Appreciating esoteric symbolism
Paula Dempsey examines a new critical introduction to Tarot, an expensive but beautiful new Taschen box on the Rider Waite Smith Tarot, and a Lovecraft-inspired deck
A Critical Introduction to Tarot
Examining the Nature of a Belief in Tarot
Simon Kenny
Iff Books 2023
Pb, 248pp, £17.99, ISBN 9781803413921 The Tarot of AE Waite and P Colman Smith
Johannes Fiebig (ed)
Taschen 2023
Hb, 444pp, £100, ISBN 9783836586429 Necronomicon Tarot
Titan Books 2023 78 cards plus guide, £24.99, ISBN 9781803367217
The most sceptical fortean may take an interest in esoterica, if only in why people believe in it. Here are three very different tarot-related offerings.
Simon Kenny’s book isn’t the “how to” guide that the title suggests. Rather than the various meanings of the suits and cards he poses more fundamental questions. Does tarot work? If it does, how? What are its uses? The book is illustrated throughout with the Rider Waite Smith (RWS) tarot deck, of which more later.
The introduction gets the history and a typical card spread out of the way early on, before moving on to something far more interesting; the adoption of tarot by feminists and the LGBTQAI+ community has led to the creation of new decks which reform or reject the heteronormative imagery of traditional cards and the binary nature of much tarot imagery, the Emperor and Empress, for example, or The Lovers. Kenny traces this binary back to Pythagoras and a human tendency to categorise everything by opposites: male/female, dark/light, good/evil.
Subsequent chapters examine the connection tarot has with various magical systems including the Kabbalah, Jung’s mysticism, Satanism, Witchcraft and Freemasonry. There are many digressions, all for good reason, proposing frameworks for using tarot in magical practice and personal reflection.
Multiple perspectives on how the cards work don’t help to answer how and why the cards work, however. More practically, the book needs a decent index. It does provide a refreshingly innovative perspective on tarot and would be of value to tarot readers who wish to extend their understanding and practice, or those with a wider interest in symbolism and magic.
Taschen has produced a beautiful celebration of probably the most popular tarot deck. Originally produced in the 1900s and simply called The Tarot, it is now known by the names of its publisher, Rider, its illustrator, Pamela Colman Smith, and her fellow Golden Dawn member AE Waite. Waite, who oversaw the creation of the deck, wrote The Guide to the Tarot produced in facsimile in this boxed set, together with a reprint of the deck, both from the 1910 printing and accompanied by a lavishlyillustrated 400-page book.
Essays from the late Rachel Pollack, Mary J Greer and Johannes Fiebig provide potted biographies of Waite and Smith
We must be careful not to drown the metaphysical baby in the postmodern bathwater
as well as the story of the deck’s creation and continuing popularity. Smith’s inspiration to use pictures on all 78 cards, rather than an abstract design on the minor trumps, may have come from the 15th-century Sola-Busca deck, exhibited at the British Museum in 1907. Her talent as an illustrator and set designer brings a depth to the cards that is highlighted in the largest section of the book, on interpretation. A list of meanings is given for each card and the cards of the minor arcana are linked with others of the same number in the other suits and with the corresponding number in the major arcana.
The book is not without flaws, however. The English translation of the introduction needs some editing and there are odd assertions: for example, that the number 13 is unlucky in the West because the 12-month Christian calendar supplanted the 13-month Celtic one. Evidence, please! As with Kenny’s book, an invitation to make your own interpretations of the cards, if taken to its logical conclusion, makes the majority of the book redundant. We must be careful not to drown the metaphysical baby in the postmodern bathwater.
Waite’s own manual on the tarot is, on the other hand, almost perfect. He provides a brief history of the cards and strong opinions about which of his occult predecessors is talking nonsense and why, then resolves various older meanings for the cards into a simple system of interpretation, all in less than 200 tiny pages. Waite provides the basics, while Smith’s illustrations allow the reader to dive as deeply into the many layers of symbolism as they wish.
The RWS deck symbolism has been reinterpreted in hundreds of other decks, overlaid with themes as diverse, and more or less serious, as Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood and pandas.
The Necronomicon Tarot is one such spawn. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror is all about the unknowable, so it’s an odd theme for an oracle. The major arcana has been adapted to fit Lovecraft’s vision; think Madness rather than The Moon and Aliens rather than The Lovers. Three of the traditional four suits of the minor arcana have changed: Books instead of Swords, Torches for Wands and Beakers for Cups. The minors have a nice story theme running through them. The imagery sticks with HPL and steers clear of the Derleth family tree for the Mythos. There are suggested spreads to aid in exploring your fears.
A nice-looking deck, recommended for Lovecraft fans and chaos magicians.
Kenny ★★★
Fiebig ★★★★
Necronomicon Tarot ★★★★