Tarot
The best known Tarot deck is the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. There are hundreds of others, but the images of the RWS Tarot are the ones which are instantly recognizable. This page has abundant detail about the history and significance of the RWS deck, as well as other texts about Tarot divination.
Although there were many Tarot decks prior to the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and many after, none has gripped the popular imagination as much as this set. Waite covers the significance and deeper implications of each card, and gives practical instructions as to how to conduct a reading. The symbolism of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck is based on profound occult studies by Waite, and his exposition in this book of its use and meaning is unexcelled. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Tarot.--J. B. Hare
Tarot of the Bohemians, along with the Pictoral Key to the Tarot, constitute the core literature of 19th and early 20th century 'Tarotism'. However, PTK is to the TOB as arithmetic is to differential calculus. If you have no experience reading occult literature of this period, you may find yourself profoundly lost after the first couple of pages, staring at the abundant and profoundly esoteric tables, charts and diagrams, trying to get a clue as to what Papus is talking about. Papus is after a 'Theory of Everything', and finds evidence for it in the Tarot and a set of correspondences with everything from the tetragrammaton to numerology and astrology.
His claim that the Tarot preserves ancient, profound knowledge by way of the Romany/Gypsies (i.e. 'Bohemians') all the way back to Egypt, India and Atlantis is unsubstantiated. There is no evidence of any kind of playing or fortune-telling cards prior to the thirteenth century, either in literature or folklore. Note that playing cards could not have become popular until the introduction of printing in Europe. The Tarot is believed to have originated from an elaborate deck of cards invented in Italy in the fourteenth century. The Romany people probably started to use this deck for cartomancy (fortune telling by cards) about a century thereafter. As Papus notes, all of the early cards depict people dressed in the costume of this period.
Late in the book, Papus condescends to pen a section, in his words, 'for the ladies' (cue Barry White music here), which gives some basic instruction in cartomancy using the Tarot deck. However, this is by far the weakest portion of this book. Papus is at his best when he is spinning elaborate webs of correspondence between the Tarot and the Macrocosm. This book is hard work, but if you master it you will have a profound grasp of the inner life of the Tarot deck.
There have been numerous attempts to construct systems of correspondence between the Tarot and the Sephiroth of the Kabbalah. Another fertile ground for this activity is to try to match the Tarot cards with astrology. This book was one of the first to try to make this connection. Beginning with a theoretical section, it then discusses each card. Another feature of this book is a comparison of characteristics attributed to each card by some of the previous writers such as Waite and Papus.
Originally published in 1930 under the title General Book of the Tarot, it was reprinted in paperback by Newcastle in 1975 under the much more germane title Astrology of the Tarot. The Newcastle edition is long out of print but not hard to find used. More recently Kessinger has added it to their print on demand inventory under the original title.
Production notes: the original book is a bit difficult to use as a reference because it does not have running headers in the Lesser Arcana section. To remedy this, we have added descriptive titles for each of the files in that section. We have also inserted images of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of each card for additional context.
The best known Tarot deck is the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. There are hundreds of others, but the images of the RWS Tarot are the ones which are instantly recognizable. This page has abundant detail about the history and significance of the RWS deck, as well as other texts about Tarot divination.
Although there were many Tarot decks prior to the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and many after, none has gripped the popular imagination as much as this set. Waite covers the significance and deeper implications of each card, and gives practical instructions as to how to conduct a reading. The symbolism of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck is based on profound occult studies by Waite, and his exposition in this book of its use and meaning is unexcelled. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Tarot.--J. B. Hare
Tarot of the Bohemians, along with the Pictoral Key to the Tarot, constitute the core literature of 19th and early 20th century 'Tarotism'. However, PTK is to the TOB as arithmetic is to differential calculus. If you have no experience reading occult literature of this period, you may find yourself profoundly lost after the first couple of pages, staring at the abundant and profoundly esoteric tables, charts and diagrams, trying to get a clue as to what Papus is talking about. Papus is after a 'Theory of Everything', and finds evidence for it in the Tarot and a set of correspondences with everything from the tetragrammaton to numerology and astrology.
His claim that the Tarot preserves ancient, profound knowledge by way of the Romany/Gypsies (i.e. 'Bohemians') all the way back to Egypt, India and Atlantis is unsubstantiated. There is no evidence of any kind of playing or fortune-telling cards prior to the thirteenth century, either in literature or folklore. Note that playing cards could not have become popular until the introduction of printing in Europe. The Tarot is believed to have originated from an elaborate deck of cards invented in Italy in the fourteenth century. The Romany people probably started to use this deck for cartomancy (fortune telling by cards) about a century thereafter. As Papus notes, all of the early cards depict people dressed in the costume of this period.
Late in the book, Papus condescends to pen a section, in his words, 'for the ladies' (cue Barry White music here), which gives some basic instruction in cartomancy using the Tarot deck. However, this is by far the weakest portion of this book. Papus is at his best when he is spinning elaborate webs of correspondence between the Tarot and the Macrocosm. This book is hard work, but if you master it you will have a profound grasp of the inner life of the Tarot deck.
There have been numerous attempts to construct systems of correspondence between the Tarot and the Sephiroth of the Kabbalah. Another fertile ground for this activity is to try to match the Tarot cards with astrology. This book was one of the first to try to make this connection. Beginning with a theoretical section, it then discusses each card. Another feature of this book is a comparison of characteristics attributed to each card by some of the previous writers such as Waite and Papus.
Originally published in 1930 under the title General Book of the Tarot, it was reprinted in paperback by Newcastle in 1975 under the much more germane title Astrology of the Tarot. The Newcastle edition is long out of print but not hard to find used. More recently Kessinger has added it to their print on demand inventory under the original title.
Production notes: the original book is a bit difficult to use as a reference because it does not have running headers in the Lesser Arcana section. To remedy this, we have added descriptive titles for each of the files in that section. We have also inserted images of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of each card for additional context.
