A HISTORY OF TAROT

The origin of Tarot and its everyday uses

by Christine Payne-Towler

This work began in 1970 when I purchased a used deck of the 20th Century Tarot in a book shop in Salem, Oregon. I was a freshman in college. With parents who were both therapists, I instantly recognized that Tarot was a tool with great potential for helping people grapple with the changing circumstances in their lives.

Soon I returned to the book shop to buy Volume 6 of the Brotherhood of Light Encyclopedia, entitled The Sacred Tarot. From there I learned about the connections the cards have with letters, numbers, astrology and a host of other symbol systems from antiquity. Naturally, I sent for C.C. Zain's deck and began memorizing all the correspondences. Finding others who were using different Tarot decks made me conscious of the need not to put all my eggs in one basket, so I started searching for other decks that were constructed with these correspondences in mind. Soon the Thoth Tarot and the New Tarot for the Aquarian Age joined the first decks on my table, and I was plunged into a twenty year passion that continues to this day.

When I discovered that I could buy Tarot decks directly through U. S. Games Systems, I became a collector. I also employed all the decks I could make sense of in my private practice with clients, students and study groups. Playing with them in terms of real-life situations as I conducted readings gave me the opportunity to see how their similarities and differences operated with different psyches and psychologies.

Collecting decks only multiplied my questions about which versions were traditional and which were innovative. Since my first exposure to Tarot reflected the Hermetic influence of the Brotherhood of Light, which is closely associated with the ancient self-initiation paradigm of the Mysteries, I could see that many decks were diverging from or just plain ignorant of Tarot's history. Thus, I found myself somewhat isolated from beloved colleagues who were for the most part satisfied with what they found in American bookstores. Over time I managed to collect the books cited by the authors of the decks as well as the books those authors cited, ad infinitum. After all these years of study and practice, I have emerged from the confusion with confidence and would like to share with you the themes I have discovered.

The History of Tarot | Tarot.com -- Continued »