“There must never be anyone among you… who practices divination, who is a soothsayer,
augur, or sorcerer, weaver of spells… For anyone that does these things is detestable to
Yahweh your God.” (Deuteronomy. 18 : 10-12, Jerusalem Bible.)
As a Tarot card reader the question of authenticity is an important one. The scientific skepticism and theological prejudice that both tarot reading and divination in general endure, often exists as a ‘hangover from history’ - a negative position inherited by people today regardless of their religious beliefs or scientific credentials. For such people the authenticity of Tarot cards and tarot ‘reading’ may well be difficult to prove. Yet regardless of the historical consensus, Tarot reading does still retain a place in modern popular culture for those intrigued by the divinatory act and its potential revelations. The irony of the sceptical position may be seen in the history and evolution of ‘divinatory consciousness’, in the movement away from the ancient world’s obsession with uncovering the ‘will of the Gods’, to what divination actually reveals for us here today. Those willing to take a seat in front of a Tarot card reader will often wait nervously in anticipation for the latest update, not from Zeus but on what is perhaps the modern minds most beloved subject - themselves!
The effort to establish an authoritative intermediary between humanity, nature and the divine saw religion and science instead build walls to our progress of understanding in this area, and instead “… disorient us and make us strangers to both the world and ourselves.” (Milne, 2007, p. 3) Here lies the irony of our current situation. If tarot card reading is to be considered authentic today then these walls of theological and philosophical prejudice, so deeply woven into our social and cultural history, represent the primary obstacles to legitimacy. The overcoming of them may take some time, yet in this effort we may look to the ancient world for perspective, when “…divination was regarded as one of the most important ways of attaining knowledge.” (Naydler, 2009, p.151), and in particular to the mythic god Hermes. As messenger and mediator between gods and mortals, Hermes crosses the thresholds and boundaries between humanity and the divine, speaking and translating the language of both. “Thus he would be the sign bearer, the marker, the lighter of beacons, the one who helps us interpret history and our own lives by giving us symbolic landmarks” (Faivre, 1995, p. 50). One such symbolic landmark with which we may begin to re-interpret our personal, social and cultural history may be found in the Tarot.
“The journey through the tarot images is represented practically as a dynamic search for identity, the discovery of meaning and value in our lives via our various creative encounters with the unconscious in the process of individuation.” (Semetsky, 2011, p. 34).
In the final card of the Tarot de Mantegna’s (1460) major arcana we encounter the figure of ‘Mercurius’ wearing a triangular hat, playing a flute and holding a caduceus. This is a Roman Hermes at the final stage in the Jungian process of individuation. He represents the power inherent in the successful balancing of two opposing forces and a reminder of the qualities required to transcend the limitations of opposites. Here Hermes, as Mercury, symbolises both the central function of the tarot – which is to translate into visible reality the “… inner world of deep Gnostic knowledge.” (Semetsky, 2013, p.345), and the final goal in the process of individuation which Jung describes as the “experience in images and of images.” (Jung, 1963, p.21). This is the hermeneutics of tarot and the language at the centre of its divinatory revelations. If tarot is to be considered authentic then this must be recognised as its distinctive characteristic within the world of divinatory practice – as a tool for what Jeffrey Kripal calls ‘… looking into the looker.’ (Kripal, 2014, p.368).
In this essay I will attempt to follow on from the message of Hermes and his appearance here as both the mediator and ‘sign bearer’ for the central function of tarot. A brief look at the influence of Hermes and the esoteric tradition will help define the language and terrain of authentic tarot readings. Once the central qualities of what may be termed as the ‘psycho-hermeneutics’ of tarot have been identified, an attempt to understand the action involved within the divinatory act of tarot reading will aim at identifying both the characteristics of what may be considered as authentic tarot reading.
“An imprisoned person, with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a
few years acquire universal knowledge and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inexhaustible eloquence.” (Eliphas Levi, 1896, Dogme et Rituel)
To continue reading follow the link to my academia.edu page here... "Hermes, Jung and the Educational Potential of Tarot"
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