I thought I would deviate a little this week in the woo column.

I want to keep it current and relevant to readers.

To keep it insightful and pragmatic and useful. I'm finding so many of the questions submitted are too sensitive and complex to answer in a public column, and I'm seeing these questions arise more and more.

So I want to take this on a little detour and share with you small distillations from my 20 something years working with Tarot.

Whether you're a Tarot connoisseur or a Tarot skeptic, there'll be something for everyone.

Please feel free to send me any 'letters', comments or arguments to [email protected] and I'll do my best to address them in next week's column.

This week, I'd like to start things off with a brief but real history of Tarot.

By understanding where Tarot comes from we can better understand its use in the present, and ultimately make deeper connections. We can dispel myths and fears and see Tarot for the beautiful tool it is.

At it's core, divination and oracles operate on metaphor - our ability as humans to ascribe meaning to what is presented. This is true magick, and something we are loosing sight of. Practitioners who have furthered their spiritual knowledge end up at a point where it can best be described as shamanic. We become dealers in symbols and metaphors and empower our sitters or ourselves to retrieve the answers from within.

The Tarot we recognise today came about in the C15th (1). It was a game for the wealthy (2). They took the standard playing cards and added a set of trumps, or Trionfi.

Part of the game entailed the players to ascribe relevance between a dealt trump and a part of their character.

These cards, and the subsequent common Tarot De Marseille popular in Europe from the 1600s, were free from mysticism, and relied on metaphor and base symbolism for divination. The cards were still primarily used as a form of gaming.

Verifiable records of Tarot in mysticism didn't appear until the 1700s, when French and English occultists began using Tarot in divination (3). In the C18th, the Freemasons revived their use in divination and occultism. It was at this time that occultists such as Antoine Court de Gébelin popularised the notion that Tarot descended from Egypt and was brought to Europe by gypsies in the C13th (4)... even though there is no known records of this... anywhere. Etteilla was the first to define and ascribe meaning to each of the 78 cards, creating specific spreads.

In the 1850s, Eliphas Levi mapped the Tarot De Marseille to the Hermetic Qabalah (5) - which lead to its popularisation through the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as a divination tool.

Waite and Crowley were both members, but both had distinct ideas on how these cards should be portrayed and used. Pamela Coleman Smith painted the Rider Waite Smith Deck for Arthur Waite, and Lady Freida Harris painted the Thoth Deck for Crowley.

From here, Tarot has become ingrained in our culture, and been victim to many myths and old wives tales: You must be given a tarot deck; you can only use your right hand; you must never let any one touch your cards etc, etc, etc.

So at it's current level of understanding, we have a set of images which have been created and bastardised through time. They have been prescribed fixed meanings by a patriarchal society and conservative period in history. Ego and agenda and dogma is sewn into each of these images.

You see, understanding where Tarot originates from doesn't detract from our connections to it. It shifts our perspective and focus. We can become less fixated on prescribed meaning and future telling, and begin to see Tarot in it's true light - as an optical language that speaks to every person on earth through our shared experiences of life.

For private readings, unique and incredibly popular entertainment for your event, visit www.atticusknows.com.

Until next week,

Atticus Green x

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(1)Helen Farley, "The Evolution of the 'Mother' in Tarot", Hecate, Volume 32, No.2, 2006, 68. Duke Filipo Maria Visconti was said to be a despotic ruler "with a taste for astrology and board games."

(2)Olsen, "Carte da Trionfi."

(3)Ronald Decker and Michael Dummet, History of the Occult Tarot (Duckworth Publishing, 2002).

(4)Gray, Mastering the Tarot

(5)There are two primary schools of the Kabbalah, one following the Judaic tradition and the second, the Hermetic Qabbalah, a product of the Italian Renaissance. Robert Wang, The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy (Sam Weiser, 1987).