 |
|
 | |
 | |
 | |
 | |
 | |
 | |
 | |
 |
Tarot
Extraordinary Stories
As the title well says, there are a multitude of supposedly "true stories" about Tarot. From some cards coming from the XVth century Italy, to more incredible suppositions like their egyptian origin, with legends that include a not yet discovered chamber in the Great Pyramid with another 78 Arcana, to the story of the Tarot as the legacy of the Atlanteans.
I must state, to the desillusion of many, that THERE ARE NO PROOFS of the existency of Tarot before the XVth century, even less of egyptian secrets and the like. Nevertheless, what we DO know, is that around 1450, in the city of Milano, Italy, the Visconti family had a deck made, and some of those cards are still available today. The ordered deck was rich in the imaginery of the time, and was aparently used more for gaming than for reading fortune. It's believed that the Major Arcana represented religious icons or born from the popular beliefs, being the Triumphs, and the Minor Arcana were in charge of representing in their four suits the four social classes society had by then: staves for the peasants, cups for the clergy, swords for nobility, and discs for burguesy.
For a long time so called "serious" ocultists neglected the divinatory uses of them. Waite himself, when writing his treaty on his own deck, adds to the writings on the Minor Arcana several comments on the "supersticious" uses of fortune telling, naming it little more than a country fair trick. But for some reason Tarot stayed as a divinatory tool, as well as kept the four court carts while their relatives french and spanish cards lost the Knight in the first case, and the Queen in the second.
All along the last century have been attempts to remake it, or change the order of the cards, being the most famous the discussion on the interchangeable order of the cards of Justice and Strenght (Major Arcana nrs. 8 and 11). There are also discussion on the position of the Fool: some say it ought to go on nr. 21, for those viewing it from a more psychological point of view it must remain without number. Another attempts answer more to adapting the vision of the designer or drawer to the Tarot than to try to bring it back into a supposed initial and more authentic state.
Regardless of all the attempts to reform it, change it, explain it, or even set it aside as superstition, the Tarot is still among us, and in good health. Used by both psychologists and seers, it's surely to be there exciting our imagination and promising a glimpse of the future to those daring enough to dive into it.
