The most famous and less understood instrument of the Witch is certainly the tarot deck.
This series of articles is not intended to be an absolute guide to the use of this tool, as many esotericists have already written about it and, despite I’m using the tarot since I can remember, I still believe however that the best teachers in this practice are the experience and intuition.
In these articles, in fact, I intend to tell you about my personal reflections, my knowledge and my experiences with this ancient and effective tool, with the hope of being useful both for those who have just started studying this divination method, and for the most experts as well, perhaps offering you an additional point of view.
TAROT ORIGINS
The first historical documentation we have on the Tarot deck dates back to the fourteenth century, in an italian document entitled "Cronaca di Viterbo" we can read:
"Year 1379 the card game coming from Saracinia and called Naib was brought to Viterbo".
The origin of the term Naib is uncertain, but it is thought to refer to the Egyptian Mamluke deck called Mulûk wa-Nuwwâb. The deck consisted of 52 cards divided into 4 sections: Polo Sticks, Coins, Swords and Cups. Each section had 10 cards numbered from 1 to 10 and three court cards, depicting high ranks in civil or military hierarchies: Malik (King), Nā'ib Malik (Viceroy) and Thānī Na'ib (Under deputy).
It is also thought that the deck was not invented by the Mamluks themselves, but that it came to them from China, through the people of Mongolia with whom the Mamluks had frequent contacts.
In addition, while the King and the Viceroy represented two authentic charges of the Mameluke hierarchy, no trace is found instead of the charge of Under Deputy, it is therefore assumed that originally the deck only had two figures and that the third had been added later by the influence given by another deck of cards of Persian origin, the Ganjifa, which also contained three court cards.
Tarot cards were originally used as a board game, a common pastime that quickly spread among the people, from royal courts to country taverns; they were used both for educational purposes and for becoming a real game for gambling, for this reason they were later banned from precise statutes, as immoral.
They acquired a divinatory character thanks to the nomadic peoples of the Gypsies, who spread this tradition during their wanderings in Europe.
Little is known about the origin of the 22 additional cards, although there are many speculations about it, but considering the iconography very similar to that of the period, it is assumed that they originate from the Middle Ages.
These cards were called Triumphs to distinguish them from the others. The main historical sources believe that the triumphs were introduced in the deck to make the card game more complex and attractive.
The etymology of the word "tarot" remains as well a mystery, although many have tried to give a hypothetical explanation.
According to some, the word derives from the Greek
etarohoi, which means "friends who play in the banquets", but according to others, it refers to the fine decorative geometric designs on the back of the cards, this art was called "Taroccato".
But it is at the end of the 1700s, with the spread of various esoteric currents, that the most daring speculations began to emerge.
Court de Gebelin associated the Tarots with Thoth's book or Tarot's book, an ancient philosophical text in which the Egyptian divinity of wisdom and sciences would have condensed human knowledge. Moreover, in ancient Egyptian the word tarosh would mean "royal way"; the tarot images would then represent the allegorical synthesis of hieroglyphics.
Alphons L. Constant, better known as Eliphas Levi, philosopher, occultist and symbolism scholar, combined the 22 images of the Triumphs with the 22 paths that unite the 10 Sephirot of the tree of life of the Kabbalah, assuming that the word Tarot derived from Torah.
The hypotheses on the origin of the Tarots are infinite and each of them opens up to new ideas, inviting scholars to investigate new interpretations, but no one has ever been able to establish an origin with certainty; perhaps this also makes this method of divination as enigmatic as interesting.
THE TAROT DECK
The classic version of the tarot deck includes 78 cards, divided respectively into 22 Major Arcana, which as we have already said are also called Triumphs, and 56 Minor Arcana, in turn divided into 4 seeds (sticks, cups, coins, swords), each of them represented on 14 cards including numbers and figures.
The subdivision of the 4 seeds of the Minor Arcana suggests an easy approach to the allegorical representation of the 4 elements:
Sticks - Fire,
Cups - Water,
Swords - Air,
Coins - Earth.
Generally, especially in a psychological reading, the Major Arcana have a stronger value regards the response, while the Minor Arcana, as the term suggests, indicate more of the collateral responses, other factors that can positively or negatively influence the general response.
Usually, especially in the more recent decks, the Major Arcana are associated with numbers from 0 to 21; in this way the figures are more easily identified and moreover, if observed disposed in progressive numbering, we can see how they perfectly describe the various phases of the life of the human being.
Excluding the zero card, the Fool, which represents the primordial chaos where everything ends and everything starts, the other 21 cards can be divided into 3 series of 7, which represent the three evolutionary paths of life: youth, adulthood, old age.
To represent them schematically at their best, we should arrange the Major Arcana in a circle, starting and closing with the Fool. We can thus note that the deck is evenly divisible in half, each containing 11 Arcana.
I MAGICIAN 0 FOOL
II HIGH PRIESTESS XXI WORLD
III EMPERESS XX JUDGEMENT
IV EMPEROR XIX SUN
V HIEROPHANT XVIII MOON
VI LOVERS XVII STAR
VII CHARIOT XVI TOWER
VII JUSTICE XV DEVIL
IX HERMIT XIV TEMPERANCE
X WHEEL OF FORTUNE XIII DEATH
XI STRENGHTH XII HANGED MAN
The first half represents a true evolutionary path of earthly life, these Arcana are linked to tangible and rational concepts, with which any of us can recognize himself.
The second half instead represents a sort of initiatory journey, punctuated by allegories, esoteric figures in which the human being has a marginal and passive role.
While the first half of the deck is linked to purely physical concepts, the second half is decidedly linked to metaphysical figures: two roads that at first glance seem to be opposite, which are not an alternative to the other, but rather to be traveled simultaneously and in balance the one with the other.
These are the two opposing energies that allow the great tarot wheel to continue turning, all representing the cycle of life.
♄Unornya
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Furthermore, a very nice touch, the box set includes a very useful crystal grid, in case you want to enrich your reading or meditate on a particular card - amplified by the power of the crystals.
