Discovering Tarot: Learn From the Old—Create the New
There is more than one mythic history of the Tarot. It’s important to note that by mythic I don’t simply mean that the stories were made up and imaginary. Rather, myths are information conveyed in a story to indicate the importance of something. Aesop’s fables, for example, are myths explaining timeless truths in simple stories.
Although the Tarot has been used for hundreds of years, its active use as part of ceremonial magick really only dates back to the late 19th century. The key to this was the linking of the Tarot to the Kabalistic Tree of Life. This first appeared in print in an article by the Comte de Mellet in the 1781 book, Le Monde Primitif by Court de Gébelin, which noted that the number of paths on the Tree of Life matched the number of cards in the 5th suit of the Tarot. (One source claimed calling it the Major Arcana was created by Paul Christian, the pen name of Jean Baptiste Pitois in his book, The History and Practice of Magic, originally published in 1870. However I don’t think this is accurate as the timing is off.)
This was picked up by Eliphas Levi, who developed an initial system of correspondences between the Tarot and the Tree of Life. Levi was one of the leading lights of what has been called the French Occult Revival of the middle to end of the 19th century. Numerous mystical and magical Orders developed during this time, finally crossing the English Channel and resulting in the births of groups such as the Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (although there may have been predecessors to the latter). The Golden Dawn changed Levi’s system to match their concepts. Aleister Crowley modified this a bit to meet his system. Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones) made some revolutionary changes, too, but these have been adopted by few people.
The bottom line is that today, Western ceremonial magick and the Tarot are intricately intertwined. Therefore, it makes sense to study the Tarot for more than one purpose.
http://www.llewellyn.com/blog/2013/03/discovering-tarot-learn-from-the-old-create-the-new/
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