Through
the ages, the Tarot cards themselves have seen numerous changes, but
the interpretations have almost always remained the same. The circle
of knowledge has now come to the computer age in which many have tried
to bridge the gap between the physical and the metaphysical with little
or no success. In my research I have attempted to finally bridge that
gap.
This program is a culmination of many years research and development.
When doing my readings I discovered that my own emotional energies
were influencing the cards. I began to tell my quarants what they
wanted to hear and not what the cards were saying. So to solve this
problem, I wrote this program to keep the human factor of personal
emotions out of the interpretations and give the querent an actual
answer to their question. I now present the culmination of my work.
The Tarot and it's Symbols have existed since time immemorial in the
minds and souls of human beings, but not until papermaking and printing
became established in Europe was it possible to portray those mighty
symbols on cards. Their meanings were known to medieval people, most
of whom were illiterate, through the processions that took place in
the courtyards of castles. Thus, the first Tarot cards had neither
numbers nor letters.
The processions moved around the courtyard in a circular motion, which
suggests the symbolism of the wheel. So it is not surprising that
"The Wheel of Fortune" card (or "La Fortune")
corresponds to the number 10 -- which is the 1 plus the 0, indicating
that the circle has been completed one time.
The circle moved from left to right, counterclockwise, an allusion
to the ages of the world, with its divisions lasting about 2100 years.
After the Age of Pisces, for example, we enter the Age of Aquarius.
Because of that backwards motion, many people believed that the Tarot
should be read backwards, from the last card to the first. But the
Tarot forms a circle, and that is why we can enter from any position
and jump from one form of development to a totally different one.
In the realm of the spirit there can be no hierarchical sequence of
the type that human beings invent in order to hold to their logic
and reason in the realm of "reality." The Tarot allows us
to look beyond logic and to experience a breath of the spirit which
it came.
About A.D. 1300, the Tarot was mentioned in an official document,
and at the end of the century, the French king Charles VI commissioned
cards to be made for a court game. Only a few cards remain from this
first set. The deck of cards with the most surviving cards was commissioned
around 1450, for the marriage of Bianca Visconti and Francesco Sforza.
The background of the colorful, hand painted cards is of chiseled
gold leaf. Because of the expense of producing the cards, they were
probably never used. A reprint of this deck is available today. The
missing cards were artfully replaced by Luigi Scapini. It is the Visconti-Sforza
deck (available here in your reading).
In western Europe, during the late Middle Ages and up until the Age
of Enlightenment, many card games were printed based on the model
of the first French deck. Spelling mistakes came about because the
first typesetters were sometimes illiterate.
In 1781, Count de Gebelin discovered connections between the allegories
of the game and the Egyptian teachings of initiation, the Book of
Thoth. Even though these connections have not been proven, there is
little doubt that there is a link to the collective unconscious.
Since that time, occultists have been drawn to the Tarot -- including
such famous names as Eliphas Levi, Etteilla, Papus, Oswald Wirth, the
Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and Arthur E Waite. In
many countries the fascination with the Tarot never lessened. In others,
it resurfaced in the 1960s, among those who tried to better understand
the meaning of life and the expansion of consciousness.
Today the Rider-Waite deck is the most popular and widely known pack.
It has the advantage of having pictures on all the cards, which makes
for easier interpretation. Recently, many other decks have been published,
all trying to embellish the cards in different way, but still in accord
with their meanings. I leave it up to you to find the tarot cards
that attract you most.
Often, using two or even more decks will help you to strengthen your
associations. Some people work with several decks in order to inspire
their soul with more pictures. Our souls love images, but today we
have, to a large degree, blocked access to the soul and the handling
of symbols. Strengthened by the picture material, we can slowly reopen
the choked access. Through this process, the Tarot images will find
corresponding reflections in our souls and free us to use our abilities
again.
I hope that you, while reading and laying out the cards, will communicate
with the pictures in your soul with the help of the Tarot, and that
you will enjoy it's effect on your life.
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