Carnivál costumes. Tarocchi cards were likely the first decks used for cartomancy in France during the 18th century, with related documents referencing: “esoteric,” ancient Egyptian, Kabballistic, I-Ching, Tantric, and Romany tradition as influences for their oracular meanings.
The range of tarot decks available today is staggering and the meanings of numbers, suits, and symbols in each different depending on the artist who created the deck, the theme they’ve chosen, their background, and the oracular tradition(s) they’re drawing upon as they create individual cards, complete suits, and the deck as a whole.
There are also thousands of books that explain how to lay your decks out for various types of readings, how to interpret individual cards and combinations thereof, whether they mean something different when they’re upside down, if and how to “cleanse” decks before and between uses, what state one should be in when doing a reading, whether or not one should purchase one’s own first deck, etc, etc, etc. No two will agree on every aspect of cartomancy and, in the end, that’s fine; as far as procedure goes, you should do what comes naturally to you and your cards.
What you do need, however, is an excellent reference book. One that will give you good foundations in a variety of traditions, sound grounding in the roots of the arcane bridges that built the connections between tarocchi and tarot, that transformed a way to while away the hours into the 18th century version of the Ouija board we played with at sleepovers our parents warned us about. One that explains those bridges in enough detail to give you the confidence to trust yourself, your judgment and your cards. How does The Tarot do that? By going back to the beginning. By providing its owner with the seminal texts drafted on the subject by such luminaries as Éliphaz Levi, Arthur Edward Waite, P.D. Ouspensky, and the Curtises who cite spiritualists masters like Madame Blavatsky.
I am not going to lie, these essays will also send you down the spiritualist rabbit hole, so you’re going to want to start a separate bank account for the money you’re going to spend on those books.
I fell in love with this book the moment I tore the envelope open. It has heft as all good reference books should (get a physical copy; you, or the person for whom you purchase will be well pleased) and the cover survived shipping in an unpadded envelope which is impressive and suggests it will survive years of being put on and pulled off a shelf and years of use. The graphics are razor sharp and very simple, which I like for a book about a complex subject, and reference texts in general, and the blue background with gold type and graphics really pops the title which is both attractive and makes the book easy to find on a shelf which is another nice quality in a book you want to be able to grab for specific purposes on random occasions.
The endpapers are prints of the Rider-Waite deck. They’re bright and sharp and it’s always nice to be reminded where we came from.
The essays are arranged in chronological order which definitely makes the most sense for a project like The Tarot; it allows readers to see how the art developed over time and where and when people made changes to the underpinnings of cartomancy, when various tends became popular and when they fell out of favor, and how that corresponds to events in world history. It also allows for a comparison across the world of tarot to see what different authorities were teaching at different times. When I first flipped through the book, I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more color but as I started to read and look at the charts I realized that color would have been not only a distraction from the sheer amount of information on each page but would have been in direct competition for the reader’s brain space. The more I’ve delved, the more I’ve appreciated clean white paper and sharp black text. The vast array of essays is fascinating as are the authors and the tone each of them sets across the gamut from rational to outlandishly creepy and back again. I cannot help but to stan.
And as these authors remind us, tarot doesn’t have to be about fortune telling or cartomancy. They cards are what you make of them and their interpretation and function are entirely up to you. If one cartomancer sees Kabbalah and another the Key of Hermes, then by all means, draw for a story prompt. For a meditation focus. For a new angle from which to consider a problem. For a new path around an obstacle you might not have considered.
The Tarot is perfect for the mystic, the witch, the thinker, philosopher, artist, collector, writer, or the curious and curiouser in your life. Start and the beginning or flip to a random page and you’re sure to find an intriguing journey just waiting to be discovered.
The tarot decks used in the photographs are:
The Ancient Italian Tarot by Lo Scarabeo
The Soul Cards Tarot by Kristine Fredheim
The Antique Anatomy Tarot by Claire Goodchild
The Guardians of the Night Tarot by MJ Cullinane
Botanica Tarot by Kevin Jay Stanton
