Tarot of Marseilles This card shows a central figure that we might describe as Mother Nature, surrounded by symbols for the Cardinal Directions. These four quarters also represent the four suits of the Minor Arcana which are to follow. The World card is a reflection upon the third card, The Empress. This is the final card in the Major Arcana, and therefore represents the "big picture" of the cosmos as a unified being. "The number 21 is the number of destruction or rather of universal termination, because, as 2 is separated from 1, it is necessary that it has a means of to unite there if it wants it. This number shows at the same time the command of the production of things and their end, as well in the spiritual one as in the corporal one." Claude of Saint-Martin The destruction here is of illusion, of egocentricism. When the illusion is shattered, we wake up to the stunning reality of the universe.  "21, the highest possible number of 3 in the cor...

Tarot of Marseilles Twelve are the apostles of Jesus, including the traitor Judas. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Judas commited suicide by hanging himself, and so the image of a hanged man was associated with traitors. The image for the twelth Tarot card is a hanged man, known as "pittura infamante" the defaming portrait. Such portraits were painted in order to shame a known criminal. Often the portraits were life size frescoes, displayed in public spaces, and accompanied by a written label to "name and shame" the criminal. To depict someone hanging upside down was considered particularly humiliating. These images were effective in punishing noblemen for their bad debt, bankruptcy, fraud, forgery, etc. What this image says is that someone of high standing and wealth has fallen from grace, their ego has taken a beating. The lesson this card teaches is that an over-inflated ego will be turned on its head. The height of pride will become the lowest of the lo...

This adorable card shows a bare-bottomed Cupid eclipsing the sun as he prepares to shoot an arrow at a couple who have come before a witness to make their vow of marriage. By a wonderful conjunction of mathematical coincidences, the number six is both the sum (1 + 2 + 3) and the product (1 × 2 × 3) of the first three numbers. It is therefore considered “perfect.” This card represents the "perfection" produced by the union of two halves. The perfection of the number six is told of in the Bible, as it takes God six days to perfect his creation before he takes one last day to rest. This story is of course derived from Chaldean and Sumerian mythology. Six was considered the number of completion, harmony, love, creativity, and the physical senses. Psychic perception is sometimes called the "sixth sense". Psychic simply means "of the mind" as "psyche" is Greek for "consciousness". There is a classic tale where Psyche personified falls in...

Early 16th-century popess on the Rosenwald Sheet of uncut Tarot woodcuts. Today we refer to this card as the High Priestess, but in older versions of the Tarot, this card was called the Popess. According to legend, there was a woman who masqueraded as a man in order to become Pope, which of course was a deeply heretical subversive thing to do. People were absolutely disgusted by the idea of a woman acting as God's representative on Earth. As soon as she was found out, she met a most gruesome death at the hands of an angry religiously zealous mob. Should people have been so utterly disgusted by a female pope? Were they right to think of the sexes as polar opposites? This card is given the number two, representing duality, polarity, binary. To me it represents the illusion of separateness, of categorising things into "opposites". The female pope represents the break down of this illusion, she steps into a male role to bridge the gap between the sexes and prove that it...