Jimkost Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 Are tarot cards mostly occult in nature? I mean do they best work under an apocryphistic point of view or do they work in the same way for all purposes?
PathWalker Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 Would you like to define the word apocryphistic for us JimKost? Not sure I know what you're meaning. Thanks Pathwalker
Raggydoll Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 I moved this thread for you so that it sits in the right area 🙂 And I’m also wondering what you mean by that term. Do you mean that tarot represents a tradition or a belief that sits outside of the accepted and objective perception of truth and history etc?
katrinka Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 (edited) 57 minutes ago, Jimkost said: Are tarot cards mostly occult in nature? Nobody knows the intent behind the things in the early decks. Maybe they were meant to subtly convey esoteric concepts, but although everyone has a pet theory or two, nothing has been proven. People started noticing these things, though, and were inspired to create tables of correspondences, and occult Tarots. Quote I mean do they best work under an apocryphistic point of view or do they work in the same way for all purposes? By "apocryphistic point of view", do you mean with an eye towards the once-hidden concepts of the Golden Dawn, etc.? Or just viewing it in a critical manner, as something unofficial? A lot of the way that they work depends on the reader. I'd advise anyone who wants to use the Thoth to familiarize themselves with Crowley's writing, for instance. But there are other decks/methods that incorporate far fewer occult correspondences It's also important to remember that fortune telling wasn't really Crowley's motivation for commissioning the deck. He thought they should be used for meditation and the like. So when the cards are on the reading table, your concerns are much more pragmatic. The occult stuff is just the card concepts, seen from various angles: Qabalistic, astrological, etc. Edited December 17, 2019 by katrinka
Jimkost Posted December 17, 2019 Author Posted December 17, 2019 Thank you for your answer. Maybe my wording was wrong, please forgive me if my posts do not make sense at some points but english is not my mother tongue. I meant if their initial purpose (when they were created) was to work under the influence of the so-called "dark/black arts", or if they were originally meant for malicious purposes (i.e. revealing only misfortune for someone).
Raggydoll Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 9 minutes ago, Jimkost said: Thank you for your answer. Maybe my wording was wrong, please forgive me if my posts do not make sense at some points but english is not my mother tongue. I meant if their initial purpose (when they were created) was to work under the influence of the so-called "dark/black arts", or if they were originally meant for malicious purposes (i.e. revealing only misfortune for someone). No. Tarot cards were originally made for playing card games.
katrinka Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 5 hours ago, Jimkost said: Thank you for your answer. Maybe my wording was wrong, please forgive me if my posts do not make sense at some points but english is not my mother tongue. I meant if their initial purpose (when they were created) was to work under the influence of the so-called "dark/black arts", or if they were originally meant for malicious purposes (i.e. r revealing only misfortune for someone). What @Raggydoll said. They were created as a gaming deck. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot If there are any esoteric/occult concepts concealed in the old decks at all, they relate to things like philosophy and religion, nothing sinister.
Barleywine Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 As I understand it, the 56 minor and court cards were used in "trick-taking" card games and the 22 major cards were added to the gaming deck later, possibly for the sole purpose of "trumping" any of the other cards in the deck during play. I also read somewhere along the way that the trumps may have been used to teach moral lessons to French school-children. It seems that esoteric assumptions began with Court de Gebelin and picked up steam with Etteilla. Whether anyone linked the 22 trumps to the 22 Hebrew letters before that is an open question, with most scholars I've read saying it's unlikely. I've never read anywhere that the tarot may have been created for dubious arcane purposes.
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