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.