“Yes, let the Word of God precede us! Let it humiliate the potent forces of the earth, these perverse passions which we wish to mortify and which claim, from our mortal bodies, a pitiless and tyrannical dominion! Let it subjugate them to our research and our exposition! Breaking down the doors of ignorance, shattering the chains of defect which exclude us from true science, let it lead us to our most secret Arcana.”
(John Cassian, Cenobitic Institutions)
Anyone who has even only a vague knowledge of the Tarot, knows that this subject calls to mind first of all, prediction of the future. On the contrary, from what we have described here, it should be clear that there exist diverse ways of utilizations of the Tarot. It lends itself, in fact, to a multiplicity of uses so rich and surprising that this practice becomes only one of many possibilities.
The Tarot is a metaphysical machine of which the deck of cards is but a support, the vehicle of a perfect mechanism thanks to which these images, these sacred Icons , guard a plurality of teachings regarding man, his destiny, and the laws that govern him. All this is made possible by a system of Codes and Laws, making up the Coded Structure , which generates a language of communication between the human world and the spiritual.
The true Tarot may be considered an esoterical discipline complete in itself, which in past centuries was named by the ancient Alchemists, Science of the sciences. For this reason, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, defined it as “ the key to all Western esoterism ” and it is for the same reason that it is no longer acceptable to relegate the Tarot to a small area concerned only with divination.
This use, known today as cartomancy, is therefore to be considered limiting and completely improper, as it entails a total reduction and a profound debasement of its value. The definition itself of cartomancy is justifiable only in the case of ignorance of that which the Tarot does not represent, nor its origin, nor the authentic significance preserved within it. Therefore, as words are the essential guardians of the most hidden sense of reality, the term with which to describe the use of the Arcana must also be changed. Thus, in order to establish the exact designation of this “new” discipline, a new, scientifically and linguistically correct word has been introduced: Tarology . 97 This should be an easily understandable choice, as the prefix taro indicates the Tarot, which is, as we have said, called Tarot in all languages (except in Italian, in which it is called Tarocchi); the suffix logy means logos , discourse, study, discipline. Tarology is, therefore, the discourse on the Tarot , and by extension, the branch of knowledge which studies and practices it. This term, which guarantees great accuracy and completeness, adheres with coherence and total correspondence to its deepest and most esoterical nature. Tarology, in fact, is a subject which has nothing to do with ordinary cartomancy, as its nature and complexity are very different. In order to avoid misunderstandings, it will be well to specify what we intend by these affirmations. Rudolf Steiner, 98 a philosopher and scholar who lived at the turn of the eighteenth century, maintained that the comprehension of the spiritual world does not have an artistic character connected to sentiment, as in the case of a work of art; it has, rather, the imprint of thought which is appropriate for the knowledge of nature.
This declaration of his expresses a basic requisite: the true researcher, in order to approach the superior worlds, must utilize the mind as a controlled and manageable instrument of awareness and comprehension, avoiding losing himself in the meanders of emotional overflow. In any case, this manner of approach, for the quality itself of the organ which investigates, in order to be able to open itself to new forms of understanding such as intuitive consciousness, needs preliminary assurances derived from rational processes. According to this vision, amply shared by many traditional forms, at the base of individual research must lie, therefore, a constant attitude of verification of the subjective investigation of the metaphysical world through logical and mental parameters, precisely as if conducted in the area of a scientific practice.
To speak of a connection between Science and Tarot might seem rash and might risk incurring diverse impressions. Their combination, in fact, could cause the creation of positions quite diversified and distant, owing to the general opinions held regarding these two worlds apparently in total contrast with each other. Speaking of Science, we imagine an empirical and testable approach, while in the Tarot we find instead the characteristics of that which seems ascribable only to inspiration and the subjective vein.
Between these two diametrically opposite opinions, however, exists an entire gamut of intermediate attitudes, of acceptance or denial, conditioned by that which one thinks to be the content of this esoterical discipline. Some, even agreeing that the Tarot may be a more serious subject than they generally think, might maintain that behind such a “presumed” science, lies hidden the tendency to renew every sort of credence or suspicion, a position justly rejected by those who have known the true scientific mentality and a pure impulse towards knowledge... For these others, instead, the name Tarot evokes the intention to describe something that is not possible to achieve unless attracted by a heartfelt and profound desire for awareness or by a refined curiosity of the soul. These, each according to his own disposition, will maintain that it is not possible or conceivable to catalogue and systemize these subjective qualities following the scientific method.
Thus, despite the scantily comforting presuppositions, to compare science and the Tarot is neither arbitrary nor excessive, but NECESSARY!
In order to convince ourselves of this, let us first reflect upon the beginning and the meaning of science in the life of humankind. Considering the object with which it concerns itself, it is possible to comprehend this origin only if we focus our attention on the activity of the human soul, which manifests during the force to know, on the behaviour adopted by the single individual in the act of acquiring it. Science, in the strictest sense of the word, with its methods and ways of thinking, is limited to the sphere of the perceptible. However, we must allow ourselves to ask, not only if there exists another area of investigation, but also if the scientific method may possibly find an application there. In fact, what might happen if we were able to apply its rules to the so-called super sensible realm as well? Working on nature is a sort of self-education of the Soul, in which it develops the capacity to utilize the result of this self-training in the non-perceptible dimension. If for the researching Soul there were an objective means, complete with a nature logical and rational, what advantages might there be? Would it not mean to make manifest and certifiable the method of investigation of non-perceptible reality? The answer is definitely affirmative; as such a support would satisfy certain grand requisites. On the one hand, in fact, it would allow investigation with the same criteria with which the naturalistic scientist treats sensitive content. On the other, it would allow the conservation, within the scientific procedure, of the interior aspect of the Soul (as is already true in many spiritual disciplines), but also the formal rigor of concrete and practical methodological parameters, the criteria of scientific investigation.
For Tarology, the presence of such a vehicle 99 is no supposition, ma something definite and real, as in the Tarot there is the Coded Structure made up of Codes and Laws, which constitutes a repeatable and constantly verifiable support. All of this translates to the possibility of affirming the validity of the progress accomplished in the knowledge of the subject in analysis, as the results are always testable, as in science is generally intended. All Traditional Disciplines state that the stages and experiences of the Soul during its progress towards knowledge are traversable by all human beings in a homogeneous and uniform manner. The Tarot, thank to the presence of this support which functions as a reference system, not only confirm that these phases are truly the same for each individual who approaches them, but even make possible an objective and tangible description with extraordinary accuracy and precision.
Tarology, then, has two great priorities among its objectives. On one side, it has the will to liberate current scientific investigation and attitude from the reductive analysis drawn from the sole sensitive facts while conserving its general characteristics of thought and the seriousness of its epistemological criteria. On the other, it proposes to deal with non-sensitive subjects in the same way in which natural science develops sensitive ones, without, however, pretension of totally non-critical acceptance.
All this becomes acceptable only if we consider that Tarology is a discipline with a solid gnosiological foundation able to be constantly examined and verified . This last prerequisite, precisely, is the reason for which an interpretive and subjective study of the Arcana that does not take into account the Coded Structure , while being of great value, would not be classifiable as a science.
It remains, in fact, circumscribed in a more artistic and personalized sphere which, influenced by the inclinations of those who practice it, does not have the essential character of objective replicability. In conclusion, if these motives are not those for which it is no longer legitimate to associate the Tarot solely with divinatory practice, how may we delineate the multiple possible uses of Tarology?
Notwithstanding the limits deriving from a reduced exposition to the framework of the Codes, we will try to analyze these uses in detail, with the proviso that, for the great diffusion of cartomancy over the centuries, we are not exempt from taking it into consideration .