The Esoteric Tarot: Ancient Sources Rediscovered in Hermeticism and Cabala by Ronald Decker (broadcast 7-29-2013) Tarot cards in their many forms have evoked a sense of mystery, fascination, fear, curiosity and any number of other reactions based mostly on very little information of what they are, where they came from and what people do with them. In The Esoteric Tarot Ronald Decker, art historian and retired curator of antique cards at U.S. Playing card Company provides us with the evolution of the Tarot, its symbols, their connotations and their sources.
Although it is clear that the Tarot was not invented by the Egyptians, the love of things Egyptian by those who designed the cards is just as clear. From astrologers in Asia Minor before AD1000 creating the four suit deck of cards with esoteric symbols as suit-signs, to Italian humanists before 1440 supplementing the suits with trump cards that blended Egyptian, Classical and Christian motifs in the game of tarocchi (still played today), to French savants by the 1750s beginning to interpret the allegories of the trumps along Egyptian lines, Decker takes us through the philosophy and mysticism of a number of cultures as expressed by these cards. He brings us, also, up to the present day’s increased interest in the Tarot as a tool for better understanding our own psychology and/or a tool for discovering hints about what may happen tomorrow.
Well illustrated this is a fine resource for anyone who is curious to begin to learn something about this deck of cards that has intrigued so many for so long as well as for those already students of the cards and their history to learn still more. Find out more at Quest Books.
