Association for Tarot Studies

Meditation on the Nineteenth Major Arcanum of the Tarot

extract from the book Meditations on the Tarot
THE SUN – LE SOLEIL
The preceding Arcanum—"The Moon"—confronted us with the task of human intelligence to liberate itself from the magical enchantment which separates it from spontaneous wisdom, and to unite itself with the latter, i.e. to arrive at intuition. The nineteenth Arcanum—"The Sun"— is that of the [...]

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 in [...]

The Tarot – Jesus’ New Testament

Russell Sturgess
www.beattitude.com.au
It is blasphemy! Imagine someone having the gall to suggest that the Tarot, which was referred to as the ‘Devil’s Book’ in the Middle Ages, is presenting the same gospel as Jesus’ New Testament. For this to happen there would have to be two significant paradigm shifts. One shift would require a new understanding [...]

Review: Encyclopedia of Tarot vols I-IV

Jean-Michel David
www.fourhares.com
When I first obtained volume 1 in 1985, it had already been in print since 1978, the internet did not yet exist, and the variety of tarot decks available in any location was a [...]

Twenty Years of Tarot:
The Lo Scarabeo Story.

Pietro Alligo et al, 2007 - review by EC

Publishers Lo Scarabeo arouse a variety of feelings among tarot aficionados. Their decks are immensely popular, but have their detractors; some feel they are too “commercial”; some feel their decks “stray too far” from “true tarot” – whatever that is; some feel their decks are too much alike [...]

Inquiries into Tarot
& on divination by means of tarot cards (Part 1)

by M. C. de M***
trans. by Jean-Michel David
For this translation, I was very much aided by the various (often provisional) translations of Mary Greer and Jack Meier, Jess Karlin, Donald Tyson and those who contributed to Tarotpedia’s entry (especially Stephen John Mangan / kwaw). Each different translation provided thoughts for different nuances, for which I [...]

Kabbalistic Tarot
Hebraic Wisdom in the Major and Minor Arcana

by Dovid Krafchow
…being an introduction to the ancient kabbalistic origins and meanings of the tarot
__________
Newsletter foreword by Jean-Michel David
When I first came across Dovid Krafchow’s book, its description intringued me, not so much because here was another title that was going to present some kind of relation between Tarot and Kabbalah, [...]

Of Mice, Monkeys and Men
writing the Fantastic Menagerie book

by Sophie Nusslé
Once upon a time, in the early spring of 2005, I was exchanging private messages on Aeclectic Tarot with Karen Mahony of Magic-realist Press in Prague. We were discussing their latest deck project. I had long been a fan of the Tarot of Prague, and like a good fan, had written gushing messages [...]

The Tarot and the Kabbalah,
the Ancient Mesopotamians and the Sufist

by Nicholas Swift
an extract from Mirror of the Free
www.vaxxine.com/mirrorofthefree
Authors of books on the Tarot cards commonly assert that their true origin is unknown. One sometimes gets the impression, however, that their attitude to the mystery it presents is ambivalent: knowledge means not only less excuse to speculate but, also, more responsibility. They write as if [...]

Prague — ways of looking

by Karen Mahony
Magic Realist Press
A head on a carved stone pillar in the Old Town.
Going through immigration on a trip back to the UK last year, I was standing behind an attractive girl whom the officer was attempting to chat up.
“Prague,” he said, looking at her ticket. “I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”
“Nah,” she said, clearly [...]