Why are people afraid of the Tarot?

[Misterei]

7 hours ago, akiva said:

In Sicily they removed all Christian iconography from the tarocco siciliano during 1700s (if I remember correctly). They made it very hellenistic/roman pagan in nature (I'm not sure which tbh).

There's no devil, it has Jupiter/Zeus as judgement, Romulus and Remus as the sun card. Also Atlas as the world card, Selene and Athena also make an appearance!

@akiva I stand corrected. This actually happened with some French decks, too. They had to remove Pape and Papesse and replace them with Jupiter and Juno (???) or something similar b/c the Church got mad. So yes, this "paganization" happened first 1n 1700s ... not 2000s.

 

Still, it strikes me as ironic ... that modern people automatically think of Tarot as New Age-y and forget that these cards arose in a VERY Catholic milieux.

[akiva]

@Misterei it really is ironic. I think mostly because when you say "tarot" peoples minds dont immediately go to historical tarot. They'll remember the more new agey kinds of decks. Which have moved beyond Christian symbols for the most part.

[Guest]

On 1/28/2019 at 4:13 PM, River said:

He is especially afraid of the suit of pentacles even though I have explained to him that pentacles are not always about Satan.

Actually, the way I was always taught is PentaCLES point upwards and represent the higher plane and/or spiritual matters. PentaGRAMS point down and deal with the lower plane and/or physical matters. Neither of them are about Satan. The Pentagram has been misappropriated as a Satanic symbol because it applies to the lower/base/physical realm.

[Dreamreader]

If I had to boil it down to any one thing, it's the unease with all things Fate-related, which any divination method is. That unease, I've found, manifests as any Tarot reading that takes place HAS to happen as laid out by the cards/reader (not how it works, but that is another topic). Add in Biblical injunctions against fortune-tellers in general and "evil" becomes the default assumption. Tends to suit the powers-that-be quite well.

[Morwenna]

I agree, fear is the biggie; heck, I don't even want predictive readings for myself anymore! Even though I know readings are not carved in stone.

 

An observation about religion: here in the US, it seems that the group with the most fear of perceived evil are the "low-church" Protestants. You don't hear that much squawking from Catholics, at least at one time you didn't, because so many of them came from countries where the folk tradition of fortune-telling was so strong. I know that churches have borne down heavily on that sort of thing, but, say, in my parents' generation, card reading and palm reading and so on were the norm and the people simply ignored the clergy on that topic. More recent generations have probably been influenced by their more Puritan Protestant neighbors, particularly in smaller towns. And many of those Protestants feel the same way about Catholics as they would about Pagans!

 

This could get into a whole sociological thing so I'll stop here. But how do you combat fear? We try to do it all the time, as readers and as ordinary folks.

[Guest]

On 6/7/2024 at 5:39 AM, Morwenna said:

You don't hear that much squawking from Catholics, at least at one time you didn't, because so many of them came from countries where the folk tradition of fortune-telling was so strong. I know that churches have borne down heavily on that sort of thing, but, say, in my parents' generation, card reading and palm reading and so on were the norm and the people simply ignored the clergy on that topic.

 

This is so true. I surmise that in many countries colonized in the name of the Holy Cross, it is this strange adaptability by a paradoxically dogmatic Catholic Church that enticed the initial waves of natives into their fold, and that allowed them to still wield a strong influence even centuries later. 

 

In truth, you cannot really tell how a Christian would react to divination. I know normal, everyday Catholics that would never traffick with the Tarot. I also know of some intensely devout convent-bred ladies who maybe interpret the Scripture differently, and who thus regard fortune-telling as far from verboten. In this way, religion may either entice or turn one away from the cards, although the latter is of course more probable. 

 

I think that for most people though, it is the very preternatural nature of scrying into the future that unsettles them. Knowledge is power, and just acknowledging that a person can divine many things about you, your situation, your future, etc. - well that's enough to make people very wary. We hate evil portents, and readings do not always bring good tidings.