I am actually looking to pass these to a good home, rather than throw them out, unless they're just not worth bothering with.  As material to display in a home, for example, they'd be a little disappointing due to condition.

_H*

0. The Fool

1. The Magician

2. The Papess

3. The Empress

4. The Emperor

5. The Pope

6. The Lovers

7. The Chariot

8. Justice

9. The Hermit

10. The Wheel Of  Fortune

11. Strength

12. The Hanged Man

13. Death

14. Temperance

15. The Devil

16. The House of God

17. The Star

18. The Moon

19. The Sun

20. Judgment

21. The World

MINOR ARCANA

WANDS

• Ace of Wands: Power
• Two of Wands: Alliance
• Three of Wands: Fate
• Four of Wands: Success
• Five of Wands: Impasse
• Six of Wands: Glory
• Seven of Wands: Challenge
• Eight of Wands: Fall
• Nine of Wands: Defense
• Ten of Wands: Oppression

• Princess of Wands: Atargatis
• Prince of Wands: Dagon
• Queen of Wands: Hel
• King of Wands: Valraven

CUPS

• Ace of Cups: Love
• Two of Cups: Romance
• Three of Cups: Grace
• Four of Cups: Decline
• Five of Cups: Regret
• Six of Cups: Childhood
• Seven of Cups: Dream
• Eight of Cups: Loss
• Nine of Cups: Happiness
• Ten of Cups: Salvation

• Princess of Cups: Elaine
• Prince of Cups: Galahad
• Queen of Cups: Virginal
• King of Cups: Dewi

SWORDS

• Ace of Swords: Doom
• Two of Swords: Balance
• Three of Swords: Sorrow
• Four of Swords: Seclusion
• Five of Swords: Defeat
• Six of Swords: Passage
• Seven of Swords: Opposition
• Eight of Swords: Disillusion
• Nine of Swords: Cruelty
• Ten of Swords: Ruin

• Princess of Swords: Skuld
• Prince of Swords: Tyr
• Queen of Swords: Kali
• King of Swords: Yama

PENTACLES

• Ace of Pentacles: Reward
• Two of Pentacles: Change
• Three of Pentacles: Work
• Four of Pentacles: Avarice
• Five of Pentacles: Hardship
• Six of Pentacles: Charity
• Seven of Pentacles: Failure
• Eight of Pentacles: Learning
• Nine of Pentacles: Accomplishment
• Ten of Pentacles: Protection

• Princess of Pentacles: Nimue
• Prince of Pentacles: Merlin
• Queen of Pentacles: Erda
• King of Pentacles: Baal

MISCELLANEOUS

• The Barbara Walker Tarot

July 2022 - Mod Note: Updated the index with the current forum software link format thanks to gregory. Contact me if you want to update/add to this index post again in future - Dan

The Queen of the Dead, with her serpent, reveals her underground fire pit that used to be likened to the boiling Cauldron of Regeneration. The Viking’s fiery Mother Hel, or Holle, wears a sprig of her sacred holly, which was displayed each year at the Yule midwinter solstice to signify the rebirth of the sun from her deep infernus. As Queen of Wands she stands for fiery qualities: warmth, ardor, illumination, benevolence, comfort, accompanied by danger of destructiveness if she is not treated respectfully.

The mountain god holds the star of knowledge in his head, on a bleak, rocky summit, difficult of ascent. Only men willing to struggle to the mountaintops could learn secrets of the Baals (Middle Eastern gods). Mount Sinai, allegedly ascended by Moses, belonged to the Baal named Sin, Moon-god of the Sinai peninsula. He also ruled volcanoes, appearing (in biblical language) as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day, and as “the Rock that begat thee.” Baal means “the Lord.” His card means rocklike stability, tenacity, reliability, heaviness, sternness, authority.

Mother Earth, as a Paleolithic Goddess figure, stands above a sacred cave in moonlight. Primitive worshipers dance around a fire at her feet. The world’s earliest artworks show the Goddess in this guise. Some of her earliest European names were Eartha, Erda, Edda, Hretha, Hertha, Eorth, Urth, Urd, Wurd, Wyrd, and Weird. Like her exaggerated maternal characteristics, her card represents overwhelmingly “earthy” or material blessings; fecundity, abundance, generosity, support, comfort, creative inspiration, nurturing warmth.

Hanging on his sacrificial tree, the god gives blood from the wound in his side to the Fatal Women, who spin it into the red thread of life. The three Marys at the foot of Jesus’s cross were paralleled in Norse myth by the three Norns at the foot of the World Tree where Odin hung, wounded in his side, waiting to attain his godhood. The three were also the Greeks’ Moerae or Fates: Spinner, Measurer, and Cutter of life’s thread. They ruled even gods, who won divinity by submitting to defeat and death. Odin takes the part of the card’s traditional Lord of Defeat, representing self-abasement, passive endurance, swallowing of pride, submission to fate.

A naked woman dances in an encircling wreath, surrounded by female versions of the Wheel of Fortune totems: a lioness, a cow, a she-eagle, and a female fairy. As the tarot’s true Last Trump, this is the vision of a sage’s final moments, when he hopes to enter the being of the Great Shakti (Goddess). The tarot’s true message seems to be salvation through the female principle, “the Generative Womb of All, the Beginning and End of Beings.” The Goddess’s legs form the same figure as the Hanged Man’s, since she is the dancer in the heart known as the Female Soul. Her card is also called Shekina, Sophia, Eve, Truth, Mother Nature, the Bride, and the Universe. It is interpreted as completion, perfection, ultimate knowledge, true union, and return to vital beings.

On the next-to-last trump card, an angel blows the Last Trump to summon the dead from their graves. He might be Michael, Gabriel, or the pagan doomsday god Rig-Heimdall with his Gjellarhorn, announcing the end of the world as Ragnarok (Götterdämmerung), when the Goddess would pronounce her death curse on the violent gods of this universe and reabsorb them into her dark shadow-self. Folks that she saved would be the seeds of the next life. Thus, this conventional Judgment scene could be pagan, Christian, or even Hindu—the origin of all. It means final decisions, choices, resurrected hopes, help from higher-ups.

A naked little girl and boy dance together by a garden wall, under a golden sun: they are the innocent Eve and Adam of a new creation, after the end of the present universe. They are like the female called Life and the male called Desirer-of-Life in Aryan/Scandinavian mythology. Their hortus conclusus (enclosed garden) is the new Eden under a new daughter of the old sun, Glory-of-Elves, who was eaten by the doomsday wolf. The Sun stands for a rejuvenated self, a word seen with fresh vision, another chance, joyous innocence, spiritual rebirth.

Two dogs howl at a full moon ringed by nine blood drops. A path leads between two pylons into darkness. A crab perches in the middle of a dark pool. Called the dogs of Hecate in Greece, Anubis-jackals in Egypt, lunar wolves or Moon-dogs in the north, two canines traditionally guard the gates of death, which leads to the moon. It was once thought all souls went to the Moon-mother to be regenerated. Hence the blood drops: one for each “hidden” menstrual period, as moon-blood forms new life in the womb. The crab is a more universal death symbol. The ancient world everywhere believed doomsday would come when the planets lined up in the constellation of Cancer, the Crab. This idea may have contributed to general fear of the Moon card, called a crisis of faith, a dark night of the soul, intimations of destruction, terror of the unknown.

A naked woman pours water from two vessels simultaneously into a stream and onto the earth. Overhead a large star shines, attended by seven smaller stars. The two “feminine” elements of earth and water unite in an icon of the Goddess called Star (Astarte, Esther, Ostara, Astraea, Eostre, Stella Maris). Her personal priestesses were star-souls, the Seven Sisters (Pleiades), or Pillars of the Temple, or Seven Pillars of Wisdom, or (in India) the Seven Mothers of the Word. The Star means renewal of fertility, release of the waters of regeneration, blessings poured out on the world or within the soul.

Also known as the Lightning-Struck Tower, this card shows a lightning bolt breaking the tower’s crown, while two figures fall from the wreck. It may have referred to medieval Europe’s ecclesiastical establishment, sometimes called the Proud Tower, as well as the House of God. A popular prophecy of the fourteenth century predicted destruction of the totalitarian Holy Roman Empire, church and state, by the enlightening lightning god Lucifer; thus, the two falling figures could be pope and emperor. The card refers to the overthrow of old, outworn habits by a new, perhaps painful readjustment, the destruction of pride, the sweeping away of too-rigid structures.

In traditional pose, the Devil occupies a dais between two humans. Standard symbols include his goat feet and horns, pointed ears, black candles, flaming torch, downward-pointing pentacle, and the finger-pose representing the horned head. As Lucifer, the Devil was revered by Gnostics who adopted the Persian idea that God and the Devil were twin brothers, the latter unjustly exiled from heaven by his tyrannical twin. Even the orthodox admitted that both were needed in their dualistic religion. If the bright deity was not to be held responsible for evil, then the dark deity had to be there to take the blame. The tarot Devil recalls the early mystery cults’ requisite meeting with the Lord of the Underworld, who would expound his secrets; he seems to be teaching. He represents physical and sexual forces, unconscious fears or desires, the power of the id, new self-knowledge in areas formerly suppressed.

With one foot in water and one foot on earth (the two “female” elements), a winged female angel pours water from one vessel to another. She suggests the transforming power of perfect love, which Asian sages likened to “the pouring of water into water.” She was the “mixer” (Latin temperare) of elements, yielding each person’s “temperament.” The card also refers to tempor, a time period, or due season. Temperance may have been the winged spirit of tempus, Time, who, like Death, waits for no man. Her card means mingling of elements, joining, togetherness, group activity, creative effort.

The classic Grim Reaper, a skeleton with a scythe, mows a field of human heads. “Grim” used to mean a mask. The masked and costumed Death figure, also called Macabre, performed the danse macabre as a stock character in medieval mystery plays. His tarot card was often unlabeled, due to a superstitious belief that to speak or write Death’s name was to invoke him. His “unlucky” number 13 refers to the last lunar month, which leads to a new cycle of rebirth. His card means an end leading to another beginning, transformation, change, or destruction.

A man dressed like the Fool hangs from a beam between two trees by one leg, the other leg bent in the Hermetic figure-4 position. His hands are bound behind his back, but his facial expression is peaceful. Bunches of grapes hang with him, suggesting sacraments of Dionysus. Two towers appear in a landscape like that of the Moon card. Hanging by one leg was the medieval custom of “baffling,” a nonlethal punishment bringing disgrace, like a sojourn in the stocks. Like the ritual humiliation in many types of initiation, this may have been a symbolic death-and-rebirth, designed to make the novice hear his own heartbeat, which Asian mystics called “the sound of power.” The basis of all rhythm, it is heard even by fetal ears in the womb. The heart’s inner “dance” was the dancing god in Chidambaram, the Cave of the Heart. In ancient Egypt, a figure with one leg bent like the Hanged Man’s was the hieroglyphic sign of dancing and of the Mother-given heart-soul (ab). The Hanged Man’s gallows dance is therefore a mock martyrdom, interpreted as a sacrifice for a good purpose, patient endurance, silent suffering, life at a low ebb.

Wearing the same lemniscate hat as the Magician, a woman forces open a lion’s mouth while a vulture looks on. The Goddess of Strength opens the second decade of trumps, the “feminine,” spiritual realm, as the Magician opens the first, “masculine,” secular grouping. The lion’s mouth is an ancient symbol of the underworld gate, attended by the vulture. Strength is needed for trials to come. She gives inner fortitude, the courage to endure, the determination to reach the goal.

In mid-space between earth and starry heaven, three figures ride the wheel. At the top sits a female Justice in Egyptian dress, with an ankh and sword. A naked man climbs, wearing the hawk head of Horus, the ascendant sun. Another naked man falls, wearing the ass head of Set, the declining season. The card’s corners bear symbols of the four elements and the four seasonal turning points of the zodiacal wheel: lion, bull, eagle, angel. The sky shows part of the galactic star-wheel (Milky Way) once thought to have poured from the Goddess’s breasts (Greek gala means “mother’s milk”). The Wheel represents a turning point in time, the change of every fortune, and signals a shift from the material sphere (first half of the Major Arcana) to the spiritual or subconscious sphere (second half), the realm of deeper secrets. It brings a change in outlook, unfamiliar territory, a reversal of direction.

Bearing a lantern and a Hermetic caduceus-staff, an old man begins a journey into the dark, in the opposite direction from that of the Fool. He suggests the lone pilgrimage into the mystical realm of the unconscious, recommended by Asian religions. This journey takes place in one’s later life, after the duties of marriage, parenthood, and secular achievement. The Hermit’s staff invokes the Psychopomp, or “Conductor of Souls.” His lantern symbolizes the quest for enlightenment. His card means isolation, meditation, rejection of secular concerns, delving into the unconscious, self-imposed exile or solitude, a process of rehabilitation.

Under the All-Seeing Eye, a throned woman wearing feathers of Maat holds a balance and retributive sword. Maat was Egypt’s Mother of Truth, who weighed each deceased soul against her feather in the balance. If the soul was heavy with sins, it couldn’t enter paradise. Like Maat, the Goddess Libra or Justice demands payment of the proud charioteer’s karmic debt. Accounts can be balanced by voluntary renunciation of worldly glory, shown by the next card, the Hermit. Justice’s numeral 8 is the lemniscate symbol of perfect equilibrium. She stands for compensation, fairness, rationality, clear vision, payment of debts, punishment of the guilty.

Under a starry canopy, a crowned man rides in a golden chariot bearing the glyph of Mercury. He has no reins to control his contrasting-colored horses, which seem to be wandering off in opposite directions. Following the card of marriage, he represents youthful complacency and pride in life’s early successes, but his lack of reins hints that he is not in control of his fate. The ancients used chariot images to remind each triumphant hero that his glory couldn’t last forever. “The road of the chariot” also means the road to death. The tarot’s black and white horses (sometimes sphinxes) stand for uncontrollable drives and the vicissitudes of life. The Chariot means material success, achievement or transitory splendor, perhaps attended by brashness or arrogance.

A man between two women, an elder and a younger, and the love god aiming his arrow, form this card’s traditional group. The Lovers has been interpreted as a young man’s choice between mother and wife, body and spirit, virtue and vice, and so on. Because the elder figure is female, patriarchal interpreters preferred not to view her as the officiating authority at a wedding. However, elder priestesses did conduct weddings among gypsies and other non-Christian groups, and the winged Eros or Cupid indicates a marriage service, Decorative flower garlands also hint at the Asian doctrine of “husbandship” (bhavanan) considered necessary to the progressive enlightenment of a sage. Thus the card implies marriage, sexuality, maturity, and the establishment of secure emotional relationships.

With tiara, gloves, and a papal staff, the Pope sits between two pillars that support air, a tiny devil peeking around one of them. Two acolytes kneel at his feet, corresponding to two devotees on the matching Devil card. As a holy man, the tarot’s Pope is identified as much with a pagan high priest, a hierophant, the Mithraic Pater Patri, or even the phallic father-god of Rome, as with the Christian pontiff. His card means spiritual authority, moral law, or political power plays; perhaps excessive rigidity or intolerance verging on fanaticism.

With his right leg crossing his left like a figure 4, the Emperor sits on a cube, his eagle-decorated shield beside him, a scepter in his right hand, and an orb in his left. His curious, long-brimmed hat traditionally shows a fleur-de-lis crown. Scepter and orb are male-and-female symbols of the sacred marriage between a male ruler and the Goddess of his land, which made it possible for him to rule. Barren mountains and a flight of carrion crows suggest the ruler’s eventual death when his powers fail. The Emperor stands for male authority, law-giving power, fatherhood, guidance, stern judgment, perhaps oppression or tyranny.

Wearing a white gown and a star tiara, the Empress sits by a waterfall with her emblems: fruit, flowers, grass, grain, pearls, a cave, a dove, an eagle-decorated shield, and a banner with a white horse, recalling Demeter-Leukippe, the White Mare. She is pre-eminently the tarot’s lawgiving Earth Mother figure, symbolizing Demeter-like abundance, fecundity, richness, protection, creativity, and timeless wisdom.