This text is taken from my book Ideology of the Tarot.
If you want to buy this book, write to dorijan.nuaj@gmail.com
Before we delve into the doctrine of the Minor Arcana, I
would like to share some observations on the evolution of tarot. There is a
clear tendency for tarot to undergo further transformation, less as a tool of
occultism and more as an expression of certain exoteric ideological agendas and
worldviews. Tarot is increasingly becoming a medium for propagating various
ideas aimed at social and psychological transformation and indoctrination. The
spirit of the times has gone to great lengths to strip tarot of its veil of
mystery and the mute sublimity of its figures, which, like sphinxes, silently
point to the great baggage that each card carries. Multiculturalism, feminism,
environmentalism, holism, neopaganism, and globalized syncretism are
expressions of this era, in comparison to which even the claims of 18th-century
French enthusiasts about tarot as a codified source of cryptic wisdom from
ancient Egypt, though naive in themselves, are expressions of a more
substantive and focused worldview. The occult views on tarot, from the 18th century
to Aleister Crowley, seem conservative and dogmatic when compared to the
divergence of tarotism from the 1960s onwards, making the Marseille deck appear
distant and mystical. The 15th-century decks are now so far removed from the
spirit of our time that they can be compared to how Egyptian hieroglyphs
appeared to European Egyptophiles before Champollion's discovery. Once, Britain
and France, and more recently the USA, have increasingly become the stages for
the new development of tarot forms that express current trends. In this sense,
the cards are merely carriers of various speculative and ideologized messages.
