Taromancy

Taromancy, also known as tarotmancy, is the art of divination through the use of Tarot cards. A Tarot reading involves drawing and arranging cards from a specialised deck and interpreting their imagery, symbolism, numerical associations and positions in relation to a particular question or situation.

The name is derived from the English word tarot and the Greek manteia, meaning “prophecy” or “divination”.

History

The earliest Tarot cards were not originally created for occult or divinatory purposes. According to the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona, written before 1425, Tarot-like cards were used for playing games. Their association with mysticism, magic and esoteric symbolism developed much later, particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

One of the earliest known uses of Tarot cards specifically for divination occurred in Bologna, Italy, around 1750. The development of modern occult Tarot accelerated in 1781 when Antoine Court de Gébelin published Le Monde Primitif. In this work, he argued that the symbolism of the Tarot de Marseille preserved ancient religious mysteries and connected the cards with the traditions of Isis and Thoth.

These ideas strongly influenced later occult interpretations of the Tarot, despite the absence of historical evidence that the cards had actually originated in ancient Egypt.

During the nineteenth century, Éliphas Lévi further transformed Tarot symbolism by relating the cards to Hermetic Qabalah and ceremonial magic. His Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, published in 1854, helped establish the Tarot as an important component of Western occult philosophy rather than merely a tool of popular fortune-telling.

Tarot divination became even more influential during the early twentieth century following the publication of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot in 1909–1910. Designed under the direction of Arthur Edward Waite and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith, the deck gave the Minor Arcana fully illustrated symbolic scenes rather than relying primarily upon simple arrangements of suit symbols. This innovation made the cards considerably more accessible for intuitive and symbolic interpretation and helped shape modern Tarot practice.

Structure of the Tarot Deck

A standard Tarot deck consists of seventy-eight cards, divided into the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana.

The Major Arcana usually consists of twenty-two cards, conventionally numbered from zero to twenty-one, although numbering systems can vary between decks and traditions. These cards include such figures and archetypal images as the Fool, the Magician, the High Priestess, Death, the Devil, the Tower and the World.

The Major Arcana are commonly interpreted as representing significant forces, spiritual lessons, transformative experiences or major stages in the development of the individual. In modern Tarot literature, the sequence is sometimes understood through the concept of the Fool’s Journey, in which the Fool progresses symbolically through the Major Arcana as a representation of spiritual or psychological development. This particular interpretative framework became especially associated with the writings of Eden Gray.

The remaining fifty-six cards form the Minor Arcana. These are divided into four suits, each containing fourteen cards: Ace through Ten followed by four court cards, usually the Page, Knight, Queen and King.

The Minor Arcana and the Elements

The four suits of the Minor Arcana are commonly associated with the four classical elements. Pentacles, sometimes called Coins or Disks, correspond with Earth; Swords correspond with Air; Wands with Fire; and Cups with Water.

The court cards may likewise be assigned elemental correspondences. In one commonly used occult system, the Page represents Earth, the Knight represents Air, the Queen represents Water and the King represents Fire.

This creates cards in which the element of the court figure reinforces the element of the suit. The Page of Pentacles may therefore be understood as Earth of Earth, the Knight of Swords as Air of Air, the Queen of Cups as Water of Water and the King of Wands as Fire of Fire. Within systems that employ these correspondences, such combinations may be considered particularly concentrated expressions of their respective elements.

Tarot Spreads

A Tarot reading usually begins with the deck being shuffled by the reader, the querent, or sometimes both. The cards are then placed into a particular arrangement known as a spread.

Each position within the spread is assigned a specific meaning. One position might represent the past, another the present, another the future, while others may refer to obstacles, influences, desires, fears or possible outcomes. The meaning of each card is therefore interpreted not only according to the symbolism of the card itself but also according to the position in which it appears.

The cards are commonly revealed and interpreted in sequence, allowing the reading to develop as a symbolic narrative rather than as a collection of isolated meanings.

Some readings also employ a significator, a card deliberately selected to represent the querent, another person, or the central matter being examined. Unlike the randomly drawn cards in the spread, the significator is intentionally chosen before the main reading begins.

Reversed Cards

Some systems of Tarot interpretation distinguish between cards appearing upright and those appearing reversed, meaning upside down.

A reversed card may sometimes be interpreted as expressing the opposite of its usual upright meaning. In other systems, however, reversal does not necessarily indicate a direct opposite. It may instead represent a blocked, weakened, delayed, internalised or excessively intensified expression of the card’s symbolism.

For example, the Sun in an upright position may be associated with happiness, vitality, confidence, success and liberation, while a reversed Sun might be interpreted as diminished confidence, delayed happiness or difficulty fully expressing those qualities.

Not every Tarot reader uses reversals. Some practitioners prefer to interpret all cards upright and allow the surrounding cards and spread positions to determine whether the meaning should be regarded as positive, negative, blocked or intensified. Others argue that reversed cards depend too heavily upon the physical orientation of the deck before and during shuffling to be treated as independently significant.

Tarot as a Divinatory System

Taromancy differs from many forms of natural divination because the practitioner works with a deliberately constructed symbolic system. Each card possesses traditional imagery and associations, but its meaning changes according to its relationship with other cards, its position in the spread and the context of the question.

The random drawing of the cards determines which symbols appear, while the reader interprets the resulting arrangement. For this reason, Tarot sits within the wider family of divinatory practices in which chance produces a symbolic configuration from which meaning is derived.

Within the Occult World classification, taromancy belongs most naturally to Sortileges, because the reading depends upon shuffling, drawing and arranging symbolic objects whose random selection forms the basis of the divination.

Enter the Deeper World Behind the Tarot

Tarot is far more than a deck of colourful fortune-telling cards. Behind its seventy-eight images lies a vast network of symbolism connecting astrology, elemental theory, Hermeticism, Qabalah, numerology, ceremonial magic and generations of occult interpretation.

If you want to understand Tarot as a genuine occult system rather than memorising a few card meanings from a booklet, enter the Occult World Mystery School and study the structures that transformed these cards into one of the most influential divinatory systems in Western esotericism. There are thousands of spirits, gods, demons, magical systems, grimoires and forgotten traditions waiting beyond it. Stop pulling cards without understanding the world behind them and enter the Mystery School where the deeper architecture of occult divination begins.