Tarot card reading is a form ofcartomancy whereby practitioners usetarot cards to purportedly gain insight into the past, present or future. The process typically begins with formulation of a question, followed by drawing and interpreting cards to uncover meaning. A traditional tarot deck consists of 78 cards, which can be split into two groups, theMajor Arcana andMinor Arcana.French-suited playing cards can also be used; as can any card system with suits assigned to identifiable elements (e.g., air, earth, fire, water).
The first written references to tarot packs occurred between 1440 and 1450 in northern Italy, for example inMilan andFerrara, when additional cards with allegoricalillustrations were added to the common four-suit pack. These new packs were calledcarte da trionfi, triumph packs, and the additional cards were simply known astrionfi, which became "trumps" in English.[1][2]
One of the earliest references totarot triumphs appears around c. 1450–1470 mentioned by aDominicanpreacher in a sermon condemning dice, playing cards and 'triumphs'.[3] References to the tarot as a social plague or as exempt from the bans that affected other games continued throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, but there are no indications that the cards were used for anything butgames.[4] As philosopher and tarot historianMichael Dummett noted, "it was only in the 1780s, when the practice of fortune-telling with regular playing cards had been well established for at least two decades, that anyone began to use the tarot pack for cartomancy."[5]
Claims by the early Frenchoccultists that tarot cards had esoteric links toancient Egypt, theKabbalah, IndicTantra, or theI Ching have been frequently repeated by authors on card divination. However, scholarly research reveals that there is no evidence of any significant use of tarot cards for divination until the late 18th century as it was believed to be invented in Italy in the early 15th century.[6] In fact, historians have described western views of the Tarot pack as "the subject of the most successful propaganda campaign ever launched... An entire false history and false interpretation of the Tarot pack was concocted by the occultists; and it is all but universally believed".[7]
The belief in thedivinatory meaning of the cards is closely associated to the notion of theiroccult properties, a view commonly held inearly modern Europe propagated by prominentProtestant Christianclerics andFreemasons.[5]
From its uptake as an instrument of divination in18th-century France, the tarot went on to be used inhermeneutic,magical,mystical,[8]semiotic,[9] and psychological practices. It was used byRomani people while telling fortunes,[10] as aJungian psychological apparatus for tapping into "absolute knowledge in the unconscious",[11] a tool forarchetypalanalysis,[12] and even for facilitating the Jungian process ofindividuation.[13][14]
Many involved in occult and divinatory practices attempt to trace the tarot toancient Egypt, divine hermetic wisdom,[15] and themysteries of Isis.
The first wasAntoine Court de Gébelin, a French clergyman, who wrote that after seeing a group of women playing cards he had the idea that tarot was not merely a game of cards but was in fact of ancient Egyptian origin, of mysticalQabalistic import, and of deep divine significance. Court de Gébelin published a dissertation on the origins of the symbolism in the tarot in volume VIII of the workLe Monde primitif in 1781.[16] He believed that the tarot representedancient Egyptian Theology, including Isis, Osiris, and Typhon. For example, he thought the card he knew as the Papesse and known in occult circles today as theHigh Priestess representedIsis.[17] He also related four tarot cards to the four ChristianCardinal virtues:Temperance,Justice,Strength andPrudence.[18] He relatedThe Tower to a Greek fable aboutavarice.[19]
Although the ancientEgyptian language had not yet been deciphered, Court de Gébelin asserted the name "Tarot" came from the Egyptian wordsTar,'path' or'road', and the wordRo,Ros, orRog, meaning'king' or'royal', and that the word literally translated to'the Royal Road of Life'.[20] Subsequent research byEgyptologists found nothing in the Egyptian language to support Court de Gébelin'setymologies.[21] Despite this lack of any evidence, the belief that the tarot cards are linked to the EgyptianBook of Thoth continues to the present day.[a]
The actual source of the occult tarot can be traced to two articles in volume eight, one written by Court de Gébelin and one written by M. le C. de M.***,[b] who has been identified as Major General Louis-Raphaël-Lucrèce de Fayolle, Comte de Mellet.[23] This second essay is "considerably more impressive" than de Gébelin's, albeit "as full of assertions with no basis in truth",[23] and has been even more influential than Court de Gébelin's.[23] The author makes no acknowledgement of de Gébelin and, although he agrees with all his main conclusions, he also contradicts de Gébelin over such details as the meaning of the word "Tarot" and in how the cards spread across Europe.[23] Moreover, he takes de Gébelin's speculations even further, agreeing with him about the mystical origins of the tarot in ancient Egypt, but making several additional, and influential, statements that continue to influence mass understanding of the occult tarot even to this day.[24] He made the first statements proposing that the tarot was "TheBook of Thoth" and made the first association of tarot with cartomancy. Meanwhile Court de Gébelin was the first to imply the existence of a connection between the Tarot andRomani people,[c] although this connection did not become well established in the public consciousness until other French authors such as Boiteau d'Ambly and Jean-Alexandre Vaillant began in the 1850s to promote the theory that tarot cards had been brought to Europe by the Romani.[25][26] In fact, there is virtually no evidence that Romani people used any form of playing cards for telling fortunes until the 20th century.[27][d]
CartomancerEtteilla, the pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Alliette, was the first to assign divinatory meanings to tarot cards.[28][29] Etteilla devised a method of tarot divination in 1783, and published his cartomantic treatise comparing the cards to theBook of Thoth in 1785. Etteilla established theSociété des Interprètes du Livre de Thot, the first society for tarot cartomancy, in 1788.
He promoted the Grand Etteilla deck as the first corrected tarot (supposedly fixing errors that resulted from misinterpretation and corruption through the mists of antiquity); he created the first Egyptian tarot to be used exclusively for cartomancy, and publishedDictionnaire synonimique du Livre de Thot, which "systematically tabulated all the possible meanings which each card could bear, when upright and reversed."[30] Etteilla expanded tarot lore by describing the deck as a repository of the wisdom ofHermes Trismegistus, a book of eternal medicine, an account of the creation of the world, and claimed the first copy of the tarot was imprinted on leaves of gold.[31]
In his 1980 book,The Game of Tarot, Michael Dummett argued that Etteilla was attempting to supplant Court de Gébelin as the author of the occult tarot.[e] Etteilla in fact claimed to have been involved with tarot longer than Court de Gébelin.[f]
Mlle Marie-Anne Adelaide Lenormand outshone even Etteilla and was the first cartomancer to people in high places, through her claims to be the personal confidant ofEmpress Josephine,Napoleon and other notables.[4] Lenormand used both regular playing cards, in particular thePiquet pack, as well as tarot cards likely derived from theTarot de Marseille.[33] Following her death in 1843, several different cartomantic decks were published in her name, including theGrand Jeu de Mlle Lenormand, based on the standard 52-card deck, first published in 1845, and thePetit Lenormand, a 36-card deck derived from the German gameDas Spiel der Hoffnung, first published around 1850.[34]
The concept of the cards as a mystical key was extended byÉliphas Lévi. Lévi (whose actual name was Alphonse-Louis Constant) was educated in the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, and was ordained as a deacon, but never became a priest. Michael Dummett noted that it is from Lévi's bookDogme et rituel that the "whole of the modern occultist movement stems."[35] Lévi's magical theory was based on a concept he called the Astral Light[36] and according to Dummett, he claimed to be the first to:[37]
Lévi accepted Court de Gébelin's claims that the deck had an Egyptian origin, but rejected Etteilla's interpretation and rectification of the cards in favor of a reinterpretation of theTarot de Marseille.[38] He called itThe Book of Hermes and claimed that the tarot was antique, existed before Moses, and was in fact a universal key of erudition, philosophy, and magic that could unlockHermetic and Qabalistic concepts.[39] According to Lévi, "An imprisoned person with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequaled learning and inexhaustible eloquence."[40]
According to Dummett, Lévi's notable contributions included the following:[41]
Occultists, magicians, and magi all the way down to the 21st century have cited Lévi as a defining influence.[43][g] Among the first to seemingly adopt Lévi's ideas wasJean-Baptiste Pitois. Pitois wrote two books under the name Paul Christian that referenced the tarot,L'Homme rouge des Tuileries (1863), and laterHistoire de la magie, du monde surnaturel et de la fatalité à travers les temps et les peuples (1870). In them, Pitois repeated and extended the mythology of the tarot and changed the names for the trumps and the suits (see table below for a list of Pitois's modifications to the trumps).[44] Batons (wands) became Scepters, Swords became Blades, and Coins became Shekels.[h]
However, it was not until the late 1880s that Lévi's vision of the occult tarot truly began to bear fruit, as his ideas on the occult began to be propounded by various French and English occultists. In France, secret societies such as the FrenchTheosophical Society (1884) and theKabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross (1888) served as the seeds for further developments in the occult tarot in France.[45]
The French occultistPapus was one of the most prominent members of these societies, joining the Isis lodge of the French Theosophical Society in 1887 and becoming a founding member of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross the next year.[45] Among his 260 publications are two treatises on the use of tarot cards,Le Tarot des Bohémiens (1889), which attempted to formalize the method of using tarot cards in ceremonial magic first proposed by Lévi in hisClef des grands mysteries (1861),[46] andLe Tarot divinatoire (1909), which focused on simpler divinatory uses of the cards.[47]
Another founding member of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross, theMarquis Stanislas de Guaita, met the amateur artistOswald Wirth in 1887 and subsequently sponsored a production of Lévi's intended deck. Guided entirely by de Guaita, Wirth designed the first neo-occultist cartomantic deck (and first cartomantic deck not derived from Etteilla's Egyptian deck).[48] Released in 1889 asLes 22 Arcanes du Tarot kabbalistique, it consisted of only the twenty-two major arcana and was revised under the title ofLe Tarot des imagers du moyen âge in 1926.[49] Wirth also released a book about his revised cards, which contained his own theories of the occult tarot under the same title in the year following.[50]
Outside of the Kabbalistic Order, in 1888, French magusÉly Star publishedLes mystères de l'horoscope which mostly repeats Christian's modifications.[51] Its primary contribution was the introduction of the terms 'Major Arcana' and 'Minor Arcana', and the numbering of the Crocodile (the Fool) XXII instead of 0.[52]
The late 1880s not only saw the spread of the occult tarot in France, but also its initial adoption in the English-speaking world. In 1886,Arthur Edward Waite publishedThe Mysteries of Magic, a selection of Lévi's writings translated by Waite and the first significant treatment of the occult tarot to be published in England.[53] However, it was only through the establishment of theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1888 that the occult tarot was to become established as a tool in the English-speaking world.
Of the three founding members of the Golden Dawn, two,Samuel Liddell Mathers andWilliam Wynn Westcott, published texts relating to the occult tarot prior to the founding of the order. Westcott is known to have made ink sketches of tarot trumps in or around 1886[54] and discussed the tarot in his treatiseTabula Bembina, sive Mensa Isiaca, published in 1887,[55] while Mathers had published the first British work primarily focused on the tarot in his 1888 booklet entitledThe Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling and Method of Play.[56]
The tarot was also mentioned explicitly in theCipher Manuscripts that served as the founding document of the Hermetic Order, both implicitly and in the form of a separate essay accompanying the manuscript.[57] This essay was to serve as the basis for most of tarot interpretations by the Golden Dawn and its immediate successors, including such features as:[58]
The Golden Dawn also:[59]
The Hermetic Order never released its own tarot deck for public use, preferring instead for members to create their own copies of a deck designed by Mathers with art by his wife,Moina Mathers.[60][i] However, many of these innovations would make their first public appearance in two influential tarot decks designed by members of the order: theRider–Waite–Smith deck and theThoth deck. In addition, occultistIsrael Regardie involved himself in two separate recreations of the original Golden Dawn deck, theGolden Dawn Tarot of 1978 with art by Robert Wang, and theNew Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot[j] byChic andSandra Cicero, released, after Regardie's death, in 1991.[64] The central document containing the Golden Dawn's Tarot interpretations, "Book T", was first published openly, if not under that title, byAleister Crowley in his occult periodicalThe Equinox in 1912.[65][66] The volume was later republished independently in 1967.[67]
| Tarot card | Hebrew letter | Element/planet/sign |
|---|---|---|
| 0The Fool | אAleph | 🜁Air |
| IThe Magician | בBet | ☿Mercury |
| IIThe High Priestess | גGimel | ☾Moon |
| IIIThe Empress | דDalet | ♀Venus |
| IVThe Emperor | הHe | ♈︎Aries |
| VThe Hierophant | וVau | ♉︎Taurus |
| VIThe Lovers | זZayin | ♊︎Gemini |
| VIIThe Chariot | חHeth | ♋︎Cancer |
| VIIIStrength | טTeth | ♌︎Leo |
| IXThe Hermit | יYod | ♍︎Virgo |
| XWheel of Fortune | כKaph | ♃Jupiter |
| XIJustice | לLamed | ♎︎Libra |
| XIIThe Hanged Man | מMem | 🜄Water |
| XIIIDeath | נNun | ♏︎Scorpio |
| XIVTemperance | סSamekh | ♐︎Sagittarius |
| XVThe Devil | עAyin | ♑︎Capricorn |
| XVIThe Tower | פPe | ♂Mars |
| XVIIThe Star | צTsade | ♒︎Aquarius |
| XVIIIThe Moon | קQoph | ♓︎Pisces |
| XIXThe Sun | רResh | ☉Sun |
| XXJudgement | שShin | 🜂Fire |
| XXIThe World | תTaw | ♄Saturn |
TheRider–Waite–Smith deck,[k] released in 1909, was the first complete cartomantic tarot deck other than those derived from Etteilla's Egyptian tarot.[69] (Oswald Wirth's 1889 deck had only depicted the major arcana.[48]) The deck, designed byArthur Edward Waite, was executed byPamela Colman Smith, a fellow Golden Dawn member, and was the first tarot deck to feature complete scenes for each of the 36 suit cards between 2 and 10 since theSola Busca tarot of the 15th century, with certain designs likely based in part on a number of photographs of them held by the British Museum.[70] The deck followed the Golden Dawn in its choice of suit names and in swapping the order of the trumps of Justice and Strength, but essentially preserved the traditional designations of the court cards. The deck was followed by the release ofThe Key to the Tarot, also by Waite, in 1910.[l]
TheThoth deck, first released as part of Aleister Crowley'sThe Book of Thoth in 1944,[71] represent a somewhat different evolution of the original Golden Dawn designs. The deck, executed byLady Frieda Harris as a series of paintings between 1938 and 1942,[72] owes much to Crowley's development ofThelema in the years following the dissolution of the Hermetic Order. While the deck follows Golden Dawn teachings with respect to the zodiacal associations of the major arcana and the associations of the minor arcana with the various astrological decans, it also:[73]
While Crowley managed to print a partial test run of the standalone deck using seven color plates included inThe Book of Thoth, it was not until the 1960s, after Crowley and Harris's deaths, that the deck was first printed in its entirety.[71]
Two of the earliest publications on tarot in the English language were published in the United States, including a book by Madame Camille Le Normand entitledFortune-Telling by Cards; or, Cartomancy Made Easy, published in 1872,[74] and an anonymous American essay on the tarot published inThe Platonist in 1885 entitled "The Taro".[75] The latter essay is implied by Decker and Dummett to have been written by an individual with a connection to the occult order known as theHermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.[76] While it is not clear to what extent the Hermetic Brotherhood used tarot cards in its practices,[77] it influenced later occult societies such as Elbert Benjamine'sChurch of Light, which had tarot practices (and an accompanying deck) of its own.[78]
Adoption of the esoteric tarot practices of the Golden Dawn in the United States was driven in part by the American occultistPaul Foster Case, whose 1920 bookAn Introduction to the Study of the Tarot made use of the Rider–Waite–Smith deck and assorted esoteric associations first adopted by the Golden Dawn.[79] By the 1930s, however, Case had formed his own occult order, theBuilders of the Adytum, and began to promote the Revised New Art Tarot,[m] byManly P. Hall with art byJ. Augustus Knapp,[80] as well as Case's own deck. Executed byJessie Burns Parke, the artwork of Case's deck, theB.O.T.A. Tarot, generally resembles that of the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, but the deck also shows influences fromOswald Wirth and the original design of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn tarot.[81] Case promoted the deck in his 1947 bookThe Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, which also marked one of the first references to the work ofCarl Jung by a tarotist.[82]
Esoteric use of the Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot was also promoted in the works ofEden Gray, whose three books on the tarot made extensive use of the deck. Gray's books were adopted by members of the 1960s counter-culture as standard reference works on divinatory use of tarot cards,[83] and her 1970 bookA Complete Guide to the Tarot was the first work to use the metaphor of the "Fool's Journey" to explain the meanings of the major arcana.[84][85]
The work of Eden Gray and others in the 1960s led to an explosion of popularity in tarot card reading beginning in 1969.[67]Stuart R. Kaplan'sU.S. Games Systems, which had been founded in 1968 to import copies of theSwiss 1JJ Tarot, was well positioned to take advantage of this explosion and reissued the then out-of-print Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot in 1970, which has not gone out of print since.[86] Tarot card reading quickly became associated with New Age thought, signaled in part by the popularity ofDavid Palladini's Rider–Waite–Smith-inspired Aquarian Tarot, first issued in 1968.[87] Artists soon began to create their own interpretations of the tarot for artistic purposes rather than purely esoteric ones, such as the Mountain Dream Tarot ofBea Nettles, the first photographic tarot deck, released in 1975.[88]
The 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of a new generation of tarotists, influenced by the writings of Eden Gray and the work of Carl Jung andJoseph Campbell on psychological archetypes. These tarotists sought to apply tarot card reading to personal introspection and growth, and includedMary K. Greer, the author ofTarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey (1984), andRachel Pollack, the author ofSeventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom (1980/1983).[89][90] Tarot cards also began to gain popularity as a divinatory tool in countries like Japan, where hundreds of new decks have been designed in recent years.[91] The democratization of digital publishing in the 2000s and 2010s led to a new explosion of tarot decks as artists became increasingly able to self-publish their own, with the contemporaneous empowerment of feminist, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities providing a ready market for such work.[92][93]
Tarot is often used in conjunction with the study of theHermetic Qabalah.[94] In these decks all the cards are illustrated in accordance with Qabalistic principles, most being influenced by theRider–Waite deck. Its images were drawn by artistPamela Colman Smith, to the instructions of Christian mystic and occultistArthur Edward Waite, and published in 1911.[95]
A difference fromMarseilles-style decks is that Waite and Smith use scenes withesoteric meanings on the suit cards. These esoteric, or divinatory meanings were derived in great part from the writings of theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn group, of which Waite had been a member. The meanings[96] and many of the illustrations[97] showed the influence ofastrology as well as Qabalistic principles.
The following is a comparison of the order and names of theMajor Trumps up to and including the Rider–Waite–Smith and Crowley (Thoth) decks:
| Tarot de Marseille[98] | Court de Gébelin[99] | Etteilla[100] | Paul Christian[101] | Oswald Wirth[102] | Golden Dawn[103] | Rider–Waite–Smith[104] | Book of Thoth (Crowley)[105] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I. The Juggler | I. The Thimblerig / Bateleur | 15. Illness | I. The Magus | 1. The Magician | I. The Magician | I. The Magician | I. The Magus |
| II. The Popess | II. The High Priestess | 8. Female Questioner | II. The Gate of the Sanctuary | 2. The Priestess | II. The High Priestess | II. The High Priestess | II. The Priestess |
| III. The Empress | III. The Queen | 6. Night / Day | III. Isis–Urania | 3. The Empress | III. The Empress | III. The Empress | III. The Empress |
| IV. The Emperor | IV. The King | 7. Protection | IV. The Cubic Stone | 4. The Emperor | IV. The Emperor | IV. The Emperor | IV. The Emperor |
| V. The Pope | V. The High Priest | 13. Marriage / Union | V. The Master of the Mysteries | 5. The Hierophant | V. The Hierophant | V. The Hierophant | V. The Hierophant |
| VI. The Lovers | VI. The Marriage | — | VI. The Two Roads | 6. The Lover | VI. The Lovers | VI. The Lovers | VI. The Lovers |
| VII. The Chariot | VII. Osiris Triumphant | 21. Dissension | VII. The Chariot of Osiris | 7. The Chariot | VII. The Chariot | VII. The Chariot | VII. The Chariot |
| VIII. Justice | VIII. Justice | 9. Justice / Jurist | VIII. Themis | 8. Justice | XI. Justice | XI. Justice | VIII. Adjustment |
| IX. The Hermit | IX. The Sage | 18. Traitor | IX. The Veiled Lamp | 9. The Hermit | IX. The Hermit | IX. The Hermit | IX. The Hermit |
| X. The Wheel of Fortune | X. The Wheel of Fortune | 20. Fortune / Increase | X. The Sphinx | 10. The Wheel of Fortune | X. The Wheel of Fortune | X. Wheel of Fortune | X. Fortune |
| XI. Strength | XI. Strength | 11. Strength / Sovereign | XI. The Tamed Lion | 11. Strength | VIII. Strength | VIII. Strength | XI. Lust |
| XII. The Hanged Man | XII. Prudence | 12. Prudence / The People | XII. The Sacrifice | 12. The Hanged Man | XII. The Hanged Man | XII. The Hanged Man | XII. The Hanged Man |
| XIII. Death | XIII. Death | 17. Mortality / Nothingness | XIII. The Skeleton Reaper | 13. Death | XIII. Death | XIII. Death | XIII. Death |
| XIV. Temperance | XIV. Temperance | 10. Temperance / Priest | XIV. The Two Urns | 14. Temperance | XIV. Temperance | XIV. Temperance | XIV. Art |
| XV. The Devil | XV. Typhon | 14. Great Force | XV. Typhon | 15. The Devil | XV. The Devil | XV. The Devil | XV. The Devil |
| XVI. The Tower | XVI. Castle of Plutus | 19. Misery / Prison | XVI. The Lightning-Struck Tower | 16. The Tower | XVI. The Blasted Tower | XVI. The Tower | XVI. The Tower |
| XVII. The Star | XVII. The Dog Star | 4. Desolation / Air | XVII. The Star of the Magi | 17. The Star | XVII. The Star | XVII. The Star | XVII. The Star |
| XVIII. The Moon | XVIII. The Moon | 3. Water / Comments | XVIII. The Twilight | 18. The Moon | XVIII. The Moon | XVIII. The Moon | XVIII. The Moon |
| XIX. The Sun | XIX. The Sun | 2. Enlightenment / Fire | XIX. The Blazing Light | 19. The Sun | XIX. The Sun | XIX. The Sun | XIX. The Sun |
| XX. Judgement | XX. The Last Judgment | 16. Judgment | XX. The Awakening of the Dead | 20. Judgement | XX. Judgement | XX. Judgement | XX. The Aeon |
| XXI. The World | XXI. Time | 5. Voyage / Earth | XXI. The Crown of the Magi | 21. The World | XXI. The Universe | XXI. The World | XXI. The Universe |
| 0. The Fool | 0. The Fool | 78 (or 0). Folly | 0. The Crocodile | 0. The Fool | 0. The Fool | 0. The Fool | 0. The Fool |
Next to the usage of tarot cards to divine for others by professionalcartomancers, tarot is also used widely as a device for seeking personal guidance and spiritual growth. Practitioners often believe tarot cards can help the individual explore one's spiritual path.[citation needed] A 2025Pew Research Center survey found that 11% of U.S. adults consult tarot cards at least once a year, with most saying they do so primarily for fun rather than for guidance.[106]
People who use the tarot for personal divination may seek insight on topics ranging widely from health or economic issues to what they believe would be best for them spiritually.[107] Thus, the way practitioners use the cards in regard to such personal inquiries is subject to a variety of personal beliefs. For example, some tarot users may believe the cards themselves are magically providing answers, while others may believe a supernatural force or a mystical energy is guiding the cards into a layout.
Alternatively, some practitioners believe tarot cards may be utilized as a psychology tool based on theirarchetypal imagery, an idea often attributed toCarl Jung. Jung wrote, "It also seems as if the set of pictures in the Tarot cards were distantly descended from the archetypes of transformation, a view that has been confirmed for me in a very enlightening lecture by Professor Bernoulli."[108] During a 1933 seminar onactive imagination, Jung described the symbolism he saw in the imagery:[109]
The original cards of the Tarot consist of the ordinary cards, the king, the queen, the knight, the ace, etc., only the figures are somewhat different, and besides, there are twenty-one [additional] cards upon which are symbols, or pictures of symbolical situations. For example, the symbol of the sun, or the symbol of the man hung up by the feet, or the tower struck by lightning, or the wheel of fortune, and so on. Those are sort of archetypal ideas, of a differentiated nature, which mingle with the ordinary constituents of the flow of the unconscious, and therefore it is applicable for an intuitive method that has the purpose of understanding the flow of life, possibly even predicting future events, at all events lending itself to the reading of the conditions of the present moment.
SkepticJames Randi once said that:[110]
For use as a divinatory device, the tarot deck is dealt out in various patterns and interpreted by a gifted "reader." The fact that the deck is not dealt out into the same pattern fifteen minutes later is rationalized by the occultists by claiming that in that short span of time, a person's fortune can change, too. That would seem to call for rather frequent readings if the system is to be of any use whatsoever.
Tarot historian Michael Dummett similarly critiqued occultist uses throughout his various works, remarking that "the history of the esoteric use of Tarot cards is an oscillation between the two poles of vulgar fortune telling and high magic; though the fence between them may have collapsed in places, the story cannot be understood if we fail to discern the difference between the regions it demarcates."[111] As a historian, Dummett held particular disdain for what he called "the most successful propaganda campaign ever launched", noting that "an entire false history, and false interpretation, of the Tarot pack was concocted by the occultists; and it is all but universally believed."[112]
Today, Tarot card reading is commonly used as a spiritual and reflective tool rather than a form of fortune-telling.[citation needed] Many practitioners emphasize intuition, symbolism, and mindfulness.
Many Christian writers discourage divination, including tarot card reading, as deceptive and "spiritually dangerous", citing, for example,Leviticus 19:26 andDeuteronomy 18:9–12 asproof texts.[113][114]
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