AUTHOR’S NOTE: Not so long ago (before purely psychic free-association became fashionable among “pop-tarot” practitioners), tarot reading was a matter of deciphering complex images to come up with a narrative that was assumed to explain mundane conditions. The diviner’s art lay in the translation of decidedly arcane symbolism into more commonplace language for the purpose of advising seekers about upcoming events and circumstances (or, if you prefer, “fortune-telling”).

Most of the decks used for this were variations on one of three types: the French Tarot de Marseille (TdM) and its 15^th Century Italian progenitors (collectively known as “pip” decks for their sparsely-illustrated minor cards), all of which were more popular in Europe than elsewhere; the Thoth tarot and its various “clones;” and the Waite-Smith (aka “RWS”) tarot and its ubiquitous kin. But the abundance (I would say over-abundance) of new tarot decks on the market today (many of them RWS imitations) spawned by the self-publishing revolution reveal that the occult theorists and philosophers have apparently ceded control to the artists, a disturbing percentage of whom have little or no comprehension of the esoteric nuances investing all but the TdM, which is based primarily on conventional suit-and-number theory. The artist behind the Lo Scarabeo “Golden Dawn” deck admitted as much, acknowledging that he had zero exposure to the Order’s tarot study material before undertaking the project. Many of his ilk are even worse off, demonstrating both ignorance of symbolism (or willful indifference toward it) and artistic mediocrity.

Unless knowledge can be imported from prior experience with unrelated decks, this deficiency leaves buyers with no metaphysical foundation other than that provided by the deck’s often-clueless creator in the accompanying LWB (“little white book”). When those bereft users happen to be tarot neophytes, it can become a classic case of “the blind leading the blind.” The stopgap measure of attempting to insert sometimes ill-fitting keywords and concepts from other tarot systems is most alluring with the cryptic TdM, while the Thoth stands on its own merits as an articulate restatement of Liber T, the Golden Dawn’s tarot curriculum. Between these extremes lies the RWS, whose imagery suffers from hijacking by Smith’s personal muse and doesn’t always agree with Waite’s textual rendering of the Golden Dawn canon.

With the exception of the 22 Major Arcana and the 16 court cards, for which the design is fairly consistent across all three decks even though the titles have varied over time, the Tarot de Marseille with its 40 non-scenic, numbered “small” cards poses the greatest challenge for those trying to ascribe philosophical or psychological significance to the abstract pictures. Unless one adheres closely to suit-and-number associations and any visual cues inherent in the arrangement of suit emblems and decorative “arabesques,” the only options are to create a personal library of definitions or simply transfer interpretative content from other systems like the Thoth or RWS. My own opinion is that such cross-cutting substitution is “cheating” and at worst generates a Frankensteinian pastiche of cobbled-together expedience. Consequently, I developed a unique TdM vocabulary using the utilitarian assumptions described above along with creative inspiration from authors Yoav Ben-Dov and Enrique Enriquez; you will find it elsewhere in this blog, and in more concentrated form in my TdM e-book listed in the “My Publications” side-bar entry.

The Thoth deck comes with a built-in lexicon presented in the chapters of its companion volume, Aleister Crowley’s profound (some say “impenetrable”) Book of Thoth (BoT). This is my preferred source of guidance and, although I don’t tap into its riches for my TdM readings, I will frequently replace the murky Victorian stew served up by Waite and Smith with its straightforward descriptions. Dedicated students of the occult will be well-served by starting with the Thoth deck and Lon Milo Du Quette’s Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot, a “lite” version of the BoT. In stark contrast, the intentionally neutered RWS deck is one of my favorite “whipping-boys” when it comes to tarot symbolism because Waite felt obligated to conceal much of his Golden Dawn knowledge due to his vows of secrecy.

My first (and, for a couple of years, only) tarot book was Eden Gray’s RWS-based The Tarot Revealed from 1960, so I was familiar with Smith’s images although I became a dedicated “Thothie” shortly thereafter and didn’t buy an RWS deck until 2011. When I finally did so and became serious about reading with it, I found the symbolic messages in the Minor Arcana to be puzzling and far weaker than the evocative impressions conveyed by the remarkable artistry of Frieda Harris and its responsiveness to Crowley’s vision. In its esoteric focus, the conceptual architecture of the RWS deck is a schizophrenic affair; the Major Arcana and court cards are “all Waite” and – except for his overtly Christian tinkering – refer back to their TdM roots, while the Minor Arcana are “mostly Smith” as evidenced by the prosaic “canned narrative vignettes” that she superimposed over Waite’s text.

What I see occurring in the burgeoning cottage industry of independent tarot-deck publication is a “dumbing-down” of what was once a vibrant source of allegorical and metaphorical wisdom. So many modern consumers of metaphysical fare go strictly by how beautiful or “cute” a deck is and are unconcerned that it may by intellectually hollow. It seems that the rigorous and sympathetic uptake of historical precedent in tarot-deck creation is no longer considered vital to success. This attitude results in what I once called the unnecessary overflow of gratuitous “TINO” (tarot-in-name-only) products that nobody who stops to think about it really wants or needs. Give these thoughtful observers one of the classic “Big Three” and they will never have to buy another deck.