The Truth About the Tarot

Excerpts from Ongoing Research for a Book by The Most Rev. Jon Ryner

The Origins of the Tarot

The origins of the Tarot are shrouded in mystery. This is because no one seems to know (or admits) what the cards' original purpose was. I began my investigations in this area by using the same approach as the venerable Adam McLean has in alchemy: by looking first at the earliest extant examples of the cards themselves, free from later spurious accretions (Kabbala, changed card names, etc.). So what do we know?

The cards were not originally used for divination. This came much later. Nor were they initially used for playing "the Tarot game", though this, as I currently understand, began to be fashionable fairly quickly. Why would the exoteric Church condemn playing a foppish, fadish game unless the images in the cards themselves were suspect? Why would the Church condemn them in such harsh words (such as "ladder to hell", etc.), without stating why they were so dangerous? These were questions in the back of my mind as I began my research. So what do we see?

The Visconti Tarots

I have in my library a Book of Hours that was done for a Visconti. It is most interesting, in that a number of the images are extremely pagan in appearance and obvious meaning. Is there evidence that the Visconti family were heretics are involved with heretics?

Quite possibly. I seem to remember reading that they were supporters of the Gugliemites, who elected their own pope, a woman. This is interesting, given that the Cary-Yale Visconti Tarocchi contains both male and female pages and knights. As Hank Harrison's research showed, powerful royals were involved in pagan practices, preserving ancient stone building techniques and their associated pagan lore, and practicing witchcraft, even in our own day.

Then again, we have the cards. I originally suspected I would be working along these lines when I looked at the Visconti-Sforza, but when I started looking at the Cary-Yale Visconti, I knew I was on the right track. This was the card that convinced me: Is this not a strange version of The Chariot? We clearly see an uncontrolled horse pulling an ornately carved Gothic cart in which is a standing figure. There is a man on a second horse looking at the figure in the cart, and both horses have stopped. The man raises his arm as if signaling other(s) behind him not shown on the card.

What we are seeing here is an ancient pagan ritual that the exoteric Church tried to stamp out for centuries. An idol was placed in a cart, which was attached to an ox or other animal. They were turned loose and wherever the animal stopped was deemed to be sacred, and frequently a shrine or church was erected on that spot. Obviously, the climax of this hoary rite was when the actual temenos was revealed, and this precise moment is portrayed in this Trump. We now have a valid reason the exoteric Church would condemn the Tarot, without giving an explicit reason: the Tarot portrayed pagan rites (more on this later) which it was trying to destroy, so it certainly didn't want to draw attention to these rites. (Note our argument about this approach in the arena of sexual images in churches elsewhere on this site.)

It is most important to note how radically different other later Tarot cards are from the originals. Even "The High Priestess" was originally named The Popess. And, provocatively, the Popess of the Visconti-Sforza as attired in a good rendering of the very habit worn by nuns of the same order as the one elected pope by the Gugliemites.

To be continued...

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