MythBusters: Tarot with John Michael Allen and Joy Vernon ...files.meetup.com/283307/Myth Busters...

Myth Busters: Tarot Denver Tarot Meetup

Presented by John Michael Allen and Joy Vernon More information at http://www.meetup.com/DenverTarot/

MythBusters: Tarot with John Michael Allen and Joy Vernon

Presented to the Denver Tarot Meetup

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

What are tarot myths? We asked around and heard these:

You aren't supposed to buy your first deck. You can't read tarot on a Sunday. You can't reshuffle

while in a spread. You have to wrap your cards only in silk or satin. -- Sherry

This is kind of a classic one I guess, but if you get a bad card in a reading you are DOOMED to

live through whatever that is, and can't escape it. There is so much power about how we choose

to interpret or REACT to ANY card. But we have to resist reacting in fear. Sometimes a card

really IS covering TOUGH STUFF in our subconscious. I don't ever think they are an

accident. But perhaps this fear and dread comes from unethical readers who see a bad card, and

throw the interpretation like a dart at the poor querent, without giving them context, solutions, or

hope. They give the tarot and all of us a bad name. – Scott

Tarot predicts the future. A reading may indicate some future event, but depending on the actions

of the querent from thereon out, it may or may not come to pass or take a completely different

form. A nice little Heisenbergian conundrum - does knowing the future automatically change it?

– John

Favorite tarot myth--- I suppose I don't know that many, and the ones I know are pretty lame

(someone has to buy a deck for you in order for it to work, etc). I do remember hearing

something about the tarot being INVENTED BY THE DEVIL!! – Erica

Tarot readers are a "no no" in the Bible & you must cut the cards into a pile of three with your

left hand when you are getting a reading. –Linda

These are the ones we are covering tonight:

1. Tarot is ancient

2. No one should touch your cards

3. Tarot has supernatural properties

4. Wrapping cards in silk/wooden box

5. First deck is a gift

6. Tarot is evil

7. Some cards are bad, scary or harsh your mellow

8. Cards have a single, systematic and standard meaning

9. The Thoth deck is evil

10. Links

a. Tarot Myths–Busted! By Barbara Moore

b. http://www.llewellyn.com/blog/2010/08/tarot-myths-busted/

c. Common Tarot Myths by Arwen Lynch

d. http://www.tarotbyarwen.com/musings_tarot_myths.html

e. Tarot Myths – Part One by SILVERLOTUS

f. http://silverlotus.net/tarot/tarot-myths-part-one/

Myth Busters: Is Tarot Ancient? Denver Tarot Meetup page 1

© 2013 by Joy Vernon, all rights reserved. More information at http://www.meetup.com/DenverTarot/

MythBusters: Is Tarot Ancient?

Presented by Joy Vernon to the Denver Tarot Meetup

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

The main problem with this tarot myth is that there are two very different ways to look at this. The first

is, “Is the use of richly illustrated cards for divination ancient?” The second is, “Are tarot images

ancient?”

Clearly the cards cannot be ancient—cards are made from paper and paper was invented in China in

the second century C.E. and was not produced in Europe until the twelfth century. Cards were invented

in China and were originally used as money and for gambling—you might think of playing games to

win baseball cards. The early Chinese cards were illustrated and divided into three suits, three cards

representing people—often Chinese leaders or mythological heroes—and five cards representing the

virtures of Chinese philosophy. Cards traveled to Europe via the Mamluk Empire, which is the source

of our suit emblems. Tarot originated in Italy in the early fifteenth century as a trick-taking card game:

the Major Arcana was added to the deck as trump cards to win hands from other players.

Next we’ll look at whether tarot images are ancient. If tarot images were truly an ancient teaching tool

or spiritual story and these ancient images were simply transferred off the oft-postulated gold plaques

onto paper cards once paper was invented, then we would see from the first decks a continuity of

images that can be traced through history. However, that’s not what we find.

The earliest decks, painted by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza families in honor of a

wedding, utilized common images from the time period in which they were developed. These images

are based primarily on sources such as Petrarch’s poem, Il Trionfi, and other common representations

of moralistic teachings.

Left image. Illustration from the Carmina Burana by collected authors. 1230.

Right image. The Wheel of Fortune, painted by Bonifacio Bembo, part of the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck. ca. 1460-1470.



Left image. The Seven Vices – Foolishness by Giotto, 1306.

Right image. The Fool, painted by Bonifacio Bembo, part of the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck. ca. 1460-1470.

Left image. The Triumph of Time. Engraving by Fra Filippo Lippi (in question). 15th century.

Middle image. The Hermit, painted by Bonifacio Bembo, part of the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck. ca. 1460-1470.

Right image. The Hermit. Musee de Beaux Arts in France. ca. mid to late 16th century.

The Marseilles deck seems to start pulling from older imagery and ancient symbolism. However, due

to a lack of consistency in the imagery, there’s no way to prove the exact origins of the images. It is

curious to find themes that reach back to earlier mythological times. Were these images copied? Or did



the artist simply drift onto them through the collective unconscious? Here we see many similarities in

the Strength card to a second century bas-relief of a Greek myth. Below, the Orphic myth of Phanes is

surprisingly similar to the World card.

Left image. The nymph Cyrene, overpowering a lion, is crowned by Libya. ca 120-140.

Right image. Force, from the Jean Noblet Tarot. ca 1650. Note the odd crown-like hat which eventually developed into the lemniscate.

Left image. Phanes hatched from the world egg & circled by the zodiac, Greco-Roman bas relief ca 2nd century.

Right image. Le Monde, from the Jean Noblet Tarot. ca 1650. The images of the four winds in the corners of the Greco-Roman bas relief

become the symbolic representations of the four Evangelists.



The Orphic myth of Phanes is in turn derived from the mythology of the cult of Mithras.

Mithraic Kronos, representing Boundless Time. ca. 2nd century.

From The Mysteries of Mithra by Franz Cumont, 1903:

The statue here reproduced was found in the, mithræum of Ostia before mentioned,

where C. Valerius Heracles and his sons dedicated it in the year 190 A.D. This

leontocephalous figure is entirely nude, the body being entwined six times by a serpent,

the head of which rests on the skull of the god. Four wings decorated with the symbols of

the seasons issue from the back. Each hand holds a key, and the right in addition a long

scepter, the symbol of authority, A thunderbolt is engraved on the breast. On the base of

the statue may be seen the hammer and tongs of Vulcan, the cock and the pine-cone

consecrated to Æsculapius (or possibly to the Sun and to Attis), and the wand of

Mercury--all characteristic adjuncts of the Mithraic Saturn, and symbolizing the

embodiment in him of the powers of all the gods.

But what I found most interesting is that as I explored the images from the cult of Mithras, more and

more tarot images appeared. This is the image of the myth of Mithras killing a bull. It has a number of

similarities to the Strength card.

Grand Mithraic bas-relief of Heddernheim, Germany.



The illustration caption reads:

In the center Mithra with the two torch-bearers; immediately above, the signs of the

Zodiac; immediately above these, Mithra aiming his arrow at the rock; below the bull a

group composed of the lion, the cup, and the servant.

Franz Cumont goes on to say:

An allegorical group, often reproduced, in which a lion represented fire, a cup water, a

serpent the earth, pictured the struggle of the opposing elements, which were constantly

devouring one another and whose perpetual transmutations and infinitely variable

combinations provoked all the phenomena of nature.

Here are two other illustrations for comparison:

But what most grabbed my attention was yet another illustration found on a clay cup. The illustration

showed the “Bull-slaying” and the “Bull-bearing” and between the two scenes, Mithra’s constant

companion the dog.

Left image. Clay cup found at Lanuvium.

Middle image. Le Fou, from the Jean Noblet Tarot. ca 1650.

Right image: The Fool from the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, 1909.



No, I don’t draw the conclusion that the tarot images are a secret repository of the occult knowledge of

the intiatory rites of Mithraism. If that were true, then I think our earliest cards, the Visconti-Sforza,

would reflect those images instead of reproducing contemporary images and philosophical teachings.

What I do think is that the original designers of the later Marseilles decks thought, I like the symbolism

on these pretty illustrated cards but wouldn’t they be much more useful if they incorporated deeper

layers of mythological truths? And I think then those designers started seeking out older mythologies

to record onto these attractive, easy to handle cards, just as the 18th

and 19th

century esotericists went

one step further with adding qabalistic and astrological layers onto the cards.

Are tarot cards ancient? No, definitely not. Are the tarot images ancient? No, even with the enticing

similarities to the symbols of Mithraism, I do not see a continuity of collective imagery—twenty-two

consistent images repeated throughout history. Can we map the tarot cards onto the surviving imagery

from that cult? Certainly, just as we can map the cards onto Arthurian legends, historical time periods

or modern movie plots—the Hero’s Journey, repeated in myth and story, follows a consistent series of

plot points. I do see that some Marseilles tarot images appear to reflect ancient knowledge, but that

only goes to show that as today we sometimes desire to create and use decks that reflect popular

stories, such as the Hobbit, or ancient imagery, such as Egyptian rites, so the people of the seventeenth

century also desired to illustrate their the cards with their favorite myths.



Sources

Dummett, Michael. The Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards. New York: George Braziller. 1986.

Huson, Paul. Mystical Origins of the Tarot. Rochester, VT: Destiny. 2004.

Place, Robert. The Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination. New York: Tarcher, 2005.

Wirth, Oswald. The Tarot of the Magicians: A Guide to the Symbolism and Application of the Wirth

Tarot Deck by its Designer. York Beach, ME: Weiser, 1990.

Online Sources

Carmina Burana at Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmina_Burana

The Doctrine of the Mithraic Mysteries on Sacred Texts

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/mom/mom07.htm

The Hermit in Art: Tarot at Hermitary

http://www.tarothistory.com/2009/04/07/matching-the-triumphs/

Matching the Triumphs at Tarot History

http://www.tarothistory.com/2009/04/07/matching-the-triumphs/

Mithraism Images on PicsWeb

http://www.picsweb.net/images/Mithraism

Myth of Phanes at Theoi.com

http://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Phanes.html

The nymph Cyrene, overpowering a lion at the British Museum

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=459

945&partId=1

On the Astronomical Explanation of Phanes's Relief at Modena by Papathanassiou, M.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1991JHAS...22....1P

Francesco Petrarch and Laura deNoves

http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/trionfi.html

Trionfi

http://trionfi.com/0/t/

Tarot History at Tarotpedia

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Tarot_History

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