This study is not intended to argue with those who are already totally invested in their own belief system or as to what they believe are the true meanings of the Tarot cards. Some believe that the Tarot cards are esoteric representations of some sacred journey of the soul or ancient initiations rites, others believe it is a picture book of astrology and other esoteric notions. People often believe whatever suits their opinions, desires or simply justifies their own perceived needs. This subject matter is riddled with wild speculations about hidden meaning and false claims of their supposed ancient esoteric heritage. I wanted to bypass these foolish attempts to claim some unprovable ancient authority or lineage to some esoteric tradition, like so many have done before. So, I started from scratch to try to build a system of correspondences that adheres to its’ own continuity of contiguous connections from seed to tree. My hopes are that others might also be inspired to take a leap of faith into the vast abyss of knowledge, without any preconceptions of truth, fear of being wrong, or the lust to be right. But only to embark on their rugged ride of self-discovery without prejudice as they search for wisdom, understanding, and the crown of inner light.
The history of the Tarot is not very clear at all, and no one really knows the intended meaning of the original cards or who created them for that matter. Those who claim that they are the supposed keepers of a traditional translation of the Tarot cards are simply selling you a pack of lies. It is truly anyone’s guess as to the actual meaning of the original Tarot cards. The people who like to make spurious claims about being part of some old esoteric tradition have very shallow roots at best or, most likely, they’re just selling you pure bullshit and calling it gold in order to suck you into their cult. I can also say, with much certainty, that there is absolutely nothing to fear from the Tarot cards in and of themselves. Rest assured that the cards will not harm you in any way by using them, whether it be for fun, education or divination, for they do not have any magical powers somehow infused into them: They are simply cards made of ink and paper and all the rest is just in your head. The history of the Tarot is only a small part of the influx of new ideals about culture in the 14th century renaissance of Europe.
We simple don’t know what they did or did not know when the original Tarot was created, nor does it matter for the purposes of this particular Tarot configuration. The Tarot cards had only started to be incorporated into western esoteric schools of thought in the 19th century. However, it wasn’t until the early 20th century that the interest in the cards really blossomed with the arrival of the Rider-Waite deck in 1906. This deck was put together by two members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: Pamala Colman Smith designed the cards under the direction of Arthur Edward Waite in 1909. The symbolism of the Rider deck was heavily influenced by Alphonse Louis Constant, a.k.a. Eliphas Levi, who was a French occultist of the mid-eighteen hundreds who first associated the Tarot cards major arcana with the 22 paths in the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Since the Rider-Waite deck came out there have been a plethora of different Tarot decks published with similar symbolism and designs. There was also another design called Thoth Tarot, which was first published in 1944 that became popular in the 1960s, painted by Lady Frieda Harris under the direction of Aleister Crowley. A good source of information on some of the many different Tarot designs and interpretations that are out there I recommend getting the Dictionary of The Tarot by Bill Butler.
My reconsideration of the Tarot cards attributes is a result of many years of researching many different card interpretations and realizing that there actually wasn’t any Tarot tradition based on anything more than a wild guess or a lot of false claims of an esoteric provenance. There are certainly parallels that can be seen with the 22 Hebrew letters, based not only on the same number of Major Arcana cards, but also on the astrological attributes that both of them incorporate into their systems. And although the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck has been grafted onto western systems of the Tree of Life since Eliphas Levi first did it, there are still many differing opinions as to which card should be assigned to what path. So, for my purposes the Major Arcana attributes still needed to be reevaluated in order to find the most harmonious path placements on this new universal Tree of Life system. Hopefully this approach to the Tarot and Tree of Life will help keep this version from being just another regurgitated version of an old antiquated system. Some of these old systems had already been infected with gross errors since their initial spouting, and others had been planted in patches of such barren soil that they were absent of any of the actual nutrients necessary to bare any fruit worth harvesting. I wanted this new Tree of Life system to be grown from a small seed of truth, planted in a patch of rich fertile soil, and watered by a fresh spring of modern knowledge.
In order to incorporate the Tarot into this Tree of Life system I needed to first determine what the most harmonious relationship between the different symbolic systems might be and then to attempt to find any possible path correspondences that would be consistent this construction method of the Tree of Life. To do this I first had to break the cards down into those that had a more apparent association between them, then move on to the other cards to see what the less obvious meanings might be which would still work harmoniously with the other cards. The images of each card should be reflective of the notions being expressed by these three fundamental language systems: Numerical (math and geometry), Astrological (zodiac and planets), and Rhetorical (letters & names).
The first symbol system in the Tarot whose appropriate card associations needed to be resolved were the numbers zero through twenty-one. There were two differing opinions about what the number of the Fool card should be, either zero or twenty-two. The Fool as zero being the most commonly used today and I believe the most suitable since the ideal numbers start with zero and not one. The other two cards where a major difference of opinion existed were regarding the numbers, 8 and 11; which one should be assigned to the Strength and the Justice cards? One school of thought believes the Strength card should be the number eight, while the other school is attributing it to the number eleven and the Justice card to eight. Which of these two differing attributes were correct or were both of them wrong? Either way it would need to be determined before I could move forward with incorporating them into this particular Tree of Life system. I settled on using number eight for the Strength card and number eleven for the Justice card (a.k.a. Balance card); because the numerological nature of eight was strength and it also better represented a dynamic character type, whereas the Justice card image more represented the zodiac sign of Libra, given its’ image of the scales and number eleven was in the middle of the deck, like the fulcrum of a scale it balanced ten cards on either side.
Once the numerical associations in the Major Arcana were solved, I moved on to resolve the more ambiguous astrological attributes, which had even more differences of opinion amongst the myriads of Tarot pundits. The question of whether or not to include the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto could also be debated being how they were only discovered centuries after the original Tarot was developed. This is a very valid objection to their inclusion in the Tarot considerations of correspondences at all. However, I was not concerned with the lack of historical knowledge of the outer planets, but just on how our present knowledge of them could be harmoniously incorporated into this new system of correspondences. Since what we now know about these three outer planets can easily fit the natural progression of dynamic characters that already exist in the Major Arcana. In fact, they fit so well that it makes me wonder if they may have been known about, or at least their dynamic influences felt and characterized, in our distant past. The term “as above so below” was an esoteric concept that had been around since the Emerald Tablets of ancient Egypt. This concept was also understood in reverse, “as below so above”; in that from the observations of cyclic influences on earth, they could deduce that there was also an influence coming from some unseen planets cycling above.
If you were to look at the different characteristics of the images and names in the Major Arcana, you will see a pattern start to emerge that has numerical parallels as well. The first ten cards (using number 8 for the Strength card) can all represent a particular planetary personality type and, if you were to look at the natures of the planets currently being considered, the natural progression of planets is reflected: The Fool as the Sun (The Baby), the Magician as Mercury (The Boy), the High Priestess as Venus (The Girl), the Empress as Earth (The nurturing Mother), the Emperor as Mars (The fighting Father), the Hierophant as Jupiter (The Teacher), the Lovers as Saturn (The Mate), the Charioteer as Uranus (The Inventor), the Strength as Pluto (The Hero), and the Hermit as Neptune (The Wise). At the time of this analysis Pluto was situated between Neptune and Uranus. Due to its’ eccentric oblong orbit, Pluto may go a further distance away from the sun, but its’ orbit is the eight ring because it always travels between the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. I know that this notion will piss off those who don’t believe that astrology has anything to do with the Tarot, but that’s just too bad for them, for it only makes perfect sense to me to incorporate astrology into the Tarot, since it is after all one the most fundamental languages of all esoteric knowledge.
There are two different arcana in the Tarot, the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana, one for the Solar system and one for the Lunar system. They both have their distinctly different patterns and cycles that we may observe or experience over time. In this system the major arcana is a representation of ten different character types, corresponding to ten major planetary dynamics, and twelve zodiac expressions, situations or environments we may experience in life. In this system the themes of the major arcana relate more to the larger social considerations and conditions of life. Whereas the minor arcana represents the mundane, day to day, concerns of our life that we may have as the moon cycles through its’ phases and signs throughout the year.
The Major Arcana, viewed as a theatrical play of life, follows a cast of ten actors as they progress through the environments and experiences of the zodiac. Whereas the minor arcana’s’ court cards can correlate to the four weeks of a 28-day lunar month. The total minor arcana of fifty-two cards can correspond to the number of weeks in a year. Whereas the thirteen cards per suite of the common playing card deck can reflect the number of full Moons in a single solar cycle. Either way, both the 56 minor arcana cards and the 52 common playing cards can correspond to the cyclic patterns of the Moon through four elements.
Both the Major and Minor arcana can also be broken down into several sub-categories that have been overlooked by other writers on the Tarot. The major arcana has two major categories: The ten character cards, which consist of the single number digit cards 0-9, and the twelve zodiac cards represented by the twelve double digit cards 10-21. Whereas the minor arcana contains four categories called the suites, which represent the four astrological elements consisting of two male groups called swords and wands (fire and air) and two female groups called disks and cups (earth and water). The Minor Arcana breaks down even further into ten number cards (a decant) and the court cards. Within the common 52-card deck there are three court cards, which can correspond to the three modalities of cardinal, fixed and m used the images of the first ten major arcana cards of the Rider-Waite deck to illustrate the ten major planetary characters of our solar system. I also found that the nature of the twelve experiences of our souls’ journey through the zodiac were depicted sufficiently enough in this deck to illustrate these notions as well. However, to really accurately depict these attributes, a newly designed deck would be necessary to fully express the ideas I am putting forth in this interpretation of the Tarot. However, for the purposes of this particular Tree of Life construct, just defining the Tarot attributes were enough for me to proceed with finding their corresponding paths on the Tree.
At the same time that the Tarot showed up in Europe, Jewish merchant and Gypsy communities were also immigrating into Europe, bringing with them new perspectives on religion, business and mathematics. Both of these cultures either came from or through the middle east, which were predominantly Islamic, and subsequently they would have been very familiar with the use of the Indian/Arabic number system that used the number zero in their mathematics. The very idea of zero was a new numerical concept to the Europeans of that era. The very notion of zero also implied infinity, which was considered a heretical idea by the Catholic church in those days. The church doctrine was rooted in the idea that one was the source number: one God, one son of God, only one way to get to heaven, and the end times with a final judgement day, but certainly not the idea of an infinite number of days with no end. In the fourteenth century, Europeans were still considered very barbaric by the Arab and Asian cultures.
The Minor Arcana can also represent the emotional influences and more mundane experiences in our personal lives. The minor arcana, like the Moon, has its’ own rhythms and behaviors that are distinctly different from the rhythms and behaviors of the Solar cycle, as is seen in the major arcana. The Moon orbits around the Earth approximately every 28-days with thirteen full moons a year. The more mundane routines and rhythms of life that occupy most of our day-to-day concerns and dreams, night in and night out, can affect our lives just as profoundly as the larger social considerations of the major arcana, but they just don’t necessarily have the same shared impact on other people in our society. Mundane activities like counting down the days until your next menstrual cycle, simply planning for your payday, or routine days off, all would fall under the minor arcana’s’ sub-lunar influences. The 56-cards of the Minor Arcana allows these cards to be used as a correspondence to the lunar cycle of 28 days, where each day cycle is divided into two parts, night and light, with the male suites representing the light portion of the cycle and the female suites representing the night portion of the cycle.
During the age of enlightenment in the western world, a time when all the exotic stories and goods from the eastern parts of the world were flowing in abundance to Europe. There were European nobles who seized on the opportunities that arose from the new eastern trade routes and to also introduce Europe to esoteric knowledge coming in from the east, along with the writings of long-lost philosophers from ancient Greece. The printing presses also discovered a new card game to sell called the Tarocchi. This game was made only of loose-leaves it didn’t need the expensive bindings and leather cover of a typical book of those days and could be printed relatively cheaper and distributed easily in a simple paper box.
The use of Tarot cards for divination became popular after Antoine Court de Gébelin, a French archaeologist, published a book in the late 18th century associating the Tarot with fortune telling and ancient esoteric teachings. They may have been used for divination before this time, but there just wasn’t any record of this type of use, although true diviners can use almost anything to foretell the future, like sticks, stones, tea leaves, etc… The Gypsies have also been known to use the 52 common playing cards, among other things, for divination purposes long before the 18th century. Unfortunately, all attempts to give any credit to the Romani peoples’ contributions to the esoteric traditions of Europe are rudely rejected and, like everything else they may have done in Europe, severely scrutinized by the extremely xenophobic and bigoted Caucasian Christians of Europe and America.
