Druid Tarot

aylimn

Hi, I've been working with tarot for a number of years but more as an on/off love affair. I was wondering if anyone has any information about druid tarot? I had someone ask me about it and I wasn't really familiar with it per se other than a general idea that all tarot has very early beginnings and ties to astrology and other nature-based perspectives. Any help or even links on the matter would be fantastic. Thank you in advance. :)
 

venicebard

aylimn said:
I was wondering if anyone has any information about druid tarot? I had someone ask me about it and I wasn't really familiar with it per se other than a general idea that all tarot has very early beginnings and ties to astrology and other nature-based perspectives.
I take it you are not referring to some particular modern tarot called Druid Tarot but rather to use of tarot by druids or the relationship of tarot to druids. Druids, of course, would not have used tarot because it had not been invented by the time the Romans managed to exterminate the druid religion (if you already knew this, my apologies for stating the obvious). Yet many tenets of Druidism were preserved by the bards and ollaves of Wales and Ireland, and what they preserved when taken in conjunction with what Jews preserved of their ancient esoteric tradition actually explains the origin of tarot, or rather of the Tarot of Marseilles in particular, the probable meeting-place of the two kindred branches of the same ancient trunk being the era and region of the Cathars and Troubadours, where Judaic esoteric schools flourished and into which poured the British bardic corpus known as the 'matter of Britain' (Arthurian legend). The cards themselves were most likely not created till at least a couple centuries later (late 1300s), yet this is not certain, as evidence is scarce and inconclusive (in my opinion).

Now nearly everyone on this site will dispute most or all of the above (though none yet with cogent argument), and some may even protest that your question (and my theory) should not be allowed in the hallowed halls of 'Historical Research'. But I do not state theories I can't back up (which you will find if you search out my posts, though I do not recommend that as it can entail as much reading as a course in law). So if the subject interests you, I will be glad to brave with you the minefield of broaching and discussing this maverick subject in the 'Historical Research' forum.

Do understand that while I contend tarot was the creation of British-initiated bards informed by Merkavah/Kabbalah (Jewish esotericism), bards were not, strictly speaking, druids. Yet the Irish tree-alphabet, which constitutes the most valuable clue in deciphering tarot, surely is a relic of Druidism, which worshiped in groves, as it shows a high degree of organizational refinement (as an alphabet-calendar) and even hints (more than hints, actually) of preserved forms (i.e. patterns) revealing an understanding of matter (chemistry, biochemistry, particle physics) as great as or greater than our own, which can only have been handed down from the last civilization, the one whose last vestiges were destroyed at the end of the last ice age (and whose very existence orthodoxy denies).

I hope I have helped in some small way.
 

beanu

I'll offer my small support, in terms of the confluence of british/christian/Jewish/Arabic (moorish) knowledge in Spain in teh 13th century - Just after the Crusades.
This was a time and place of a great mingling of ideas, and much official support for thinking in general.
Moses de Leon wrote the Zohar in this climate, which is composed of 22 books about 22 concepts.

If there was a 22 character British tradition (not criticising - just admitting I know nothing about its history), then it would almost certainly have been correlated to the 22 Jewish characters and the 22 books of the Zohar, etc.
In this time, and in the Renaissance a couple humdred years later, any system with 22 things in it would have been linked to any other 22 element systems.

A bit later (1470) in Italy, the translation of the Corpus Hermeticum and Asclepius merged Hermetics into the mix, and shortly there after Pico della Mirandola re-discovered Cabala again. The we got Luria (1770) and a new cabala - the Tree of Life with 22 paths on the tree, etc. Up to the Golden Dawn, Waite, Crowley etc.

Until now, I would have argued against a druidic connection to Tarot,
but VeniceBard presents a reasonable argument as to how they might well have been an influence on the mix, and so should be traceable in the concepts of the Tarot.
 

aylimn

Oh, this is so lovely. Thank you both so much for your replies and I have a couple of questions which I will detail out tomorrow, but wanted to make a short reply now to say that I have read both of your messages and appreciate that you would take the time to reply to me. I want to formulate my thoughts so as to tread carefully as I didn't realize that this was such a touchy subject for some people (as in, I didn't realize there might be those who didn't think this question should even be in this forum!)..so I will think on my comments first. :)
 

beanu

to Aylimn

Have a look at the last posts in the "Plato and Tarot" thread.

There seems to be a historical bardic document from the twelfth century
which uses terminology similar to the Zohar from the 13th century, which is one of the cornerstones of renaissance magic, etc.