Cephas Ministry - Rita Williams - August 19, 2005 -

Email: Dear K. "I came in touch with Tarot Cards in my early twenties in Hermetic (occult) literature. My mother went to fortune tellers (card readers) because their predictions materialized. I had no clue that there was a problem with such activities. She never was converted even although she had two daughters witnessing to her.
I discovered later that there is a major problem with Tarot cards. The Tarot card reader subjects themselves to becoming a medium if they want to become good at predicting events. By looking at the cards (evil symbolism, pyramids, pentagrams, etc.. ) they get in touch with evil spirits who will help them make prophecies that come to pass. The Tarot card reader tells them what they see in their minds and and the person who receiving the reading believes what they hear and makes it come to pass. It is related to the power of positive thinking. Jesus taught "..As ye believe, so be it." One of the reasons God is against it, the diviner (medium) runs that person's life, in other words the devil runs that person's life. It sets God aside. Another reason is necromancy. Contacting spirits is forbidden in the Bible.

Tarot cards originated in the Jewish Kabbalah.

"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination (Tarot Cards, Astrology, or being medium), or an observer of times (Astrology) , or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee." (Deuteronomy 18:10-12 (kjv)) "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." (Revelation 21:8 (kjv)

A Consideration of the Tarocchi of Mantegna - Adam McLean - First published in the Hermetic Journal 1983.

It has become almost universally accepted as the received wisdom of the Western esoteric tradition that the tarot card images embody a system derived from the Jewish Kabbalah. This view seems to derive from the mid-nineteenth century French Occult revival, and particularly was promulgated by Eliphas Levi and later incorporated through Westcott, Mathers and Waite in the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn from which our twentieth century tradition of occultism has been derived. Other esotericists have even tried to link the tarot images back further into Egyptian iconography and suggest that the Jews may have received this esoteric system during the time of their stay in Egypt. In part this association of the tarot with Jewish esotericism lies in the fact that there are 22 major arcana cards in the modern tarot pack and this parallels the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, which lies at the heart of the Kabbalistic system.
I would, however, like us to pause and consider for a moment, before we return to the established view, the implications of the regrettably neglected early tarot pack, the Tarocchi of Mantegna. This is one of the earliest known tarot or Tarocchi packs, being dated to c.1465, contemporary with the Visconti-Sforza deck of the mid-fifteenth century which is recognised as the earliest tarot. (Some authorities suggest that the Tarocchi of Mantegna may be earlier than the Visconti-Sforza.)
Little is known of the Tarocchi of Mantegna and what we do know entirely contradicts it name. Most scholars are of the opinion that this Tarocchi has been wrongly attributed to Andreas Mantegna (1431-1506) the painter and printmaker of the School of Padua, and rather are to be seen as emanating from the School of Ferrara. They are not a 'Tarocchi' pack in the true sense of that technical term, and they are not cards but a set of prints. Kenneth Clark, the well known art historian of the Renaissance, attributes them to a Parrasio Michele, Master of the School of Ferrara. They consist of a set of 50 finely executed engravings divided into five decades, which could be characterised as:- full story http://www.levity.com/alchemy/mantegna.html

1 The archetypal social stations of humanity;
2 The nine Muses and Apollo;
3 The Liberal Arts;
4 The Cardinal Virtues;
5 The Heavenly Spheres.

The symbolism of these cards, or perhaps we should say 'emblematic figures', would seem to derive from the Hermetic tradition which is now recognised as underlying the Italian Renaissance of the mid-fifteenth century. It was during this period that the Platonic Academies of the Medici's were set up and Ficino and other scholars began translating texts such as the Corpus Hermeticum and the works of Plato, some of which were brought to the Court of Florence from Constantinople by Gemistus Plethon (c.1355-1450), a Greek scholar who was probably an initiate of a 'Platonic' Mystery School in the East. This reconstruction of hermetic and neoplatonic esotericism is reflected in such ideas as the Muses, the Liberal Arts, the Cardinal Virtues, and the Heavenly Spheres, and it is my view that the Tarocchi of Mantegna should be seen as an 'emblem book' of this hermetic current. The fact that its designs show parallels with the later tarot decks should therefore be of the greatest interest both to students of tarot and of Hermeticism.

There is in this sequence both a reflection of the social conditions of humankind and also the stages of an inner development, from the lowly 'beggar' state of soul, to the fully spiritualised 'Pope' facet of the soul.
Interestingly, these fit well onto the tree of life diagram corresponding to the sephiroth quite tightly, but can also equally well be tied symbolically to the Pythagorean 'Tetractys' or pyramid. http://www.levity.com/alchemy/mantegna.html

This site is devoted to the history of tarot cards.
Some time in the first half of the fifteenth century, somewhere in northern Italy, someone created the first set of tarot cards. Like the playing cards of the time, the tarot deck included number cards (1 through 10) in four suits, and court cards page, knight, and king. But the tarot deck had more: a queen was added to each of the courts, and 22 special cards, not belonging to any suit, were added. These special cards bore symbolic pictures, with such subjects as the Emperor, the Pope, The Wheel of Fortune, Death, the Devil, and the Moon.
The tarot cards were used to play a new type of card game, similar to bridge, but with 21 of the special cards serving as permanent trumps, which could be played regardless of what suit was led, and outranked all the ordinary cards. This Game of Triumphs, as it was called, became extraordinarily popular, particularly among the upper classes, and spread through northern Italy and eastern France. As the game spread to new locales, changes were often made in the pictures, and also in the ranking of the trumps, which usually bore no numbers. In time, tarot spread south to Sicily and north to Austria, Germany, and the low countries.
Centuries later, devotees of the occult arts in France and England encountered the tarot and saw mystical and magical meaning in the enigmatic symbolism of the cards. Their fascination with the cards led to the reputation tarot presently has as a divination tool and occult artifact.
One objective of tarot history is to trace the many changes the cards have undergone through the centuries, as they were taken to different locales and redesigned by different artists and cardmakers. Many variant designs are beautiful, intriguing, or provocative, giving us a window on the popular culture of different times and places.
A second objective is to find clues pertaining to the recalcitrant mystery of the origin of the tarot cards: What was on the mind of the original designer? Did the symbolic pictures have a deeper meaning and purpose, or were they merely game pieces? The question is surprisingly difficult to answer. We can gather some evidence from the art, literature, and popular culture of the time. We can also look at the cards themselves, and the occasional written references to them that have survived. From such evidence, it is possible to build up a picture of what the tarot symbols might have meant when the cards were first created. Different people, though, come up with very different pictures! The evidence is ambiguous.
On these pages, I display some of the pertinent evidence and present the conclusions I draw from it. I hope that others who share my fascination with the tarot will find this informative and thought-provoking, whether or not they agree with all my conclusions. http://www.tarothermit.com/