Tarot

This work proposes to show that the Major Arcana of the Visconti-Sforza Tarot is a symbolic representation of “Maa’sah Merkavah” or “Workings of the Chariot.”  The twenty-two painted cards that comprise the Major Arcana are associated with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. As such, on the one hand, the sacred letters are a Periodic Table of the elements of Creation and on the other, a practical artistry that uses these elements to find remedies for redemption of the human soul.

Contained within the twenty-two picture cards of the Visconti-Sforza Tarot is a sacred open secret. 2 The Major Arcana is a visual representation of an ancient mnemonic system the formation of which is the central operation of the seminal Kabbalistic text the Sefer Yetzirah.
The paper was presented at the 22nd Annual Conference of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies on Saturday, February 6th, 2016.

In my preface to The Tarot of the Bohemians, which, rather by an accident of things, has recently come to be re-issued after a long period, I have said what was then possible or seemed most necessary. The present work is designed more especially--as I have intimated--to introduce a rectified set of the cards themselves and to tell the unadorned truth concerning them, so far as this is possible in the outer circles. As regards the sequence of greater symbols, their ultimate and highest meaning lies deeper than the common language of picture or hieroglyph. This will be understood by those who have received some part of the Secret Tradition. As regards the verbal meanings allocated here to the more important Trump Cards, they are designed to set aside the follies and impostures of past attributions, to put those who have the gift of insight on the right track, and to take care, within the limits of my possibilities, that they are the truth so far as they go.

This presentation examines the status of a deck of cards that circulated in Mexico City around 1583. The deck contains 18 cards created by the second monopoly of playing cards in Mexico City under the administration of Alonso Martínez de Orteguilla, surviving today as a printer’s proof in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. The set shows iconography regularly employed in Renaissance Tarot decks, such as figures representing Force and Temperance, together with portraits of the Mexica kings Moctezuma, and Cuauhtemoc, as well as representations of dancers and acrobats from prehispanic traditions.  Given the popularity of playing cards in 16th century New Spain, these cards both entered into, and to some degree created, a social context that allowed the circulation of what appear on the surface to be European games and images in Mexico City.  Yet the images, and probably game rules, resulted from the encounter of European and Prehispanic iconography and philosophical traditions. The representation of both cultural references in an European style situates the deck as an important element in the construction and dissemination of a new visual culture.
Through an multidisciplinary approach of Early Modern European books, prints, paintings, and playing cards, all objects that were employed for the education of the priviledged creole and indigenous population, as well as a consideration of books, traditions, popular festivities and games of prehispanic past. This presentation also addresses the probable role the popular and portable deck of cards with allegorical images had in the construction of the Mexico City society in the early years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.

Origins of the Minor Arcana presents the story of the Tarot's much-neglected Minor Arcana, particularly its origin story, which is to be found in the symbolic and gaming traditions of the Chinese and the Arabs. Set against the backdrop of humankind as Homo symbolicus (symbolic man) and Homo ludens (playful man), this volume illustrates how the gradual evolution of symbolic expression, together with the integral nature of play in human culture, ultimately led to the invention of playing cards and their transmission across the Eurasian landscape and into Europe, where they served as the foundation for all European playing cards, including the Tarot.
This volume abolishes the numerous origin myths surrounding the Tarot, especially its occult pseudo-history, and highlights the Tarot's true origins in the gaming traditions of the Near East and Egypt.

Historians Leo Kelley and James L. Kelley continue their discussion of the ins-and-outs of the younger Kelley's theories of "amniotic light" and "Indo-European homogenesis." The elder Kelley tries to pin down his younger, though no less cagey and elusive, counterpart. Easier said than done when the topic is the 9/11 mythos and its connections with Big Apple ecumenism.

In this paper I bring together Peirce’s triadic semiotics and Jung’s archetypal psychology asserting that the process of mediation or interpretation (as the Peircean Thirdness) is common to both. As an embodiment of such “logic of the included middle” I use a case study represented by one real-life Tarot reading for “Marina”. Tarot symbols have a healing and transformative potential because they create a semiotic bridge between the unconscious archetypes as the universals of human experiences and the conscious mind.
The art of interpretation (or “reading” signs) transforms the chaos of Marina’s individual perceptions into a meaningful pattern of experiences that become literally visible to her in the format of pictorial images as the reading unfolds and an unorthodox communication is being established. The explication of the implicit meanings, in accord with Peirce’s pragmatic maxim, has profound implications at the physical and mental levels by not only contributing to healing Marina’s psyche but also by virtue of empowering her with the ability to look reflectively at herself and her significant others. Despite (or perhaps due to) her confusing and painful experiences, Marina achieves the level of self-awareness that enables her to choose actions, which would have remained “taboo” for her if not for the transformative effect of the healing art of Tarot symbolism.

In contemporary Cairo, people turn to various modes of spiritual, alternative, and complementary healing. Some are rooted in formal religious traditions, and others are inspired by a new globalized form of holistic healing such as yoga or meditation. What makes these practices more controversial than spiritual healing practices like el-Zar or el-Hadra is the exchange of money for the promise of healing or foreknowledge. Spiritual healing is often deemed “charlatanistic” by religious exclusivists. This entanglement of the practices with religion creates a threat because it provides an alternative to the modes of religiosity supplied by the main hegemonic Egyptian religious and cultural institutions. There is an interesting crosspollination between formal religious ideologies about healing and contemporary hybridized modes. A yoga instructor, for instance, might also position the practice of yoga within a religious lifestyle, whether Christian or Muslim.
In this research, I explore people’s motivations in choosing or refraining from seeking different kinds of alternative modalities in relation to affliction and healing. The purpose of this project is to answer the question, what factors affect people’s decision of seeking or refraining from pursuing spiritual and alternative practices in contemporary Cairo? Combining preexisting debates and theories with three years of fieldwork and online and on the ground ethnographic research, I aim to delve deeper into the reasons and meanings behind people’s choices. These preexisting debates include notions of modernity, mysticism, commodification, careerism, ritual efficacy, performance, governmentality, biopolitics, state-society relations, interpellation, and cultural appropriation. The limitations of these notions and the alike critiques by New Age thinkers are that they do not consider the positive impact these practices might have on people’s wellbeing, discursive formations, and the creation of meaning. I answer the question and analyze these critiques using a multi-sited interpretive reflexive ethnography that was conducted by carrying out participant observation in five wellness places, two from-home practitioners, and five online applications. The interlocutors and interviewees are spiritual healing practitioners and wellness places’ owners. In Egypt, there is a widespread lack of social acceptance that is rooted in financial, religious, and scientific preferences. Locally, this lack of acceptance is also supported by the government, which exerts effort to cancel the existence of unorthodox practices. Globally, there is also a lack of acceptance that is rooted in not only economic and scientific reasons, but also cultural ones such as cultural and spiritual appropriation. This piece advocates for having a more holistic approach to wellbeing in conversations about affliction and healing.

Click on the title to open the page and then use  the "link" (link symbol) at the top of the page to read this paper at the online Flashpoint journal. This paper examines "Lines Written at the Grave of Alexandre Dumas" (1926) by Harlem Renaissance poet Gwendolyn Bennett. The poem intentionally confuses the Dumas son with the father in order to alert the reader to the poem's occult contents. The use of an intentional mistake was a convention in the literature of the Oragean Modernists, the literary group to which Bennett maintained a close though secret membership. Bennett's poem is shown to contain material derived from Alchemy, Kabbalah, and Tarot. The poem is written in an alchemical code that is explained in the paper.

Aprenda a lançar as cartas de Tarot e a conhecer o seu destino. A Bíblia do Tarot é um guia essencial para conhecer profundamente as cartas e aprender a fazer lançamentos. Escrito de forma precisa e repleto de exemplos práticos, com este guia poderá aprender o significado de cada carta e o seu sentido de acordo com a posição em que se encontra num lançamento. Independentemente da sua experiência, é possível ainda ficar a conhecer formas práticas de combinar o Tarot com a Numerologia, a Astrologia, os cristais e a Cabala, e experimentar mais de trinta lançamentos à sua escolha. Defina aquilo que quer saber, lance as cartas e tome decisões mais conscientes.

This research paper responds to the contemporary calls made by theorists Jean Baudrillard and Marshall McLuhan to interrogate media with art to act as a respite from the ego trance of what McLuhan called, Narcissus-narcosis. Baudrillard’s and McLuhan’s criticisms contextualise art as respite from media, whereby art can show the charm of a strange world to relieve the deceiving, deluding nature of media. Art can turn away from the content of media and interact with its structure and configuration instead, and by doing so it can immunise individuals and society.

In both of my ongoing MFA projects, "Romantic Grass of the Week" and "Wireless Psychics Experiments #1- 10," art is envisaged as an inoculation to save us from being totally absorbed in the virtual. This injection performs, plays with media structures, and translates them into different forms and artefacts. The work continues as our immunisation then becomes embodied in acts of divining.

No more talking

No more talking to say
Useless to say wording
What is the hell going
Ever memory is coming
No talk but kissing me
Loving kindness to me
Burning heart breaking
Losing side of my soul
Completing me oneness
Keep on touch and flying
No talk but kissing me
Loving kindness to me
Thoughts haunting me
Haunting hunting me
Catching togetherness
How you feeling nothing
No talk but kissing me
Loving kindness to me
Timeless manner kindness
Loving kind hot warmness
Do not run from me me me
Come coming back to me
No talk but kissing me
Loving kindness to me
I am you and you are in me
Nothingness comes to me
Going up and down inside
Upward onward high around
No talk but kissing me
Loving kindness to me
Happy to me smiling lips
Never stop me loving heart
No fear but love never ending
Forever forever loving mind
No talk but kissing me
Loving kindness to me

Ru, Waterloo

18 October 2021

В путеводителе представлены основные тенденции оккультной тарологии в ее классический период — с конца XVIII-го века до второй половины XX-го. Обзор теорий начинается с 1781 года, когда вышли в печать две первые статьи об оккультном значении карт таро. Далее рассмотрены основные школы в хронологическом порядке, а также впервые на русском языке представлены малоизвестные тарологические системы. Второе издание книги дополнено информацией о художниках, ссылками на старые журнальные публикации и рядом других увлекательных деталей, которые раскрывают роль таро в истории западного эзотеризма.

Inside this eBook, you will discover the topics about tarot card basics, what are the meanings of the pages in tarot, how to interpret tarot card combinations, how to use tarot for wealth & luck, how to calculate time frames with tarot, what are the meanings of tarot card numbers for psychic abilities, how to read playing cards as tarot cards, how to make your own tarot cards and warnings about tarot cards.

The presentation will use some data from my research that resulted in the recently published book "Re-Symbolization of the Self: Human development and Tarot hermeneutic" (2011).  Jungian psychologist Robert Romanyshyn refers to this work as a daring achievement and a spark of illumination that deepens mind into soul. The talk will be illustrated with presenting several Tarot layouts that demonstrate a transpersonal approach to counselling and elucidating the messages hiding deep in the collective unconscious. Some references to Kabbalah will also be made especially with regard to Tarot second Major Arcanum, The High Priestess, as symbolic of secret, gnostic, knowledge.

"""Tarot in Culture is a well-illustrated (260 illus.) two-volume multi-author anthology of papers on Tarot. Contributions range from original, in-depth, thoroughly documented studies of Tarot history, art, and literature to artists' statements and other primary source documents. Tarot in Culture is both accessible to the Tarot student and of interest to scholars of other fields, including historians and theorists of art, esotericism, literature, the occult, and popular culture and genres.

Contributors include Ed Buryn, Julie Cuccia-Watts, Tabitha Dial, Michael Dummett, Helen S. Farley, Joyce Goggin, Mary K. Greer, Bruce Hersch,  Brian Johnson, Danny Jorgensen, Richard Kaczynski, Marcus Katz, June Leavitt,  Carol S. Matthews, Paul Mountfort, Christine Parkhurst, Robert Place, Casey J. Rudkin, Leslie Stratyner, Catherine Waitinas, and Batya Susan Weinbaum. For a complete table of contents, see my website.

The call for papers for the Tarot in Culture anthology went out in 2008 and the manuscript was essentially finished in 2010. Since then it has passed academic peer review several times with different publishers, only to remain unpublished. With the unanimous support of the authors, I am making it available as an ebook (Kobo) in March 2014, and in print (Lulu) in June 2014.

Ebook distributed by Kobo (now available)
Hardcopy distributed by Lulu (now available)

Individuals who purchased the ebook version of Tarot in Culture Volume One and/or Two in March or April 2014 may get updated files by emailing Kobo at help@kobobooks.com and making a request. The updated files include a few minor corrections and alterations.

Niet-gepubliceerde term-paper voor het vak Women and Gender Issues in Modern Western Esotericism, Universiteit van Amsterdam. Aan de hand van literatuur en afbeeldingen van elfen wordt de stelling "Er schuilt een esoterische dimensie in de verschijningsvorm van elfjes en die toont zich in de vleugels" onderbouwd.

Lost Envoy:  The Tarot Deck of Austin Osman Spare. Edited by Jonathan Allen. London: Strange Attractor Press, 2016. 336 pp. (with more than two hundred full- color illustrations). isbn 978-1-907-22244-3 (cloth).

Lost Envoy is now available through MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/lost-envoy

"Excerpts from the Preface:

... I became intrigued by the idea that the recent revisions of Tarot are not so much replacements for the older decks as they are the results of the feudal, modern, and post-modern concepts readily associated with changes in Tarot function from game to occult accessory to meditation aid, as well as broader historical developments in the western world; indeed, the effectiveness with which these concepts have accrued, rather than substituted for each other, in Tarot, supports the genre's unique contemporary function as a heterotopian "space" where the individual may seek transformative understanding of himself, society, and the universe. This Tarot is akin to the library or museum, both of which are also heterotopias based on the accumulation of history, and is supported by the invitation the deck format extends for play, even in its most esoteric revisions. Combined with the artist's and querent reader's particular sense of purpose, this functionality is the essence of all Tarot creativity.

... it is a commonplace among historians of all types, but particularly those engaged with popular culture, that the art of real value in any given time and place is that which helps people to find a sense of reality, to find themselves. I believe, therefore, that recognition of the purposes and content of this unique, affordable and aesthetically satisfying popular art form is as important to understanding our times as is the study of more extravagant and critically acclaimed works. This book is intended to bring recognition of the place of contemporary Tarot and other meditation decks in cultural history and the conventions by which they help people find their place in the world."

Le jeu de Tarots, transmis par les Bohémiens de génération en génération, est le livre primitif de l’antique initiation, ainsi que l’ont montré Guillaume Postel, Court de Gébelin, Etteila, Éliphas Lévi et J.-A. Vaillant. La clef de sa construction et de ses applications n’a pas été, que je sache, découverte jusqu’ici. J’ai voulu combler cette lacune en fournissant aux initiés, c’est-à-dire à ceux qui connaissent les éléments de la science occulte, un instrument rigoureux grâce auquel ils puissent pousser plus avant leurs études.

The early draft of this paper has been orally presented at the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy (ASCP) Annual Conference 2004 “Critique Today”, sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, Division of SCMP, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 8-10 December, 2004, session 17 “Phenomenology, Semiotics, Ethics”. Thanks are due to Melissa McMahon for her insightful comments and suggestions at the session. This paper is a sequel to my earlier Roberta Kevelson Memorial Award-winning essay entitled "The adventures of a postmodern Fool, or the semiotics of learning" (in C. W. Spinks (ed.). Trickster and Ambivalence: The Dance of Differentiation, Atwood Publishing, MA, 2001, pp. 57-70) which analysed the phenomenon of Tarot readings in terms of Deleuze's method of transcendental empiricism and traced the Fool’s adventures as an experiential learning process. The present paper will not only address the implications of this philosophical method, that Deleuze has called both wild and powerful, but will also track continental thinking back to its phenomenological origins and Husserl's concepts of noemata and noesis. I will suggest that a singular reading creates a semiotic bridge that connects these two seemingly disparate “realms”. The tentative conclusion of the paper is that the interpretation of Tarot images provides a practical means for determining the meaning and content of mental representations thus addressing (albeit not solving) one of the problems of primary significance (namely: the theory of content determination) in contemporary cognitive science.

Dalla metà degli anni 2000 hanno cominciato a diffondersi, tra gli studiosi di esoterismo, i termini "tarologo" e "tarologia". Questo lemma non è ancora presente sui dizionari e tuttavia, navigando su internet, lo si incontra comunemente nei siti di lettura dei tarocchi i cui annunci solitamente offrono servizi di "divinazione e predizione".
Esistono anche tarologi che si muovono su un livello differente, ai confini con la psicologia, offrendo non predizioni del futuro ma consigli per affrontare il presente: è il cosiddetto Tarot Counselling. In sostanza, il tarologo può essere tanto un cartomante esperto nella lettura dei Tarocchi, quanto una specie di sciamano moderno, uno "psicomago", per usare un termine coniato dal regista e scrittore Alejandro Jodorowski, anche lui sedicente tarologo.
Taromanti e Psicomaghi, insomma, sono "tarologi", ma i loro presupposti teorici e le pratiche che utilizzano sono legati a triplo filo ala cosiddetta "Arte della Divinazione". In sostanza, si tratta di interpretare dei simboli disposti secondo degli schemi predefiniti. Tuttavia, è necessario fare una netta distinzione tra queste due pratiche. Taromanzia e Psicomagia-la lettura predittiva, ovvero la taromanzia, è finalizzata a prevedere il futuro;-la lettura evolutiva, ovvero la tarologia, o anche psicomagia o counselling, è finalizzata all'autoconoscenza, all'equilibrio psichico di un soggetto o alla sua evoluzione spirituale. Ma qui si scivola nel campo della psicoterapia, sebbene non sempre a monte di questa pratica esista una laurea in psicologia. Va detto che a molti tarologi non piace essere definiti taromanti. Proprio per questo, cioè per evitare confusione, sarebbe opportuno utilizzare termini più specifici. Ma in realtà la "tarologia" abbraccia effettivamente sia la taromanzia sia il counselling, che sono pratiche diverse con il medesimo strumento: le carte di Tarocchi.
Va detto che esiste un'altra modalità di approccio ai Tarocchi che ne ingloba tutti gli aspetti culturali. Per questa modalità vorrei suggerire l'uso del termine "taropedia", che andrò a spiegare dopo le seguenti premesse.

"Since time immemorial, people were searching for a universal language
that would transcend cultural, religious, and language barriers. This chapter presents
the system of Tarot images as both symbolic language, full of implicit meanings, and
as a pedagogical tool to complement the existing aids in moral/spiritual education.
The chapter is grounded in the educational philosophies of John Dewey and Nel
Noddings; and positions Tarot within “other strategies to be employed” (Crawford
and Rossiter) in spiritual education. Tarot pictures embody intellectual, moral, and
spiritual “lessons” derived from collective human experiences across times, places
and cultures. As a system of communication and interpretation, Tarot is oriented
toward the discovery of meanings for the multiplicity of experiences that would have
otherwise lacked meaning and significance. The meaning ofWisdom is embodied in
the image of “The High Priestess”. The process of interpretation contributes to our
development and learning from experience; and enriches our personal and collective
identities."

Bói bài Tarot được du nhập vào Việt Nam và phát triển mạnh mẽ trong những năm gần đây trong giới trẻ. Mặc dù nhận được nhiều sự người quan tâm tìm hiểu, nhưng bên cạnh đó vẫn còn nhiều người phân vân không biết bói bài Tarot có đáng tin hay không. Điều khác biệt lớn nhất giữa Tarot và những loại bói khác đó là ngôn ngữ nói của những Reader được chuyển thể từ ngôn ngữ hình ảnh của những lá bài. Thường chúng ta lầm tưởng rằng xem bói Tarot là xem ý nghĩa của những hình ảnh trên lá bài, tuy nhiên, ý nghĩa thực sự của những lá bài nằm ở chính suy nghĩ, trí óc của người giải. Cho nên, sự hiểu biết, kiến thức của những người giải bài thực sự rất quan trọng. Nếu họ không có kiến thức thì có nghĩa rằng những gì họ giải nghĩa cho bạn sẽ không đầy đủ, hết ý về sự kết hợp hình ảnh từ các lá bài. Bói Tarot hé mở cánh cửa tương lai Mỗi hình ảnh trên từng lá bài đều sẽ chứa đựng những ý nghĩa nhất định. Bằng cách hiểu và cảm nhận những hình ảnh này, người giải bài sẽ có cái nhìn sâu sắc hơn và rõ ràng hơn về chúng. Mỗi lá bài khi được rút ra đều phản ánh tình hình thực tại của bạn, những điều bạn làm trong quá khứ như thế nào sẽ có kết quả như vậy. Và nếu bạn vẫn tiếp tục duy trì những thói quen cũ thì kết quả vẫn sẽ không thể thay đổi. Vậy nên, những điều lá bài phản ánh sẽ không xảy ra nếu bạn vẫn không thay đổi, nó chỉ là cánh cửa mở về phía tương lai. Muốn thay đổi mọi thứ, trước tiên ta phải thay đổi.
Xem thêm tại đây: https://wichita-tarot.com/co-nen-dat-niem-tin-vao-ket-qua-xem-boi-tarot/

This article examines the background and the creation process of a contemporary tarot card deck crafted by a
‘western’ shamanic healer in Scotland, Terry Mace, named by its creator as The New Urban Shaman’s Oracle. Its
creation was the outcome of a profound inspiration that Mace had experienced in October 2015 while staying in
Delphi for a conference, and later, after witnessing the socio-political and financial struggles of life in Athens
during the memorandum years. However, the Oracle, according to its creator, is unlike the majority of all other
contemporary tarot decks whose primary focus and function is divination; with its powerful, contradictory, and
sometimes profane, messages and profound imageries, Mace’s tarot deck aims and intends to inspire and raise
social and political awareness for its readers, both in personal and communal levels. Drawing upon participatory
ethnographic fieldwork data gathered between 2014 and 2019, the article presents the background for the birth of
the Oracle, the motivations and inspirations of the artisan, as well as its crafting process, aims, objectives, and
meanings. It also examines historically and socio-culturally tarot cards, while it includes reactions by some of the
individuals who have used Mace’s deck for their own personal reasons and purposes. Finally, it tries to show how
the different living ways and cultural background of another European country like Greece can ultimately be a
source of inspiration for people like Mace, who come from a completely different socio-cultural context.