Thomas Saunders has been a professional Tarot reader for the past 18 years and has taught many seminars in the UK and America. He was a regular broadcaster on the subject on the Pete Murray Show for LBC London Radio and in 1993 became the Tarot expert for Marie Claire magazine for three years.
He is a practising dowser and long-time member of The National Federation of Spiritual Healers. He is an Associate Lecturer at the University of the Arts, London, and has delivered lectures at the Royal Academy for the British Society of Dowsers, The Prince’s Foundation, The Research Into Lost Knowledge Organisation (RILKO), Kairos and other groups covering the decoding of myths and fairy tales, mystery school teachings and sacred geometry.
See www.thomassaunders.net for further information.
‘The Authentic Tarot is a wise combination of classical wisdom, the dynamics of myths and psychological interpretations of the profound symbolic language that is the Tarot.’
A T Mann, author of The Mandala Astrological Tarot and Secrets of the Tarot.
‘What a wonderful, inspiring and unique book!
Thomas Saunders has managed to capture the very essence of Tarot and its real profound meaning. With pristine clarity and deep understanding of the subject he guides the reader through the maze of complicated and intricate symbols which represent various stages in an individual’s development on their way to self-knowledge, the knowledge of the inner Self.
Thomas Saunders makes it clear from the start in his book that we are not to be presented with a ‘manual’ on fortune-telling but with a very special, highly spiritually-charged guided tour to the core of our inner Self. He makes us realise why we are here on this very beautiful planet, what is the purpose of our life’s journey, and what we tend to forget in the mad rush of our every day life.
Anybody who is interested in the deep knowledge of the Tarot will find this book enlightening. Do not miss the chance to read this book, it is a real jewel.’
Dr Jill Claxton-Oldfield
‘A landmark work of great significance! With ease and grace, Thomas brings to life the hidden truths of some of the world's greatest mysteries regarding the human psyche.’
Dr Norma Milanovich, Author of The Light Shall Set You Free, We, The Arcturians, and Sacred Journey to Atlantis.
‘Thomas Saunders gives a fascinating and unique insight to the Tarot. The book offers the reader great hope and inspiration in that by the correct use of the Tarot a person can take responsibility for their own life and control their destiny. Truly an eye opener!’
Sarika Jobanputra
Director, S J Associates Ltd, Chartered Certified Accountants
‘Not only a thorough and in-depth guide to the meaning and symbolism of the Tarot, this book contains powerful lessons for living a better life. It skilfully guides the reader to use the Tarot in the way in which they were first intended. Thomas remains objective whilst respecting those who have contributed to the craft since its inception.
A beautiful and concise history of the Tarot is woven effortlessly into the fabric of the book and takes the reader on a journey which examines the archetypes, metaphors and symbolism with which we are all innately familiar. Thomas creates a space for the reader to examine their personal journey through the story of the Tarot and invites us to accept responsibility for where we are in our lives and draw on our own inner strength
Whether an experienced Tarot reader or a beginner, this book offers a wealth of knowledge, and the opportunity to explore the meaning and symbolism of the Tarot on a level the likes of which I am yet to encounter in a single work. A must-read for all who want to deepen their knowledge and experience in this area.’
Marilyn Devonish
Director, Trance Formations
The BP Grimaud edition of the Ancien Tarot de Marseille featured in this book is the recommended version as the reproduction of the images is of the highest quality and the best clarity of colour. The deck is published in both French and English by France Cartes.
To my dear grandson Leon
Acknowledgements
Figures Within Text
Foreword
Introduction
1 Tarot Through the Ages
2 The Mythical Journey of the Hero/Heroine
3 The Language of the Tarot
4 Decoding the Major Arcana
5 Decoding the Minor Arcana
6 Encoding the Tarot’s Journey
7 Reading a Spread
8 The Tarot as a Code for Living
9 Conclusion
Endnotes
Bibliography
It is unlikely that this book would have been written without the loving encouragement, help and support of my wife Janet.
I am also indebted to John Baldock for his editorial skills, knowledge, advice and for kindly writing a most erudite Foreword to the book.
My thanks go to the anonymous David and Zoe for allowing me to publish their Tarot readings.
A very special thanks and acknowledgement to France Cartes for their kind permission to reproduce the images of the BP Grimaud edition of the Ancien Tarot de Marseille.
I also extend my thanks to all those who have granted me permission to publish extracts of the quotations.
Figure 1. THE FOOL
Figure 2. I THE MAGICIAN
Figure 3. II THE HIGH PRIESTESS
Figure 4. III THE EMPRESS
Figure 5. IIII THE EMPEROR
Figure 6. V THE POPE
Figure 7. VI THE LOVER
Figure 8. VII THE CHARIOT
Figure 9. VIII JUSTICE
Figure 10. VIIII THE HERMIT
Figure 11 X THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Figure 12 XI FORCE
Figure 13 XII THE HANGED MAN
Figure 14. XIII DEATH
Figure 15. XIIII TEMPERANCE
Figure 16. XV THE DEVIL
Figure 17. XVI THE TOWER OF DESTRUCTION
Figure 18. XVII THE STAR
Figure 19. XVIII THE MOON
Figure 20. XVIIII THE SUN
Figure 21. XX JUDGEMENT
Figure 22. XXI THE WORLD
Figure 23. The Journey through the Major Arcana
Figure 24. The 21-Card Spread Layout
Figure 25. The Five-Card Spread
Figure 26. David’s spread
Figure 27. Zoe’s spread
We all have in us a book to write, or so the saying goes, and we naturally assume this to mean that we have a novel or a book of poetry lying dormant within us, waiting until such time as we put pen to paper or fingers to computer keyboard. ‘One day,’ we say, ‘I really must sit down and write my book. One day …’ Yet in reality we are already writing our book. It is the book of our life, and we are writing it every day. In fact, we have been writing it ever since we came into this world; but we rarely stop to read what we have written. By this I don’t mean replaying our memories of the people, the events and the places that have featured in our lives up until now. These are merely the words in our book, so to speak. Like words, they have meaning. But for these disparate elements to have meaning we need to string them together, like words on a page, into sentences and paragraphs until they form a coherent story. Even then, the deeper meaning of our own personal story will probably still escape us, for when it comes to reading the book of our life we are faced with a problem: we have never been taught how to read what we are writing.
This perhaps explains why we rarely look beyond the superficialities of life – the ‘words’ on the pages of our book – for something deeper and more fulfilling that will enhance both the meaning and purpose of our lives. And yet such instruction has always been available, although it is often dismissed as belonging to the realm of the ‘occult’. Nowadays, the word ‘occult’ is widely interpreted as meaning ‘supernatural’, and is often used to infer that something is ‘dark’ or ‘evil’. But in its original sense – and in the sense in which Thomas Saunders uses it throughout this book – it simply means ‘hidden’ (from the Latin occulo, ‘to hide’). Whilst occult knowledge is sometimes deliberately hidden in order to prevent its abuse or debasement, it frequently remains hidden because it lies beyond our current level of understanding. Hence the reason for the existence of the world’s many initiatic traditions: their function is to initiate the individual, step by step, into ever deeper levels of understanding of themselves and their place within the overall scheme of things. These initiatic traditions are also sometimes referred to as ‘mystery’ or ‘mystical’ traditions because of the revealing insights they offer their initiates into what, up until the moment of initiation or revelation, has been a mystery beyond the realms of their understanding. The Tarot is one such initiatic or mystery tradition. But as Thomas Saunders reveals, it is also more than this: it is a book that holds the keys to understanding the ‘book of life’ that we ourselves are writing.
Just like the words in a printed book, the people, events and places that feature in our book of life are instantly recognizable for what they are: people, events and places. If we look more closely, however, we may begin to find certain recurring patterns, and by learning to read these patterns we may gain insights into hitherto unacknowledged aspects of ourselves. For example, we may repeatedly seem to attract or be attracted to a particular type of person, even though we may not find these people especially attractive in themselves. A key to understanding why this happens is to be found in the old saying, ‘like attracts like’. In other words, the people who come into our lives often serve as a mirror in which we may see more clearly those aspects of ourselves that we have hitherto been unable or unwilling to acknowledge. The same principle may be applied to the events we experience and the situations in which we find ourselves. Once we realize that it is we ourselves who create these underlying patterns, we have a choice: we can either continue to live our lives just as before, or we can use our increased understanding as a means of discarding those aspects of ourselves which impede our personal growth.
The two greatest impediments to personal growth are our tendency to live in the past and our habit of fantasizing about the future. The former causes us to perpetuate the patterns that were established early on in life by rewriting them in the present, while the latter is sometimes little more than a device by which we avoid having to face current reality. The combined effect of these two is that we rarely live life where it is actually happening – now, in the present. One of the functions of the initiatic and mystical traditions is to free us from the constraints imposed upon us by the patterns of our past and our wishful thoughts about the future, thus bringing us into the present. And yet, as many readers will be aware, the Tarot is itself widely used as a tool for looking into the future and for ‘fortune telling’.
If you are one of the many who view the Tarot merely as a tool for fortune telling, The Authentic Tarot will come as something of a revelation, for within its pages Thomas Saunders debunks this popular but erroneous view. In its place he offers us a series of profound insights into the initiatory function of the Tarot as a key to understanding ourselves and as a tool for personal and/or spiritual growth. To this end he employs what is believed to be the oldest extant complete Tarot deck – the Ancien Tarot de Marseille – which is said to date from the 18th century, but the medieval character of the costumes depicted on its cards suggests a much earlier date. The true origins of the Tarot are now obscured by the mists of time, and perhaps it is the very obscurity of its origins that has led in recent decades to the proliferation of new designs for the Tarot. This in itself reveals something about human nature: when we are confronted with something that lies beyond our comprehension, we tend to adapt it – even force it – to fit within the confines of our current level of understanding rather than allow our understanding to be expanded to encompass new and broader horizons.
In reminding us of the ancient initiatic tradition of the Tarot, The Authentic Tarot offers us an opportunity to expand our understanding – not only of the Tarot, but also of ourselves. Thomas Saunders’ detailed explanation of the traditional imagery of the cards and the significance of each of their symbolic elements provides us with a grammar and vocabulary with which we may begin to read and understand the meaning of the words we write in our book of life. He also transports us into the world of archetypes that people our subconscious minds, thus offering us insights into previously hidden aspects of our personal consciousness. Moreover, by showing us how to read the Tarot as an ever-unfolding story, he initiates us into the art of reading the story of our life so that we may increase our understanding of who we are and our purpose in being here. In doing so, he has rendered a great service to us all.
John Baldock
[The Tarot is] a book of knowledge – an encyclopaedia of magical memory images representing a system of mythical wisdom encoded in the pictures.1
The Tarot is a book of 78 cards telling an ageless story of our journey through life on the path to self-fulfilment. It is told in terms of the Hero’s/Heroine’s quest to fulfil his or her destiny. The Tarot’s deck of cards speaks to us in a covert, symbolic language of archetypal pictographs and numbers; it is an unbound book of illustrations for the teaching of mystical doctrines to those who could not read and write.
An authentic Tarot deck is made up of 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana cards. ‘Arcanum’ is from the Latin word arcere meaning ‘to keep’. In English, the word ‘arcane’ means ‘hidden’, ‘magical’ or even ‘transcendental’; ‘arcana’ suggests a secret, a remedy, an elixir or ‘having therapeutic value’. Sometimes, the Major Arcana are referred to as Trumps which may be a corruption of the word ‘triumphant’, meaning to reach one’s goal or to reach one’s spiritual destiny. ‘Arcane’ also means something known or understood only by those who have been initiated into a special or secret knowledge: Minor Arcana means ‘Lesser secrets’ and Major Arcana means ‘Greater secrets’.
The Major Arcana comprises 22 cards numbered from I to XXI (1 to 21), and one unnumbered card called The Fool. They have been described as The 22 Steps to Freedom; The Path of the Spiritual Warrior; The Sacred Procession; The Path of Self-Understanding and Self-Realization. The images on the cards depict archetypal characters who represent the stages and pitfalls along a metaphoric pathway that leads from initiation to mastery. They symbolize an allegorical journey through life, expressing the full spectrum of human nature and human endeavour in the language of the soul. (See plates 1 and 2.)
The 56 Minor Arcana cards are made up of 14 cards in each of the four ‘suits’ comprising an ace (number one) and numbers two to ten and the four ‘Court’ cards – the Knave, the Knight, the Queen and the King. These 56 cards signify the patterns and cycle of events that occur in our everyday life. The four suits are known as Money, Cups, Swords and Clubs, although some decks refer to Money as Pentacles and Clubs as Wands. (See plates 6–11.)
The Tarot’s images of mythical archetypal characters and numbers mark the milestones that measure our steps as we take courage to journey into the veiled shadows of the mind. Each step forward signals a release from the shackles that restrain us from living by grace and from becoming a fully realized human being. It is a transformational journey from naivety to self-knowledge.
It could be said that the cards are a universal synthesis – an encapsulation – of the archetypal characters and events encountered in the classical myths and fairy tales found throughout the world from ancient history to modern times. Here I am not referring to the myths and fairy tales that have been bowdlerized in mundane adaptations by Walt Disney for Hollywood-style entertainment for children and adults. (Perhaps the one exception is L Frank Baum’s modern classic The Wizard of Oz, the story of a young girl’s spiritual transcendence and psychological maturity. Amazingly, Hollywood did not adapt or change any of the story’s inherent symbolism.)
The Tarot is just one of several esoteric teachings based on the perennial story of the psycho/spiritual quest of the Hero or Heroine to become a self-realized human being or, in the words of CG Jung, ‘to become that which you already are’. Its profound wisdom charts the milestones and pitfalls we have to encounter and overcome if we choose to progress along our life’s path.
To do so, we must recognize and acknowledge these archetypal characters who reside in our unconscious minds and control and manipulate our thought processes and responses. Although each of us experiences these characters in different guises, there are certain processes, responses and aspects of human nature that are common to us all. Of course, we are unconscious of these manipulating, driving forces and the way they govern our behaviour and thoughts but they can be brought to our awareness through the vocabulary of archetypes that are communicated to the conscious mind through dreams, myths, fairy tales, visions, meditations and, of course, the Tarot. The cards show us how we can meet these characters face to face and then enjoy the hidden treasures they have to offer as they deliver profound messages through our innate inner wisdom in a language of ageless symbolism that can light the pathway to ‘freedom’.
Every one of us has an insidious, powerful, self-manipulating drive to be loved and to feel wanted. This drive causes us to disregard our instincts, ignore our intuition and do things we positively know we do not want to do. But often we reluctantly agree to do things just to please others in the hope that they will love us, which inevitably leads to resentment. How can we escape from begging others for their unconditional love unless we first graciously accept ourselves – unconditionally? In a sense, it could be said that this is what the modern day psychotherapist does for a client.
As an oracle of perennial wisdom, the Tarot is particularly pertinent to us today. Outwardly, at a conscious level, we live in a one-dimensional fractured society in which:
• honour and ethics in politics and business have been abandoned;
• there is no acceptance of personal responsibility;
• relationships, traditional values and the care and respect for others and Planet Earth have been expediently discarded;
• the profound teachings that have endured throughout the ages go unheeded and unacknowledged;
• the young are left to fend for themselves without any moral or spiritual guidance or sense of personal discipline.
And yet, at a deeper level there is a tangible movement to reach out for a new vision to reconnect ourselves with our selves and the Cosmos. We are searching for some sense of meaning that we hope will further our personal development. And because we cannot seem to find this through the doctrines of orthodox religion, we search for alternative paths to follow that will lead to the top of the same mountain. It is therefore not surprising that ten per cent of all book sales are works on self-development, with young people in particular recognizing that our current pursuit of material goods and our consumerism are at the expense of our inner personal fulfilment.
How can we strengthen our souls to begin such a journey? I believe the Tarot offers one such path.
The Tarot’s oracle has invaluable insights to mark out our path and keep us on it: the cards can also be read to help us, the Enquirer – sometimes referred to ‘in the trade’ as the Querant – to tap into our intuitive understanding to deal with and respond to our own, often pressing issues. When we are in the zone – in a focused listening mode – the Tarot can put us in touch with our innate knowingness and thus guide us further on the journey towards our fulfilment.
For the cards to be comprehensible and readily understood, a Tarot Reader needs to be able to decipher the symbolism of the enigmatic archetypal characters and the sacred meaning of numbers. This means that the Tarot’s symbolic language of pictographs and numbers must follow certain conventions of grammar, syntax and vocabulary.
The Tarot is a tool for divination that reveals where we are now standing on our path through life and what needs to be the next step forward towards both healing ourselves and further evolving our consciousness. It has the potential to unite and create a balance between the laws that govern the visible world and the laws that govern the invisible world of divine order that transcends our outward experience of the day-to-day events and movements in life. As we learn the Tarot’s language we begin to unlock the enigmatic secrets of the cards, and a pattern emerges that can give us clear and precise directions to reach our ultimate destination of self-knowledge and self-realization.
For those new to the Tarot, a typical question might be: ‘What can the cards do for me?’ This can best be answered by asking another question: ‘What do I want in life?’ The most common answer to this second question can be summed up as ‘leading a happy and fulfilled life’ and/or ‘self-knowledge’. Everyone will have their own answer but the varied responses could be summed up in the one word Freedom. We want freedom to express ourselves; freedom to be creative; freedom to be happy and fulfilled. It could be said that to reach these goals all we need is Courage. We need the courage to free ourselves from the conditioning that manipulates every thought and move we make; to free ourselves from the fear of removing the mask of our persona; to free ourselves from egotistical protection and to accept that total, unconditional love is an unrealistic expectation. (However, the Sun does shine unconditionally on both the righteous and the wrongdoers!)
When we dream, read a book, see a play or a film, or view a painting, often we can receive extraordinary and important insights. It may be like a lightning flash: suddenly, we have an insight into something of extreme significance to us personally. Others around us will have seen, heard, felt or tasted exactly the same stimulus but for each individual the experience will create a different response. When this happens, something has triggered our intuitive understanding rather than our critical, intellectual mode of thinking. This is how the Tarot can motivate us to take a step towards the next milestone on our pathway through life.
Energy follows thought and so, depending upon our willpower, tenacity and commitment, our thoughts can either be fully realized or they can float around in the ether and never come to anything. To realize or manifest something it must first be created in the mind. When we adopt a mental attitude that is both receptive and non-judgemental, and in which we trust our inner wisdom by listening to our intuition, we open ourselves to receive great insights that can lift us out of the stress of indecision and the feeling of being lost, not knowing what to do or where to go next. Understanding the Tarot can keep us to our path and help us find the answer to the perennial questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my destiny?
One of the questions most frequently asked by Tarot sceptics is the matter of random choice. An Enquirer – who from now on will be referred to as the Querant – is asked to shuffle the deck which is already stacked in a haphazard sequence. Under such apparently chaotic conditions, how is it possible for such a random set of cards to have any specific relevance for the person concerned? However, the idea of randomness or coincidence, which may now be explained by the modern, scientific Theory of Chaos, was well understood by the ancient seers because they were aware that the Cosmos is governed by a mysterious power of structure and order.
It is said that ‘today’s mysticism is tomorrow’s science’. Bizarre, almost unbelievable facts about our Universe are presented to us by today’s hard-nosed physicists. We are told that there are many planes of time and that an electron can be a particle or a wave as well as being in more than one place at the same time. In the subatomic world there are protons and anti-protons that have energy but no mass, which means that a non-mass world interpenetrates the material world we call reality. Mystics – those seers who concern themselves with the invisible aspects of reality and its relationship with the reality or actuality, visible to us all – were the first to describe these phenomena. Scientists only caught up centuries later when technology evolved and they were able to investigate these happenings ‘scientifically’. The Tarot itself acts as a bridge between these two realities – the invisible and the visible. Acceptance of the workings and efficacy of the Tarot is no less a matter of leaping the credibility gap than a general acceptance of current physics concerning time, space, random chance, the unseen worlds of other realities and the oneness of the Universe.
Many psychologists and philosophers such as CG Jung and Rudolf Steiner have written extensively on the transpersonal and spiritual aspects of the meaning of the 22 Major Arcana Tarot cards but have tended not to include the meaning and interpretation of the 56 Minor Arcana cards. At the other end of the scale there is an extensive range of books that are, more or less, ‘teach yourself’ manuals on how to read the cards for the sole purpose of fortune telling.
The word Tarot can evoke responses that range from the conviction that it is the sinister, malevolent ‘work of the Devil’ to the view that the cards are nothing more than a harmless after-dinner game for amusement. Others who find the cards enthralling – even magical – are inclined to seek out the fortune tellers in the hope that they can predict how and when they are likely to meet their lover/soulmate/saviour who will bring about momentous changes to their career/health/wealth, and so on. Ironically, however, if the Tarot is consulted as a means of self-discovery, it can reveal that Miss/Mr ‘Right’ – the hoped-for perfect lover and benefactor who will change our life and fortune – is not ‘out there’ but is already residing within us. Although a traumatic experience, an accident, a relationship issue or just simple curiosity can lead a person to consult a Tarot Reader, it is unlikely they will find a pathway to their life’s destination by consulting fairground fortune tellers.
Any deck used for fortune telling not only debases the Tarot, it also debases us by its implication that our purpose in being here is for material rather than spiritual fulfilment. Fortune telling takes us into the realm of prediction about future events and thus feeds our expectations, hopes and fears, whereas the Tarot is about taking responsibility for ourselves by dealing with the here and now in order for us to take the next step along life’s path. In other words, it is about the present. With fortune telling, we avoid taking responsibility for ourselves by handing our future over to what someone else predicts it holds for us. Such prediction could possibly invoke a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Tarot Reader can and should act as a facilitator or bridge for the Querant to cross by lifting the veil which, at that moment in their life, prevents them from seeing a particular aspect of themselves. In the right hands, the cards are neither sinister nor malevolent, but in the sense that they appeal to the ‘left hand’ – our intuitive, instinctive understandings – the cards hold a portentous wisdom to guide us to self-discovery.
There are currently dozens of different Tarot decks and ‘Angel’ cards available in bookshops and on the Internet. Unfortunately, most if not all of those designed over the past 100 years or so are decorated with highly personalized illustrations that look attractive enough as ‘art for art’s sake’ but can often either distort or completely ignore the fundamental essence that underlies the arcane meaning of each card that is intrinsic to the Tarot’s language. Some designers even introduce signs and icons imported from other esoteric systems such as the Kabbalah, astrology, the Runes and so on which further degrade, corrupt and obscure the wisdom the authentic Tarot can impart. Of course, it is immaterial whether the design of a Tarot deck is of ancient or modern origin, provided that the integrity of the established precepts and accepted conventions of the Tarot’s ‘language’ in terms of grammar, vocabulary and syntax – i.e. the orderly or systematic arrangement of the various elements – is adhered to in the symbolic pictographs. If any language, whether verbal or pictorial, is not rational and logical then there is little chance anyone will be able to understand what is being conveyed.
Probably the most popular modern deck used by the majority of Tarot teachers is the Rider Waite,Marie Claire