Introduction
Greetings loyal readers! My gracious publisher John Derrickson, proprietor of www.psyplan.com, has expressed a desire to see this column delve more into tarot, and articulate a greater range of viewpoints. Since John is one of my dearest friends, it is my pleasure to accede to his suggestion (which was clearly couched as a suggestion and not as a direct request).
What is Tarot?
There is an axiom of metaphysics which says that astrology is the golden key and tarot is the silver key. I have always interpreted this to mean that astrology is best applied in assessing the big picture and viewing broad generalities over long timeframes, whereas tarot is extremely useful for getting a more granular, day-to-day view of things.
What exactly is the tarot, and where did it come from? The short answer is that no one really knows. Some scholars believe the tarot originated in Egypt, and germinated from the seeds of the Egyptian mystery schools. This hypothesis acquires credence from the kabalistic associations in the tarot. The Kabala is a work of ancient Jewish mysticism. Historical writings suggest that the ancient Jews received much of their mystical and spiritual knowledge from the ancient Egyptians. (The ancient Egyptians, by the way, received much of their mystical and spiritual knowledge from extraterrestrials. These extraterrestrials come from a planet near the star Sirius, but that subject is far too deep to wander into here – perhaps this column will examine that topic at another time.) Suffice it to say that tarot is a complex system of multi-dimensional symbolic information encoded to affect human consciousness in a particular way when the soul is ready to receive the information.
How Does the Tarot Work?
The short answer to the question of how tarot works is that it is a Jungian process. Karl Jung was a twentieth century psychologist who posited the idea of the collective unconscious. In other words, there is a body of knowledge and information out in the ethers that all human beings have access to on a deep subconscious level. This explains why it is much easier for most people to solve the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle on Monday morning than it is to solve it on Sunday morning – the answers have been divined already and have been added to the collective unconscious. Thus human beings can access the collective unconscious directly, although they may not be aware that they are doing it.
Another way we humans get in touch with the collective unconscious is through symbols. These symbols contain encoded information that have meaning for us on a superficial, conscious level and on a deep, unconscious level. For example, on a superficial level the image of a horse represents a beautiful, strong, domesticated animal. On a deep subconscious level the image of a horse represents freedom and independence, because humankind’s domestication of the horse enabled our species to travel greater distances, carry heavier burdens and expand the range of human habitation – thus affording us greater freedom and independence.
When seen in its true light, all visual information exists on both a conscious, literal level and on a deeply unconscious, symbolic level. This is why dream information is heavily symbolic. Dreams are the voice of our own subconscious and the collective unconscious. Dreams speak to us in a language all their own. Just as dream symbology exists on many levels, so too does the tarot’s symbolism exist on many levels.
Tarot subsumes many metaphysical disciplines within it. Each card has astrological and numerological associations. Cards can be combined in different patterns for different divinatory and/or meditative purposes. Although traditionally associated with divination (often wrongfully referred to as “fortune telling”), foretelling the future (or the potential unfolding of future events, to be more precise) is in fact the most trivial of the tarot’s powers. Tarot is also a powerful meditative tool that can have a deeply powerful transformative effect on an individual’s consciousness.
Each tarot card is richly endowed with symbols. These symbols exist in both a historical and a metaphysical context. Reading the tarot is actually a hermeneutical process whereby modern readers must strive to unlock the cards’ traditional historical meanings and harmonize them with the deeply encoded collective unconscious meanings, while simultaneously integrating those meanings with the reader’s individual experience in a modern, mundane context. Although there are certain meanings traditionally associated with each tarot card, once the cards are in the hands of a human reader they become that reader’s individual tool. Each reader is free to interpret the cards in their own way, according to their own intuition regarding the meanings of the tarot symbols.
One of the ways the tarot works is that it provides a mechanism whereby the reader’s subconscious can communicate directly with the querent’s subconscious. Human beings are always communicating on a conscious level and on an unconscious level. Scientific studies have been conducted using videotapes of people engaged in ordinary conversations. When the tapes are slowed down, they reveal that we humans engage in nearly imperceptible mirrored greeting gestures, such as head nods, tiny bows, mirrored hand gestures, etc. These movements are not visible in real time on a conscious level. Although there are many symbols on a tarot card, the symbols that will appear most salient to a reader during an individual reading are the ones that the querent’s subconscious is focusing on. The cards then become like a thematic aperception test, facilitating the reader in receiving the querent’s subconscious projections.
Tarot Mechanics
There are 78 cards in a tarot deck. These are divided into two subdecks, the major arcana and the minor arcana. (The word “arcana” is a Latin word meaning mysteries.) There are 22 cards in the major arcana, one for every letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet (which makes sense, in light of tarot’s connection to ancient Jewish mysticism). The other 56 cards comprise the minor arcana. The minor arcana are where playing cards came from. When the tarot practitioners were being persecuted by the Inquisition in the middle ages, they were able to preserve the art of tarot by convincing the Church that the cards were merely a game, not a metaphysical practice to be feared and banished. The minor arcana consist of four suits: wands, cups, swords and pentacles. These four suits correspond to the four basic elements of fire, water, air and earth. They also correspond to playing card suits. The wands are clubs (fire), the cups are hearts (water), the swords are spades (air) and the pentacles are diamonds (earth). The reason the minor arcana contains 56 cards instead of 52 is that tarot has an additional court card. The court cards in a playing card deck are king, queen and jack. The court cards in a tarot card deck are King, Queen, Knight and Page. The page corresponds to the Jack, but the Knight somehow got left out of the playing card deck.
An Empirical Test
Karl Jung once asked the I Ching to explain itself. The results he got were extremely interesting. I am going to repeat the experiment using the tarot. But rather than use physical cards, I am going to take advantage of the wonderful world of cyberspace. There is a wonderful site created by a company called Visionary Networks that has an online, electronic tarot program. The wonderful thing about the Visionary Networks program is that it lets you select the cards, so it truly is a “real” tarot reading. Written interpretations of the tarot cards in the various positions exists in the Visionary Networks database, so the reading you get comes straight from the “book.” The only difference between this kind of electronic reading and a human reading is the fact that the machine has neither a subconscious nor an intuition, so the reading is limited to the academic. However, this scientific aspect of tarot is extremely accurate, even if it lacks the artistic elements available from a human reader.
The Visionary Networks site can be accessed at: www.tarotmagic.com. This site lets you select either a one-card or a three-card reading. Other sites, such as www.facade.com, let you get a traditional ten-card Celtic cross reading. However, the Façade site does not let you pick the cards, as the Visionary Networks site does. Thus I find the Visionary Networks site to be a closer approximation of a physical, human tarot reading (but that is just my preference). I recommend you experiment with the two sites (they’re both free!) and see which one seems more accurate to you.
The Visionary Networks site gives you a menu of items to select from for a one-card reading. These include: insight into the self, insight into the situation, opportunities, foundation, recent past, higher power, near future, inner blocks, allies, advice, long term and lesson.
I will now begin the experiment. For my question, I chose a one-card reading and selected “advice”:
If you could describe the tarot in one card, what would that card be?
The answer I received was the Queen of Cups. Here is the meaning that Visionary Networks gives for the Queen of Cups for a one-card reading of advice:
Exercise your empathy and be nurturing to others in a way that helps them understand what it is all about. The Queen of Cups in this position encourages you to be generous with kindness and forgiveness. Be like a loving parent, encouraging and supporting the ability of others to get what they want. Nevertheless just as with anyone in a care-taking position, you have a fine line to walk. You do not want to inadvertently encourage your loved ones or teammates to become complacent or dependent, as if they can take your support for granted, with little or no consideration for your needs. Cultivate an awareness of love as freely giving and receiving; in the process, help clarify the important energetic difference between receiving and taking. Don't let your willingness to give be misunderstood or abused, as if it were a weakness.
In the context of our question, how to describe the tarot, I believe the cards are telling us that the tarot is a form of divine love. It exists to nurture us and take care of us, to help us make sense out of our world and make sound decisions in our daily lives. However, the cards are cautioning us not to become too dependent on their guidance, love and advice. Moreover, we are receiving a message about the nature of energy, and how important it is to be aware of divine love, and to give and receive it freely.
The Visionary Networks site also lets us see the general meaning for this card:
The Queen of Cups: is usually portrayed as a feminine, sensitive, vulnerable woman who is supremely understanding and offers unconditional love. She is the classic "feeler", sometimes to a fault. Her natural empathy and caring expose her to everybody else's emotions and needs. But she occasionally has difficulty identifying her true self-interest in the midst of her responsiveness to others. So, sometimes she appears slightly unfocused or perhaps overwhelmed, filled as she is with emotions or "spirits". She represents the Grail Queen, and the Goddess of the Family.
Continuing on with this interpretation in the context of our question, it seems that the tarot is telling us that tarot is a feminine, intuitive art based on a higher consciousness of supreme understanding and unconditional love. That is the way all tarot readers should endeavor to use it!
Copyright 2000 Marcy J. Gordon. All rights reserved. The author wants you to know you are free to copy and distribute this article for noncommercial purposes, provided you reproduce it in its entirety and credit the author. For quotation permission, please contact the author at mgordon@pipeline.com.