​ I recently used this photo as an image for 'The Lovers' as part of an Instagram tarot challenge for the month of October. I liked the idea of two old farts representing the Lovers instead of two youngins. I had this image in mind when I asked a total stranger walking by to capture this exact image.

We were in Vermont for a few days to check out the pretty fall colors. I learned that the locals call us 'Leaf Peepers.' We don't care, we call them 'Shoobies' when they visit our beaches in the summer. So it all comes out in the wash.

Part of our trip was also spent in West Point, NY. My husband is a retired military officer with over thirty years service, so it was natural for him to want to visit West Point Academy and take a tour. His service was in the Air Force, not the Army, but it doesn't matter. They are all comrades.

We chose a two-hour tour which included a tour of the cemetery, which he of course knew I would enjoy.

During the tour, we did our own thing, taking photos, occassionally talking to others. Another woman on the tour seemed to take a fancy to my husband, At least, from my perspective it appeared that everywhere he was, she was right there. Being an Intel guy, he knows a lot of military trivia and details and she was asking him a lot of questions. Typically, he enjoys meeting people and chatting with them, but what I didn't know was that she was driving him nuts and he couldn't shake her loose. 

At some point, she sought me out in the crowd. She approached me abruptly, and got in my face and demanded to know what my interests were. I mean really, she demanded. I'm a pretty private person, not one to tell a stranger my life-story. I hesitated when she asked, I smiled at her and changed the subject. She was relentless, "Surely, you have not sacrificed your life to follow him all over the world without having your own interests." "Surely you're your own person." She started pissing me off because her tone was dismissive of me. She was making assumptions and generalizations about me, like I'm some sort of passive woman who lets her husband chat with other women on tours. She had a preconceived notion that the wife of an officer must fit a certain mold, and that I've been his wife for thirty years and not that we are practically newlyweds with only a few years under our belts.

She demanded, "What are your skills, don't you have any hobbies that interest you? Surely you have your own identity." Oh man, I wanted nothing to do with her. I tried to walk away, but her legs were about two feet longer than mine and there was no escape. I could have turned the tables and asked her what she did and what her interests were, but I decided to have a little fun with her.

I have many interests, and after fifty seven years on the planet I could have shared any number of 'safe' and 'acceptable' interests that I have, art, writing, decorating, photography, or creating beautiful ceremonial objects for weddings. I could have mentioned my love of nature, building dollhouses, or any number of things.

But finally, and uncharacteristically, I turned to her and said, "I'm a tarot reader, I read tarot cards and I am also an ordained minister who officiates weddings for pagan couples." (Now truth be told, I am a non-denominational minister and I write custom wedding ceremonies for any couple who requests my services, pagan couples being among them, but I suspected that the word 'pagan' would freak her out because she genuflected when we entered each of the chapels. Yeah, I know, the devil made me do it.

I was a bit concerned that my husband might be annoyed with me, outing him as the husband of a 'tarot reader' and shattering the myth that she had in her mind about us as a 'proper' military couple. But as it turns out he was delighted by my response and almost choked trying to stifle his laughter. She retreated immediately, never to approach either of us again. We figured she was scared sh*tless that I'd put a hex on her.

OK, to be more accurate the title of this article should be: The Idiosyncrasies of This Tarot Reader.

The idiosyncrasies of a tarot reader are as personal as the way one interprets the cards. Even if the idiosyncrasies of one reader would make my skin crawl, if it is right for her or him, then it is right.

I feel I have had a great advantage in the way I learned tarot, which was being self-taught. There were no online tarot resources with 'authorities' imposing thought on me, very few tarot books in suburban Philadelphia mall bookstores, (and not too many in the local library either), no sage auntie in my family though my paternal great grandmother was known to be a reader of tea leaves (but she died decades before my birth). So I have had the great advantage of being from a generation of readers able to learn and establish our own routines and well, idiosyncrasies of tarot.

It will be interesting to hear from you, the reader, to know if we share any common habits, or if there are any that you adhere to that I have failed to mention. 

Here goes my list!

**I wash my hands before touching the cards. I wash my hands because I respect my tools. Washing my hands signals to me that I'm about to handle something very special. When I used to work in the corporate world, the first thing I'd do after walking through the threshold of my home after a day at work was to take a shower. It symbollically washed away that outer world and all the 'stuff' that clung to me. I have always felt that my home was my sanctuary, and that 'stuff' had to go down the drain. So that is part of my tarot routine; a cleansing ritual that ensures my hands are cleared of other stuff not related to the reading I am about to do. (It also means I will not soil my cards with residual food or grease etc.) I admit to being a bit of a fanatic about clean hands.

**If I am reading for a client in person, I request she/he to wash their hands as well. No one has ever refused this which fascinates me. I ask this of them to signal to them that something special is about to happen. Naturally, this only happens when I am reading from my own home, or go to theirs. It is far more difficult to request hand washing at an event or public location but I don't do those much anymore so it's a non issue for me. (Back when I did do them, I always had baby wipes on hand and I only used an inexpensive deck designated for event readings.) 

**I used to allow my querents to handle my cards. I used to invite them to shuffle and mix them. Then it went to only having them cut the deck or choosing the cards from a fan. For the last decade or so, I do not invite anyone to handle my cards and I will explain my reasons if asked:

My cards are my instrument, just as my paint brushes are to me as an artist. An artist can create a portrait of an individual so personal and meaningful to the individual without the person ever handling the brushes or mixing the paint. The subject trusts the artist to capture their essence without ever expecting to handle the tools of the artist's trade. There is no interference between the artist and her tools. A musician can create music so personally meaningful that it can bring one to tears, and yet no one would request tuning the musician's instrument for him. Both the artist and the musician has an audience, as does the tarot reader. When I read the cards for an individual, I am trusted to use my tools to interpret the cards for their personal benefit. I am very clear on this point.

(In the event that someone gets all excited about a particular card and reaches for it during a reading, I have already had them wash their hands before the reading so there is no risk of soiling the cards or getting potato chip grease on them, etc.)  Along these same lines there is no eating or drinking in my tarot area. I keep this area clean and sacred and there is no place for cookie crumbs and spilled coffee.

**Before the reading I ask my client to articulate their question, in fact, I ask them to write it down exactly as they want to ask it. It is irrelevant to me if they share their question with me or not. I do this because it is more important for them to know exactly what it is that they want to know! I make them commit to paper what they want to know. Some will tell me their question and others will not. At this point I tell them to apply everything I say to an aspect of their question. Naturally, it is easier for me to know the question so that I may apply the cards as it relates to their question, but sometimes without knowing the question, influences and hindrances appear that might not be part of the initial question. Sometimes a reading is more insightful if I do not know their specific question. I only need them to know it. 

**If I am doing a remote reading, and I do a lot of those, it is important for there to be a palpable connection between the client and myself. I request that they prepare themselves for a reading by taking deep breathes, shaking out tension and isolating what it is that they want to know. Within my tarot space (and I have an entire room dedicated to only tarot so there are no distractions), I take a meditative posture, literally shake out all distractions, and read and speak the client's question while handling the cards. I breath in and out until I fully grasp and connect with the client's question and need. 

**The following idiosyncrasy goes back to my roots. Back when I started reading, the primary spread available was the Celtic Cross, which is awesome, and maybe a three card past, present and future spread which I always though was kind of lame. So, I created my own spreads for just about every category. When a client told me their question I had multiple spreads for it. If a client doesn't tell me the specifics of their question but they do tell me the general category, I have spreads for that too. I keep these spreads in my Little Gold Book that has been with me since the beginning. When a person requests an online reading I choose which three, four, or five card spread I will use from this book. The more detailed eight, ten or more card spreads like the Celtic Cross, are also in my Little Gold Book, some are mine and others I have modified from other sources.

**I invite my querent to sit anywhere around the table that they prefer. Most sit to my side.

**Before the reading I focus on the nature of the question, repeat it over and over in my mind if I am told the specifics, and take my mind to a place where all I think of is the individual and what they need me to understand in order to give them the best possible interpretation of the cards. This is done internally, the querent may or not be aware that I am doing it, but they probably suspect I'm up to something because my eyes are usually closed.

**When I feel that I got it right in my mind, and when the cards feel rightly mixed, for some unknown reason, I tap the back of the deck twice, and lay the cards.

**As for my spatial idiosyncrasies (as illustrated by my photo) my reading cloth or mat is always a solid color unless I'm traveling and have no other options. My table always has representations of the four realms upon it: air, fire, water, and earth. I no longer read in the living area of my home, I have my own remote reading space in my studio where I am surrounded by things of beauty that make me happy. I sit in a grid defined by objects, stones, and words to promote clarity, wisdom, and love. 

**I'm not sure if this qualifies as a tarot idiosyncrasie, but I'm a deck addict. I don't read from one deck. I read from all of them based on which one feels right for the occasion. I kinda have a lot of decks. This is an asset becasue I can instinctively choose a deck most alligned with a client's question if they do not prefer to choose the deck themselves.

I think that covers my tarot eccentricities. :) What are yours?

There has been a long space of time between my last entry and today's, and that is because we were traveling during the month of July. Aside from my daily Instagram card readings and keeping up with an Instagram tarot challenge, my hand did not relay into print what my brain was thinking.

I couldn't wait to get home to write about the things that I was thinking about the entire month, which was looking at the symbolism of the cards from their historic perspective.

Rote memorization is rarely helpful in the long run, and is usually only helpful as a short-term strategy to pass a difficult test. What makes a test difficult, is because one doesn't grasp the concept. If you get the concept, you get IT.

And so, understanding even some of the history and evolution of tarot is to understand the many nuances and subtleties that a card might offer. While it is true that history is only as reliable as the person who recorded it, sometimes the myths and even the misunderstandings by artists and the historians themselves are fascinating, and can lead to that lightbulb moment of 'Aha!'

Let's take a look at the Hanged Man.

Most LWB definitions describe the Hanged Man card as a card of sacrifice and enlightenment. While it can be argued that a person who is unselfish is probably an enlightened individual, the two conditions are not synonymous with one another.

The earliest representation we have of the Hanged man is his appearance in the Visconti tarots of the 15th Century. This is as close to an original tarot catalogue of imagery as we have. A well dressed man is seen in pittura infamante, a position intended to disgrace criminals, particularly those of the upper classes. The suspended position communicated the crime of the accused either as a traitor or as a perpetrator of a financial crime such as that of a thief or that of public fraud. But either way the punishment was intended to bring social shame and discrace. The guilty party was hung by one foot, leaving the other leg to flop in a triangular formation, with his hands tied behind his back.

When I was teaching myself tarot a million years ago, one of the visual cues I used in remembering 'enlightenment' for this card was that in the first tarot decks I owned, the individual had very light or blond hair (and in the Visconti tarot he is decidedly blond) that hung down and framed his face like a halo. A person depicted in art with a halo is usually a person who is enlightened, and so that visual connection worked for me. The fact that the man is awake and not dead, suggests that he is fully aware and enlightened because he understands the consequences for his own behavior. It suggests that he sees the world from a new, enlightened perspective, one he hadn't considered or understood before.

But the stock definition of 'sacrifice' never really gelled for me with this card. While I understood it to be one of the keyword meanings for this card, looking at the visual clues, I never picked up on sacrifice. Of course, some tarot historians connect the death of the Hanged man to the death of Christ which translates to sacrifice for the greater good, and if that connection helps you remember, then great. But it never felt genuine to me because although Christ was punished, his supposed crime was blasphemy, not treason or theft, and he wasn't hung by one foot. If it doesn't make visual sense why force a meaning? Towards the end of this article I will identify a visual clue that does make sense in establishing sacrifice as one of its meanings.

Although the Visconti tarots are the oldest cards we have has reference, it does not necessarily mean it was the first, just the oldest one to survive. There were other decks produced around the same time frame of within one hundred years of the Visconti decks that had significant differences in visual content. The Hanged Man made no appearance at all in those decks. Among those pictured are the Sola Busca and Mantegna tarots. Neither of these 15th and 16th century decks depict a Hanged Man and appears to have in its place, a virtue card representing 'Prudence.' Prudence in both cards is depicted as a person walking, one with a type of lantern with a snake-like ribbon on his staff, and the other with a snake wrapped up the handle of a mirror. Although some historians claim Prudence replaced the Hanged Man, both of these cards with their symbolic objects (a lantern for light and a mirror for self reflection a 'Know Thyself' motif) seem more connected to the Hermit than to the Hanged Man, but that's just me.

The Marseille or TdM tarots of the 17th century clearly have the Hanged Man represented by a chap with light hair, suspended by one foot, other leg bent in the form of a triangle, and in the case of the example in my photograph has hands tied behind the body. During the inception of the TdM tarots the possibility that the Hanged man was instrumental in furthering its political agenda cannot be ignored. 

If we skip one hundred years to the French guys of the 18th century, de Gebelin and Etteilla, they began to take note of the tarots as having potential for purposes of cartomancy and one or the other of them, or maybe both, I don't exactly recall, propositioned that some of the early tarot artists mistakenly inverted the image of a man walking with one leg bent (so as to avoid steopping on a snake which appeared in the Prudence cards) as a man hanging from a rope. His face is alive and alert because if he were walking he could not be dead, but in the artist's confusion de Gebelin and Etteilla proposed that the artists interpreted a Hanged Man who was alert and aware and thereby, enlightened. Are you still with me on this?

If you look at the next two cards in the photo, the top right and bottom left, you can see that the school of Etteilla abandoned the Hanged Man in favor of the Prudence card which he and his followers felt was the rightful historic card. (Or at least it fit in better with Etteilla's agenda whatever that was.) Both of these cards feature a female, not a male, walking with a snake prominantly featured in the card. One of them has a mirror. 

(For those interested, the card on the top right is a reproduction from Etteilla's own deck and the first deck created for divination purposes, designed by him a year or two before his death. This card is known as the Grand Etteilla Egyptian Gypsies Tarot Deck published by Grimaud in 1969 and is currently out of print. The card on the bottom left was created by one of Etteilla's followers after his death and is known as the Book of Thoth Etteilla Tarot, or sometimes referred to as Etteilla III and is still available for purchase.)

In the Hermetic Tarot from which both the RWS and Crowley decks were born, (the black and white card in my photo) you will see the appearance of a snake and a reflective pool of water, which is a concept similar to a mirror. Remember, both a snake and a mirror appeared in the Prudence cards. Interesting, no?

Heck, even Miss Cleo's deck (whose company in an ironic twist of fate was found guilty of financial fraud and deception) has a snake prominantly featured in the hanged Man card of her deck.

Who knows if de gebelin and Etteilla were onto something, but the consensus is that they were in error or mislead for their own agendas. Nonetheless, it is fascinating to me that even newer decks of the past few years revisiting alchemic symbolism (not featured in my photograph) have a snake prominantly featured in their renditions of the Hanged Man. Not for the reasons that de Gebelin and Etteilla surmised, but as representative of Mercury as the 'Crucified Serpent' which connects the meaning of the Hanged Man card to the sacrifice of Hermes in a visual way that makes sense to me.

Modern tarot decks post-dating Etteilla no longer include Prudence in the cast of characters, unless you consider that it was the Hermit all along, who remains a man walking...

Today's article will be a little different than my usual tarot blog. I'm writing this because something I recently read made me want to comment. 

In the Saturday, June 6, 2015 edition of The New York Times, there was an article titled, "A Fortune Teller cost Him Fortune After Fortune," written by Michael Wislon.

The fortune in question is just under one million dollars, and I'm relieved to say that the Madam Fortune in the story was not a tarot reader, at least it is never mentioned in the article that she was. But all the same, we tend to fall under the same umbrella in the public's eye and for this reason it upset me. We have a tough enough time as it is without charlatans making us all look suspect.

After being rejected by a woman that the unnamed man in the article had pursued, he found himself wandering around the city and in front of a Times Square Psychic shop. Madam Fortune as I call her, convinced him that despite his love interest's rejection, they were twin flames, meant to be together, and she promised to make that happen for him by stringing him along with spell after spell. She convinced him that he needed her services.

During the time span of twenty months, the twenty-six year old Times Square psychic mananged to convince an educated, successful thirty-two year old man that the monies she collected from him in an effort to gain the love of his obsession, were needed to purchase special crystals, a time machine (she settled for a $30,000.00 Rolex watch), a diamond ring from Tiffany's, a fake funeral and reincarnation rituals, and finally two bridges made of solid gold serving as the reincarnation portal since in the twenty month interim the young lady of his dreams had actually passed away. Madam Fortune promised to reincarnate his now deceased sweatheart, in the body of a thirty-one year old woman. When he met the new woman, the spirit of his former sweetheart did not seem to be inside her, at which time he became suspicious that madam was a fraud.

I'm pissed at the woman sleezy enough to do this to another human being and I'm pissed at the client who was gullible to a maddening degree.

When any of us go to a doctor or a counselor, it is usually because we are vulnerable to some extent. We have an ailment or a heartache perhaps, and need guidance. Although for sure there are quack doctors and counselors, there is at least a degree of assurance that the provider is licensed and certified and accountable to the state and other organizations. Some quacks get through, but most are dedicated professionals with expertise that comes from experience and training.

When a person seeks the non traditional services of a psychic, card reader, astrologer or other similar individual they have no degree of assurance that anyone is watching over the ethics of the professional. When the young man in the article found Madam Fortune (not her real moniker, I use that for every quack fortune teller I write about) he was at a truly low point in his life and very vulnerable to suggestion. Now I admit that what this young man really may have needed was a good friend to bitch slap him into tomorrow to knock some common sense into him, but for whatever reasons, in his deep depression and desperation, he chose Madam Fortune.

Some Tarot Readers may be certified by a tarot certification board (I am one who is certified and you may read more about that in my bio) but even with the certification, there is no one watching over me or any of us to make sure that we do the right thing. The certification is only an indicator that we are proficient with the cards and possibly belong to a network of other readers for professional comaraderie .

Most of the time, when a client requests my services it's because they want some clarity in regards to a particular issue. It can be a fun question, like future romances, or more practical questions relating to work or a painful breakup, etc. But in all cases, there is a need for an answer, some clarity, and to a degree, that makes them vulnerable. There is potential for them to be taken advantage of.

In choosing a tarot reader, just as you would choose a hairdresser, fitness guru, yoga isntructor, etc, etc, you need to do your homework. Learn as much about the individual as is possible. Referrals on a website don't mean a thing. Anyone can write bogus reviews on their own website. Are their fees for services in keeping with others in their field? If they cost too little, that's as big a red flag as if they charge too much.

Read everything about your tarot reader that is out there, all their online activity. Chances are they appear across various social media. In the case of a store front shop, you've got less advantage because it is often a spontaneous thing with less chance to do your homework. If you're on vacation, you may never see the psychic or reader again, which can be a fun aspect of the experience. But if this individual has an online presence, your can check out their online persona and how they interact with others. Read their blogs. Before requesting a reading don't be afraid to ask questions of them. Read their Code of Ethics, they need to have one.

Anyone of them who insists that you return regularly to follow up on your question is probably self-serving.

If anything, an ethical reader will discourage you from depending too much on the cards. If you keep going back to a reader with the same questions in hopes of hearing a different answer and your tarot reader doesn't call you on it, I will suggest that they are self-serving and you should consider finding a new reader. 

© All material on this blog and site are copyright. Anything quoted from this site must be credited to this author and include a link to this site. 

It has been brought to my attention that I haven't written an article on my blog for a while. I'm happy to be missed.

Like any creative process, it happens when the muse strikes and being that I pursue multiple creative projects it just appears as though I lie dormant.

At any rate, today seemed like the perfect day to get my blog back in its groove. The topic that I've been thinking about the most lately, is numbers. In fact, I think about the meanings of numbers all the time.

Today I'm focusing on #7. I recently read a fb factoid that claimed the majority of people claim #7 as their favorite or 'lucky' number. So if I write about #7, I may strike a lucky chord with most of you.

It makes sense that seven is a preferred number, deeply entrenched in our collective unconscious. 

Think about our ancient ancestors. Seven played a huge role in their observable universe. 

There were seven observable planets in their night sky, which were promptly assigned with their deitites' names. 

Observation of the moon also brought significance to seven. There were four primary stages of the moon that lasted for 7 days each. 

Ancient observers noted that a woman's cycle often came after every fourth stage of the moon and lasted for about seven days. The ancient Chinese were clever enough to observe that at around the age of 14 (7x2) a girl entered into womanhood and at 49, (7x7), a woman most typically entered into her stage of menopause.

Also in the observable world, there are seven colors in the visible rainbow, seven notes to the diatonic (musical) scale, and seven directions; up down, left, right, in front of, behind, and center. Heck there's even seven attributes of every physical thing: 1) height, 2) weight, 3)width, 4) depth, 5) top/bottom, 6) front/back, and 7) left/right.

Even our bodies have seven major parts working from top to bottom: head, torso, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg and don't forget our private parts, which were important enough for ancient man to include in his assessment of one of the seven vital body parts.

It is no wonder then why humankind adopted seven as its poster child as a magical number, assigned mysterious and esoteric powers.

Seven features dominantly in religious dogma almost universally. 

The number seven is assigned to certain aspects of faith and is mentioned in the Bible at least 700 to 800 times and that's just one religious point of reference. Religious affiliation to seven is almost endless.

The Hippocratic tradition of medicine suggests that maladies of the body last 7, 14, or 21 days depending on its severity.

In China seven represents the combination of Yin, Yang and the elements; Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, and Wood. This combination of 7 is believed to bring Harmony.

From its reverance for 7, mankind detrmined there were seven days to a week, and breaking a mirror will bring seven years bad luck and that tricky time in a marriage when spouses may stray or become bored is noted as The 'Seven Year Itch.'

Heck, even Shakespeare wrote his two cents on the topic of 'The Seven Ages of Man' which was already a 'thing.'

So how does all this lead us to Tarot?

Well, it's my opinion (and not mine alone) that gaming cards as we know them derived from dice games, and cartomancy as we know it derived from divination with dice.

Modern gaming dice usually have six sides. The sum of any two numbers on a di adds to 7. In a way, seven could be said to be a number of completion. Interestingly, two dice can result in twenty-one different combinations.

From the game of 'Hazards,' an early dice game, the game of Craps evolved. In crap games, the occurrence of 7 is referred to as almost anything other than the word seven! If you roll a 7 (or an 11) on the first roll, you win! Pretty lucky.

Some research suggests that the earliest tarot decks started out with seven trump cards. The current twenty-one is another septenary.

Our tarot deck has a 7 in the major trumps, The Chariot, and four 7's, one in each suit. Seven of the trumps represent the seven virtues.

I do not necessarily perceive seven as a lucky number in tarot but its occurrence is significant.

As in games of dice, any two cards that add up to seven share a relationsip. In example; The number of the Chariot combines the three and four of the Empress and Emperor creating a  merge between the mental and physical realms as a kind of vehicle for the mind.

In my own scribble, back when I was assigning the numbers of tarot their meanings, I assigned the number seven as a momentary pause to consider the reality of a situation before continuing. It's kind of a turning point number for me. Think of the Chariot and all the 7's in this context. 

At the very least, when you see a seven, pause and think for just a moment at how it may apply to the question at hand. Give it an extra moment like you would when you see The Tower #16. (Which totals to 7.)

And if none of this instills upon you the awesomeness of 7, maybe this will:

Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 8 9. Think about it.

Ok, that was a joke. :)

Before signing off, just for sh*ts and grins, on a whim I subtracted my last blog entry date (the 13th) from today's (the 29th) and got 16. The sum of which is 7. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

© All material on this blog and site are copyright. Anything quoted from this site must be credited to this author and include a link to this site. 

Today on Instagram, I expect at least one heckler for my interpretation of the Four of Swords.

It happens occasionally that I will interpret the card of the day in a way that someone else would not, and it will be pointed out to me that the card could have also meant this, that, or this other.

In recent months I've also been somewhat amused by reading online statements via tarot facebook group formats, "I heard you must not ever buy your own deck of tarot cards and that your first deck must be a gift" or, "I hear one can only own or use one deck of tarot cards since having too many will bleed your energy or steal your soul," and, "Once you find your forever deck thar speaks to you, you will never need or want another deck,"  or any other of the type of nonsensical myths that somehow manage to grow around tarot.

I think I'm as valid a tarot reader as anyone can be, and with the exception of two decks, I have purchased every one of my tarot decks. If I had waited for someone to gift me with my first deck of tarot, I'd probably still be waiting. The only reason I was ever gifted those two aformentioned decks was because a friend knew I was a reader and she had inherited two decks from a former lover who moved on and left them behind. (I must admit btw, that the Grand Etteilla Egyptian Gypsy Tarot deck that came my way as a result of his exit from her life became an awesome departing gift for me.) I own several dozen decks, though not hundreds becasue I am  particular, and I read from every last one of them. 

I mention all this, because I believe I have broken every myth that I have ever read online surrounding proper tarot protocol. Who comes up with this stuff?

My tarot habits may or may not be of interest to anyone else, but I do encourage others who are serious about tarot to disregard much of what they read about tarot 'rules'. It is all a distraction from the only valid point, which is to learn the cards. I don't think you can have a rich tarot vocabulary if you limit yourself to one deck of tarot.

I have written on several occasions that the different tarot camps; e.g. Marseille, Thoth, and RWS and even a few other esoteric branches, are akin to different dialects of the same language, and sometimes they may seem like similar but distinct languages. Which means, when you read from a deck from the Thoth school, you need to know its vocabulary which is often different from RWS, and even Marseille depending on how you assigned meaning to the numbered pips.

I learned tarot from a Marseille styled deck and since all the books on the Marseille Tarot that I could find back in the 70s were strictly for the Major Arcana, I had to devise my own system for the numbered pips. This led me to learn about numerology and assigning meanings to the numbers within the context of each suit. I created my own interpretation for each number one through ten and what it meant within each suit. I created my own little tarot book for my own learning. Eventually I did not need my little homemade tarot book anymore because I defined the numbers in a way that made sense to me when I saw them. For example, I understood what four meant in the context of the suit of swords and all the suits including the trumps of the major arcana.

Numbers were and remain a major aspect for me when l read the cards.

My own generic definition of the number four means something is taking shape. An idea manifests into reality. I then applied this meaning to the particular suit it is represented by. In the case of the Four of Swords, it could be an idea, or a thought, which becomes reality. 

Eventually I bought an RWS deck (more accurately the Albano Waite Smith deck) and I saw that in many cases the meanings I had assigned to some of the Marseille pips did not mean the same thing as the images representing the RWS pips. So of course that meant when I read from the different decks, my interpretation needed to be flexible. When I see a RWS inspired image of the Four of Swords, a different meaning usually surfaces from what I would apply to a Marseille style deck. Traditionally a RWS interpreation might suggest a need for respite, retreat, stepping aside to declutter the brain for some serious circumspection. If I use a RWS deck with my numerological meaning it would not make sense to a client who is also looking at the cards, nor would it make sense to me. So why force meaning to a card if it does not speak the same language? Speak its language instead. 

The same is true of the Thoth, Alchemic and other decks. 

My reading of today's Four of Swords on Instagram was from a Thoth styled deck which has its own interpretation of the number four. Within that deck system, four is more about creating order from chaos, establishing a truce so that things may peacefully fall into place.

It could be argued that aspects of each definition overlap and add depth of understanding to any given card. If I didn't own and read from multiple decks, I'd never be able to apply a range of understanding to the cards. I rarely if ever read the cards in a vacumm. Most often there is a concept the cards are being applied to, or the client has a question, no matter how vague.

Each deck is like a different book. I wouldn't own one book and say that was enough reading for my lifetime. Like most avid readers, I've read many books in my fifty six years which have all enriched my life. Having hundreds of dusty books on a bookshelf means nothing if you haven't read any of them.

And having multiple decks of tarot also means nothing, if all you can say is that you have a collection. You have to read from them to learn from them. And it might take a lifetime, which blows another tarot myth, that tarot can be learned in five easy steps.

© All material on this blog and site are copyright. Anything quoted from this site must be credited to this author and include a link to this site. 

I rarely if ever do readings specifically for predicting the outcome of anything.

Most often my intent in reading is to achieve the best possible outcome given the influences and options that I or my clients are presented with on any given day. Unless doing a full reading for a client, I only do one card draws on a daily basis that I share with my IG followers as a thought or focus for the day.

Today I was just a little bit tempted to pull a few cards to help me in deciding on how to place my gentleman's bet with my husband. (Although he decided he'd also wait to see what I drew before placing his bet. )

Neither of us know the first thing about horses or racing, but we always tune in to watch the results of the Kentucky Derby race and always place little bets with each other.

I used my Buckland Romani Gypsy Tarot deck because heck, what other deck would I choose to this end?

I'm not one to predict in my readings because I really do believe that most often our outcomes are based on things we do or do not do,  but the winner of the Kentucky Derby Race will not be influenced by anything I may or may not do today.

Why I chose three cards for this task I am not sure, but I felt it would give me a well rounded picture of the winner.

Four of Staves totally looks like a celebratory event, so I figure I'm on the right track.

The Empress and Emperor are a strong presence.

I figured I could go one of two ways, look up the numbers of the horses, or do it by their names.

Four plus three plus four equals eleven. I looked up the horse assigned to both gates eleven and two.

I referred to the NY Times Friday May 1st edition for information on the horses. I know nothing about the horses.

Number 11, Stanford, was scratched, leaving number 2, Carpe Diem as a numeric possibility.

None of the horses have 11:2 odds, so that angle is off the table.

I also try to find a connection to the Horse's name with a number tie-in if possible.  I look for a hint of royalty and see 'American Pharoah' starting from gate 18, bumped up from gate 17 as a result of horse #11 being scratched. OK, a loose connection to number eleven but I'll take it! Gate 18 does not connect to the number on the cards I pulled, so in the case of American Pharoah the magic does not appear to be in his number but in his name.

I explained both of these results to my husband and he latched onto #2, Carpe Diem,  because that was his motto for the men and women who served under his command (he's a retired military man).

And I'm choosing American Pharoah based on my interpretation of the imagery on the cards and also because it has a connection to the number eleven.

It's all in fun and if my husband wins I can't yell at him for 24 hours,  lol. And if my horse wins he can't involve me in any of his schemes or projects for 24 hours. (Which is why I yell at him.)

Race time is approximately 4 and a half hours away and we'll be watching! Will you?

**Update** About an hour before the races and we're watching the pre-show. The announcers said there was a horse that has won 11 straight races,  but neither of us caught its name. So that horse is interesring. But my wager is still on American Pharoah because Pharoah has a stronger connection to the cards I pulled. :)

Post Post Script. : My horse, American Pharoah, did indeed win. I only wish I had money on it. :)

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There are pitfalls of Tarot, both as a reader and as one who needs a reading.

My tarot online presence comes and goes depending on if I have something to say on a broad platform. In the 1990's and 2000's I could be found online in multiple tarot groups, a few which I either owned or moderated, I had my own websites, and if you read my about Marilyn page, you will get the full picture of my tarot career.

I stepped back at times when I thought I was getting too much exposure and attention. There were multiple reasons for this, through word of mouth people knew me and came to me and an inner circle of individuals knew where to find my services if they needed me. So I had the luxury of lowering my low profile and leading a more private tarot and spiritual life. Another, and more significant reason for dropping out of my online presence, was due to a few individuals who became thoroughly dependent on my services for every aspect of their lives. One man in particular requested readings from me multiple times a day, and after only doing four readings for him, I knew that this poor soul wouldn't open his front door unless I said it was OK.

I told him how I felt. He didn't care, he kept coming back. I told him I would no longer be available to him and I stopped reading for him. Yes, some other reader took him on and undoubtedly made globs of money on him. He was developing an unhealthy attachment to me and I could not take advantage of him.

Some tarot readers live for this kind of attachment. It brings in steady income for sure, but the price is too high. For me the price is self respect and integrity. To each her/his own and whatever lets us sleep at night.

I am an empty nested crone now, and I have the time, resources, and supreme good fortune to live the kind of life I want which includes my desire for revisiting another online presence for myself. (With a new name, I no longer use a pseudonym since I no longer care about being outed.) I have a lot of tarot knowledge in my brain after thirty-nine years as a reader, and I want a place to preserve some of my insights. They say nothing online ever disappears. Perhaps my modest contribution to the tarot world may be preserved in this small way and some day my words will resonate with someone. I will probably eventually gather up my blogs for the content for a book before I abandon this website.

In the past year, I've created a modest Instagram account in order to have a small online presence. As it became more popular I had the confidence to create this website and blog. I also created a fledgling tarot group on facebook which I may let die since it isn't thriving (Tarot Anonymous) and I have even joined a few facebook tarot groups which for the most part, annoy the hell out of me.

I'm very disappointed and unimpressed by most of what I see. People pull cards to determine if they should buy a particular pair of shoes, and then open it for discussion, and actually have other readers chime in about what the cards meant in terms of buying that particular pair of shoes. Seriously?

Damn girl, if you like the shoes and they're comfortable, buy them! 

A few months ago I was engaged in an online discussion with another tarot reader about resolving an issue. I have a moral compass and the right thing to do seemed crystal clear. My colleague said he couldn't decide now and had to do a reading about it. I scratched my head and bit my tongue. All I could think was, 'Dude, you need to depend on the cards to tell you what the right thing to do when it comes to hurting or not hurting another human being?'

This kind of trivialization and over dependency on tarot is too much for me. It breaks my heart. The whole point of tarot is to help you navigate life with the purpose of being a fully spiritual being. If after twenty years of reading tarot you still need the cards to buy a banal product or decide not to harm another person, I think you missed the point.

I can't remember the last time I did a big sit down reading for myself. For the most part, I know what I need to do. I can see the cards as they are represented and played out in in my life. I can identify when I am being challenged by the spirit of one card or when I need the lesson of another. Yes, I do daily one card readings for myself, and I also do a one card reading for my Instagram followers as a method for getting the most out of the day. But I am not so crippled that I can't decide on whether or not I should wash the car or renege on a promise I made. After thirty-nine years of reading tarot I think that should be expected. If after all these years I still need to grab my cards multiple times a day, I probably haven't learned anything about or from tarot.

I understand people who don't read tarot themselves and don't have that lifelong benefit wanting a reading once a month or a few times a year for clarification, or even more frequently if they're going through a particularly difficult life experience. I mean heck, that's what I'm here for and it's what I do.

But it's like this:

When I was a teacher I'd tell my students, "My job is to make you not need me." 

Instilling a  lifelong love of learning is a teacher's true objective. 

Tarot works in much the same way. I am the tarot reader, my job is to help you not need me.


© All written material on this blog and site are copyright. Anything quoted from this site must be credited to this author and include a link to this site. 

I'm going to go out on a tiny limb and predict that among those reading this blog the majority will be tarot readers checking out what another reader has to say, people learning tarot, or people thinking about going into tarot. A smaller percentage of readers will be followers who like reading and learning about metaphysical or occult topics, enjoy tarot talk, but would rather go to a tarot reader than be one.

I went to a tarot reader once. I had already been reading for a few years when a college acquaintance said she heard of a woman in the city who read cards in her home and was the real deal. My friend did not know that I also read the cards, as I hadn't known her very long and I didn't get into it with her, but I got a kick out of the idea, and sort of thinking about it as doing research, I agreed to tag along for a tarot card reading. 

The whole thing felt kind of seedy. It was a run down section of town, her son let us in. We sat in her living room waiting room with a half a dozen other individuals, waiting to get our cards read. The readings were quick and though I was last in line, within about twenty minutes it was my turn. I was ushered into a curtain and bead-draped room where the reader was dressed up in stereotypical Madam Fortune type garb. I had no question for her and opted for a general reading. She laid four cards in no particular pattern and proceeded to tell me that I would have a few kids and that my husband (I was wearing a band on my left ring finger) was not good enough for me and that I was going to leave him when I eventually became famous. She mentioned my husband a few times, said the name coming to her was Sam, but deciding not to tell her that I was unmarried and not even going steady with anyone, I was a stinker and let her go on about it. For giggles and grins I wrote her prediction down in a journal or I otherwise would have no recollection of the reading. I wish I had also written down what the cards were that day, but I do remember realizing that what she was saying was not remotely reflected by anything I saw in the cards and I wondered who the heck wrote her material.

When I regrouped with my friend, whatever the reader told her filled her with excitement and she rattled on about the experience the entire way back to campus.

Despite recognizing Madam Fortune was a fraud I learned two things that day; 1) that Madam Fortune was not afraid to go out on a limb, and 2) there are people posing as readers who prey on the gullible.

Both points stuck with me and I applied those lessons every time I did a reading thereafter. 1) Every time you do a reading you go out on a limb and 2) only say what you see in the cards, do not make stuff up. If you don't see it, don't say it.

Unlike other forms of intuitive or psychic channels, a reader's tool are the symbols, numbers, and pictures often with esoteric and astrological assignations on a deck of cards. After connecting with the client either by written, vocal, or visual stimulus, a question is made on behalf of the client with the intent of interpreting the results to the best of the reader's skill set. It's a skill set that requires knowledge of the cards as well as intuitive understanding of how it all links together.

When a client asks for a general reading that covers career, romance, finances and social circles, the reader is totally going out on a limb. We are given no information. Without a specific question there is no prior knowledge to attach to or build from. For this reason, many readers will insist that the client ask a specific question. 

In recent months, the majority of my clients are people I have never met in the flesh. I do not know (nor do I ask) if they are married, divorced, employed, unemployed, have kids, nor do I know any details of their lives. I just know they are trusting me to lay the cards on their behalf and read them.

Think about the difficulty and how daunting a task that is to accomplish with accuracy. 

I don't know how I do it, but I'm glad I can. 

That's the magic and the beauty of the cards, they're always relevant.

© All material on this blog and site are copyright. Anything quoted from this site must be credited to this author and include a link to this site. 

The less something changes, the quicker it dies or at least becomes irrelevant.

Evolution is how ideas, species, and languages, among other things, stay alive and thrive. It's true the process of evolution means corruption, and bastardization on some level. That which endures does so because it tolerates, perhaps even appreciates, the challenges of keeping up with the times.

The concept of Freedom endures, and it does so because it is constantly being challenged by new generations of individuals who redefine what freedom means. Humanity endures, as young as it is, and has come a long way as evidenced by the expression of cave art in comparison to the billboard lights of any modern city. Some languages still exist while others went belly-up. English is almost all but unrecognizable since its earliest spoken and written form but it's still being spoken. In particular, American English thrives and I'd be willing to bet will very likely endure and become the dominant standard. It's success is based on the coming together of multicultural and multilingual individuals who bastardized the Kings English to such a degree that this new hybrid of the spoken word has become a very fluid language. This does not mean it is a superior strain, quite the contrary. But it is the strain that I'm guessing will endure. Classical Latin died. OK, it is the language of the elite, the doctors, and the high priests, which bears out my case for its demise, whereas Vulgar Latin, the language of the common folk evolved into the Romantic languages. I wish I could be alive in ten thousand years to see which languages will be considered dead and irrelevant because they wouldn't yield to the influence of foreign words or pronunciations. And of those that do survive, I'm sure will be undecipherable to my ear. And of course this is assuming that humans don't cease to exist by then due to intolerance for new ideas and change.

Let's look at Tarot. From its first appearance over five hundred years ago, it's still going strong. Probably stronger than ever. Let's look a the Sola Busca, or the Viscont-Sforza tarots. These types of hand painted cards appeared almost overnight it Italy. They were hand painted beauties. Admittedly exclusive to their immediate clans, they somehow managed to thrive because they were undoubtedly inspired from images and symbols from antiquity that the common man knew and could relate to. The ability to produce and print paper allowed the common man to eventually own a deck. The stories endured in pictorial form to serve whatever purpose, from merely decorating a deck of playing cards that commemorated a family heritage, or for hiding secret messages in plain sight. 

Through the centuries, it's captured lots of imaginations and much mystery and speculation surround where the images first came from. Despite the research, who knows? A time traveler from Medieval Europe may or may not immediately recognize a modern deck of tarot cards. 

The fascinating thing about tarot is that it's intrinsic structure identifying it as tarot has remained the same. The same twenty-two, sixteen, forty card structure has not changed. Decks that sway from this format are simply not tarot decks. (They have their own beauty and appeal, but that is a blog for another day.) Modern tarot titles are sometimes fiddled with, the images have been subject to new interpretation. But tarot is still tarot, whether it's esoteric, quasi esoteric, alchemy based, astrologically symbolic. or simply pictures relaying human experiences. It's versatility is what seduces so many of us today. That, and the fact that so many of us are looking for answers to the same questions since antiquity. The human condition remains a constant, despite generational, cultural, or regional changes to it.

One of my tarot pet peeves is that there are schisms between groups. I think this is because when I learned tarot, there were only two decks available in the States at that time. One was a Marseilles style and the other the RWS. They peacefully coexisted and we read one or the other, or both.

The 1JJ Swiss was published in Germany in 1831 and was the first deck made available in the American market a few years before the RWS. It wasn't until 1971 when the Rider Waite Tarot deck finally hit the US market.

So until the RWS deck appeared in our shores, Americans were more than likely learning in the Marseilles tradition of decorative but not illustrated pips and more than likely read from the 1JJ Swiss deck unless they went abroad or were gifted with a different European deck. (As a side point of interest and as I've mentioned in my first blog entry at this site, the 1JJ Swiss was in fact the first deck of tarot to ever appear on US television. I encourage you to read that article because it was a fun article.)

The RWS deck was not the first deck on our soil, nor was it an American incarnation of tarot, though it undoubtedly captured our collective imaginations. (OK, it can be argued that both Waite and Coleman Smith had American ties, but it was produced in England and not for American consumption.) I mention all of this, because I've read that some esoteric camps blame Americans for the dummying down of tarot once they were first exposed to the RWS.

I'm not going to lie, there is a dummying down of tarot that is undeniable. I don't know who is to blame, but it's not fair to put the blame squarely on Pixie or Americans. 

I guess we can blame those jumping on the tarot bandwagon, creating decks without any understanding of it. I have a lot of tarot decks, but considering I've been doing this for thirty-nine years, I don't have hundreds. Heck, I might not even have a hundred. I'm very fussy and discriminate. There are some decks I will never buy. Because these dummy decks don't really instruct, I think there's a lot of making stuff up and calling it intuitive reading. Intuition is required, but so is learning and understanding. But hell, if it gets new generations interested in tarot, why not? If the neophytes are legit, they will naturally seek out the more esoteric or archetypal decks to become serious readers. I'm guessing those not serious about tarot will naturally become bored by the dummy decks, and those decks will become a dusty remnant in a closet that will represent a phase they went through in their youth or rebellious middle age.

But even those decks have value if they attract new people to the art. Even if they don't become serious readers, they have an appreciation for it. And as for those dummy decks, we don't have to buy what we don't like or subscribe to.

The problem for me is deeper than not liking certain tacky or trivial decks. 

It's the snobbish idea that only one tarot camp is legitimate or most 'pure.'  Whether it be a purely esoteric deck, a Marseilles, Thoth, Hermetic, or even a RWS deck or clone of any of them, none of them are pure. Each camp exists and thrives because each of them have captured the human imagination at a certain point and time in history. They reflect the different needs of different societies at different times. (Heck, even the dummy decks do that to their credit.) The decks of each school of thought are all hybrid bastardizations from some far away source as far as anyone can tell, and all are insanely magical and amazing in their own rights.

I don't see myself as belonging to any camp. I love the Marseilles style, which is a sentimental favorite of mine since it is what I taught myself first, but the RWS style also captured and continues to capture my imagination as do the more esoteric tarots. It is impossible for me to choose, I love them all and read them all. I think of them as I've said over and over, as different dialects or the same language, or at times, a different language.

Because the meanings of a card from one camp may not share the same meaning of the same card in another camp, some readers will dismiss another for having the wrong interpretation. I think it will benefit all serious readers to learn something about the different schools of tarot, even if they ultimately choose one camp for themselves just to understand that the interpretations may vary. Knowledge is always helpful.

It's OK to prefer one camp and stick to it. But to be dismissive or disparage different camps as being inferior only highlights the narrow vision of the one spouting it.

Any elitists determined to cling to the notion that they follow the true, pure, or only correct tarot path, are a detriment to tarot because if it doesn't evolve, it will wither.

There are so many paths because there are so many of us.

At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

The opinions stated here are expressly my own.

© All written material on this blog and site are copyright. Anything quoted from this site must be credited to this author and include a link to this site. 

The mother in me is going to start out with, 'Now don't be rolling your eyes at me.' And yes, it's because I'm telling a story about back in the day. No, I didn't have to walk ten miles to buy my first deck of tarot, but in some ways, that adage isn't too far off from the mark. This is an organic story about reading tarot reversals.

As some of you may recall, I've stated that the 1JJ Swiss was the first deck of tarot I ever owned. For those unfamiliar with that deck, it is in the Marseilles/Milan tradition (TdM). The photo above shows a sampling of some of the pip cards from that deck. With little exception, it is difficult to readily identify some of the pip cards when they appear in reverse.

I cannot recall the first deep down and serious esoteric tarot book I ever bought, I've read so many books on the topic, but I do recall that the first book I ever bought on tarot was the Eden Gray book which accompanied the then named, Rider Waite deck. Among other revelations, the Eden Gray book discussed the reverse meanings of every card which initially was a challenge for me using a deck that by and large had pips that did not lend themselves to reverse positions.

You might ask, why buy a deck and book that don't match? Well, this was 1970s suburban Philadelphia. We had a bookstore at the brand new mall, and the only deck of tarot available on the shelf that day was the 1JJ Swiss Tarot. The only tarot book on the shelf that day was the Eden Gray. Why the store did not supply the Rider Waite Eden Gray book along with the matching Rider Waite deck I'll never know, but I'm glad they did not.

I was eager to learn and I bought the disparate deck and book. I read that book from cover to cover and handled those cards every chance I had. It was an easy lesson for me to see that that particular book with that particular deck had on the surface, very little in common. I was learning tarot at the ground floor and I was my only teacher trying to make sense of the limited information I had. From this very humble beginning, I understood that there were at least two camps of tarot.

It became obvious that both camps referenced the Major Arcana which more or less shared the same titles. The lesser Arcana shared similarities also, in that they were both Ace to King of four suits. 

When I eventually found more books similar to my deck, namely the Oswald Wirth publication, it became apparent that books discussing the TdM style did not generally concern themselves with reading the minor arcana at all, and in fact, did not even discuss reversed meanings.

My deck had seventy eight cards for a reason, and I was determined to read all seventy eight. For me, the logical next step was to learn numerology, which meant reading all I could about numerology. (You can read about my process of assigning meaning to TdM styled pips in my earlier article titled, 'Assigning Meaning the TdM Styled Pips.')

Within a year or two, I was reasonably competent at reading the cards, and had established my own technique for understanding each of the TdM pips. What I wasn't doing at that time was reversals, since my deck as I mentioned, with very limited exception, did not allow for reversals. But I knew reversals were prevalent with the RWS deck and I knew that eventually, I would own that deck too and possibly read reversals.

One day, after weekly visits to our bookstore for about a year, I bought my 2nd tarot deck once it finally appeared on my mall bookstore shelf. It was the Rider Waite deck. I had learned all about it and I had great familiarity with the images since I had devoured the book a year earlier. The meanings I had assigned my TdM pips didn't always jibe with the new deck, but that was easily remedied by simply reading the new deck and not trying to force my established meanings onto images that didn't always mesh. By learning both camps so early in my tarot career, I likened it to simply learning a different dialect of the same language, or even learning a 2nd language altogether which was something that came natural to me as a bi-lingual person.

Once I had the Rider Waite deck, (probably in 1977), the cards would naturally as I knew they would, upon occasion appear in the inverted position. There was a decision that had to be made, ignore the reversals, or apply meaning to them?

You're glad I finally got to the point right? Here is where the mom in me comes out a 2nd time. Anything worth learning well requires an investment of time. AND, it needs to come naturally. Rote learning is only good for the short term. Me telling you how to read reversals will mean nothing to you in the long term. Lifelong understanding requires organic evolution. What the neophyte needs to know, is that her or his way is as good as any. We each need to learn what makes sense to us and live it. In every arena of life.

OK, now back to reversals...

The process which made sense to me was to see the reversals as an indicator that something required particular attention, perhaps there was a weakness. Other times, it appeared to mean that the negative aspect of the card was applicable in that instance. Because the Celtic Cross Spread was pretty much the only spread I ever used back in the 1970's, there were plenty of surrounding cards to help assist me in knowing which attributes would apply. 

While reading TdM style cards, I tend not to read pips in reversals. I can tell if a particular card needs attention by the nature of the question and the surrounding cards. So while reading TdM pips, reversals is rarely an issue for me. Some contemporary TdM style decks do give the pips distinguishing upright and reversed imagery, so they are now more obvious to read. 

Decks in the RW tradition can very obviously be recognized in reverse and reading them in reverse is probably more common place.

Sometimes, even if a card does not appear in reverse, it is obvious that the negative aspect of the card is the intended meaning, or that a nuanced interpretation is called for. Using reversals does help in identifying areas of weakness or danger, but those issues tend to be readily recognized once a reader begins reading at a high level of proficiency.

I admittedly did not discuss reading reversals from other esoteric camps, namely the Thoth which per Crowley and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, encouraged reading the cards in the upright positions. Naturally, there are many readers who read reversals using those decks and at times, I do also.

In a nutshell, reading reversals may help draw your attention to an aspect of a reading, but eventually you pick up on it anyway.

I tend not to pay much attention to upright positions as I mix and handle a deck. I let them align the way they will and read them in the way they present themselves.

© All material on this blog and site are copyright. Anything quoted from this site must be credited to this author and/or include a link to this site.

Think of the keywords most often associated with The Magician: Power, talent and skill, resourcefulness, manipulative, opportunistic. Often when it appears in a tarot spread, it will be identified as a very powerful card of great importance.

If we look at a few generations of tarot, particularly once it became an instrument of the occult, we typically see a man standing before a table displaying the tools of his trade. Most often, he looks downward. Sometimes he is known as Le Jongleur (the juggler) or le Bateleur (slight of hand trickster), which betrays his identity as a common street performer. His diminutive stature is further betrayed by the rank of his card,which is number one in the tarot deck. In the game of tarocchi, before occult assignations to the trumps, the higher the number on the trump cards, the greater its significance in the game. Higher numbers had the greater value, and were much more significant to the game. His appearance in play was not particularly seen as an asset.

In current times, whenever The Magician appears in a spread or is discussed online, contemporary readers tend to give this card great importance. He's often referred to a master, with gestures that suggest, 'As above so below', to allude to his having divine powers that transcend the human condition to one of spiritual enlightenment.

So how did our little troubadour elevate his stature over the centuries? 

I am not about to claim that I know the origin and secrets of the tarot. No one can claim that. But if we take a look at antiquity we will see strong parallels to each of the Major Arcana cards and how they may have contributed to tarot imagery. It also connects us to those who have gone before us, providing a bridge to the past, and continuity of time until we arrive full circle.

Many readers say they don't need to understand the history of tarot in order to read the cards and that the history of 200 BCE or longer ago, is no longer relevant to the meanings of the cards. After all, as do most things, the tarot deck has been evolving. Sometimes the titles have changed, and most obviously, the imagery has changed over the course of several hundred years. But the tarot deck has retained its essence: A seventy-eight card deck with twenty-two trumps, four suits, and a royal presence.

I'd like to argue that by understanding history and putting the cards in historical context, we achieve greater understanding of the cards which in turn gives our readings greater depth. This depth of understanding is also reflected in the art of the artist who created it, and if there is no understanding by the artist or its creator, then the reader at best gets a watered down interpretation, a superficial knowledge which is exactly what a reading is meant to avoid.

If we go back even before our first known tarot cards of 1400s Italy, we can trace the Magician's name to the Latin Magus, which itself refers to the more ancient origin of the word in the Persian cult of fire known as the Ahura Mazda. Ahura Mazda is considered the highest spiritual tier of worship. (Light and Wisdom)

So how in the millennium plus years between ancient Persia and the early Renaissance of Italy, did the significance of the 'Magician' flip flop?

We may need to take a look at Simon Magus for that explanation. He was a simple street magician of Samaria who rose in rank by tricking others into believing he had divine powers. He was eventually exposed as a false messiah, a fraud.

Skip a few hundred years or more to early Medieval Europe during the Albigensian Crusades. The highest ranking clergical position at the local level was that of Bishop, and Bishop Fulques was the Bishop at the epicenter of the Crusades. Fulques was a common man from Marseiiles, once a juggler and street performer who rose to the ranks of Bishop in Toulouse and who ultimately betrayed his people for his own gain. Once again a magician gave The Magician a bad name.  Interestingly, from the Magician's appearance on the TdM decks, the Magician is seen standing on thorns or nettles. This would have clearly been recognized by the contemporary audience as a symbol of evil and wickedness growing within the subject who was standing on it. My guess is that the low esteem of the card in the tarot deck (its low ranking number) is courtesy of those historic personalities who abused power. (This is nothing that I have read before, but a connection that I have made while trying to understand the cards.)

The lesson of the low ranking stature of The Magician is the ego. The ego gets into trouble when it uses power for personal gain. Vanity and pride are the sins of The Magician who can only be saved by being reduced to nothing, total annihilation of his sense of self until within his journey he achieves an affinity with everything when he returns to the highest tier of reality, the Essence of the Universe. Hence the lemniscate, one without boundaries in relation to time or space. One is All. (Reminiscent of the Uroboros)

Man, existing on the lowest tier of reality, transcends the limitations of his ego by denying it, and eventually through his death, he ascends to once again be joined with the divine realm. 

Understanding who The Magician could be, gives a reader greater depth of understanding when it appears in a reading. We shouldn't limit our readings to the coined keywords which may only give our readers a limited and superficial understanding of the card's meaning.

As always, I hope you have enjoyed this post and I welcome comments.

Photo from top left: Tarot of Marseille Lo Scarabeo; Oswald Wirth Tarot US Games reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA.  Copyright ©(2011) by U.S. Games Systems, Inc.  Further reproduction prohibited; Rider Waite Tarot reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA.  Copyright ©(1971) by U.S. Games Systems, Inc.  Further reproduction prohibited; (Sacred Rose Tarot) reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA.  Copyright ©(1982) by U.S. Games Systems, Inc.  Further reproduction prohibited; The Cosmic Tarot and the Anna.K Tarot; (Cosmic Tarot) reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902 USA.  Copyright ©(1998) by U.S. Games Systems, Inc.  Further reproduction prohibited; and the Anna.K Tarot Llewellyn 2013

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As a kid, the first deck of tarot I ever saw was in 1968, the 1JJSwiss deck. (Visit my first blog posting titled, Forty Seven Years Later...) I mention it again because to my knowledge, it was the only deck available in the U.S. until 1971 when US Games reproduced the Rider Waite deck for American consumption.

In 1976 a high school friend came upon a copy of the Rider Waite deck (which I will from this point onward refer to the RWS). They were called tarot, just as the cards I was familiar with from Dark Shadows, but they looked so different. I was seven years older in 1976 then I was when I first saw tarot through a child's eyes, and this time, I was ready to learn more.

I high tailed my fanny to the local bookstore and bought my first deck of tarot cards, the 1JJSwiss.  Actually, it was probably more accurately the novelty store known as Spains which had unusual items that were sometimes even a bit risque. Certainly tarot was not mainstream at this time and Spains is just the store that would have carried it at this time. Remember that tarot did not become mainstream in the states for several more years. The 1JJSwiss is more or less in the tradition of the Marseille Tarot. (The Popess and Pope being replaced with Juno and Jupiter.)  Within a year or two, I also bought the only other deck available in the U.S, at that time and the only other tarot deck I had ever laid eyes on, the RWS.

Like the Marseilles deck, the 1JJSwiss did not have illustrated pips to make immediate sense of their meaning. I learned quickly that 'immediate' is not necessarily a word to use while learning tarot. Today I can say that I've been reading the cards as long as most people alive have been reading them, and I am still learning. It is a fascinating and never ending journey. But at that time, as a 17 year old, I wanted answers regarding my new fascination and there was not a lot of information available to a mainstreamed kid in suburban Philadelphia. In the time between owning my 1JJSwiss deck and then my RWS deck, I had studied as much as I could and I assigned meaning to the cards based on study as well as my own observations.

As a neophyte, and also because I was an artist, it was natural for me to start with the Major Arcana cards. They had a picture and a story to tell. It was a happy coincidence that I had recently been accepted into the Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia at the same time and since art was my life, the art of tarot sucked me in. I bought a few books, I don't remember which ones since I now have so many books I don't remember the first. But I do remember that finding a book for the 1JJSwiss was a futile pursuit, at least in my realm of reality. Bear in mind that this was long before the internet and mall bookstores had a very limited selection of esoteric knowledge if any at all. I was learning enough to know that in the pips, the numbers and suits mattered. I assimilated meanings for each pip that jibed with what I was learning in my tarot studies and I came up with number associations. The decorative cues were minimal on the Marseille pips, but assigning them meaning was kind of easy for me because as a kid, I gave certain numbers meanings and color associations. This predated any knowledge of tarot of course, but it became useful when I started coming up with meanings for the cards with no pictures. I soon had a meaning for each pip card of each suit one through ten.

Naturally, once I bought the RWS deck, each card had a picture, and since the meanings sometimes differed from the meanings I had assigned my Marseille styled pips, I equated the two styles of tarot with learning a second language. I was bilingual as a young person due to my Spanish heritage and having lived in Spain, and so I was pretty adept at viewing the different deck styles as being slightly different languages. I never saw one or the other tarot language as superior or more pure. I saw them as different languages with more commonalities than differences and appreciated both for their intrinsic beauty. Number combinations, suit combinations and the appearance of both the arcanas give new and subtle meanings to the cards in a spread.

It wasn't until the eighties that I began to see more decks being made available in the bookstores. We couldn't open the decks to see them, in those days you had to purchase the deck to see what was inside. It was an exciting outing. You never knew what you were going to find when you got home. Still, if the packaging said tarot, you knew there were going to be 78 cards and you knew the cast of characters.

Nowadays, with so many decks available, reading each deck is an exercise in learning a new dialect of an old language. No deck, fully illustrated pips or not, speaks the exact same language even if based on one of the primary systems: Marseille, RWS, or Thoth. Each tarot artist (and I use that term to describe decks designed by artists who are actually tarot readers), adds something, a new perspective, dimension or vibe to their respective decks. But, the cards do have meanings. I am often dismayed to read some of the interpretations I come across online. My bullshit meter goes apeshit. Some people say they are reading intuitively, which I agree is part of reading well, but I sometimes fear that what is being called 'intuitive reading' has become code for lazy learning.

I also don't understand the schism that seems to be building primarily between the Marseilles and RWS camps. I don't mean that people should not have a preference. We all have our go-to-decks. But it confuses me and concerns me that increasingly, the attitude among some who proclaim allegiance to the Marseille camp is a bit snobbish. It's an immature attitude that makes me fear that the art is becoming trivialized by becoming too accessible and over exposed. Considering that the Marseilles tarot may have been heretical and created in rebellion of elitist society, it would be a pity if it succumbed to the vices it conceivably rebelled against.
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Like the original meanings of tarot cards my recent acquisition of the 1995 Lo Scarabeo out-of-print tarot deck is right here for the asking, and yet remains unknowable.

This is because I have yet to break its seal. I saved for it, made it an ambition of mine to finally own it, even kept its purchase from my more conservative husband (who did eventually find out), and yet there it sits in its factory sealed package taunting me. I bought it to study it, to use it for reading despite its incongruities with modern tarot images (which all owe a debt to it) But my conflict is that once I break the seal, its value as a collectible, though still high, will wane somewhat.

I am disappointed in myself for taking this stance. I didn't buy any of my cards as a financial investment, I bought them for my personal use. But there is no question that in recent years especially, tarot cards have become collectible items and big business. I can kick myself now for all the original boxes from some of my older tarot decks from the late 1960s and early 70s that I tossed in favor of placing a deck in a silk pouch or decorative box. Although I own some very nice older decks, quite a few of them are without their original packaging and therefore are of less value to a collector.

In the early days, the only tarot deck available in the U.S. prior to 1971 was the 1JJSwiss tarot deck which was the first deck I owned. (See my blog entry titled, 'Forty Seven Years Later') And yeah, I tossed that box, sigh.

I bought tarot cards to use them in readings. I am also an artist, so I bought multiple decks in appreciation of their art. I never bought decks based on having an awesome collection in later years, though that is what has happened.

My primary reason for buying the Sola Busca, the subject of this blog, is because in addition to being a reader, I am a lover of tarot history and the Sola Busca plays a huge role in the history of tarot as we have come to know it today. 

Buying this deck completes my core collection. Sure, I own many, many decks, but there are a few decks I could have lived without. Not so of the cards in my core collection.

So what cards do I consider to be in my core collection?

The Visconti Sforza is the oldest extant deck of tarot and dates to the mid 1400s. I purchased the restored Visconti deck by lo Scarabeo because my purpose was to use them for reading purposes. And also out of respect and awe of the first prototype of all tarot cards. It was a magnificent handpainted deck of playing cards for a wealthy and noble family of Milan. The pips of the Visconti deck have beautiful decorative but not illustrated pips.

By 1491, the Sola Busca Tarocchi deck was created, and is the oldest known complete deck created using a printing process. The images were transferred from copper engravings. What makes them particularly significant in the world of tarot, is that they were the first deck of tarocchi to fully illustrate the pip cards. To my knowledge it is not known if the images had esoteric significance at the time of its creation, but it is known that they greatly influenced esoteric meaning and illustrations assigned to the cards by future creators of tarot decks intended for divination or as a spiritual path. It is evident that prior to the RWS deck, created in 1909, Pamela Colman Smith was introduced to the Sola Busca deck when black and white images of it were on display in the British museum in 1907. A comparison of several cards of the sola Busca and the RWS deck bear this out. Pixie was definitely familiar with the imagery and borrowed heavily from the Sola Busca when creating her imagery on the cards she created with Waite.

The other significant cards in my core collection are: the Marseille Deck, (mid 1600s and significant to me for their possible assignations by those who may have attempted to preserve the story of the Cathars or other mysterious agenda); the Grand Etteilla Egyptian Gypsy Tarot Deck (early 1790s) which is the first known deck created expressly for divination; the RWS deck which I own in multiple publications. This is the deck that most modern decks of tarot are indebted to; and lastly the Aleister Crowley Thoth deck for its combination of disparate disciplines to communicate each card's meanings.

Increasingly, appreciation for the Marseilles style deck is responsible for more modern decks being created in styles reminiscent of the style Marseille and gaining in popularity to the long reigning tradition of RWS.

In owning the Sola Busca and completing my core collection, I kind of feel that any tarot cards I buy from this point onward are just superfluous and part of my tarot addiction, unless one completely makes its mark on the tarot community in the way that each of the aforementioned decks have.

I have read that the Sola Busca are not easy to read since its creator took liberties in designing this particular tarocchi deck. It does not follow the traditional order of the major arcana in the Sforza deck which came earlier or the Marseilles deck which came later. My guess is that artistic license was taken to create scenes as they were were commissioned by the noble family to tell the story of their familial line, to make known or commemorate their family history.

I surely have digressed from the point of this blog which is: Should I or should I not open the factory seal of my Sola Busca deck and use these cards? My heart says yes, but my mind says no. I will surely keep you posted.
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The first time I ever laid eyes on tarot cards was 1968. In fact, it was the first time many Americans ever saw a deck of tarot because it was the first time it ever appeared on American television.

Can you guess where? It was the 1966 - 1971 daytime soap, Dark Shadows. The deck used in that episode is the deck shown above, the  1JJSwiss Tarot deck.

Four cards were referenced, which I have recreated in the aforementioned photo.

In those episodes (#368 and #369) A tarot reader read cards for Barnabas Collins. The reader was an incarnation of Grayson Hall, who most often played Dr. Julia. In this episode she was the Countess, a relation to his beloved Josette.

Several of the cards were laid out for a reading and the Countess Identified Barnabus as represented by the Magician. The Countess identified the lemniscate above the Magician's head as a sign that Barnabus would live forever. She then focuses our attention to the High Priestess (which in this deck is titled Junon) who the Countess identifies as Josette. Then she shutters, removes the cards from the table. She says placed next to Josette's card is The Wicked Woman. She exclaims that there is a wicked woman in the house. We never see the card representing The Wicked Woman and who knows which of the tarot cards was meant to represent her. Probably one of the reversed queens. The countess also points out La Mort, and La Maison De Dieu, more commonly known as: Death, and The Tower. As for the wicked woman in the house, we all know it was a reference to Angelique, the astoundingly beautiful evil nemesis of Barnabas. The woman (witch) who is responsible for cursing him and turning him into a vampire.

More than likely, this deck was used because the Rider Waite deck had not yet become available in the U.S. and this particular deck was the only tarot deck available in the U.S. at the time. This deck was originally published in 1831. The Rider Waite Smith deck, as it is more commonly referred to today, was not available for purchase in the U. S. until 1971 and the RWS deck did make later appearances on the show after the 1971 season.

I personally believe that Dark Shadows was the single most great influence in sparking interest in tarot to a whole new generation of young people who in turn are now the master elder readers of today, at least in the United States. I believe Dark Shadows is responsible for this country's renewed interest in tarot ever since.

I was ten years old when these cards appeared on TV, and I was glued to my set. Aside from being addicted to the show which I watched religiously with all my neighborhood friends, this show and these particular cards were my first initiation into the study and nearly life-long practice of tarot.

In fact, this 1JJ Swiss deck is the first tarot deck I ever bought and is the same deck which I used to photograph for this blog. It remains my sentimental favorite from among many dozens of tarot decks in my collection.

I did not begin reading cards at age ten, but that's when they were on my radar. I began reading and studying these wonderful cards in earnest in 1976.
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There has been a long space of time between my last entry and today's, and that is because we were traveling during the month of July. Aside from my daily Instagram card readings and keeping up with an Instagram tarot challenge, my hand did not relay into print what my brain was thinking.

I couldn't wait to get home to write about the things that I was thinking about the entire month, which was looking at the symbolism of the cards from their historic perspective.

Rote memorization is rarely helpful in the long run, and is usually only helpful as a short-term strategy to pass a difficult test. What makes a test difficult, is because one doesn't grasp the concept. If you get the concept, you get IT.

And so, understanding even some of the history and evolution of tarot is to understand the many nuances and subtleties that a card might offer. While it is true that history is only as reliable as the person who recorded it, sometimes the myths and even the misunderstandings by artists are fascinating, and can lead to that lightbulb moment of 'Aha!'

Let's take a look at the Hanged Man.

Most LWB definitions describe the Hanged Man card as a card of sacrifice and enlightenment. While it can be argued that a person who is unselfish is probably an enlightened individual, the two conditions are not synonymous with one another.

The earliest representation we have of the Hanged man is his appearance in the Visconti tarots of the 15th Century. This is as close to an original tarot catalogue of imagery as we have. A well dressed man is seen in pittura infamante, a position intended to disgrace criminals, particularly those of the upper classes. The suspended position communicated the crime of the accused either as a traitor or as a perpetrator of a financial crime such as that of a thief or that of public fraud. But either way the punishment was intended to bring social shame and discrace. The guilty party was hung by one foot, leaving the other leg to flop in a triangular formation, with his hands tied behind his back.

When I was teaching myself tarot a million years ago, one of the visual cues I used in remembering 'enlightenment' for this card was that in the first tarot decks I owned, the individual had very light or blond hair (and in the Visconti tarot he is decidedly blond) that hung down and framed his face like a halo. A person depicted in art with a halo is usually a person who is enlightened, and so that visual connection worked for me. The fact that the man is awake and not dead, suggests that he is fully aware and enlightened because he understands the consequences for his own behavior. It suggests that he sees the world from a new, enlightened perspective, one he hadn't considered or understood before.

But the stock definition of 'sacrifice' never really gelled for me with this card. While I understood it to be one of the keyword meanings for this card, looking at the visual clues, I never picked up on sacrifice. Of course, some tarot historians connect the death of the Hanged man to the death of Christ which translates to sacrifice for the greater good, and if that connection helps you remember, then great. But it never felt genuine to me because although Christ was punished, his supposed crime was blasphemy, not treason or theft, and he wasn't hung by one foot. If it doesn't make visual sense why force a meaning? Towards the end of this article I will identify a visual clue that does make sense in establishing sacrifice as one of its meanings.

Although the Visconti tarots are the oldest cards we have has reference, it does not necessarily mean it was the first, just the oldest one to survive. There were other decks produced around the same time frame of within one hundred years of the Visconti decks that had significant differences in visual content. The Hanged Man made no appearance at all in those decks. Among those pictured are the Sola Busca and Mantegna tarots. Neither of these 15th and 16th century decks depict a Hanged Man and appears to have in its place, a virtue card representing 'Prudence.' Prudence in both cards is depicted as a person walking, one with a type of lantern with a snake-like ribbon on his staff, and the other with a snake wrapped up the handle of a mirror. Although some historians claim Prudence replaced the Hanged Man, both of these cards with their symbolic objects (a lantern for light and a mirror for self reflection a 'Know Thyself' motif) seem more connected to the Hermit than to the Hanged Man, but that's just me.

The Marseille or TdM tarots of the 17th century clearly have the Hanged Man represented by a chap with light hair, suspended by one foot, other leg bent in the form of a triangle, and in the case of the example in my photograph has hands tied behind the body. During the inception of the TdM tarots the possibility that the Hanged man was instrumental in furthering its political agenda cannot be ignored. 

If we skip one hundred years to the French guys of the 18th century, de Gebelin and Etteilla, they began to take note of the tarots as having potential for purposes of cartomancy and one or the other of them, or maybe both, I don't exactly recall, propositioned that some of the early tarot artists mistakenly inverted the image of a man walking with one leg bent (so as to avoid steopping on a snake which appeared in the Prudence cards) as a man hanging from a rope. His face is alive and alert because if he were walking he could not be dead, but in the artist's confusion de Gebelin and Etteilla proposed that the artists interpreted a Hanged Man who was alert and aware and thereby, enlightened. Are you still with me on this?

If you look at the next two cards in the photo, the top right and bottom left, you can see that the school of Etteilla abandoned the Hanged Man in favor of the Prudence card which he and his followers felt was the rightful historic card. (Or at least it fit in better with Etteilla's agenda whatever that was.) Both of these cards feature a female, not a male, walking with a snake prominantly featured in the card. One of them has a mirror. 

(For those interested, the card on the top right is a reproduction from Etteilla's own deck and the first deck created for divination purposes, designed by him a year or two before his death. This card is known as the Grand Etteilla Egyptian Gypsies Tarot Deck published by Grimaud in 1969. The card on the bottom left was created by one of Etteilla's followers after his death and is known as the Book of Thoth Etteilla Tarot, or sometimes referred to as Etteilla III.)

In the Hermetic Tarot from which both the RWS and Crowley decks were born, (the black and white card in my photo) you will see the appearance of a snake and a reflective pool of water, which is a concept similar to a mirror. Remember, both a snake and a mirror appeared in the Prudence cards. Interesting, no?

Heck, even Miss Cleo's (who in an ironic twist of fate was herself found guilty of financial fraud and deception) has a snake prominantly featured in the hanged Man card of her deck.

Who knows if de gebelin and Etteilla were onto something, but the consensus is that they were in error or mislead for their own agendas. Nonetheless, it is fascinating to me that even newer decks of the past few years revisiting alchemic symbolism (not featured in my photograph) have a snake prominantly featured in their renditions of the Hanged Man. Not for the reasons that de Gebelin and Etteilla surmised, but as representative of Mercury as the 'Crucified Serpent' which connects the meaning of the Hanged Man card to the sacrifice of Hermes in a visual way that makes sense to me.

Modern tarot decks post-dating Etteilla no longer include Prudence in the cast of characters, unless you consider that it was the Hermit all along, who remains a man walking...

The month of July was a bust for me, at least writing-wise. Aside from my daily Instagram card readings and keeping up with an IG tarot challenge, my hand did not relay in print what my brain was thinking.

I also missed my tarot clients so much! 

My extroverted husband took his most defintely introverted wife on one of his whirlwind adventures. It is impossible for me to keep up with my private readings while traveling and I left my computer at home because I promised my husband I wouldn't 'work.' At any rate, it is good to be back home in my sacred space and back to my tarot readings and writings.

One of the ideas that filled my head during the month of July, and I couldn't wait to write about, was the historic symbolism in the cards of the Major Arcana. My tarot obsession is in understanding the cards through a historic context. In my view this translates to real understanding of the meanings of the cards. Rote memorization accomplishes nothing except to acquire enough surface knowledge to pass a test.  But to have real depth of understanding of a topic, means that If you get the concept, you get IT.

Understanding some of the history and evolution of tarot, is to understand the many nuances and subtleties that a card might offer. True, history is only as accurate as the ones who record it, but even the myths are fascinating and can provide the lightbulb moment of, 'Aha!'

Let's take a look at the Hanged Man.

Very often the traditional meaning is one of self-sacrifice, and enlightenment. A person who is unselfish might, in the grand scheme of things, be said to be enlightened. But casually, the two conditions are not synonomous with one another. 

In my initial learning of the Hanged Man, and looking to the Visconti Tarots which is as close to an original tarot catalogue of imagery as we have, the Hanged Man is depicted in 'pittura infamante' a position intended to disgrace particularly those of the upper classes. The suspended position would have communicated the crime of the accused. This position was either understood as the punishment for a traitor or for the perpetrator of a financial crime such as that of a thief, someone guilty of bankruptcy or public fraud, But either way, the punishment was intended to bring social shame and disgrace. The particular individual in this Visconti deck of cards had pretty blond hair, which hangs and frames his face and to me is reminiscent of a halo which indicates enlightenment. The fact that the man is awake and not dead, suggests that he is fully aware and enlightened because he understands the consequences for his own behavior. It also suggests to me that he is seeing life from a new, enlightened perspective that he hadn't understood before.

The concept of self-sacrifice for this card never quite gelled for me, but I still felt compelled to include it in my repertoire of meaning for this card. The ideal is for the imagery in a card to make sense to the reader so she or he may make sense of the card in relation to the question being asked, am I right? But if it doesn't make sense, why force a meaning? For this reason I rarely used sacrifice for the meaning of this card unless there was a visual reason to support this meaning. Some historians connect the death of the Hanged Man to the death of Jesus, and believe that the Hanged Man is a representation of Christ's sacrifice, thereby connecting the card to that meaning. If that helps you remember, great. But it never made sense to me.  Jesus was not hung upside down by one foot and neither was he a thief or a crook, so identifying it as a Christ figure was not a strong selling point for me. There is another visual clue that does make sense in connecting the meaning to sacrifice in some decks and I will touch on that towards the end of this article.

Let's consider the other cards in the photograph.

Although the Visconti cards might represent the oldest deck of what we call tarot, there were other decks produced around the same time that had significant differences in visual content. Among those pictured are the Sola Busca, and Mantegna tarots. The Hanged Man makes no appearance in those 15th and 16th century decks, and in fact, appears to have in its place, a Virtue Card representing, 'Prudence.' (The two I have included in my photo, the Sola Busca and Mantegna, are not the only virtue type tarots of those times, only the two which I own in my collection. Though I must confess that the Sola Busca card resonates more to me as The Hermit and not as Prudence, but what do I know?)

Now let's skip the 17th century Marseille tarots for now, which clearly depicts a hanged man, and jump to those French guys of the 18th century, de Gebelin and Etteilla. They positioned that creators of some of those earlier decks of tarot mistook the image of a man walking with one leg bent (so as to avoid stepping on a snake which also appeared in the image) as a man hanging from a rope. His face is alive because if he were walking, he would not be dead. And so de Gebelin and Etteilla supposed that some of the early tarot creators mistook the snake to be a hanging device for a hanged man, who I suppose, because he was wide awake, was determined to be in an enlightened condition. (Are you still with me?)

Etteilla's own deck (now known as Etteilla's Grand Gypsy Egyptian by Grimaud circa 1969) was created in the last year or two of his life and forfits the Hanged man in preference of Prudence in an effort to correct the error he felt was made by earlier deck creators. (This card is the top right card in my photograph) Both Etteilla's own card and the card which appears on the bottom left created by an Etteilla follower after Etteilla's death (now known as the Etteilla Book of Thoth) depict a snake somewhere in the image. The later deck also includes a mirror. The mirror is probably a device to 'Know Thyself.' Interestingly the subject in both Etteilla style cards is a woman, and not a man as depicted in the Hanged Man card of the Visconti style tarots.

Who knows if de Gebelin and Etteilla were on to something, but it's an interesting supposition, even if the consensus is that they were in error. Nonetheless, it's fascinating to me that a few newer decks based on alchemy (not pictured here) have a snake prominantly featured in their renditions of the Hanged Man. Not for the reasons de Gebelin surmised, but as representative of Mercury as the 'Crucified Serpent' which in turn, connects the meaning of the card to sacrifice in a visual way that makes sense to me.

Notice in the Hermetic Tarot deck from which both the RWS and Crowley Thoth decks are born (the black and white card in my photograph) there is both a snake and a pool of water which is reflective and somewhat suggestive of a mirror from the 2nd Etteilla deck previously mentioned. Interesting, no?

Heck, even Miss Cleo's tarot deck (who in an ironic twist of fate was herself found guilty of financial fraud and deception), has a snake prominantly featured in the Hanged Man card.

If we visit the Marseille Tarots, we see a strict adherance to the depiction of a hanged man, by which time neither the image of the snake nor mirror appear. During the time of its inception, the possibility that the Hanged Man as portrayed in the Marseille decks was instrumental in furthering its own agenda cannot be ignored. For whatever reasons, the concept of Prudence was abandoned from the Marseille deck and all other decks post-dating Etteilla, excepting for the possibility that it is embodied by The Hermit, who remains a man walking.