Tarot is a Profound Source of Insight - Page 20
Tarot Articles and Blogs
Learn how Tarot cards and their meanings influence your life here and now
The Major Arcana: Fool's Journey
Modern interpreters sometimes refer to the Tarot majors as the Fool's Journey. The 21 images of the trumps are seen as stages in a psychological or mystical journey and the Fool is seen as the pilgrim. Read More »
Dr. Robert V. O'Neill
Dr. O'Neill recently retired as Senior Research Scientist and Corporate Fellow, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has more than 240 publications including several books on Ecological Theory. He has served on the National Science Foundation Panel on Ecological Sciences and the Editorial Boards of Ecology, Columbia University Press, Ecosystem Journal, and Conservation Ecology. Read More »
Papess Cards
The five surviving Papess images (card #4) are shown in Figure 1. All of the images show a seated woman wearing the triple papal tiara. Two have a staff topped with a cross, two have a bishop's crozier and the last holds a key, the key of Peter as a symbol of the papacy. Three have a closed book in their laps and one is reading from a book open on a reading stand. Two show a tonsured assistant as found on some Pope cards. Read More »
Pope Cards
Figure 1 shows the 6 extant Pope cards from the 15th and 16th centuries. As with the Emperor, all of the figures are enthroned. The keys of St. Peter are shown on three of the cards, Read More »
The Underground Streams: Esoteric Tarot Revealed
Welcome to the Christine Payne-Towler Tarot Library. Included here are excerpts from her book, The Underground Streams: Esoteric Tarot Revealed. Read More »
Virtue Cards
The three Tarot trumps that represent cardinal or moral virtues (Temperance, Fortitude, Justice) will be covered in separate chapters. However, the virtues form an integral subset of the symbolic system and some general observations are in order. Read More »
Criteria for Esoteric Tarot
The term "esoteric Tarot" defines our approach to the unfolding history of Tarot. Throughout this program, it is the key concept and watchword. So the reader can follow the discussion, I have listed the following characteristics that must be met to qualify a deck as an esoteric Tarot: Read More »
The Gnostic Tarot
The subject of Gnosticism is entirely too large to be dealt with in an essay such as this one. This spiritual path has a history longer than that of Christianity and covers a territory that includes most of western and eastern Europe Read More »
Introduction to Iconology of the Early Tarot
"The first function of history is to open our minds to the infinite wealth of possible worlds and to help us to understand that our own view, whatever it may be, is precarious, limited, and open to sudden and radical change." Read More »
Emperor Cards
The Emperor appears as trump card #3 in the type B ordering we are following in this essay. A number of examples of the Emperor card have survived from the 15/16th centuries (Fig. 1) although it is clear that some of the images are copies or adaptations of others. Read More »