Where do you start?

No Firemaiden, that's what tarot *cards* are

That's not what tarot is ... tarot is a religion, dude ... bet you forgot that one

LOL

As I said at the beginning, we each can define tarot and cards differently because there is no TRUE or DEFINATIVE knowledge of its inception, just guesswork


A.

Exactly my point, Alibee... we will each have our own criteria...

firemaiden said:

What is tarot?

• functional answer:
  - It's an Artform. It sits in boxes and collects value.
  - no, no! its an Oracular Device. You shuffle it and use it to tell the future.
  - no no no!! its an Initiatique Journey! You meditate on the pictures and gradually achieve enlightenment in steps.
  - no, no, no! its a game, you ninnies, a game with trumps, and a fool, and suits
  - no, no, no, it's a Historical, Cultural Artefact.
  
• structural answer: ... depending on which aspect of the function of tarot cards we choose to focus on, our answer about what form a deck of cards should take to be "tarot" will vary. Easier to demonstrate if we look at *what it's not*.
  
  When is it *not* tarot?
  - (Art) It's not tarot if the pictures suck.
  - (oracle) It's not tarot if it doesn't predict the future.
  - (initiatic journey) It's not tarot if the steps are in the wrong order, or renamed, or missing.
  - (game) It's not tarot if you can't tell what suit something is.
  - (cultural artefact) It's not tarot if it's differs at all the historical specimens we've collected...

In conclusion, we can define Tarot, but each of us will define it according to the criteria we hold most dear.

Click to expand...

I don't know how I lost sight of this exceptional answer, but I did.

Maybe I needed time to reply, or mostly likely I was stumpted.

You're right it is easier to say what is not tarot than to say what is.

I think anybody can develop a form or a function that they think is 'essential' to tarot. I also think that a true tarot will incorporate multiple forms and functions but needn't incorporate all of them.

I believe a true tarot is one that will take the forms and functions assessible to most people.

Another function missed from your excellent list is business, a function fitting many of the forms Tarot is a living for some people.

I will never agree with people who say tarot is anything that anyone says it is, but I do agree to disagree most amicably.

Allibee, I think you'll find it's pretty well agreed that tarot as a deck of tarot cards appeared in southern central Europe during the 14th Century and has been developing there ever since.

For me to call something tarot it needs to have 22 major arcana and minor arcana with 4 suits, Ace through 10 and court cards, and also must portray familiar archetypes in a familiar order with familiar names. A little deviation is ok but once things get renamed and rearranged too much they become more of an evolutionary twig to me, or an oracle deck, or something expressing a personal agenda rather than a tarot agenda.

If you are doing a more traditional tarot you would probably start with a Marseille type, RWS, or Thoth type, or combination of the 3. Those seems to be the major living branches of the tarot tree.

One of the things that makes tarot tarot, to me, is the way the pattern is universal. Like numbers it is an abstract which can be used to measure anything that exists. For any person, occurance, circumstance, etc. there is a card which can describe it. I think that is the real magic of tarot and it came about beautifully in the Marseille, though I don't know if it was by accident or design, and it has evolved`since then. Maybe thats why when some people get a little too creative it looses its tarot-ness, because it has lost that magic universality (in exchange for individual outlook).


Marie