How does Kabbalah fit in with the Tarot....

Ange

I've got a book that discusses all sorts of deeper ways of getting into the Tarot, and one of the things it talks about is Kabbalah.

Now, with the Fybromyalgia, I do have a great deal of difficulty taking new things in, especially if it is in a book and there is lots to read on it....and there are loads of symbols and notes in the book which just trying to find the basics of what it is talking about is to me quite difficult......cos I'm reading a bit, then cos it seems so complicated, it's going straight out of my head....:rolleyes:

I wonder if anyone could just give me a couple of lines of info....like is Kabbalah necessary in Tarot....can I do without it....etc...

Thanks...:)
Ang x
 

Kenny

I don't use kabbalah in my tarot reading. I only use what I see on the cards.

Others swear by using kabbalah.

I'll allow others to speak on the more detailed side on how tarot-kabbalah fit together (or not fit together) but just to let you know, kabbalah has been around long before tarot. Maybe even before playing cards themselves...
 

thantifaxath

I do use kabbalah based meanings when interpreting my cards ( because I love the tree scheme ) and this works fine, but I have used more traditional meanings in the past and this works fine also....Its whatever works for you..

mmh, thinking about it a little more, use of kabbalistic symbolism in your personal system does give more scope when considering questions that are more abstract...anyhoo, its big complex system that yeilds much satisfaction as well as frustration...which in itself is satisfying ( perhaps I am a bit mad? )..

You can do without it...It won't diminish your ability to interpret cards, its just another angle to view them from ...
 

venicebard

To me, the Tarot of Marseilles is closely related to Kabbalah (actually to its deeper core, now lost amongst teachers of the subject) but is itself the work of Gnostics familiar with both Judaic and Keltic lore, not the work of Jewish Kabbalists.

As for other forms of 'tarot', all that is relevant, one would think, is the forms of 'Kabbalah' present in the minds of their creators. Typically these forms of it are limited to its surviving fragments, with a bit of speculation added for good measure.

Be well.
 

Yygdrasilian

Sephera Ciphera

If you wish to solve the Tarot you will need to be familiar with the Tree.

22 Triumphs for the 22 paths connecting the Sephira.
1 - 10 for the Sephira in each of the tree's 4 elemental manifestations.
The court cards are permutations of the elements - and the multiple personalities inhabiting each of us.
Together, the Tarot and the Qabalah make a map and a calendar.
But these details barely scratch the surface.

A good introduction to the Tree of Life and its relationship to Tarot is Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah.

Beware of revisionists who would scramble the cipher.
 

Ange

Thanks for the info everyone...:)

I understand now more than I did, and see that I can continue without using it.

Maybe one day, if I improve, and my head comes back to a bit more like normal, then I will have the concentration to study it, and see where it takes me.

But for now, if I don't acrually need it, then I think it will be too much for me to try to take in....

But thank you for explaining it to me...:)
Ang x
 

Rob

I use Kabbalah (and other correspondences, like astrology) -after- I have interpreted the reading intuitively by initial feelings, visual inspection of the cards, elemental energies, what I remember from traditional meanings, and intradeck numerology. I think of it less as something necessary to understand Tarot but a useful tool for delving deeper and finding additional meaning and perspective to a reading. It can also be useful for figuring out the message behind what seems to be a confused or nonsense reading. Many people use Tarot as a bridge for meditating or pathworking on the Kabbalistic tree of life as well.
 

Nevada

Ange said:
I've got a book that discusses all sorts of deeper ways of getting into the Tarot, and one of the things it talks about is Kabbalah.

Now, with the Fybromyalgia, I do have a great deal of difficulty taking new things in, especially if it is in a book and there is lots to read on it....and there are loads of symbols and notes in the book which just trying to find the basics of what it is talking about is to me quite difficult......cos I'm reading a bit, then cos it seems so complicated, it's going straight out of my head....:rolleyes:

I wonder if anyone could just give me a couple of lines of info....like is Kabbalah necessary in Tarot....can I do without it....etc...
Ugh, same here with the fibromyalgia.

I've just recently begun learning more about Kabbalah myself. So far, my answer is:

Is Kabbalah necessay in Tarot? No, I wouldn't say it's necessary in Tarot, or even in life. But I find that it gives me another perspective about our existence here, and another perspective about Tarot as a reflection of our existence here. I think it can enhance one's use of Tarot, and one's ways of thinking about life in general.

One thing about it that resonates with me is the necessity of grounding oneself in earthy, physical form and what that brings. Fibromyalgia also has to do with locked up energy, and I think that's really the basis of both Kabbalah and Jungian psychology, so I'm glad to have learned more about both, and I plan to continue learning -- slowly as I may have to go at first.

I don't know which book you read, but I found Rachel Pollack's The Kabbalah Tree helpful in getting past what seemed to be barriers in my ability to understand what anyone was getting at regarding Kabbalah. Even so, I had to take it slowly and be patient with myself. I plan to reread it later, but right after that I moved on to Rose Gwain's Discovering Your Self Through Tarot and found it a good follow-up for me, although her writing style is much more abrupt and a little too compact and cryptic compared with Pollack's, especially in the part of Gwain's book that dealt with Kabbalah. Good thing I read Pollack first! Gwain's book is mostly about Jungian typology, and even with that it was a good thing I'd learned something about Meyers-Briggs typing in the past, or I would've been lost. But the two ideas combined -- Kabbalah and Individuation -- seem to easily draw parallels in my mind, the more I read, and I'm glad I finally came to explore both.

I haven't yet incorporated much of what I've learned about Kabbalah in my use of Tarot, but I hope to as I learn more. The concept of in a sense reversing the evolution of energy in the pips -- where the Ace seems to be more desirable as a goal than 10, depending on which direction up or down the Tree you're heading -- both puzzles and intrigues me. But then, I've always liked a good puzzle.

Nevada
 

venicebard

Yygdrasilian said:
Together, the Tarot and the Qabalah make a map and a calendar.
Ah, are you familiar with the Keltic tree-calendar embodied in the bethluisnion alphabet? It is not only the basis of the Germanic runes but of a number of ancient alphabets, and its relevance to understanding the Hebrew alphabet is irreplaceable, regardless of the rabbis' failure to perceive this (probably simply from no-one having pointed it out to them).
But these details barely scratch the surface.
No kidding.
A good introduction to the Tree of Life and its relationship to Tarot is Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah.

Beware of revisionists who would scramble the cipher.
Such as Fortune and Case and Waite and Crowley et al are the revisionists. Wake up.
 

Rob

This post is for those concerned about revisionists, the "true" Kabbalah, and the ancientness thereof.

Let's remember that the fact that knowledge is old doesn't necessarily make that knowledge correct. I think a lot of people like to attribute profound truth to people far away in time or space - it lends a certain mystique to the subject, just as people tend to glamorize the Renaissance and medieval times at the many Renaissance Faires that occur across the world, despite the fact that the real period was marked by widespread poverty, pestilence, and war. Attributing spiritual wisdom to ancient sources also makes people feel special because they have what their school of thought considers the "real truth" that other people don't have, and a primary motivator of humans is the desire to be "better" in some way than one's fellow man.

With spiritual systems, it's arguable that there's no such thing as correct, there's only the concept of "more sensical" to the student. Metaphysics is just a way to model that which is not yet understood, and until it is understood, no model will be completely accurate.

At the same time, models of all poorly understood concepts tend to improve over time - think of the basic model of the atom you learn about in middle school. That model started out very basic with some fundamental misconceptions, and over time as knowledge grew and the topic was studied in depth, the model became what we know today - a close (but still not completely accurate) representation of the atom. In fact, the standard model of the atom is far less "correct" than most people think, but it serves as a useful system for studying the subject in a structured fashion that makes sense to us, since even today we still don't understand the subject completely.

Everyone publicly involved in the occult arts and sciences for as long as they've existed has suffered from a certain amount of egotism which has led to unnecessary secrecy and exclusion. It seems that many ponderous occult tomes and the organizations whence they came have a lot of "beware of hacks who distort the REAL truth" and "you must be an extremely experienced magician of very high level initiation to even begin viewing the words on this page lest you be consumed utterly by the very forces about which you seek to learn" warnings...and yet there is little extant documentation on how to reach that level of experience, how to gauge when one is "ready," etc. These are just simple exclusionary tactics to feed the ego of the practitioners and make very simple concepts seem much more profound or powerful than they are, for the obvious purpose of gaining recognition.

In the real world, revision guards the path from ignorance to wisdom. Unless you're willing to open your mind to new ideas and revisions of old ideas, you're perpetually stuck with antiquated knowledge and an unwarrantedly inflated ego. Wake up.