Fortune and Her Wheel circa 1467, via Wikimedia Commons.
The tarot pages are the students of the deck. The Page’s Journey is a series of articles on learning tarot, geared for new beginners, and curious onlookers. I outlined this series while working on my upcoming book, but I wanted to post these articles here for free, to help out folx who are totally new. Most of what we’ll cover here is common knowledge in the field; some is my personal opinion.
I’ll post one of these each Sunday till we’ve run through the basics. Mid week, we’ll have more of our usual fare—salty spreads, cultural ramblings, intermediate articles, art talk, etc.
A Bit of News:
Quick Kickstarter Update: I've got two decks Kickstarting now, at time of writing, and we're super close to being able to afford a fine upgrade on the Black Ink Tarot! Once we cross past the $12K line, the Black Ink Deck will get high quality card stock, a matte UV finish, foil edges, a printed little white booklet, and a hard box. That means the deck price will bop up on remaining stock in the shop to reflect the upgraded quality, but Kickstarter backers lock in the low early prices, plus digital bonuses. The Kickstarter ends on March 7, so reserve your decks now!
And I recently had an absolute blast geeking out about tarot, magic, occulture, and opossums with Cory over on the New World Witchery podcast! I've been a fan of the show for years, so it was such a treat to go on as a guest. Check out the interview wherever you get your podcasts.
I’ll post one of these each Sunday till we’ve run through the basics. Mid week, we’ll have more of our usual fare—salty spreads, cultural ramblings, intermediate articles, art talk, etc.
A Bit of News:
Quick Kickstarter Update: I've got two decks Kickstarting now, at time of writing, and we're super close to being able to afford a fine upgrade on the Black Ink Tarot! Once we cross past the $12K line, the Black Ink Deck will get high quality card stock, a matte UV finish, foil edges, a printed little white booklet, and a hard box. That means the deck price will bop up on remaining stock in the shop to reflect the upgraded quality, but Kickstarter backers lock in the low early prices, plus digital bonuses. The Kickstarter ends on March 7, so reserve your decks now!
And I recently had an absolute blast geeking out about tarot, magic, occulture, and opossums with Cory over on the New World Witchery podcast! I've been a fan of the show for years, so it was such a treat to go on as a guest. Check out the interview wherever you get your podcasts.
Running Threads
Tarot is a collaborative craft, built on the interactions between the reader, the querent (questioner or seeker), the deck illustrator, the guidebook author, the stories the cards tell themselves, and the archetypes beneath them. Reader and seeker are one when we read for ourselves, and some author/illustrators both design and write their decks. Even still, it’s a number of voices engaged in conversation—more if you believe spirits and guides join the party, as some, but certainly not all readers do.
Given the overwhelming variety in the tarot field, can we say that tarot has any consistent spirit of its own? Is there a steady voice present across all tarot decks and readings? What nature, beyond surface structure, sets tarot apart from other means of divination? Would a common tarot spirit be enspirited, in the sense of a sentient awareness, or simply a core character deriving from art and archetype? These are all question best left to personal belief and experience, and ones that don’t necessarily need answering. That said, you’ll hear many deeply engaged readers report some running themes, including:
Sass: Tarot wears the sassiest sassy-pants. It tends to get real pointed, cut right to sensitive material, call BS, and gently tease the seeker.
No question is off-limits, but not all questions are of equal merit. If you ask something you already know the answer to, the cards might show you exactly what you already know, with a side of “really? Come on now, you know better.”
Humor: Overlapping with that sass, tarot pairs well with humor. It has an almost satirical quality that harkens back to its roots as a parlor game.
I reckon that stems from all those societal archetypes and stock characters. There’s a strong resonance between medieval playing card art and medieval theatre. Medieval and Renaissance art and entertainment in Europe seamlessly blended the sacred and the profane. Read any Shakespeare play or scope the margins of any Gothic or Renaissance illuminated manuscript. So much of the antiquated culture we take for high art today is NSFW AF, slapstick crass, and lousy with double entendres.
Something about tarot’s character makes it easy to talk about heavy and serious matters with a dose of warmth, levity, or gallows humor. Its symbols can wind up so literal in context, it verges on dad joke level pun-slinging.
Tough Love & Truth: Tarot does not pull punches. It will answer what you ask in terms of what you need to know, not what you want to hear. Some decks are gentler than others, hold your hand through the process, and deliver crappy news with a sugar coating or cartoon cheer. Other decks veer blunt, moody, even purposely intimidating, or edge-lordly morose. The delivery varies widely depending what art you view and books you read. However, the tendency to dish tough love and place truth above wishful thinking seems to carry over between decks, from what I've seen and heard.
Redirection: Similarly, tarot likes to redirect questions towards the most pressing stuff going on in your life. You might sit down wanting to look at your love life, but if your career is on the verge of crisis, the cards might skip right over your crush and yell about your boss first. Same goes for anything big you’re avoiding. Tarot does not often play along with attempts at escapist readings.
Multiplicity: Tarot’s got more layers than a baklava and operates on multiple levels at once. Its own nature parallels the wise fool in that way. It can goof off one minute and cut to the quick the next. It’s pretty and decorative on the surface, rich and complex on the underbelly. It can dish on the shallow, the workaday, the thoughtful, the profound, and the divine with equal facility. It can switch between those layers of life on a dime, and activate multiple meanings at once. She’s whip-smart, wise as a sage, and petty, but in a fun way.
Mirroring & Limitations: Tarot will go as deep as you’ll go. Tarot may have a mind and character of its own, but a reading plays out in the intersection of the deck’s and the reader’s minds. A card reader’s personality can amplify a deck’s traits, and many readers gravitate toward decks that compliment their own natures. It follows that readings can be limited by the reader’s understanding, expectations, and beliefs, especially in predictive readings. Journaling comes in handy here. A tarot reading can point to something you don’t know yet, but it can’t make you understand the message before you’re ready.
Sneak-Teaching: There’s a slow-burning gnosis that sneaks up on you ever so gradually through this game. It can take years to announce its presence, and years more to sink in. Some lessons pounce through hard knocks, and others rain down in blessings. If you’re willing to keep yourself in the Fool’s boots for the long-haul, you’ll never stop learning.
Given the overwhelming variety in the tarot field, can we say that tarot has any consistent spirit of its own? Is there a steady voice present across all tarot decks and readings? What nature, beyond surface structure, sets tarot apart from other means of divination? Would a common tarot spirit be enspirited, in the sense of a sentient awareness, or simply a core character deriving from art and archetype? These are all question best left to personal belief and experience, and ones that don’t necessarily need answering. That said, you’ll hear many deeply engaged readers report some running themes, including:
Sass: Tarot wears the sassiest sassy-pants. It tends to get real pointed, cut right to sensitive material, call BS, and gently tease the seeker.
No question is off-limits, but not all questions are of equal merit. If you ask something you already know the answer to, the cards might show you exactly what you already know, with a side of “really? Come on now, you know better.”
Humor: Overlapping with that sass, tarot pairs well with humor. It has an almost satirical quality that harkens back to its roots as a parlor game.
I reckon that stems from all those societal archetypes and stock characters. There’s a strong resonance between medieval playing card art and medieval theatre. Medieval and Renaissance art and entertainment in Europe seamlessly blended the sacred and the profane. Read any Shakespeare play or scope the margins of any Gothic or Renaissance illuminated manuscript. So much of the antiquated culture we take for high art today is NSFW AF, slapstick crass, and lousy with double entendres.
Something about tarot’s character makes it easy to talk about heavy and serious matters with a dose of warmth, levity, or gallows humor. Its symbols can wind up so literal in context, it verges on dad joke level pun-slinging.
Tough Love & Truth: Tarot does not pull punches. It will answer what you ask in terms of what you need to know, not what you want to hear. Some decks are gentler than others, hold your hand through the process, and deliver crappy news with a sugar coating or cartoon cheer. Other decks veer blunt, moody, even purposely intimidating, or edge-lordly morose. The delivery varies widely depending what art you view and books you read. However, the tendency to dish tough love and place truth above wishful thinking seems to carry over between decks, from what I've seen and heard.
Redirection: Similarly, tarot likes to redirect questions towards the most pressing stuff going on in your life. You might sit down wanting to look at your love life, but if your career is on the verge of crisis, the cards might skip right over your crush and yell about your boss first. Same goes for anything big you’re avoiding. Tarot does not often play along with attempts at escapist readings.
Multiplicity: Tarot’s got more layers than a baklava and operates on multiple levels at once. Its own nature parallels the wise fool in that way. It can goof off one minute and cut to the quick the next. It’s pretty and decorative on the surface, rich and complex on the underbelly. It can dish on the shallow, the workaday, the thoughtful, the profound, and the divine with equal facility. It can switch between those layers of life on a dime, and activate multiple meanings at once. She’s whip-smart, wise as a sage, and petty, but in a fun way.
Mirroring & Limitations: Tarot will go as deep as you’ll go. Tarot may have a mind and character of its own, but a reading plays out in the intersection of the deck’s and the reader’s minds. A card reader’s personality can amplify a deck’s traits, and many readers gravitate toward decks that compliment their own natures. It follows that readings can be limited by the reader’s understanding, expectations, and beliefs, especially in predictive readings. Journaling comes in handy here. A tarot reading can point to something you don’t know yet, but it can’t make you understand the message before you’re ready.
Sneak-Teaching: There’s a slow-burning gnosis that sneaks up on you ever so gradually through this game. It can take years to announce its presence, and years more to sink in. Some lessons pounce through hard knocks, and others rain down in blessings. If you’re willing to keep yourself in the Fool’s boots for the long-haul, you’ll never stop learning.
Artist Seeks Artifice
Skeptics will take some of this as evidence that tarot doesn’t “work.” Our minds seek patterns, and we can read stories out of any pictures before us. So if tarot can do things like mirror the reader’s own wisdom and faults, speak to many issues at once, prompt multiple interpretations, and veer off-topic to talk about anything it wants, it has to be fake.
To which I respond, okay sure. Might be fake. So what? Artist seeks Artifice. Tarot is a scrambled up book of pictures and verse that inspires people. What’s there to prove? If limited, mirrored, or redirected messages are accurate, specific, significant, timely, and helpful (and they often are), who cares if they come from mental storytelling and life experience? The same qualities that ring plastic to those who want proof-of-the-numinous are qualities that facilitate and decorate having an awkward conversation with yourself. As long as made up is helpful, made up is fine.
Keeping and reviewing a tarot journal will help you track the accuracy and relevance of your readings. If you find that your tarot practice confuses or troubles you more than it benefits you, then stop or adapt your practice! Personally, I do believe in psi phenomena because my experiences support that belief. Do I expect others to share my beliefs without evidence? Hell no. And do I worry about having my psychic hat on every time I pick up a deck? Also no.
To which I respond, okay sure. Might be fake. So what? Artist seeks Artifice. Tarot is a scrambled up book of pictures and verse that inspires people. What’s there to prove? If limited, mirrored, or redirected messages are accurate, specific, significant, timely, and helpful (and they often are), who cares if they come from mental storytelling and life experience? The same qualities that ring plastic to those who want proof-of-the-numinous are qualities that facilitate and decorate having an awkward conversation with yourself. As long as made up is helpful, made up is fine.
Keeping and reviewing a tarot journal will help you track the accuracy and relevance of your readings. If you find that your tarot practice confuses or troubles you more than it benefits you, then stop or adapt your practice! Personally, I do believe in psi phenomena because my experiences support that belief. Do I expect others to share my beliefs without evidence? Hell no. And do I worry about having my psychic hat on every time I pick up a deck? Also no.
O Fortuna
Overall, I get the impression that Tarot’s character is imprinted with of echoes Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck, fate, and fortune, and her Greek predecessor, Tyche. They don’t call it “fortune-telling” for nothing. Again, it’s a matter of personal belief to what degree this calls up a literal goddess—whether the connection is one more of metaphor or theology. But in terms of artistic symbolism, the signs are there.
The Wheel of Fortune, with the blindfolded, winged lady at the center of the wheel, dating back to the Visconti-Sforza decks, was understood to represent Fortuna in Renaissance art, and would have been recognized as such by the deck’s patrons. The Wheel has long been placed at or near the center of the majors, and we know early tarot cards were likely a gambling game, invoking Lady Luck in those earliest years of tarot’s actual use, in spirit & deed if not outright petition.
The Wheel of Fortune, with the blindfolded, winged lady at the center of the wheel, dating back to the Visconti-Sforza decks, was understood to represent Fortuna in Renaissance art, and would have been recognized as such by the deck’s patrons. The Wheel has long been placed at or near the center of the majors, and we know early tarot cards were likely a gambling game, invoking Lady Luck in those earliest years of tarot’s actual use, in spirit & deed if not outright petition.
The Visconti-Sforza Tarot Wheel of Fortune, Bonifacio Bembo, circa 1450-1480, via The Morgan Library.
Music nerds may think of Orff’s O Fortuna chorus, an epic lamentation from the Carmina Burana. Super fun to sing. Let’s all dress up fancy, lurk behind an orchestra, and scream at god! (Then whisper super fucking intensely at god, then take a breath, then scream some more.) But if you check out Fortuna’s allegories in classical and Renaissance art, you’ll find a much younger, more sensual side of Fate portrayed than the tragic choir of doom might suggest. Her icons include: the wheel, the globe, the blindfold, the ship’s rudder, the ship’s sails, the cornucopia, the sack of coins, and the dice.
Allegory of Fortuna and Virtus, Peter Paul Rubens, 17th century, via Wikimedia Commons.
 Fortuna, Hans Sebald Beham, 1541, via Wikimedia Commons. |  "Giuochi di Fortuna," allegory of Father Time playing dice with Fortune, circa 1631-1659, from "Il Tarrochino di Bologna," via Wikimedia Commons. |
Now as then, a Fate can look like a party goer, a generous provider, or a mean girl, just as easily as an ancient crone at a spinning wheel. The Wheel reminds us that we’re not the only ones steering the ships of our lives. Who else is steering? Every other living person—all co-piloting through an obstacle course laid by every dead person. A Fate can look like anyone. And in any guise, She can be fun sometimes.
No matter how much attention or acceptance tarot garners as a burgeoning art-form in mainstream culture, art, and academia, its sketchy, capricious, gambling, marginal, low-art, and low-brow sides have also stood the test of time, inseparable from all the high-brow wisdom, gilded ornaments, and riches. (Note: I don't condone it when scammers and frauds use tarot to manipulate or steal from people. Not everything low-brow about tarot is harmful, though, and some of it's enriching and fun, like tarot's pop-cultural and satirical sides.)
I can’t think of any sacred text that thrives so voraciously on constant revision, dressing and re-dressing, and revolution. Tarot loves novelty and design.
All of this contributes to tarot’s potential for those who wish not only to read our fates and fortunes, but to negotiate with them, and reshape them. Tarot often attracts artists and thinkers who crave to alter the cloth of our cultures, and our collective futures. Perhaps we should question the lines drawn between gambling, fortune telling, and divination in our practices? We peek behind the curtains of our future, as to better calculate the risks we take in redirecting it. Naturally, change is reciprocal. When we seek to alter, shape, and style our fates, our fates might well continue to alter, shape, and style us in turn, even as we succeed in steering what we may.
No matter how much attention or acceptance tarot garners as a burgeoning art-form in mainstream culture, art, and academia, its sketchy, capricious, gambling, marginal, low-art, and low-brow sides have also stood the test of time, inseparable from all the high-brow wisdom, gilded ornaments, and riches. (Note: I don't condone it when scammers and frauds use tarot to manipulate or steal from people. Not everything low-brow about tarot is harmful, though, and some of it's enriching and fun, like tarot's pop-cultural and satirical sides.)
I can’t think of any sacred text that thrives so voraciously on constant revision, dressing and re-dressing, and revolution. Tarot loves novelty and design.
All of this contributes to tarot’s potential for those who wish not only to read our fates and fortunes, but to negotiate with them, and reshape them. Tarot often attracts artists and thinkers who crave to alter the cloth of our cultures, and our collective futures. Perhaps we should question the lines drawn between gambling, fortune telling, and divination in our practices? We peek behind the curtains of our future, as to better calculate the risks we take in redirecting it. Naturally, change is reciprocal. When we seek to alter, shape, and style our fates, our fates might well continue to alter, shape, and style us in turn, even as we succeed in steering what we may.
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This post was brought to you by all my delightful Patreon supporters, and especially our Muse & Aesthete level patrons: Vince, Ann, Joy, Amy, JoXn, Tiffany, Nichole, Jenn, Opifex, Cyn, Laura, Lenore, Megan, Anne, Tara, Melissa, and Jay. Thank you patrons! You are gems!
This post was brought to you by all my delightful Patreon supporters, and especially our Muse & Aesthete level patrons: Vince, Ann, Joy, Amy, JoXn, Tiffany, Nichole, Jenn, Opifex, Cyn, Laura, Lenore, Megan, Anne, Tara, Melissa, and Jay. Thank you patrons! You are gems!
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