Alternative Religion/ Library

CHAPTER I

For five centuries or more Tarot cards have been used in Europe , ostensibly for games and fortune-telling, but really to preserve the essentials of a secret doctrine. They form a symbolic alphabet of the ancient wisdom, and to their influence upon the minds of a few enlightened thinkers we may trace the modern revival of interest in that wisdom.

This revival may be said to date from 1854, when Eliphas Levi published Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, the first of a series of occult books in which he named the Tarot as his most important source of information. His influence appears in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky; it pervades the teachings of the French occult school, headed by Papus (Dr. Gerard Encausse); it is developed for English readers in the works of S. L. MacGregor Mathers, A. E. Waite, Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, and others; it enters the New Thought movement in various ways, notably through the essays of Judge Troward, and it even extends to Scottish Rite Masonry in the United States, by way of Albert Pike's Morals and Dogma, which repeats verbatim passage after passage from Levi's Dogme et Rituel.

Levi's opinion of the Tarot was very high. He recommended it to occult students as a key to all mysteries. "A prisoner devoid of books," he declared, "had he only a Tarot of which he knew how to make use, could in a few years acquire a universal science, and converse with an unequalled doctrine and inexhaustible eloquence.

My aim is to show my readers how to use the Tarot. An exhaustive treatment of this subject would fill many volumes; but I hope to fulfill the promise of my title by giving a concise explanation of the general plan of the Tarot, and a brief interpretation of its emblems. Let it be understood, however, that this is merely an outline. which the student must complete with the results of his own observation and meditation.

A Tarot pack contains seventy-eight cards. Fifty-six - minor trumps, or lesser arcana - are divided into four suits: wands (clubs), cups (hearts), swords (spades) and pentacles (diamonds). Each suit includes four court cards - king, queen, knight and page - and ten spot cards, numbered from ace to ten. The spots, usually grouped in geometrical designs, are sometimes combined with pictures illustrating the divinatory meanings of the cards. The rest of the pack - major trumps, or greater arcana - is a series of symbolic pictures. Each has a special title, and bears a number.

The doctrine behind these symbols has assumed many forms. The Vedas are its oldest literary expression, but it was known, and transmitted orally from generation to generation, long before the Vedas passed into writing. In one sense it is that true Christian religion which, according to St. Augustine , always existed, and only began to be called Christian after the time of Jesus. It is the truth taught by such organized schools as the Rosicrucians and Craft Masonry, and by the Great School from which these and other similar societies have proceeded. It is veiled also by the symbols of alchemy and astrology. Hence the Tarot speaks many languages, and its emblems are full of meaning to every student of the ancient mysteries, no matter by what path he may have approached the truth which is at the heart of them all. Yet, though its symbolism is catholic, because it expresses universal ideas, the Tarot also represents a particular version of the sacred science, It is a symbolic alphabet of the occult philosophy of Israel -an emblematic synthesis of the Qabalah.

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