The tarot has always fascinated me. I bought a Waite-Smith deck when I was 16 and entertained people by giving a number of accurate “readings” . I would not now recommend this, even to non-Christians. There is too much power and too little certain knowledge for Tarot readings to be safe.
However, even at that time, I was puzzled by the amount of Christian imagery in the Waite-Smith deck. So much so, that non-Christians, ex-Christians, or anti-Christians prefer to use other decks with less overt Christian symbolism.
Now, I am not a Tarot scholar, and the only other tarot deck I have ever held in my hand resembled the Marseilles deck, which dates from the 17th Century. The imagery of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck is in the same tradition. This is important because, I believe, Charles Williams describes the Waite-Smith Tarot deck in his novel, The Greater Trumps.
“Time enough,” he said. “Listen, among them is not the Chariot an Egyptian car, devised with two sphinxes, driven by a Greek, and having on it paintings of cities and islands?”
“It is just that,” the other said.
The Greater Trumps is a the best example of William’s plundering of occult themes to make an overtly Christian point. Some of his other plot devices are too obscure, like his use of Neo-Platonic Ideal Eminations in The Place Of The Lion, or too downright weird, like whatever is the ascetic exercise used by Nigel Considine in Shadows Of Ecstasy. The Tarot, however mysterious it may have been in the 1930s when Williams wrote the novel, enjoys a high profile now.
I have to admit I stand in awe of Williams’ effortless use of occult themes in his novels. He never dismisses occult power out of hand, nor does he associate it strictly with the diabolical. You get the sense reading Williams that there is only One source of power, and all subsequent exercises of power through whatever mediation is either a discharge of rightful duty, or a theft.
The occultists in The Greater Trumps, Henry and his uncle Aaron, enter as thieves, attempting to obtain and exercise power that doesn’t rightly belong to them. Through the bequest of a distant relative, Lothair Coningsby has come into possession of the original deck of Tarot cards. These cards can be used not only to predict events, but to cause them; not just to interpret reality, but to generate reality. The occultists first try outright theft, but when this fails, as it must in Williams’ cosmos, they fall back on Henry’s legal and emotional relationship with Nancy, Lothair’s daughter, to effect a loan of the cards, and from this all the conflict in the novel ensues.
But it is not Lothair’s legal claim on the cards that ultimately foils the occultists, but the seemingly inconsequential claims of his sister, the aptly named Sybil, whose only claim on the cards or the characters is that she loves them indiscriminately and without condition. This love supports her brother’s legal claim to the cards, strengthens Henry’s and Nancy’s love until it becomes something apart from the lever that Henry (and Nancy) wished to make of it, and undoes all the mischief released by the cards as a result of the manipulation of this love.
All of Williams’ novels portray the only story there is; the struggle between the Empire and the City, between those who would illegitimately place themselves at the center and beggar the periphery in order to glut themselves upon the surplus and those who receive from the true Center, add their poor, derivative contribution, awaiting the day when the fissures are repaired, and the whole fabric is awash with light and power.
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January 23, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Aaron Taylor
Very nice post! I too am interested in the Christian symbolism of the Major Arcana (not to mention Williams’s writings!). I used to have a book on the Tarot and Kabbalah, but I gave it away to a non-Christian, New Agey friend because I thought it might help her have a greater appreciation of Biblical wisdom.
I think my personal favourite of Williams’s novels is ‘War in Heaven’, but ‘Descent Into Hell’ seems like it’s probably the best-written one.
Btw, are you familiar with Milorad Pavić’s book, ‘Last Love in Constantinople’? It’s a novel intended to be read according to a shuffling of the Major Arcana.
January 24, 2009 at 1:39 am
Steve
I’m a great fan of Charles Williams’s books, and The greater trumps in particular, but I can’s see the Rider-Waite cars as particularly Christian, and the Fool, in particular, doesn’t fit with the image created by Williams in his book.
I sometimes use Tarot cards to illustrate points in blog posts, here, for example, but I think the traditional cards have far more Christian symbolism.
January 25, 2009 at 2:13 pm
ochlophobist
What of Meditations on the Tarot by Valentin Tomberg?
(http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Tarot/dp/1585421618/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/176-1178473-8795862?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232910475&sr=8-1)
Have you read it, and if so, do you have any thoughts regarding it?
I read this book years ago, in part because of the praise given to it by von Balthasar.
January 25, 2009 at 5:35 pm
FernSpike
Try as I may, I cannot play ‘Snap’ using Tarot cards.
The modern deck illustrated by David Palladini is worthy of note – a cross between Aubrey Beardsley and Alphonse Mucha.
Leviticus 19:31 says something about dabbling in the occult.
January 28, 2009 at 10:44 pm
celticbreathe
I started studying archetypes in relation to my spiritual studies about ten years ago, and got into relating them to tarot about five.. as well as studying other more ancient pictorial languages, from egyptian, coptic, paleo-hebraic.. even a lil ogham.. i find that rachel pollacks compendium of tarot to be the most informative.. I also like the deck she worked on with Rabbi Haindl Tarot deck very much so, artistically, and working with the major archetypes.. though I must admit the minor arcana is somewhat lacking for me..
I’m interested to peruse tomberg’s work.. and no longer find a disparate confrontationbetween tarot and my christian understanding.. but then I would consider myself a non literalist and a conservative liberal when it comes to such.. and there seems to be all too few of us..
February 21, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Bowsiodiz
Maaaan, you know there is such thing in the web like search engine, http://google.com if you don’t, go there to understand why this post is bullshit
March 6, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Aaron Taylor
Bowsiodiz> Ah yes, a wonderfully enlightening comment. ALL it takes is the use of Google to determine that any given statement in this post is incorrect.