Lesson One – Memorizing the Classic Card Meanings

“Like the alchemical Mutus Liber (which incidentally appeared later), the Trumps can be viewed as a silent picture text representing the typical experiences encountered along the age-old path to self-realization.  How and why such subject matter found its way into the Tarot, which was and still is essentially a deck of playing cards, is a mystery that has puzzled generations of scholars.  Only one vestige of the Trumps remains in our modern playing cards; the Joker.  This odd fellow who leads such an elusive life in every pack of cards is a direct descendent of a Tarot Trump called THE FOOL, with whom we shall soon become acquainted.”
Sally Nichols 1980

The evolutionary path to higher consciousness is an integral part of the Tarot’s lessons and is profoundly depicted in the Major Arcana which are also referred to as “Trumps”.

The Major Arcana cards of the Tarot deck are visual metaphors for each step in the experience of human life, for each lesson to be learned in a continual movement toward self-actualization.  These cards represent your life’s journey toward enlightenment, and depict situations of major significance.  When these archetypal cards appear in a reading they can show you where you are on life’s highway, what you already know about life, and what you still have to learn.

Paul Foster Case writes,

“The dancer (in the World/Universe card) represents the merging of self-consciousness with subconsciousness, and the blending of these two with superconsciousness.  In this highest form of conscious experience all sense of separate sex is lost, along with the extinction of the sense of separate personality.  The Dancer is the All-Father and the All-Mother.  She is the Bride, but she is also the Bridegroom.  She is the Kingdom and the King. The central fact of this experience is that he to whom it comes has first-hand knowledge that he is in perfect union with the One Power which is the Pivot and the Source of the whole cosmos.  He knows also that through him the governing and directing power of the universe flows out into manifestation.”  (Paul Foster Case, The Tarot, 1947)

WORKBOOK ENTRY

Exercise

Paint, draw or collage a Fool/Student/Adherent card of yourself at this stage in your journey.  Remember to include symbols to represent your tools for study, your feelings the actions you are taking.

Read the sections in your text related to the Minor Arcana in preparation for your study of the Minor Arcana.

NOTE: Only read Cards Ace/1 – 10 in all the suits and skip the readings pertaining to the Princes, Princesses, Knights and Queens.  We will be studying the “Court/People” cards separately.

Lesson One

• Introduction to Minor Arcana
• Number Symbolism in the Pip/Number Arcana
• Introduction to Major Arcana
• Introduction to People and Court Cards