Christo-centric tarot vs. pagan tarot

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 20 May 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Dark Inquisitor	20 May 2005
This is a post of mine from another thread that seems better suited to have a thread of its' own: Originally Posted by le pendu "When I look at the Tarot, I see many things and many connections. To me, it is flooded with Catholic iconography." My reply: To me, the key words in the above are : "To me.." To me, the TDM is flooded with pagan symbolism as well as some Christian . Some scholarly articles on tarot websites go on at considerable length about the Christian origins , and repeatedly mention pagan gods in their text . And then just dismiss them, or don't even seem to realize it as significant. Most of the questions raised and answers posed on this forum in regard to tarot origins are Christo-centric. Or Bible based . I could probably pick out one of you and go through the Bible and find quotes that apply accurately to your personal life. Or maybe I could do it in the latest bestseller too. I could relate everything to Christ and the Bible if I chose to . And that would nicely filter out anything else . If we are going to look at the tarot and origins, try not to put blinders on. Ask unconvential questions. Look in strange places: http://www.phanes.com/phanes.html Nigel Jackson thinks the TDM was influenced by a Greek colony in the vicinity of Marseilles. If the tarot was just a little shepherd book of bible teachings , it wouldn't be so peculiar . There wouldn't be so many oddities and inconsistencies and outright heresies. But again , "to me" applies. We see what we want to see , just like looking in a mirror. By remaining Christo-centric in our thinking , we effectively alienate people of other religions or the non-religious. We declare that tarot is a "Christian tool". This negates the universality of the tarot . Again, why is there no God card? No Jesus card? Once you put in a God card, or a Jesus card, you've blown it. It's nailed down as this or that, belonging to one religion and dragging all the baggage with it. It fails to apply to everyone and becomes property of a certain group . That (to me) does not seem to be the message of the tarot . Anyone can use it and see in it what they will. To present only one side as fact is not realistic. If you want to peer deeply into the nature of representations and motivations, you need to look at what is there, as well as what is NOT there. Just as during a reading , the answer is often plain if we will look without preconceptions and be willing to change our perspective. If this sounded like a lecture, it was. Le pendu asks : "With the exception of the Popess, which still in my mind has no definitive origin, what leads you to believe Tarot weighs more heavily to Paganism than Catholicism or Gnosticism. I sincerely want to understand your perspecitive. How does Paganism explain the Judgement card?... Stength, Justice, Temperance, the Pope, the Emperor and Empress, or the Devil?" My reply: I don't think paganism has to explain anything really - but that is perhaps not what you are asking. The Judgement card is one that seems clearly related to Christian symbolism. However , life after death and the otherworld is not unique to Christianity. It doesn't mean the deck is declaring a religion, merely illustrating some point it wants to make and using that imagery common to the time . Jesus, whom you would expect to show at such a time is NOT there. And strangely, the angel in my Heron deck is sticking its' tongue out. Not very noticeable at first . But if you are an artist, you know it's much easier to leave the tongue out and just insert the horn into the mouth, as is done in some other tarots. So the tongue seems quite purposeful. There are other well known oddities in these decks, so it is not inconceivable. Interesting point of view coming out of that tongue. Pope, Emperor, and Empress are power figures of the time . Oddities in the Pope card can be found in other threads .I have no doubt it represents a Pope. It's labeled. Empresses and Emperors were once pagan - that is really not relevant though. The Devil is very easily pagan - Cernnunos,Robin Goodfellow, any horned god of the old religion will do . Why it is found in old decks of cards when just possessing such an image would be thought to make one in league with the devil or witchcraft is a mystery . Justice is an old goddess ! Strength is rather mysterious though. In some decks, it is represented by Hercules. I don't think he was a Christian. The female Strength is very out of character for a Christian theme deck. I find her alligned with the Magician . If the tools on the Magician's table represent the items commonly found on a witches's altar, perhaps Strength is the female counterpart. A common belief of witches is that they had power over animals. On a more symbolic level, the one area women exert power over the "beast" is in the area of sexuality . Both she and the Magician have the figure 8 hats , which I find interesting. And what is a Magician but a trickster? What does that have to do with Christianity ? There are plenty of trickster gods to go around though. On the Lovers card, God or Jesus does NOT appear to join to together what no man must put asunder. Who does? Cupid. The Chariot may be Mars, the god of war, or a reference to a time when a chariot was believed to pull the sun across the sky. Strangely, this Chariot can't move . What is the Sun, Moon , and Star doing in a Christian deck? Jesus isn't represented . Sol? Luna? The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades? Some will say these and other pagan symbols appear on Christian churches and therefore are Christian. But that's not quite the meaning. They were purposely put there to make unwilling pagans think that worshipping in a church was the same or as good as worshipping the old gods . Whitley Strieber draws interesting attention to the garter on the Star's leg . This is a sign of witchcraft , and wearing it could have gotten you killed because it was forbidden. The Wheel of Fortune is easily explainable as the goddess Fortuna , and coincidentally an unpleasant device used for killing people the church didn't like. The Wheel of the Year and its' turnings may be buried in there too. It ain't the Wheel o' Jesus. Maybe it's related to the spinners of fate? One of the most famous hanging men is Odin who hung from the world tree to gain knowledge - and runes. Speculation has been raised about the bizarre position of the hands , which I thought might be related to being tortured for heresy . The Tower may represent Thor, the god of lightning. The Hermit is not all he seems either . He is an old man shuffling along with a cane, peering into a lantern in the daytime. He's blind . It pays to look closely at some of the details and open your mind a bit. So, if there are any other pagan speculations on the older tarot trumps (not talking modern and Rider Waite here ) please post them in this thread. Christian speculations abound elsewhere.

Fudugazi	20 May 2005
I moved this from the gnostic thread, where I originally answered your question (or some of it): Dark Inquisitor wrote: To me, the TDM is flooded with pagan symbolism as well as some Christian. You're absolutely right! And there is no need to resort to a Greek colony near Marseille (which would have been long absorbed even as early as the 12th century). These past few weeks, and thanks to some new Celtic symbolism books I've been studying, it has been quite easy to go through the cards and pick out symbols and imagery that would have been well-known to the Gauls - e.g. Le Diable's antlers (Cernunnos); the naked maiden on Le Toille, her spring and her two urns (classic imagery of healing spring goddess not only in Gaul but in most of the Western Meditarranean area, and in Britain). Other pagan images are more Roman or Greek inspired and popular in the Renaissance (Eros in L'Amoureux); others are frankly platonic (the Chariot); others are more difficult to pin down at all (Le Soleil) without having some recourse to platonic thinking - or alchemical. Some images are both Christian and platonic-pagan (Le Monde). Some appear at first glance to be simply societal (Le Bateleur) - though can be shown to be both Christian and Pagan-inspired. Those very same Gauls, in what is now the Southern half of France, who were so anti-Roman - and remained anti-authority and became anti-clerical (against the Catholic Church) later - were the first artisans of what became known as Le Tarot de Marseille. (To come back to Nigel Jackson's Greek colony - in Antiquity it would have had some influence on the region, its lore and iconography.) Robert Place in his latest book made a good case for the Tarot's neoplatonism, but in my view gave insufficient weight to the Celtic pagan imagery seen in the Tarot de Marseille. I am not sure, however, how to interpret such imagery: several French scholars - and a German scholar of Celtic studies - have demonstrated the prevalence of Celtic imagery in medieval Christian art. Were the Romanesque and Gothic artisans simply reusing traditional imagery of their region, or was the Celtic pagan imagery actually built into Christian art in a consciously pagan way? I am inclined to think the former, but I am interested in that question. Maybe the answer is more complex and syncretic than that; and the gnostic - or anti-clerical - sensibility among artisans might well have had something to do with their choice of imagery.

Dark Inquisitor	20 May 2005
Was pagan imagery built in consciously? I suppose we can never know . People have to decide that for themselves based on the evidence they see. But we do know that sometimes conquered people forced to accept other religions keep their gods,goddesses, and ways alive secretly . So if you're looking from only one frame of reference you might miss it . Which could have been the intention.

Dark Inquisitor	20 May 2005
Isn't that Sabian Oracle cool? I asked for an online pick about this thread and got : CUPID KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF A HUMAN HEART Cupid is asking to be let in. Barriers and defenses around your heart may be keeping him from getting in, but how long will you be able to resist? Opening your heart and opening the door will lead to new opportunities and realizations about relationships. Allow your heart chakra to open when you are in caring company.

Fudugazi	20 May 2005
Sabian Oracles are cool, DI! And cupid reminds me of L'Amoureux in the TdM ;) Alain Bocher has a theory that that card - always spelt LAMOUREUX in the old decks - actually comes from the Gaulish word LAM, meaning arrow, pointed arrow, and by extension - focus and hit. Seems you've hit true :) I look forward to many other contributions (Stella???) Yes, I think you are right about the gods and goddesses going underground. In early Christian Gaul, like what happened in Cuba! - the gods and godesses were often given the names of Saints (except for poor Cernunnos, who became the devil). To come back to LE TOILLE (or le Toulle, meaning the wellspring, according to Bocher), the spring goddesses, often represented on stone near a sacred healing spring - sometimes even with flowing urns! - seem to have mutated in an interesting way: I believe that the water goddess most honored in Gaul became the sorceress and Fay Mélusine, whom barren women in particular, and sick people in general came to petition at wells and springs as late as the 19th Century (throwing in small coins or other offerings such as flowers). Then there are all the stories of young women (like the nymphs of old) seeing the Virgin Mary at sacred springs - Lourdes being the most famous - those springs were then shown to heal miraculously. Lourdes (or very near it) was once an important Gaulish pagan healing centre, with sacred springs.... An ancient Gaul coming to Lourdes today would see little difference with his own time and practice. Even the habit of leaving crutches, or prayers on bits of paper- which we see in Lourdes - were practiced (the prayers in Celtic times were made on clay or stone, and often showed the image of the sick or disabled person whom the prayer was supposed to benefit).

Rosanne	20 May 2005
Dark Inquisitor wrote: Was pagan imagery built in consciously? I suppose we can never know . People have to decide that for themselves based on the evidence they see. But we do know that sometimes conquered people forced to accept other religions keep their gods,goddesses, and ways alive secretly . So if you're looking from only one frame of reference you might miss it . Which could have been the intention. Thank you for this thread dark Inquisitor. I have thought that TdM is anti Catholic and maybe anti Christian. How else could Tarot be represented at that time, given the Power of Christianity, than by parody? Each card is not really Christian at all, to me. (Hehe- I used operative words 'To me' ) Each card has a skewed view of the Christian iconology. I have this small example. Le Soleil, some people say the children are representing Gemini. I think they are Romulus and Remus the founders of Rome, suckled by a she Wolf. Romulus killed Remus in an argument over the new city. Use the Myth to poke Borax at Rome. It makes me chuckle. I see lots of pagan myth and legend in TdM under the guise of Christian symbols. I am not Christian, so I guess I would; and this pagan was raised very strictly Catholic so I am quite used to seeing past the disguise. ~Rosanne

Dark Inquisitor	20 May 2005
Rosanne wrote: I have thought that TdM is anti Catholic and maybe anti Christian. How else could Tarot be represented at that time, given the Power of Christianity, than by parody? Each card is not really Christian at all, to me. (Hehe- I used operative words 'To me' ) Each card has a skewed view of the Christian iconology. I often have the sense that whomever created the cards is still smirking hundreds of years later at the joke they have played that people continue to fall for . Here is some interesting reading about the correlation between the trumps and the "year king's annual trial and sacrifice." Scroll down to # 63 : http://www.gangan.com/ebooks/bacchus/Bacchus.08.html (I have no idea what that business about sticking your cards in a jar with a liver & a snake is about -won't be doing that .. ) Here is history of the twists & turns of Temperance : http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv4-49

Cerulean	20 May 2005
and an eye-opener if one wants to check through such things. Starting with Dante, Petrach and Boccaccio--if you like things Italianate--seems to open up my eyes to the idea, "oh, that's Italian" in source (grins). When I read of the art history of Florence and Ferarra--which includes the reading histories of the rulers and patrons of the initial iconographic trumps and tarocchi--the fanciful context of cards and courtly games play with allegorical games and motifs in a way that some might believe 'are most pagan.' Even if it was done in fun and games as a pastime. Even though as a courtly facade of courtesy, some of the rulers of Ferarra would be lauded as 'a most Christian King/Prince/etc...by their poetic courtiers...but to me, I can see there's paganish motifs. My metaphor is looking at the faunish smile of the paganish youth, Amor even as blindfolded, in the marriage allegory of the Visconti (Lovers). I saw a written allusion to the use of Amor as a 'naked youth, gilded and blindfolded' who actually was on a high platform/style of gallows during a joust during the Ferarrese court time of Ercole and Duchess Eleanor of Aragon in the 1480s (Eleanor died in 1493?)...and it seemed to me, I remembered Amor motif of the early Visconti card. Reading poetry or works similar to what perhaps the courtiers of the Visconti and D'Estensi would have seen might give students a better picture of the times. I think, for me, it helped me make educated guesses that feel less haphazard...but of course new research is coming up every day, so what I think might be accurate now may change two years down the road! Our discussion threads seem to be revived sometimes years later--so maybe the paganish contexts that I'm seeing are a sly wink from my latest readings... Thanks for the thread. Cerulean

Rosanne	20 May 2005
Scroll down to # 63 : http://www.gangan.com/ebooks/bacchus/Bacchus.08.html (I have no idea what that business about sticking your cards in a jar with a liver & a snake is about -won't be doing that .. ) Thanks Di for this link. I think it is how I think about Tarot really. There are two aspects of Tarot that I use- one as Divination tool in readings and one is a historic game of investigation. I think I view the two functions as seperate from each other- if that makes sense? What I have found with this Forum, that my sense of Fun has been diminished by the the function of Tarot in its Historic aspect so the lines of use have become blurred and I don't think I enjoy that prospect much. As far as reading tarot is concerned I think I use it in a Pagan way with its meanings, even when the symbols and iconology are Christian. As a tool for connecting with what I view as 'the Divine' it is excellent. The Historic aspect has me chasing my tail and starting to 'not know what I believe'. I used to have more certainty and a greater sense of fun. I will muse further ~Rosanne

Moongold	20 May 2005
I have never really seen the Marseille as a Christo-centred deck, although I know it has been predominently used in Europe and it is easy to make that association or presumption. Studying the VII Chariot seriously some time ago I has a sense of carnivale - a hotchpotch of everything. At the time we were discussing the possibility of the Chariot being on a carousel. You know - the wheels being off and the colourful horses andso on. And somehow during that discussion the Whelof Fortune came up and this is quite gothic, non-Christian symbol , I think. I have always seen European Christianity as being a pot pouri of other influences, some of them very dark, and have mostly seen the Christian Churches, particularly Catholicism, as being veils hiding political or other activity. I think this is why the Marseille is such a good Tarot and can dive into the underbelly of things. It's a mixture of eclectic influences, some pagan, some platonic, some Midddle- Eastern and some Christian.

Dark Inquisitor	20 May 2005
Rosanne wrote: As far as reading tarot is concerned I think I use it in a Pagan way with its meanings, even when the symbols and iconology are Christian. I think it's important to remember that universal ideas of themselves usually do not belong to any particular religion, and the symbolism of an idea is merely the vehicle . This is what seems to get lost in the never ending minutia of trying to categorize, classify, and impose some kind of "true meaning" or "true origin" of the tarot . For some people that in itself is the fun part , and for others who do not operate in a similar fashion it is not much fun because it seems to seek to impose limits and conformity. Fulgour sees a Phoenician alphabet in the tarot , although you will have to consult his other threads & posts to understand this idea. If we close our minds and only focus on a narrow aspect of the cards, how will we ever see it? Why would we not want to see as many worthy alternatives as possible? One alternative does not negate the other . It may be possible that all enrich the whole.

Shade	21 May 2005
I am with you D.I. on the notion of not seeking out one true origin for the cards. I like the idea Rachel Pollack (and probably other) advocates in her books of finding numerous correspondences from a plethora of sources. The Hanged Man IS St Peter and he IS Odin and Osiris and he IS a traitor, etc down the line. This is not to say that I advocate making up interpretations willy nilly as you feel so moved. I just really buy into the Jung/Joseph Campbell idea that our sacrd stories convey profound knowledge in a medium pallatable to their audiences. It is for this reason I avoid debates in which people attempt to prove that The Lord of the Rings is principly a Chistian tale or that the Arthurian legends MUST be the encoded secret teachings of the Druids.

NightWing	23 May 2005
Moongold, Shade, & others interested: It seems to me that you are onto something important here about myth & religion, specifically western European mythology (of which Tarot forms a small part, and an expression of). You are really writing about living mythology, that has and continues to evolve. Christianity didn't emerge in Europe instantly, or completely. It was one of many influences that waxed and waned in various places at various times. As its predecessor religions probably did, it took into itself aspects of different paganisms, folk belief, and philosophies. European Christianity was quite different than early middle-eastern Christianity because of the inclusion and subsuming of so many local and regional beliefs. And the great mix continued to live and evolve,...and still does. When Britain became Christian, who were the "clergy"? Mostly Druidic priests who "converted", bringing with them all the ancient wonders of their faith. Yes, the Druids and others Britons were changed in their belief by Christianity, but Christianity was changed by them. If you look for it, the ancient beliefs are still there in small-town Britain, not side-by-side with local Christianity, but PART of it. At Chartres in France, what may be the greatest example of high gothic architecture still exists and is celebrated, in the form of the local centuries-old cathedral, dedicated to the "Blessed Virgin Mary". But worship of the "Mother" on that spot goes back many centuries further, possibly millennia. Catholicism simply connected with local belief, and both were changed. Paganism and Christianity in western Europe for many centuries was more about a melding of belief as far as the vast majority were concerned, not some kind of bitter contest. The philosophical and theological debates of a few professors and popes altered little for the average peasant farmer or village trader. Today there are those with their own agendas who desperately want to see it all in a kind of "black & white", and even create "statistics" to support their position of "outrage". But anger at your parent's religiosity or an unpleasant and ill-informed priest doesn't change history. If you want to find European Paganism, one place to look is within European Christianity. Even in my part of the world (North America), when I want to join in the Midsummer Eve festivities, or the "Harvest Festival", or Solstice, I go down to the local Anglican church! It is, as they say, hiding in plain sight. It is out of this great, ongoing spiritual meld, that Tarot has emerged.

Dark Inquisitor	24 May 2005
NightWing wrote: If you look for it, the ancient beliefs are still there in small-town Britain, not side-by-side with local Christianity, but PART of it. That may be partially true, but one must not forget that Christian beliefs were forced on pagans who had no choice but to appear to go along. That doesn't mean every one of them wanted to , or gave up their own practices in secret . It also doesn't mean Christianity and pagan religions are one and the same .

NightWing	25 May 2005
I don't mean for a moment to underestimate the various times and places that existing paganism was under pressure to submit to what was "politically correct", for example by the government of the Christian Roman Empire in the 4th century C.E. But I also think that some (including historians), have overestimated the success of these Christianizing forces. Yes, there was the veneer of official Christianity, but what I like to call the Old Religion, or the religion and faith of the common people, lived on. Sometimes this was by subterfuge, but at least as often it happened in the syncretic process of Church and "folk faith" reaching an accomodation. Catholicism in Latin America today bears witness to this still continuing process. That is why Catholicism in Andean Peru, for example, bears almost no resemblance to that practised in Manila, or Rome. And the inability of some Protestant denominations to make such accomodations at least partly explains why they are so numerous, fragmented, and often very nationalistic. I have a grudging respect for this aspect of world-wide Catholicism: increasingly it seems open to sharing facets of a wide variety of "sister" belief systems, and for some parts of the global community, may be serving an "umbrella" purpose similar to that served by Hinduism in India. Stay tuned. This is not to excuse the horrors of the past for one moment. But it suggests that perhaps some lessons have been learned as we all look to the future!

Fudugazi	25 May 2005
Dark Inquisitor wrote: one must not forget that Christian beliefs were forced on pagans who had no choice but to appear to go along. This is a simplistic historical analysis, inherited from the great but flawed Gibbon. It takes no account of several factors, such as the crisis that accompanied the disintegration of the Roman Empire, which was seen as a kind of "end of the world" by many; the crisis of faith within the old pagan religions between the 2nd and 6th centuries AD, which the new Christian religion evidently exploited; and the tribal bond in which the chief was quasi-deified in a number of societies (this is still the case in parts of Africa, btw), and that meant that when your chief/king converted to Christianity, you would of course follow him - anything else would be unthinkable (for a recent example of this, read about the conversion of Rwanda to Christianity in the late 19th C, once its mwami became Christian: there were few cases of forced conversion). Individual thought was rare to the point of being confined to the elite, Greek-educated few. For every pure pagan Emperor Julian, you had many more who accomodated the new beliefs in their lives quite well. Apart from anything else, Christianity offered certainty in the frighteningly violent, uncertain and insecure world of the end of the Roman Empire. Much as is happening now, in fact. I think NightWing's analysis is much closer to the truth, which was a subtle syncretism that slowly replaced the all-pagan practices. In fact, what happened was that the Christianity that arrived the Middle East was radically transformed by the pagan populations in Europe that adopted it - and many of what we think now of Christian practices and beliefs are pagan in origin. That is not to say, of course, that at various points in its history the Church* did not resort to coercion, in the form of punishment, shaming or ostracism. But forced conversions were relatively rare: they were unnecessary in the social structure of the late Empire. In that context, the pagan content of the Tarot is easily explainable: paganism, unlike what some neo-pagans would have us believe, was not violently cast out. Much of it was simply absorbed. We can follow it in folk tales and practices to this day, and in iconography. We can follow it in beliefs that are certainly not the product of Judaism: in fact the very heart of Christianity, the Trinity, is a pagan-monotheistic syncretic construct, rather than purely monotheistic. In terms of popular religion, near the the site of what is now Lourdes, for instance, was a sacred healing spring dedicated to a Gaulish goddess. Nowadays it is a sacred healing spring dedicated to Mary. But the practice and the sensibility behind it has remained. The Star card was made in that background (not Lourdes - but there were many healing springs). *when I write the Church I mean the Western Church, since Tarot is a product of Western culture. The Eastern Church had its own modus operandi, and the breach was consummated fairly early in Christian history and never fully repaired.

stella01904	14 Jun 2005
Helvetica wrote: In that context, the pagan content of the Tarot is easily explainable: paganism, unlike what some neo-pagans would have us believe, was not violently cast out. Much of it was simply absorbed. We can follow it in folk tales and practices to this day, and in iconography. We can follow it in beliefs that are certainly not the product of Judaism: in fact the very heart of Christianity, the Trinity, is a pagan-monotheistic syncretic construct, rather than purely monotheistic. In terms of popular religion, near the the site of what is now Lourdes, for instance, was a sacred healing spring dedicated to a Gaulish goddess. Nowadays it is a sacred healing spring dedicated to Mary. But the practice and the sensibility behind it has remained. The Star card was made in that background (not Lourdes - but there were many healing springs). MM ~ (How did I miss this thread?) She's pouring libations! (Unless she's just gone down to the water to wash dishes skyclad - takes all kinds...) Wouldn't the Christian mindset have been trying to get the people away from such Pagan earth-centered practices? Aren't the central star and the two same-colored ones flanking it in the position of the sun at the Solstices and Equinoxes? Why are there dogs/wolves on the Moon Card - these things couldn't possibly allude to Diana, this is a Christian deck! :D Why are Le Pape and Le Papess at the LOWER levels? Why is the Hanged Man upside down, like Odin? Come to think of it, why are there Greenman sculptures all over cathedrals in Europe? It's all there for anyone who wants to see it. Everybody has different filters, and the same person's filters change over time. I see a Christian overlay on a kind of Pagan/Jewish/Gnostic (in the sense of gnosis itself) philosophy. Just enough of an overlay to keep from getting into trouble. BB, Stella

The Christo-centric tarot vs. pagan tarot thread was originally posted on 20 May 2005 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.