What are the symbolic roots of Tarot?
If all you ever read were occultist or pomo Tarot books that claim to answer this question, you’d just keep chanting to yourself twenty-two, twenty-two, twenty-two, all the way up to six-sixty-six (actually, up to six-hundred sixty oh well). The fact and the curse that the deck just happens to have an important structural division of twenty-two parts has parked the car of hysteria securely in the Tarot lot. Why is twenty-two a big deal? There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet of course, and that’s the basis for the considerable mystical mulch that makes up Kabbalah, and Kabbalah has been the symbolic wellspring for just about every occultist idea people have layered onto the old gaming deck of Tarot. And while in a very dry and factual way this seems pretty silly and falsely established and promoted, even from an historical (not just hysterical) point of view, it might not be too ridiculous to make Tarot a Kabbalistic stepchild. To find out why that is Learn more!.
