Western Tarot

Search online for where tarot comes from and the claim you meet most often is this:

“Tarot began in ancient Egypt. It is a surviving fragment of the Book of Thoth, carried into Europe by the Gypsies…”

This claim is false.

Where it actually comes from is a public guess made by a French clergyman in 1781 — a guess with no basis in any historical source, copied and recopied for the next two hundred years until it turned into “common knowledge”.

Three claims that have been disproved:

The real origin, supported by documents and surviving cards:

Tarot began as a card game played in northern Italy in the 15th century, called Tarocchi. The earliest surviving cards are the Visconti-Sforza deck, painted by hand for the ducal family of Milan around 1440–1450 — a luxury object, not a tool of divination.

In other words: for about 250 years tarot was purely a game. Its use for divination dates only from the end of the 18th century, and its occult system from the 19th.

Why this correction matters: a great deal of Chinese-language tarot writing still repeats the “Egyptian origin” story, which leaves the whole body of knowledge standing on a false foundation. Getting this straight is where this library's professionalism shows.

8.1.1The basic structure: 78 cards

A standard tarot deck has 78 cards, in two parts:

How tarot compares with other card systems:

8.1.2The fundamental difference between tarot and Eastern destiny arts

This is the most important section in the chapter. Only once the difference is clear does tarot's place become clear.

The difference in one sentence:

• –

  The Eastern system is a coordinate grid for time — it places the moment you were born inside a cyclical system and locates it there

• –

  Western tarot is a mirror held up to the present — it uses randomly drawn images to show you your current inner state

8.1.3What tarot does not “predict”

The classic tarot position (a point of consensus in mainstream tarot literature):

Tarot shows possibilities that grow out of the present state, not a future already fixed. If the person involved makes different choices, the outcome changes — and that is precisely where tarot's practical use lies.

This position gives far more weight to personal agency than the destiny arts do, and it is why tarot is easier to accept in the context of modern psychology.

8.2.1Stage one · The age of the game deck (15th century – early 18th century)

Key facts:

What defines the Tarot de Marseille:

• –

  The Minor Arcana number cards (Ace–10) carry no scene, only arrangements of the suit's symbol

• –

  The Major Arcana have pictures, but the detail is relatively plain

• –

  This form shaped every tarot deck that followed

A crucial point: throughout those 300 years nobody treated tarot as a tool of divination. It was a card game, much like the ancestor of today's “Fight the Landlord”.

8.2.2Stage two · The birth of the Egyptian origin story (1781)

Key figure: Court de Gébelin (1725–1784), a French Protestant pastor and scholar.

The event: in 1781, in his work “The Primitive World” (Le Monde Primitif), he published an article on tarot proposing that:

Tarot was not an Italian game at all but a survival of the ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth, a “hieroglyphic system of symbols” through which Egyptian priests passed on secret wisdom. The closeness in sound between the Hebrew “Torah” and “Tarot” proved its sacred origin as well.

What is wrong with this claim:

• 1.

  It rests on no historical evidence at all — pure speculation

• 2.

  The relationship between ancient Egyptian and Hebrew is misrepresented

• 3.

  The chronology does not work — Egyptian civilisation had ended more than a thousand years before tarot appeared

Its influence, however, was decisive: that single article turned tarot from “a game” into “an occult classic”. Every occult tarot system since has been built on this mistaken starting point.

The historical irony: both tarot's use in divination and its occult system grew out of a scholarly error. And yet that is precisely the point — whatever value tarot has may lie not in its “ancient origins” but in the power of this image system itself.

8.2.3Stage three · Turning to divination (1780s–1850s)

Key figure: Etteilla (born Jean-Baptiste Alliette, 1738–1791), a Frenchman and the first professional tarot reader in history.

His contribution:

• 1.

  He was the first person to make a living from tarot readings (“Etteilla” was his pen name, his own surname “Alliette” spelled backwards)

• 2.

  In 1785 he published Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées tarots (“How to amuse yourself with the card game called tarots”)

• 3.

  He designed the first tarot deck made specifically for divination — the Etteilla Tarot

• 4.

  He gave the Minor Arcana number cards specific meanings (in the Marseille deck they have no scene to read)

The effect: from him onwards tarot acquired both a literature and a tool for “divination”. Tarot reading is only 240 years old, counting from 1785.

8.2.4Stage four · Becoming occult (1850s)

Key figure: Eliphas Lévi (born Alphonse Louis Constant, 1810–1875), a French occultist.

His contribution:

• 1.

  He joined tarot to the Kabbalah as a system — proposing that the 22 Major Arcana correspond to the 22 Hebrew letters and to the 22 paths of the Tree of Life

• 2.

  He connected tarot with astrology, alchemy and the four elements

• 3.

  He put forward the classic claim that tarot is an all-encompassing book of magic

His major work: “The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic” (Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, 1856)

Historical significance: he is the true builder of the occult tarot system. Before him tarot had nothing to do with Kabbalah; after him the pairing became standard in tarot theory.

8.2.5Stage five · Systematisation (1888–1900s)

Key organisation: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in London in 1888.

What it was: the most influential Western occult order of the late 19th century; its members included the poet W. B. Yeats and the actor Frank Benson.

Its core work:

• –

  It integrated tarot, Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy and Hermeticism into one complete system of correspondences

• –

  It drew up the tables of correspondence linking the Major Arcana to astrology and the Hebrew letters (the Golden Dawn system still in use today)

• –

  It systematised the reading of cards “upright” and “reversed”

Key figures:

• –

  S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1854–1918), one of the founders, who organised the system of ritual magic

• –

  A. E. Waite (1857–1942), who took charge of the tarot project after joining

• –

  Pamela Colman Smith (1878–1951), commissioned by Waite to paint the new deck

The Golden Dawn's split after 1900 scattered its members across Europe and America and carried the tarot system out into the world. Almost every current of tarot theory in the English-speaking world traces back to this one order.

8.2.6Stage six · The birth of modern tarot (1909)

The event: in 1909 A. E. Waite and the artist Pamela Colman Smith published the Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck, known as RWS after its publisher Rider & Company and also called the Rider-Waite deck.

The revolutionary innovation:

All 56 Minor Arcana cards were given an actual scene!

In the Tarot de Marseille the number cards are merely arrangements of symbols — the Five of Swords, for instance, is simply five sword designs. Pamela Colman Smith painted a readable story scene for every single card:

• –

  Five of Swords: a man holds three swords and looks back at two defeated figures

• –

  Three of Cups: three women raise their cups in celebration

• –

  Ten of Pentacles: a family and a dog in front of an old house

This change turned tarot from a matter of memorised meanings into reading a picture — it lowered the barrier to entry enormously and made tarot a genuinely “pictorial tool of psychology”.

The standing of RWS: of all the tarot decks in circulation in the world today, the great majority are based on its imagery and its system. It has become the de facto “standard tarot”.

That same year Waite published the Pictorial Key to the Tarot, setting out the RWS card meanings and spreads in full.

8.2.7Stage seven · Divergence and canonisation (1944)

Key figure: Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), once a member of the Golden Dawn and later expelled.

His major work: the Thoth tarot deck (published in 1944)

Its characteristics:

• –

  The artist was Lady Frieda Harris (1877–1962), who spent about five years painting it

• –

  Extremely dense Kabbalistic, astrological and alchemical symbolism, with abstract, ornate imagery

• –

  It changed the order and the correspondences of some cards — most famously, it swaps the Hebrew letter correspondences of “The Emperor” and “The Star” (Crowley's correction)

• –

  Its card meanings are more complex and more aggressive than those of RWS

The three great decks compared:

Note the disagreement over 8 and 11:

This is a common source of confusion, and you need to be clear about which deck you are using.

8.2.8Stage eight · Modern tarot (1950s to the present)

The two main contemporary approaches to tarot:

This library takes the “psychological school plus cultural education” position: it treats tarot as a medium for cultural knowledge and self-reflection, not as a predictive tool.

8.3.1The full table of the 22 Major Arcana

What follows is the RWS system, with number, name, core imagery, upright keywords, reversed keywords, astrological correspondence and Hebrew letter.

8.3.2The narrative structure of the Major Arcana: “the Fool's Journey”

The Major Arcana are not 22 isolated cards but one continuous story of growth — and that is where tarot's deepest appeal lies.

The story line:

Act one: Setting out (0–7)
  0 The Fool — sets off in fearless ignorance
  1 The Magician — discovers that he has tools
  2 The High Priestess — meets inner wisdom
  3 The Empress — experiences abundance and nurture
  4 The Emperor — establishes order and structure
  5 The Hierophant — accepts tradition and teaching
  6 The Lovers — faces choice and union
  7 The Chariot — moves forward on willpower

Act two: Trial (8–14)
  8 Strength — learns to handle inner wildness gently
  9 The Hermit — withdraws alone, seeking truth
  10 Wheel of Fortune — meets a turn beyond his control
  11 Justice — accepts cause and effect, and responsibility
  12 The Hanged Man — is forced to stop and change perspective
  13 Death — goes through an utter ending and transformation
  14 Temperance — learns balance and reconciliation

Act three: Awakening (15–21)
  15 The Devil — sees his own fixation and shadow
  16 The Tower — the false structure collapses
  17 The Star — recovers hope on the ruins
  18 The Moon — passes through illusion and fear
  19 The Sun — arrives at clear joy
  20 Judgement — is summoned, looks back, awakens
  21 The World — completes the integration and arrives at fulfilment (and a new beginning)

The three groups of seven cards (another common division):

This narrative is the most worthwhile thing tarot has to tell. It explains why tarot is thought to “map the stages of a life” — because it is, in the end, a carefully designed parable of growth.

8.3.3The Minor Arcana: the four suits

The 56 Minor Arcana fall into four suits, corresponding to the four elements:

Points to remember:

• –

  Fire: hot, rising, outward → action and passion

• –

  Water: cold, descending, inward → emotion and intuition

• –

  Air: moving, transmitting → thought and communication

• –

  Earth: heavy, bearing → matter and reality

The kind of question each suit answers:

8.3.4The Minor Arcana: what the numbers 1–10 mean

In every suit, from Ace to 10, the number itself carries a universal meaning for that stage:

A mnemonic:

One begins, two chooses; three grows, four settles; five clashes, six harmonises; seven weighs, eight pushes; nine nears fulfilment, ten concludes.

8.3.5The court cards: 16 in all

Each suit has four court cards, sixteen in total:

The sixteen court cards as personalities:

The two ways to read a court card (important):

Modern tarot leans towards the second reading, because pointing at a specific person easily leads to misjudgement and strains relationships.

8.3.6The symbolic system of elements and numbers

How the four elements layer into a card:

Suit (the element's domain) × number (its stage of development) = the card's combined meaning

Example: Cups (Water / emotion) + 5 (conflict) = the Five of Cups = loss and mourning at the emotional level Example: Wands (Fire / action) + 8 (strength) = the Eight of Wands = action advancing fast, news arriving

The “alchemical” layer of tarot: some systems also assign the Major Arcana to three alchemical stages:

8.3.7Hebrew letters and the Kabbalistic correspondence

22 Major Arcana ↔ 22 Hebrew letters ↔ the 22 paths of the Tree of Life

The 22 Hebrew letters:

א Aleph  ב Bet  ג Gimel  ד Dalet  ה He  ו Vau  ז Zayin  ח Cheth
ט Teth  י Yod  כ Kaph  ל Lamed  מ Mem  נ Nun  ס Samekh  ע Ayin
פ Pe  צ Tzaddi  ק Qoph  ר Resh  ש Shin  ת Tau

The three levels of the Tree of Life:

A scholarly note: different schools (the Golden Dawn versus Crowley) disagree on particular correspondences. The most famous disagreement is Crowley's exchange of the letter correspondences of “The Emperor” (He) and “The Star” (Tzaddi). When using Kabbalistic correspondences, choose one system and say clearly which.

8.4.1The principles of asking a question (the most important step)

The quality of a tarot reading depends to a great extent on the quality of the question.

Four standards for a good question:

Three things you should never ask the cards:

• 1.

  Other people's private lives (“what is my colleague saying about me behind my back?”)

• 2.

  Anything that replaces professional judgement (concrete medical, legal or financial decisions)

• 3.

  Predictions of life and death (lifespan or the outcome of an illness, in any form)

8.4.2The procedure

The standard procedure (in the RWS tradition):

A note on “randomness”:

In theory the mechanism is random — shuffling and drawing are both random processes. C. G. Jung's theory of synchronicity holds that such “meaningful coincidences” are not causal connections but non-causal correspondences between a psychological state and an external event.

This is a philosophical assumption, not a scientific conclusion. But it does at least explain why tarot “seems to work” — because the reading is done by the querent themselves.

8.4.3Upright and reversed

The practice: the cards keep the orientation they had when drawn, so when they are turned over they may be “right way up” (upright) or “upside down” (reversed).

Four schools of reading reversals:

Two things to keep in mind about reversals:

• –

  Schools differ widely in how they read reversals, so a reader should be explicit about which one they are using

• –

  Weakening and blockage are the gentlest readings and the least likely to provoke anxiety

8.4.4Common spreads

Spread 1: the single card (a daily draw)

┌─────┐
│  1  │   Today's theme / the energy of this moment
└─────┘

Use: daily awareness and a simple prompt for the moment. Good for an everyday, casual draw.

Spread 2: the three-card spread (the classic beginner's spread)

Version A: the timeline

┌─────────┬─────────┬─────────┐
│    1    │    2    │    3    │
│  Past   │ Present │ Future  │
└─────────┴─────────┴─────────┘

Version B: situational analysis

┌───────────┬───────────┬───────────┐
│     1     │     2     │     3     │
│ Situation │  Action   │  Outcome  │
└───────────┴───────────┴───────────┘

Version C: the choice spread

┌─────────┐  ┌─────────┐
│    2    │  │    3    │
│ Option A│  │ Option B│
└─────────┘  └─────────┘
        ┌──────────────┐
        │      1       │
        │ Current state│
        └──────────────┘

Spread 3: the Celtic Cross (10 cards)

The classic and most complete of the large spreads:

          ┌─────┐
          │  5  │
          └─────┘
┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐      ┌─────┐
│  4  │ │1 / 2│ │  6  │      │ 10  │
└─────┘ └─────┘ └─────┘      └─────┘
          ┌─────┐
          │  3  │
          └─────┘
                      ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐
                      │  7  │ │  8  │ │  9  │
                      └─────┘ └─────┘ └─────┘

A suggested reading order: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 6 → then 7–8–9 as the “background layer” → and 10 last.

Spread 4: the relationship spread (two people)

┌────────────┐ ┌────────────┐
│      2     │ │      3     │
│  Partner   │ │   Future   │
└────────────┘ └────────────┘
        ┌──────────────┐
        │      1       │
        │ Relationship │
        │     now      │
        └──────────────┘

A rational note: a relationship spread should not be used to identify a third party, to pass judgement on anyone's loyalty, or to assert an outcome such as “will they break up, will they marry”. Neutral questions work better — “what is the current state of the relationship”, “how does each of us feel”, “which direction could improve it”.

Other common spreads

8.4.5How to read: the five-layer method

This is what turns drawing cards into a reading. The beginner's most common confusion is: “I have drawn the cards — now what?”

The five layers:

Layer 4 in practice: counting

8.4.6A full example: reading three cards

Example: the question is “What should I pay most attention to in this new project?” The draw: Eight of Swords (upright) · Three of Wands (upright) · Six of Pentacles (reversed)

Step one: the cards on their own

Step two: the positions

• –

  The situation is the Eight of Swords — a psychological constraint at the start of the project, which may be self-doubt rather than a real obstacle

• –

  The action is the Three of Wands — you need to lengthen your view and look at the long term rather than at what is immediately in front of you

• –

  The outcome is the Six of Pentacles reversed — unless something changes, effort and return may fall out of balance

Step three: relations between the cards

• –

  Eight of Swords (air / constrained thought) → Three of Wands (fire / expansion outward): from “friction turned inward” to “looking outward” is a path of transformation

• –

  Three of Wands → Six of Pentacles reversed: a warning to watch that resources are shared evenly as you expand

Step four: the overall pattern

• –

  Element distribution: one air, one fire, one earth → balanced, so the issue is all-round

• –

  No Major Arcana → these are everyday matters, with no major turning point in life involved

• –

  Two upright, one reversed → broadly smooth, but with one point to watch

• –

  No court cards → the main issue is your own state, not other people

Step five: back to the question

Taken together, the greatest resistance in this project may come from your own psychological limits (Eight of Swords) rather than from external conditions. The suggestion is to lengthen your view and look at long-term value (Three of Wands), while keeping an eye on whether effort and return stay in balance, so that you do not give too much on one side (Six of Pentacles reversed).

⚠️ Note: the example above is a demonstration of method, showing the chain of reasoning in a reading. It is not a prediction, and not a judgement about how the project will turn out. In an actual tarot consultation, the final “meaning” is confirmed mainly by the querent themselves.

This section sets the two systems side by side.

8.5.1The symbol systems compared

8.5.2What each system is good for

A practical conclusion:

The Eastern system is good at structure and cycles; tarot is good at the present and at choices. This is not a question of which is more accurate, but of different kinds of question suiting different tools.

8.5.3Three underlying ideas they share

Set the surface aside and the two systems turn out to be strikingly similar at a deeper level:

The comparison itself is fascinating: two entirely independent civilisations both developed systems for describing a complex world with a limited set of symbols. That suggests a shared tendency in human cognition rather than a “truth about the universe”.

8.5.4What we do not recommend: blending the two

We explicitly advise against mixing the two systems together, as in these examples:

The right approach: use them separately, each as a system in its own right. Take whichever one you find more convincing rather than forcing them together.

Following the same logic as Chapter 06, we should be equally honest here about the mechanism.

8.6.1Four main psychological mechanisms

8.6.2The most valuable part of tarot: the projection mechanism

This is what sets tarot apart from other divination systems:

The images in tarot are ambiguous, many-layered and charged with feeling. Faced with The Hanged Man, a person has to decide for themselves what that card means to them.

The very act of deciding has value in itself. It gives a vague feeling a concrete shape, so that it can be thought about, discussed and faced.

Psychological parallels:

• –

  The mechanism is similar to that of the Rorschach inkblot test

• –

  The approach is close to that of narrative therapy

• –

  It is consistent with expressive arts therapies such as projective drawing

The most reasonable way to place tarot, then, is this:

8.6.3The conclusion that matches the Eastern system

8.7.1Court de Gébelin (1725–1784)

Full name: Antoine Court de Gébelin. A French Protestant pastor, scholar and Freemason.

Principal work: Le Monde Primitif (The Primitive World, 1773–1784), in nine volumes

Key contribution: in 1781, in that book, he put forward the hypothesis that tarot descended from the ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth.

Historical assessment:

• –

  He was a serious scholar, working on linguistics, mythology and ancient civilisations, yet this particular speculation had no documentary basis

• –

  He was writing at the height of “Egyptomania” — Napoleon's expedition to Egypt came in 1798, but the fashion had begun earlier — and his hypothesis suited the cultural mood of the day

• –

  His mistake, quite unintentionally, launched the entire occult tarot tradition

Historical standing: the greatest “butterfly effect” figure in tarot history. One error of scholarship gave rise to two hundred years of occult industry.

8.7.2Etteilla (1738–1791)

Real name: Jean-Baptiste Alliette. “Etteilla” is his surname spelled backwards, and the “ancient Egyptian mystery name” he claimed for himself — an echo of the Egyptian-origin theory then in vogue.

Identity: a French diviner, and the first professional tarot reader in history.

Principal works:

• –

  Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées tarots (How to Amuse Yourself with the Card Game Called Tarot, 1785)

• –

  the Etteilla Tarot (1789)

Contributions:

• 1.

  the first person to take up tarot reading as a profession, running a divination salon

• 2.

  the first tarot deck designed specifically for divination

• 3.

  he gave the numbered Minor Arcana specific meanings, where the Marseille number cards carry no scene

• 4.

  he introduced the “spread” as a working practice

Historical standing: the practical founder of tarot divination. Before him, tarot had nothing to do with divination.

Controversy: his system of divination was shot through with “Egyptian imaginings” — he in fact knew nothing of ancient Egypt — and his own life was a long struggle that ended in poverty. It is often cited as an example of how a diviner cannot vouch for himself.

8.7.3Eliphas Lévi (1810–1875)

Real name: Alphonse Louis Constant. He began as a deacon in the French Catholic Church, then turned to occultism and took the Frenchified Hebrew name “Eliphas Lévi” as his pen name.

Principal works: Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (Dogma and Ritual of High Magic, 1856) and Histoire de la Magie (History of Magic, 1860)

Core contributions:

• 1.

  He joined tarot to the Kabbalah as a system, proposing that the 22 Major Arcana correspond to the 22 Hebrew letters and to the 22 paths of the Tree of Life

• 2.

  he set tarot inside the full framework of Hermeticism

• 3.

  he linked tarot to astrology, alchemy and the four elements

• 4.

  he produced the classic claim that “tarot is a universal key”

• 5.

  his work shaped every later Western occult current, from the Golden Dawn to Crowley

Historical standing: the true architect of the occult tarot system. The core framework of every tarot theory in the English-speaking world today can be traced back to his writings.

A famous line: “Tarot is a real book of philosophy and religion, a summary of all ancient teaching… It is a key that opens every door.”

A scholarly caveat: the “tarot–Kabbalah” correspondence he insisted on is not a historical fact — fifteenth-century tarot carries no Kabbalistic symbols — but a systematic construction. That construction was itself highly creative, and it became the core of tarot theory.

8.7.4S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1854–1918)

Full name: Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. A British occultist and one of the three founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Contributions:

• 1.

  he organised and systematised the Golden Dawn's table of tarot correspondences (Major Arcana ↔ astrology ↔ Hebrew letters ↔ paths)

• 2.

  he wrote the order's ritual-magic texts, among them a tarot manual of lasting influence

• 3.

  he translated and edited a great many medieval magical texts, such as the Key of Solomon

Historical standing: the key figure in the technical standardisation of tarot. The “Major Arcana correspondence table” found in textbooks today is largely the product of his work — and the Golden Dawn's.

How it ended: he died in poverty in 1918, during the influenza pandemic.

8.7.5A. E. Waite (1857–1942)

Identity: a British scholar and occultist, and the initiator of the RWS tarot deck.

Principal works:

• –

  The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)

• –

  The Holy Kabbalah

Core contributions:

• 1.

  he commissioned Pamela Colman Smith to draw the RWS tarot deck (1909) and designed the imagery on every card

• 2.

  he pioneered fully illustrated scenes for the Minor Arcana, the single most important technical innovation in tarot history

• 3.

  he adjusted the order of the Major Arcana, fixing 8 = Strength and 11 = Justice, the reverse of the Marseille deck

• 4.

  his Pictorial Key to the Tarot set out the card meanings systematically and became the later standard

Temperament and stance:

• –

  he was a scholar rather than a practitioner — he did little divination and cared far more about the system of symbols

• –

  he kept his distance from “spiritualist” and “séance” practices and the like

• –

  his readings of the cards were relatively conservative and moralising — he read the Devil, for instance, as “bondage to material desire”

Historical standing: the father of modern tarot. The most widely used tarot deck in the world today is the one he devised.

8.7.6Pamela Colman Smith (1878–1951)

Identity: a British illustrator nicknamed “Pixie”, and the actual artist of the RWS tarot deck.

Background:

• –

  born in London; she spent part of her childhood in Jamaica and the United States

• –

  she studied at the Pratt Institute in New York

• –

  she took part in stage design for the Irish Literary Theatre, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin

• –

  she exhibited her illustrations and was praised as “an artist with a gift for synaesthesia”

Contributions:

• –

  she drew the images for all 78 cards on her own — finished in 1909, in about six months

• –

  her images set the visual language of modern tarot — the Hanged Man, the Tower and the Sun are still drawn the world over from her compositions

A historical regret:

• –

  her fee was extremely low — a few tens of pounds, by one account — and for a long time she received no proper credit: the deck is usually called “Rider-Waite”, with her name last

• –

  she was poor in her later years and died almost forgotten

• –

  in recent years scholars and the tarot community have begun, systematically, to restore her name, and more and more publications now write “Rider-Waite-Smith” or “Smith-Waite”

Historical standing: the creator of tarot's visual language. It is fair to say that without Pamela Colman Smith there would be no tarot as we know it today.

One suggestion: when introducing tarot, it is worth using the full name “Rider-Waite-Smith” as a matter of course and giving Pamela Colman Smith the space she deserves. It is a small point, but it shows care and fairness.

8.7.7Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)

Identity: a British occultist, poet and mountaineer, and the most controversial occult figure of the twentieth century.

Background:

• –

  he joined the Golden Dawn and left amid internal conflict

• –

  he founded the occult system of Thelema, whose central precept runs “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”

• –

  the press called him “the wickedest man in the world” — a reputation he promoted himself

Principal work: the Thoth Tarot (1944)

What distinguishes the Thoth deck:

• –

  the artist was Lady Frieda Harris (1877–1962), who took about five years over the 78 cards

• –

  the symbolism is extraordinarily dense — Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy and Egyptian myth all folded in together

• –

  the colour is sumptuous and the compositions abstract

• –

  he corrected some of the correspondences: most famously, the Hebrew letters for the Emperor (He) and the Star (Tzaddi) were swapped

• –

  the card meanings are more direct and more forceful than in the RWS deck

Historical standing: alongside Waite, one of the two wellsprings of modern tarot. The RWS deck took the popular route; the Thoth deck took the route of deep symbolism.

8.7.8Lady Frieda Harris (1877–1962)

Identity: a British painter and the artist of the Thoth tarot deck. She came from the aristocracy; her husband was Sir Percy Harris.

Contributions:

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  working with Crowley, she spent about five years (1938–1943) painting all 78 Thoth cards

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  to render Crowley's symbolic intentions accurately, she taught herself astrology and Kabbalah

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  she used projective geometry, which gives the images their distinctive sense of space

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  she paid all the costs out of her own pocket

Historical assessment: half of the Thoth deck's artistic achievement is hers. She and Pamela Colman Smith are the two women artists long underrated in tarot history.

8.7.9C. G. Jung (1875–1961)

Identity: a Swiss psychologist and the founder of analytical psychology. He was not a tarot researcher, but his theories are the key to understanding tarot.

Core concepts:

On synchronicity: Jung worked with the Nobel laureate in physics Wolfgang Pauli; in 1952 they co-authored The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, a systematic discussion of the concept. Jung held that certain events are linked not by cause and effect but by correspondence in meaning.

Historical standing: he gave tarot its modern psychological clothing. The mainstream position today — that tarot is a tool of psychological projection — begins with Jung.

A scholarly caveat: synchronicity is not a scientific theory; it cannot itself be falsified. Jung offered it as a philosophical framework for discussing phenomena that “cannot be explained by cause and effect yet carry psychological meaning”.

Tarot's “orientation to the present” makes its readings all the more likely to be taken as a verdict on a current situation, and so it needs clear rational caveats and disclaimers even more than other methods do.

8.8.1Why tarot calls for a rational reading

8.8.5Disclaimer

A rational note: Tarot is an image-based symbol system that originated in the West; it is a tool for cultural experience and self-reflection. Drawing the cards is a random process, and its readings have no predictive power and no empirical scientific basis. Everything in this library is an introduction to traditional culture and a form of inspiration through psychological projection; it does not represent any factual judgement about you or anyone else. Please do not base any major life decision on it — marriage, career, investment, medical treatment or otherwise. If you are facing psychological distress, please seek professional counselling or medical help.