The Barbara Walker Tarot

MAJOR ARCANA 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 …

In case anyone's interested, my mom still has a bunch of old proof prints of the original card artwork. (The true original canvas-boards became property of U.S.Games, and are probably buried somewhere in the same vast warehouse as the Lost Ark.) Last time I was with her I did a quick layout [definitely not a "spread"] just to see what was there. Larger images with a bit more quality/detail are hosted here . They're about 8 x 10 inches and have clear plastic protective film, but that didn't prevent the photo paper from fading and color-shifting over the years. Some are from before the pips were painted in, before they actually turned into *card* artwork. …

Queen of Wands: Hel 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.

King of Pentacles: Baal 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.

Queen of Pentacles: Erda 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.

Five of Swords: Defeat 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 fa…

21: The World 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.…

20: Judgment 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.

19: The Sun 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.

18: The Moon 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 Cance…

17: The Star 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.

16: The House of God 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 …

15: The Devil 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…

14: Temperance 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.

13: Death 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.

12: The Hanged Man 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 s…

11: Strength 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.

10: The Wheel of Fortune 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 eve…

9: The Hermit 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.

8: Justice 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.

7: The Chariot 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 Ch…

6: The Lovers 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 enlig…

5: The Pope 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.

4: The Emperor 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.

3: The Empress 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.