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Tarot and archetypes

 Carl Jung was the first psychologist to attach importance to the Tarot. He regarded the Tarot cards as representing archetypes: fundamental types of person or situation embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The Emperor, for instance, represents the ultimate patriarch or father figure.

The theory of archetypes gives rise to several psychological uses. Some psychologists use Tarot cards to identify how a patient views himself or herself, by asking the patient to select a card that he or she identifies with. Some try to get the patient to clarify his ideas by imagining his situation or relationship in terms of Tarot images: Is someone rushing in heedlessly like the Knight of Swords perhaps, or blindly keeping the world at bay as in the Rider-Waite-Smith Two of Swords. The Tarot can be seen as a kind of algebra of the subconscious, allowing it to be analysed at the conscious level.

Tarot and Kabbalah

Adherents of the Mysteries have long held the idea that the Tarot has its origins in the arcane system of the Kabbalah, though there is no firm historical evidence for this. The work of the 19^th century French occultist, Eliphas Levi, was the catalyst for the study of the esoteric link between the Tarot and the Kabbalah, which became the main model for the development and interpretation of the Tarot. The most influential decks of the 20^th century were founded on Kabbalistic principles, in terms of their structure, their symbology and their explication.

Central to the Western Kabbalah is the glyph Otz Chiim or the Tree of Life. This consists of ten spheres or sefirot connected by 22 paths, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The sefirot themselves are also considered to be paths, giving a total of 32 paths in all; but in discussing the associations between the Tarot and the Kabbalah, it is simpler to consider the Tree as 10 sefirot and 22 paths, as these groupings correspond respectively to the Minor Arcana and Major Arcana that make up the structure of the Tarot. Some occultists offer slightly different attributions. Aleister Crowley, for example, transposes the Star and the Emperor, so that the Emperor corresponds to the Hebrew letter tzaddi, and the Star to heh. This is in keeping with the Thelemic teaching of Crowley's Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law), where it is written "All these old letters of my Book are aright; but Tzaddi is not the Star" (chapter 1:57).

Just as the sefirot follow a sequence from the new beginning or creative impulse in the first sefira (Kether) through to completion in the tenth (Malkuth), so the numbered cards in each suit follow this pattern from the Ace through to the Ten. Each path expresses the interaction between the pair of sefirot it connects. As a quick, much simplified example, Trump XXI, the World, concerns the successful completion of one phase and the start of another, as well as ideas of synthesis and crystallization. The interactions of sefirot nine, Yesod (Foundation), and ten, Malkuth (Kingdom) mirror these ideas, with the generative aspects of Yesod finding their fulfillment inMalkuth. The process of Creation ends in Malkuth, and the return begins through Yesod. The path and the World both correspond to the Hebrew letter tav, and again this is highly appropriate as it is the final letter of the alphabet and means 'cross', a symbol associated with the manifest world.

Kabbalists view the Tree as acting on or through four worlds: Atziluth, Briah, Yetsirah and Assiah. So the system can be further refined, as each of the suits of the Minor Arcana corresponds to one of the four worlds. For example, Assiah is the manifest world, corresponding to the element Earth and the Tarot suit Pentacles. So the Six of Pentacles corresponds to Tifereth in Assiah. Tifereth is the sefira of balance and beauty, and Assiah the manifest, material world; hence the Six of Pentacles in the Tarot deck has meanings associated with putting money to good use, generosity, nobility and deserved success. The correspondences between the Kabbalistic worlds and the Tarot suits are as follows:

Tarot Suit	Element	Kabbalistic World
Pentacles	Earth	Assiah (Manifest World)
Swords	Air	Yetsirah (Formative World)
Cups	Water	Briah (Creative World)
Wands	Fire	Atziluth (Archetypal World)

The court cards of the Minor Arcana are also placed at important positions on the Tree:

Court Card	Sefira
Pages	Malkuth (Kingdom)
Knights	Tifereth (Beauty)
Queens	Binah (Understanding)
Kings	Chokmah (Wisdom)

Also, entire suits may be allocated a position, just as the four worlds are sometimes expressed on a single Tree:

Tarot Suit	Sefira
Pentacles	Malkuth (Kingdom)
Swords	Tifereth (Beauty)
Cups	Binah (Understanding)
Wands	Chokmah (Wisdom)