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The Tarot & Kabbalah: Tools For Explaining the Spiritual Mysteries

Christine Hall

Since the inception of the motion picture, Hollywood has given us images of colorful gypsy-types using cards, crystal balls and other occult paraphernalia to tell people's fortunes. Often these fortune tellers have been beautiful and mysterious women, like Marlene Dietrich in "Golden Earrings," giving readings to the idle rich. Sometimes they have been played for comic value, with the reader being an elderly dowager or a con-artist showman, like the traveling fortune teller in the opening sequences of "The Wizard of Oz."

In the movies, fortune tellers are usually used as a way of adding atmosphere while incorporating some foreshadowing into the plot. In the Oz adventure, Dorothy is told that she will go on a magnificent adventure by the traveling fortune teller. In "Golden Earrings," the hero is aided by a sear who might be choosing sides because she already knows the outcome. You can watch most of these movies and never realize that there is a spiritual discipline behind the tools that fortune tellers use, or that these tools are used for purposes other than telling a client that a "tall dark stranger" is about to come and sweep her off her feet.

Because of images such as these, the Tarot has become a most misunderstood tool of spirituality. This does not mean that these cards can't be used for divination, for indeed that is part of their design. Anyone can learn some basics about the cards meanings, don colorful gypsy gear, and make some money being a good razzle-dazzle at parties. If you wish, you can use the Tarot to check up on your love life two or three times a day or to fret over a career. Many people do.

Even though the Tarot works fine for divination that is not its primary function, as many people who start working with the deck soon learn. In actuality, the Tarot is a psycho-spiritual text book that's not unlike the Bible, Koran or Sutras. The 78 images of the traditional Tarot are a type of Bible, designed to explain a spiritual reality that is intrinsically tied to the psychological and physical aspects of life.

The Gnostic Connection

It has often been claimed that the Tarot has been handed down to us from ancient times. In the last decade or so, decks have been marketed with the claim of having origins in ancient Egypt, Sumeria or even China. A TV ad for a 900 psychic-hotline service promises that their readers use the "Tarot of the Egyptians." The Victorian occultist Aleister Crowley thought that the deck was a recovery of the legendary lost "Book of Thoth," which was an ancient book of Magick from the Egyptian god of Magick, the Ibis headed Tahuti. Even though we know that the modern Tarot dates only to the time of the early Renaissance, most modern metaphysicians would tend to agree with this last viewpoint, that the Tarot represents a knowledge that is extremely ancient.

The earliest reference to the cards is from 1392, with the first known Tarot deck coming from Milan in 1441, a wedding present to the city's future duke Francesco Sforza from the local Gnostics. As far as we can tell, the deck did not develop slowly over the centuries as would be expected from such an intricate system. The first deck, the wedding gift in Milan, is a complete deck, just as we know it now. This would seem to indicate that the Tarot had perhaps been a part of the secret inner teachings of the Gnostics for quite some time.

Another possibility is that it had been developed in the early 14th century as a way of saving Gnostic ideas from the flames of the inquisition. By the late 1300s, the Gnostics were very much in decline. Not only were they vastly outnumbered by the followers of Catholicism, who represented the mainstream of European religious life, but with the inquisition getting under way, the Holy Office of the Roman church was beginning to show a rather cruel intolerance to anyone not adhering to strict Catholic doctrine.

It's important to remember that, up until this time, the Gnostics had a rich history dating almost all the way back to the time of Christ. In fact, for several centuries after Christ's death they were extremely influential among the early Christians. Even though their importance went into decline in the forth century of the current era, when Catholic doctrine became the official state religion of Rome, they continued to hold a substantial influence throughout the dark ages. Even up until their end, they continued to attract some of most learned spiritual scholars in Europe.

Actually, by today's standards the Gnostics would hardly be considered Christian at all. Their philosophy was a synthesis of Christianity, Greek philosophy, Hinduism, Buddhism and the mystery cults of the Mediterranean. They saw the world as a series of emanations from the highest of many gods and believed that the lowest of these was an evil god, the demiurge, who had created the physical world as a prison for the divine spirits that dwell in human bodies. This demiurge, or evil creator god, was identified as the God of the Old Testament and they thought that the story of Adam and Eve and the ministry of Jesus were attempts to impart divine secret wisdom to free humanity from his control.

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