Tarot as a sacred game

Debra

On another thread there's mention of tarot as a game.

Games have a sacred dimension. The Sphinx asks a riddle, people lay bets with Death. You play for the future with every competitive game and every gambling game.

I don't know much about this and wonder if anyone else wants to explore it.
 

vee

Games are often a symbol of life, just like the Tarot is. Chess, go, checkers...they are all often common analogies for how people move through life.
 

Debra

Chutes and Ladders! We played this. Your fate depends on the roll of the die in this one.
 

nisaba

I think all games are sacred. Games are, by their nature, recreations, things we enjoy. And are not "All acts of love and pleasure My rituals"? (Doreen Valiente).

It is hugely important to take seriously the act of having fun. Which is why I don't regard "gaming" - gambling, to be gaming at all.

We can only be most truly ourselves, most in line with the purpose of our spirits, if we are not suffering. Ergo, fun is hugely important as an antidote to everything else, and all games are sacred.
 

Debra

That's good. I'm not seeing it as specifically sacred, though.
 

MsRubyRain

May it be that when we use tarot we are tapping into whatever gift we have or the collective unconscious and therefore should be sacred or at least respected. Just a thought, that raced through my very tired mind. :)
 

gregory

In the Egyptian game of Senet you play for the conditions of your own afterlife.... If anyone has the FULL details of this, please let me know - I came across it all in the Egyptian museum in Torino. and was too mean to buy their BEAUTIFUL set which came with these details, which I had read about in the display cases, I bet. I later bought a more ordinary one which has details of the GAME but not this side of it... It's a bit like backgammon to play.
 

Maskelyne

I think the sacredness comes from the awareness with which you play, and not from the game itself. For that matter, I don't think High Mass at the cathedral is inherently more sacred than mowing the lawn. Religious rituals are intended to focus attention on the divine, but can be counter-productive by promoting the idea that sacredness requires some sort of official sanction. If tarot (or Chutes & Ladders) connects you with a sense of a higher reality, it's sacred.
 

Debra

By awareness, do you mean the ability to recognize that the world of the game is an imaginary world, and yet decide to treat it as reality (with implications for how we relate to the "real" reality that we treat as not a game)?
 
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