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1 - The Magic of the Tarot Cards
So far two instruments of divination have been considered, geomancy and the I Ching, the first dating
back in Europe to classical times, the second an Eastern method which has been very definitely
assimilated into the Western tradition.
The limitations of geomancy are obvious from the limited number of possible answers, sixteen in all,
which even if taken in combination or referred to the relevant Houses are still restricted to a fairly
fixed wording. The I Ching on the other hand has the same degree of visual appeal as geomancy, (the
hexagram being of a perhaps more intrinsically evocative nature than the geomantic figures) but has an
infinitely more fluid text, which according to the insight or frame of reference of the operator is
capable of a much more detailed interpretation.
The Tarot however has an enormous range of symbolic combinations: a visual richness which fires the
subsconscious in a much more direct manner than the other two systems. Although Aleister Crowley
preferred to use the I Ching for day-to-day answers to mundane questions, it lacks the complex and
essentially Western images which make the Tarot definitely the most visually fertile of all the systems
of divination.
The traditional Tarot packs consist of seventy-eight cards of which twenty-two are the Major Arcana
(or picture cards) and fifty-six are the Minor Arcana (being more akin to ordinary playing cards)
having four suits made up of numbered cards from one to ten (the first being an ace), and four court
cards apiece.
The Major Arcana or Tarot Atus (trumps) consist of twenty-two cards picturing symbolically the
various Situational and personal archetypes met with by the magician. Each card has a title and a
meaning, varying slightly from pack to pack. The choice of which particular version to buy is largely a
matter of personal preference, for each individual responds differently to the different portrayals of the
cards. The most common packs are the 'Marseilles' pack (a rather mediaeval design, but of fairly recent
date) and the A.E. Waite pack (issued early this century). Other packs include those designed by
Knapp, Oswald Wirth, C.C. Zain, Paul Foster Case (a black and white version of the Waite pack),
Aleister Crowley, and more recently R. Gardener, David Sheridan and the Aquarian Pack.
There is also a school of thought amongst various occult fraternities which holds, with some validity,
that one really only understands the Tarot trumps when one has made one's own pack, but for the
beginner a commercial pack is quite satisfactory. Of these the Aquarian pack and Aleister Crowley's
Thoth pack are the most aesthetically pleasing, but the former suffers from oversimplification and the
latter from the introduction of too many symbols, (many of them understandable only in the context of
Crowley's own philosophy).
The Waite pack despite its many drawbacks, or an uncoloured Case pack (to be painted in by yourself)
are probably still the best packs for the beginner. For those who have made a special study of
Crowley's works, his pack can shed much light on the meanings of the Atus. However the best source
of meaning is that discovered by meditation on and skrying the cards for yourself. Techniques for the
latter are outlined further on in this chapter. At this stage we will just examine the basic designs of the
Atus which are common to most packs.
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