Comprehensive Study Notes on the Tarot: Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom

THE ORIGINS AND ARCHETYPAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE TAROT

The Tarot deck, as we identify it today, has his roots in the middle of the $15th$ century, specifically in Milan, Italy. An artist named Bonifacio Bembo painted a set of unnamed and unnumbered cards for the Visconti family, a deck designed for the game called Tarocchi. This classic deck comprised four suits of $14$ cards each, alongside $22$ additional cards later termed trionfi, triumphs, or trumps. While many of these $22$ images functioned as a catalogue of medieval social types—such as the Pope, the Emperor, or the Wheel of Fortune—one figure stood out as notably enigmatic. This figure, the Hanged Man, depicts a young man suspended upside down by his left leg from a wooden frame. His body forms a triangle with his head at the base, and his right leg is bent to create the figure of a cross or the numeral $4$. Despite modern Italian decks sometimes calling this card L'Apezzo (the Traitor), Bembo’s original figure appears beautiful and at peace, evoking an entranced initiate rather than a criminal.

Various traditions clarify the historical and esoteric symbolism of the Hanged Man. It echoes the Christian tradition of St. Peter’s inverted crucifixion and the Norse myth of Odin hanging from the World Tree for $9$ days and nights to receive the gift of prophecy. Such practices resonate with shamanic medicine people of Siberia and North America, who utilize bodily reversal and extreme cold to induce radiant visions. Alchemists similarly believed that hanging upside down allowed the sperm’s vital elements to flow toward psychic centers in the head. The Hanged Man, notably popularized by T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land, suggests that Bembo may have been an initiate in secret occult traditions. Even in its structure, the deck implies esoteric planning; the presence of $22$ trumps mirrors the $22$ letters of the Hebrew alphabet identified in the Kabbalah as paths on the Tree of Life. Further correspondences exist in the four court cards per suit, which align with the four letters of the unpronounceable name of God, $YHVH$, representing the four worlds of creation and the four basic elements. The ten cards in each suit also correspond to the Ten Commandments and the $10$ Sephiroth.

THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM: THE RIDER PACK AND DIVINATION

While Tarocchi began as a gambling game, the $18th$ century occultist Antoine Court de G ebelin proposed that the Tarot was actually the Book of Thoth, an Egyptian artifact conveying all knowledge. In the $19th$ century, Alphonse Louis Constant, known as Eliphas L evi, formally linked the cards to the Kabbalah. The primary source for modern interpretation is the Rider pack, published in $1910$ by Arthur Edward Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. Waite, a mystic and member of secret societies, termed his deck the ‘rectified Tarot,’ claiming his images restored true meanings. The most revolutionary change was his and Smith’s decision to include detailed scenes on all cards, including the numbered pip cards of the Minor Arcana, such as the Ten of Swords showing a man with $10$ swords in his back.

Historically, Tarot was viewed as a device for divination or fortune-telling only after its introduction as a game. The Romany people, or gypsies (who actually originated in India and arrived in Spain a century after the cards were in Italy), are often falsely credited with bringing them from Egypt. Divination rests on the inner conviction of correspondences—that everything is connected and nothing occurs at random. Modern randomness is a construction of materialist cause-and-effect dogmas. However, Tarot images carry objective psychological weight as archetypes of experience. Readings demonstrate that no card or approach to life is inherently good or bad except in the context of the moment.

THE FOUR-CARD PATTERN OF EVOLUTION AND SPIRITUAL AWARENESS

A foundational understanding of the Major Arcana as a psychological process can be reached through four cards: the Fool ($0$), the Magician ($1$), the High Priestess ($2$), and the World ($21$). The Fool and the World represent dancers and joyful motion, while the Magician and High Priestess are stationary, representing fixed states of existence. The Fool, bearing the number $0$, represents the absence of specific number and thus contains all numerical potential. This figure symbolizes innocence—not a lack of guilt, but a total openness to life and instinctive self-faith. The Fool is a psychic hermaphrodite, expressing complete humanity without isolation from the physical world. The zero, often drawn as an egg or a single point of light in Hermetic tradition, indicates that all things emerge from this nothingness.

The Fool’s innocence splits into the illusions of opposites represented by the Magician and the High Priestess. The Magician raises a phallic wand to heaven, symbolizing action, maleness, and consciousness. The High Priestess sits between two pillars, representing passivity, femaleness, and the unconscious. While the Magician gives shape to the chaos of experience, the High Priestess signifies an inexpressible inner truth that can only be maintained through withdrawal from the world. These archetypes cannot exist in human life in their pure form; we instead experience them as confused action or insecure, guilt-ridden passivity. The World ($21$) reconciles these opposites, showing a dancer holding two wands, symbolizing that the male and female principles have been unified into a state of higher wisdom and liberating freedom. This transition from potentiality to reality defines the ‘key’ of the occult sciences, where the alchemist’s base metal to be transformed is the self.

STRUCTURE OF THE MAJOR ARCANA: THREE LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE

The trumps of the Major Arcana divide organically into three groups of seven cards ($21$ total), with the Fool ($0$) set aside as a separate category that belongs anywhere. The number $7$ carries immense historical weight, from the seven planets of classical astrology to the seven chakras and the ratio of the circle’s circumference to its diameter, which is $22/7$. These three lines deal with distinct areas of experience. Line one (cards $1$ to $7$) deals with consciousness and the outer concerns of life in society, such as authority, love, and education. Line two (cards $8$ to $14$) deals with the subconscious and the search inward to discover the true self through withdrawal and rebirth. Line three (cards $15$ to $21$) deals with superconscious universal forces and the final unity with the foundations of reality.

Specific vertical correspondences link these lines. For example, the first card in each line (the Magician, Strength, and the Devil) are all symbols of power. The Magician and Strength share the infinity sign above their heads, while the Devil bears a reversed pentacle. In some decks, card $15$ is even titled the ‘Black Magician.’ The journey through the cards involves a descent into darkness to eventually return that light to the sunlit world of consciousness.

THE FIRST LINE: THE WORLDLY SEQUENCE AND INDIVIDUAL MATURITY

The first line depicts the creation of human society out of nature and archetypes. It follows the development of a human from childhood through maturity. After the Magician and High Priestess establish the principles of action and passivity, the Empress ($3$) represents motherhood, nature, and pure emotion. As the combination of $1$ and $2$, the number $3$ signifies a child and a synthesis of opposites where the Magician’s lightning bolt strikes the Priestess’s primordial sea. The Emperor ($4$) represents the father archetype and the rules of society (‘the system’). He symbolizes the abstraction of law versus the direct experience of nature. A life rigidly governed by the Emperor leads to the sterility shown in the Rider pack, where the river from the Empress becomes a thin stream in a desert. The Hierophant ($5$), also called the Pope, represents outer doctrine and religious education. For Aleister Crowley, he symbolized initiation into a secret doctrine, serving as a mediator between the individual and the universe. In the Rider pack, the keys at his feet are both gold, implying the dark side of knowledge remains hidden in outer doctrine.

The Lovers ($6$) was drastically altered by Waite. Historically, it showed a man choosing between two women (‘The Choice’), symbolizing adolescent independence. Waite transformed it into a new Garden of Eden presided over by an angel, symbolizing how human love leads to a vision of deep significance beyond the isolation of the ego. The Chariot ($7$) marks the victory of the first line. It represents the developed ego, successful in life and able to control instinctive desires through will-power. The charioteer merges into his stone vehicle, suggesting the risk of becoming rigid through total conscious control. Paul Douglas compared the Chariot to Jung’s concept of the ‘persona’—a mask we use to deal with the outside world. Just as the ego is limited, so is speech (linked to card $7$ through the Hebrew letter Iain), which labels reality but does not experience it directly.

THE SECOND LINE: TURNING INWARD AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION

Line two focuses on the inner self and the death of the ego-mask. Strength ($8$), which Waite swapped with Justice ($11$), depicts a woman taming a lion. This represents the inner strength to confront the self comfortably. The lion signifies the animal desires and suppressed feelings; the woman does not kill the lion but guides it with love. The Hermit ($9$) signifies withdrawal to activate the unconscious. He acts as the ‘guide’ or teacher, often appearing in dreams as a wise old man. The Wheel of Fortune ($10$) is the mid-point of the Major Arcana, showing a vision of the pattern of one’s life. In Kabbalistic law, it represents the ‘ROTA TARO ORAT TORA ATOR’ (The Wheel of Taro speaks the law of Ator). Justice ($11$) requires an active response to the vision of one’s life, representing the absolute honesty and responsibility needed to free ourselves from the past.

The Hanged Man ($12$) is the experience of spiritual reversal; by surrendering to the world tree (the ankh-shaped cross), the initiate finds peace and a halo of light. Death ($13$) shows the moment of giving up the old mask. It is not an end but a clearing of old habits to allow new life. The number $13$ is historically considered unlucky because it goes beyond the ‘perfect’ $12$ signs of the zodiac, thus breaking order to make something new. Finally, Temperance ($14$) denotes the ability to combine spontaneity with knowledge. The word ‘temperare’ means to mix properly; the angel in the card shows the personality in harmony, having both feet on land and water.

THE THIRD LINE: THE GREAT JOURNEY TO ENLIGHTENMENT

Line three begins with the Devil ($15$). Though commonly seen as a symbol of misery and obsession, the Devil इंट्रोड्यूसES the vital release of repressed energy necessary for deep spiritual work. It represents the ‘dark side of the collective unconscious.’ The Tower ($16$) shows the lightning bolt of God shattering the prison of consciousness. It is the ‘House of God’ appearing as disaster to the unprepared ego. The Star ($17$) follows as a state of healing and peace where the unconscious (the pool of water) is stirred and experienced behind the veil. The Moon ($18$) brings this ecstasy back to consciousness through the imagination. It represents ‘lunacy’ or the animal self (the wolf and dog) that must be integrated. The Sun ($19$) is the aftermath of joy, where all things appear clear and holy. Judgement ($20$) is the ‘call’ from within for the soul to rise up. The World ($21$) is final liberation. The dancer is an hermaphrodite, representing Adam Kadmon (the primal light person from whom the universe emanated) and the Ten Sephiroth of the Tree of Life. Success in the World is a unification of the inner sense of being with outer activities.

THE MINOR ARCANA AND THE FOUR ELEMENTS

The Minor Arcana comprises four suits corresponding to the elements and the formula of creation known as the Tetragrammaton ($Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh$). Wands, associated with Fire, symbolize action, optimism, and beginnings. Wands are the $Yod$, the first creative spark. They indicate struggle and movement. Cups correspond to Water and the first $Heh$, representing the receptivity and the pattern that receives the spark. They symbolize love, passivity, and imagination. Swords correspond to Air and the letter $Vav$, symbolizing the mind, planning, and development. They often represent sorrow and conflict, but also the intellect intended to cut through illusion. Pentacles (or Coins) correspond to Earth and the final $Heh$, representing the material world, work, and nature. Pentacles symbolize the magic found in ordinary things.

Numbered cards each possess qualities: Aces are primal gifts; Twos are unions; Threes represent achievement; Fours indicate stability; Fives signify loss or struggle; Sixes are communication; Sevens reflect victory or effort; Eights signify movement; Nines involve compromise; and Tens are completions. Some cards function as ‘Gates’ into deeper archetypal experience, such as the Eight of Cups or the Ten of Pentacles. The Court cards (Pages, Knights, Queens, Kings) represent personalities and levels of mastery over the element. For example, the King of Swords represents authority and judgement, while the Queen of Pentacles symbolizes self-trust and a bond with nature.

PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS: SYNCHRONICITY, FREE WILL, AND CERTITUDE

Tarot readings operate through synchronicity, a term coined by Carl Jung to describe meaningful coincidence that defies direct physical causality. Because human conditioning and social filters prevent us from seeing the ‘True’ world, we use random patterns (shuffling) to bypass the conscious ego. This allows the ‘acausal principle’ to bring forth information our unconscious already knows. Tarot does not force destiny; it reflects the likely outcome of our current choices. Most people do not use their free will because they allow themselves to be driven by conditioning and laziness.

Common reading patterns include the Celtic Cross ($10$ cards) and the Tree of Life ($78$ cards). The Tree of Life layout uses $10$ piles of $7$ cards each, plus an $11th$ invisible Sephirah called Daath (Transformation). This spread provides a total overview of a person’s spiritual and physical state. Tarot eventually leads to a state beyond Ignorance—which is our bounded sensory perception of time—toward Certitude, the ability to see the causes and consequences within the moment itself. Ultimately, the Tarot teaches that the whole universe lives, and what we know of ourselves, we can eventually know of everything.