From Tarot and Other Meditation Decks

by Emily E. Auger ebook available 2011: www.mcfarlandpub.com From Tarot and Other Meditation Decks: History, Theory, Aesthetics, Typology © 2004 Emily E. Auger by permission of McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640. www.mcfarlandpub.com The recent history of Tarot is part of the developing cultural importance of the individual and subjective life, particularly [...]

In Memorium – Jean-Claude Flornoy

It seems ever so strange to farewell someone from the tarot world. We all know of our own mortality, as well as the loss of various other contributors to the world, yet somehow when such a event arives, even when more or less anticipated, it remains an unexpected shock. Jean-Claude’s passing is certainly a [...]

Playing the Fool

Fern Mercierwww.tarot.net.nz Roam through the 600 years of tarot history with the Fool, raiding the treasure houses of art, history, poetry, literature, theatre, film, folklore, fairy-tale, myth and mathematics with Fern Mercier. We won’t pin her/him down but we can widen and deepen our appreciation of The Fools’ irrepressible wisdom and wit. Nothin’ ain’t worth [...]

Boethius, Fortuna, the Ass and the Monkey

The Wheel of Fortune by Jean-Michel David There are a few cards in the sequence that were especially influential in sending me scurrying through historical connections and developments. This is one of those, the other two being XVI and XXI. Not that other cards lack such aspect, of course. The Wheel has numerous details worthy [...]

The Fool’s Journey in ceramics

by Carol Liknaitzky When I embarked on this journey of creating the 22 Major Arcana in ceramics, it was a commitment to developing my imagination and finding a way to express the lessons of my life through these ‘windows’. Prior to this I did not have any real knowledge of the Tarot. I was inspired [...]

Journeying the Sixties: A Counterculture Tarot

William Haigwoodwww.counterculturecreations.com “The thing itself is unreachable, but its phenomenon can be apprehended through the structures of thought.” –Immanuel Kant “To have a new vision of the future, it has always been necessary to have a new vision of the past.” –Historian Theodore Zeldin When I recently wrote and created The Counterculture Tarot I finished [...]

1701 Dodal restored!

Jean-Michel David www.fourhares.com I like to imagine what it will be like in 300 years hence: perhaps one of Flornoy’s decks survives, having been found in one of Melbourne’s museums, and perhaps a mastercraftsman has picked it up, obtained high resolution images thereof, and seeks to remake it afresh for all to enjoy. Some of [...]

A Century with the Waite-Smith Tarot (and all the others…)

K. Frank Jensen When the French author, priest and Freemason Antoine Court de Gebelin (1719-84) in 1781 advanced the allegation, that the tarot deck constituted the Egyptian god Thoth’s ‘Secret Book’, he cast a seed to something, which during the next couple of centuries should grow to immense heights. Tarot was an ordinary card game [...]

Magic Manga Tarot

Dan Pelletier I had a problem with reviewing the Magic Manga Tarot. It kept reviving the ‘What is Tarot’ topic, a topic commonly bandied about on the electronic forums. Then there was an evening here a while back when I sat with Robert Place discussing, “What is Tarot”. With his knowledge of symbolism, it was [...]

Petrarch’s Triumphs and the creation of tarot

by Robert Mealing forum.tarothistory.com Years ago, when I first started exploring tarot history, I came to the conclusion that Petrarch’s Triumphs were probably a key element in the creation of tarot. Petrarch was a major influence on his time, and tarot was born not too long afterward. To see this connection wasn’t a new or [...]