Extract from Noel Eastwood's Newsletter on Tarot

For those who require Tarot readings or information on this subject.

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Extract from Noel Eastwood's Newsletter on Tarot

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I thought that all Tarot enthusiasts would enjoy Noel's latest Newsletter "Pluto's Cave - Tarot origins - has it really been held hostage by occultists ?"

"I have been busy researching the Tarot for my Fool's Journey series and am fascinated at how the Tarot cards came into being. I was handed this article by an old friend and thought to post some of it here and link to it so that you too can take a peek at where in fact, tarot came from.

Please be warned, this may challenge some people in their beliefs of the origins of the Tarot.

"It only requires a good look at the Tarot, a single glance empty of ego or personal agendas, to understand that the Tarot comes neither from Egypt, nor from Atlantis, nor from an extinct planet called Krypton. It only takes one good, humble look to see how the Tarot doesn't contain the secret recipe for making Mary Magdalen's favorite salad dressing. It only takes one sober look to understand that the Tarot comes, as I said before, from Christian Medieval Europe. The Tarot developed there. There is no need to go so far astray to understand its true purpose and meaning.


There are many more-or-less logical theories about the Tarot's connection with medieval Christianity. One of my favorite texts on the matter comes from Michael Hurst, and you can read it here. You can also consult Jean Claude Flornoy's thoughts here, or search the enormous amount of historical data which can be found here.

"Talking about the bizarre, it is good to remember that the idea of the Tarot coming from Egypt was an invention of Antoine Court de Gebelín, an "occultist" who, the story goes, "discovered" the Tarot in 1771 when he saw some ladies playing cards. The Rosetta Stone had been discovered a few years earlier. Egypt was fashionable at that time, and Court de Gebelín had a ball projecting all his fantasies onto the Tarot. He also took some liberties: he gave a fourth leg to Le Bateleur's table, put a zero on Le Mat's card, turned Le Pendu upright... Up until that time, the Tarot had been a work of sacred art, transmitted through a lineage of master image-makers. Master card-makers would contribute their talent to the tradition, reproducing images from an unknown artist. Court de Gebelín started the "Tarot of the Ego." He was the first untrained amateur who dared to redesign these images and claim authorship over them. Today we know that all Court de Gebelín "saw" in the Tarot was false. It was all a fantasy. But these fantasies were perpetuated by several generations of "occultists" who followed suit, adding their egos, and their last names, to the Tarot." http://www.tarot-history.com/History/pages/texte-E...


I agree with Arthur Edward Waite, the originator of the Waite-Smith deck of 1910 - the Major Arcana outlines a simple yet profound guide to the initiate or seeker of spiritual enlightenment. This is why I wrote the Fool's Journey series as both fantasy novel and guide to the spiritual initiate. The spiritual initiate will read within each book how they too can embark on their own path to enlightenment.

The history or origins of the Tarot deck has an enormous influence on the symbols illustrated on each card and their interpretations. It has been said by many modern Tarotists that the Tarot trumps, the Major Arcana, represent 15th century Renaissance Italy:- their literature; festivals and celebrations; religious beliefs; rulers; and their basic wishes and fears. The Major Arcana symbology draws heavily upon the earlier philosophies and teachings of Plato, Pythagoras, alchemy, Christianity and the Hermeticists. You will note that the symbols of the Roman Catholic Church is foremost in the Major Arcana, as it was throughout Europe at that time.

It is important to note that both the author, Arthur Edward Waite, and artist, Pamela Colman Smith, of the influential Waite-Smith Tarot deck (1910), were members of the Roman Catholic Church. Smith converted after she had completed the illustrations of the Waite-Smith deck, while Waite was educated in the Catholic school system. Recognising the influence of Catholicism on the occult literature may help the modern researcher and practitioner understand some of the symbology within the Major Arcana. The foundations of Tarot symbology is rooted in so many philosophies but the influence of Catholicism cannot be discounted.

Waite was also heavily involved with the Kabbalah. In many ways his Waite-Smith Major Arcana cards represent the 22 paths of the Kabbalah, Tree of Life. I don’t have expertise in Kabbalah so can’t comment further on this.

In Robert M. Place's ground-breaking book, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, (2005) he clearly links the very foundations of the Tarot to the teachings of Plato and those of his followers.

“...the Tarot expresses a mystical Platonic philosophy labelled by scholars as Neoplatonism. Specifically, the Tarot trumps are an allegory of the soul’s journey to immortality or enlightenment.”

The famous Swiss psychiatrist, Dr Carl Jung, the father of the Humanistic movement within psychology, and for such practices as active imagination and archetypal psychotherapy, is in agreement: “It also seems as if the set of pictures on the Tarot cards were distantly descended from the archetypes of transformation, a view that has been confirmed for me...” – C.G. Jung, (1969), Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9 (Part 1) Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.


From the book, “A History of Games Played With the Tarot Pack: The Game of Triumphs”, Professor Michael Dummett and John McLeod state in the introduction to their Supplement:-

“The invention in northern Italy, in the late 1430s, of the Tarot pack, and of the game played with it, was an event of major importance for the history of card play, for it was the invention of the idea of trumps. True, the idea had been invented earlier, for the German game of Karnöffel; but it was its independent invention for Tarot, about a decade later, that was to be the source from which it was borrowed for games with the regular lack of 52 or 48 cards.

The word “trumps” is a corruption of “triumphs”, the word, in its Italian form trionfi, originally used for the trumps in Tarot, and, translated, in the games for which the idea was borrowed, such as the English game of Triumph, the ancestor of Whist. In contrast, in Karnöffel the trump suit was called the ‘chosen suit’ and some of its members were only partial trumps, beating all but the highest card or cards of the suit led.

The game of Tarot was not content to bequeath its salient innovation to games played with the less interesting regular pack, and then die quietly out. Rather, it spread from its native Italy to many other countries, to France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Austro-Hungary and Sicily, taking its special pack with it (as the game of Minchiate took the expanded Minchiate pack).

It also carried with it its distinguishing features: the point-values of the three trump honours and of the twelve court cards; the obligation to follow suit when one could; and, when one could not, the obligation to play a trump if one had one. These are defining characteristics of all genuine Tarot games. They remained constant under the radical change in the role of the Fool from Excuse to highest trump.

But in all the lands in which Tarot has been played, and in many regions within them, players have invented new variations. In our book we attempted a comprehensive survey of all these games. We knew we had little chance of completely succeeding; but we had not expected that, within quite a short time after the publication of our book, we should have a substantial amount to add.” Michael Dummett & John McLeod, Oxford and London, February 2009, For a first class discussion of the role of the Catholic Church in developing the card game called 'tarot' please visit: https://thomaslmcdonald.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/t...


Prior to the 14th-15th century, there was no paper and so once Europeans learned to make paper, card games flourished. With the invention of various types of printing press in the 15th century not only did playing cards become popular but all sorts of printed matter flourished. When paper was cheaper and accessible the people of Medieval Europe purchased things like cards with the images of the Christian Saints painted on them, like talismans. In comparison, today we have Pokemon cards and a multitude of collectors cards from baseball teams to Disney characters.

Regardless of who invented Tarot, it will always contain magic. The magic of occultic knowledge is hidden in its symbology. The key to gaining access to its magical knowledge lies in personal and direct contact with the tarot archetypes themselves through meditation."

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"Don't let the illusions of your past or future rob you of the infiniteness of your present." [Unknown]
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