Even after a book goes to press, an author never feels that his work is quite complete. There are always lingering doubts. Did I say enough about topic X? Was topic Y explained clearly? Will readers get confused by how I explained such and such? Should topic Z have been omitted and perhaps something else been discussed in its place? And so on. In this final chapter, I would like to outline what I hoped to accomplish in this text and conclude with a brief reflection on the psychological value of reading the tarot.
If you have reached this point in the book, you should have a sense of the origins and history of the tarot, how it developed as a card game in Renaissance Italy and how it spread to France where eventually it became popularized as a means of divination in the eighteenth century. You should also be familiar with the three most popular categories of tarot decks—the Marseille, Waite-Smith, and Crowley-Harris Thoth tarot—and how they differ from so-called oracle and fortune-telling decks.
Having experimented some with the cards, you should have a sense of where the information in a tarot reading comes from and how your presuppositions and attitudes influence your experience of the cards. On a technical level, you should have an understanding of the importance of shuffling and selecting cards with sincere intention, asking appropriately worded questions, endeavoring to empower the client, using various types of tarot spreads, making sense of tarot reversals and (if it suits your fancy) using elemental dignities. On a theoretical level, you should have some appreciation of the importance of the four elements (Fire, Water, Air, and Earth), number symbolism, tarot ethics, and (if such topics interest you) the role that Kabbalah, the Hebrew alphabet, and astrology played in generating modern meanings for the cards.
The discussions of the individual cards begin with the canonical divinatory meanings recorded by Etteilla in the eighteenth century and proceed to review how tarot giants such as Mathers in the nineteenth century and Waite and Crowley in the twentieth century conceptualized the same cards. In this way, the reader can get a sense of the historical development of the ideas linked to each card. There is also a listing of keywords for the potentially positive (+) and negative (-) uses of the energy embodied in each card. Finally, there is a brief delineation of the upright and reversed positions of the cards; these should not be regarded as mutually exclusive but rather as obverse sides of the same coin. Ultimately, you need to develop your own understanding of each card, regardless of what so-called “experts” think the card means.
The Psychological Value of Reading the Tarot
While reflecting on the material in this text, it dawned on me that reading the tarot serves much the same function as the imaginative play of childhood. In his work with children, British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott observed that child’s play forms the basis for adult creativity and the search for self. 46
The play of childhood (or of adulthood, for that matter) takes place in a “transitional” zone between the inner world of fantasy and imagination and the supposedly real world outside the individual. Playing imaginatively within this transitional space allows an independent sense of self to develop in relation to the world of other people. Through play, children are able to work with and thereby conquer their fears and anxieties without risking harm in the “real world.” Winnicott regarded the function of play as so significant that he viewed all human cultural activity as forms of play.
What, then, is a tarot reading if not an excursion into the imaginative world of childhood play? By entering the transitional space of tarot reading, we create for ourselves a safe environment where we can play with our deepest fears and anxieties as well as our most cherished hopes and wishes. We then return to the “real” world to make our dreams a reality. The playful myth-making that emerges as we read the tarot links us to the mythic imagination of past generations and moves us forward in our search for self.
46. D. W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (London: Tavistock, 1971).