JUNGand TAROT Sallie Nichols with an introduction by Laurens van der PostFirst published in 1980 by Red Wheel/Weiser, Lic ‘York Beach, ME With editorial offices at: 368 Congress Street Boston, MA 02210 wen redwheelweisercom 07 06 OS 04 03 02 16 15 1413 12 1 Copyright © 1980 Sallie Nichols All rights reserved, No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, without permission in writing from Samuel Weiser, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Finst paperback edition 1984 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 80-53118 ISBN 0-87728-515-2 vG (Cover design by Barbara Factor ‘Typeset in 10 point Souveniz Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.Contents Introduction to the Tarot 1 Map of the Journey 9 The Fool in Tarot and in Us __23 The Magician: Creator and Trickster 45 The Popess: High Priestess of Tarot___71 The Empress: Madonna, Great Mother, Queen of Heaven and Earth _&7 The Emperor: Father of Civilization 103 The Pope: The Visible Face of God __119 The Lover: Victim of Cupid's Golden Error 129 The Chariot: it Carries Us Home _139 dustice: Is There Any? _153, The Hermit: Is There Anybody There? 165 The Wheel of Fortune: Help! 179 Strength: Whose? 201 The Hanged Man: Suspense 215 Death: The Enemy 227 Temperance: Heavenly Alchemist 249 The Devil: Dark Angel 261 The Tower of Destruction: The Stroke of Liberation _283 The Star: Ray of Hope 295 The Moon: Maiden or Menace? _313. The Sun: Shining Center 327 dudgement: A Vocation 337 The World: A Window of Eternity 349 (On Spreading the Cards 369 References __ 387List of Illustrations Fig. 1 Knight of Diamonds. 2 Fig. 2 The Chariot (Sforza Tarot). 4 Fig. 3 Map of the Journey. 8 Fig. 4 ___Le Mat. 22 Fig. 5 The Fool (Swiss Deck), 25 Fig. 6 The Fool (Waite Deck), 25 Fig. 7___ The Foo! (Aquarian Deck), 25 Fig. 8 The Foo! (Old French Tarot), 27 Fig. 9 King and Jester, 29 Fig. 10 Squeaky Fromme as The Fool, 33 Fig. 11 God Creating the Universe, 40 Fig. 12 Le Bateleur, 44 Fig. 13 Moses Striking Water from the Rock, 48 Fig. 14 The Separation of the Elements, 51 Fig. 15 The Hand of God, 54 16 The jan (Waite 55 .17 La 70 Fig. 18 Astarte, 77 Fig. 19 The High Priestess (Waite Deck), 79 Fig. 20 _The Temptation of Eve. 83 Fig. 21__God Creating the Two Great Lights. 84 Fig. 22 L'Impératrice, 86 . 23 Ouvrante . 89 24 Ouvrante 89 Fig. 25 The Empress (Waite Deck), 93 Fig. 26 Peggy Guggenheim as The Empress, 94 Fig. 27 Reclining Figure. 96 Fig. 28 Kali, the Terrible. 98 Fig. 29 The King is Dead. Long Live the Queen!. 99 Fig. 30 Countess Castiglione holding frame as mask, 100 Fig. 31__L'Empereur, 102 Fig. 32__ Eskimo 105 Fig. 33__Le Pape, 118 Fig. 34 The Sign of Excommunication. 124 Fig. 35 L’Amoureux, 128 Fig. 36 Le Chariot, 138 Copyrighted materialFig. 37__ The Chariot (Old Florentine Deck}. 145 Fig. 38 Three Heroes, 148 Fig. 39__La Justice, 152 Fig. 40__ Maat. the Egyptian Goddess, 159 Fig. 41 Justice (15th Century Deck), 161 Fig. 42 Hermite. 164 Fig. 43 Zen Hermits Jocularly Performing Household Tasks, 173 Fig. 44 La Roue de Fortune. 178 Fig. 45 Oedipus and the Sphinx. 182 Fig. 46 The Wheel of Fortune (Sforza Tarot). 184 Fig. 47__La Force, 200 Fig. 48 Samson and the Lion. 206 Fig. 49 Leda and the Swan, 210 Fig. 50 The Rape of Europa. 211 Fig. 51 Artemis. Lady of the Beasts. 212 Fig. 52__ The Sleepy Gypsy. 213 Fig. 53 Le Pendu. 214 Fig. 54 La Morte, 226 Fig. 55 The Repentant Buddha, 231 Fig. 56 __Island of the Dead. 235 Fig. 57 Human Skull Adorned. 238 Fig. 58 Mexican God of Death. 239 Fig. 59 Death the Soldier Embracing Girl, 241 Fig. 60 Calavera of the Female Dandy, 242 Fig. 61 Tempérance, 248 Fig. 62__Le Diable. 260 Fig. 63 Satan Exulting Over Eve. 263 Fig. 64. The Devil (Waite Deck), 270 Fig. 65 _The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain, 271 Fig. 66 Mephistopheles. 276 Fig. 67__ The Devil (Italian Tarot). 277 Fig. 68 A Girl Possessed. 279 Fig. 69 The Devil with Claws. 281 Fig. 70__La Maison Dieu. 282 Fig. 71 Photo of Lightning, 287 72 LEtoile, 294 Fig. 73 The Starry Night. 303 Fig. 74__La Lune. 312 ig. 75 Golden Lobster. 318 76 The Moon (Manley P. Hall Deck), 319 Fig. 77__The Moon (15th Century Deck). 323 ig. 78 The Earth. 324 iq. 79 Le Soleil, 326 Fig. 80__ Alchemical Twins in a Vessel, 332Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. 81 82 . 83 85 87 Le Jugement, 336 Le Monde, 348 The World (Sforza Tarot), 355 Anima Mundi, 358 Squaring the Circle, 360 The World (Old French Tarot), 361 Adoration at the Manger, 366Introduction One of the main sources of misunderstanding of the nature and magnitude of Jung's contribution to the life of our time, is due to the assumption as common, alas, among his followers as among others, that his overriding interest was in what he came to call “the collective unconscious” in man. It is true he was the first to discover and explore the collective unconscious and to give ita truly contemporary relevance and meaning. But, ultimately it was not the mystery of this universal unknown in the mind of man but a far greater mystery that obsessed his spirit and compelled all his seeking, and that was the mystery of consciousness, and its relationship with the great unconscious. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was the first to establish the exis- tence of the greatest and most meaningful of all paradoxes: the un- conscious and the conscious exist in a profound state of interdependence of each other and the well-being of one is impossible without the well-being of the other. If ever the connection between these two great states of being is diminished or impaired, man becomes sick and deprived of meaning; if the flow between one and the other is interrupted for long, the human spitit and life on earth are re-plunged in chaos and old night. Con- sciousness for him is therefore not, as it is for instance for the logical positivists of our day, merely an intellectual and rational state of mind and spirit. It is not something which depends solely on man’s capacity for arti- culation, as some schools of modern philosophy maintain to the point of claiming that that which cannot be articulated verbally and rationally is meaningless and not worthy of expression. On the contrary, he proved empirically that consciousness is not just a rational process and that modern man precisely is sick and deprived of meaning because, for cen- turies now since the Renaissance, he has increasingly pursued a slanted development on the assumption that consciousness and the powers of reason are one and the same thing. And let anyone who thinks this is anXIV JUNG AND TAROT: AN ARCHETYPAL JOURNEY exaggeration just consider Descartes’ “I think, therefore, | am!” and he ought immediately to identify the European hubris which brought about the French Revolution, fathered a monstrous off-spring in Soviet Russia and is spawning subversion of the creative spirit of man in what were once citadels of living meaning like churches, temples, universities and schools all over the world. Jung produced evidence from his work among the so-called “insane” and the hundreds of “neurotic” people who came to him for an answer to their problems, that most forms of insanity and mental disorientation were caused by a narrowing of consciousness and that the narrower and more rationally focussed the consciousness of man, the greater the danger of antagonizing the universal forces of the collective unconscious to such a point that they would rise up, as it were, in rebellion and overwhelm the last vestiges of a painfully acquired consciousness in man. No, the answer for him was clear: that it was only by continually working at an increase of consciousness that man found his greatest meaning and realization of his highest values. He established, to put it back into its native paradox, that consciousness is the abiding and deepest dream of the unconscious and that as far back as one could trace the history of the spirit of man to where: it vanishes over the last horizon of myth and legend, it has incessantly strived to achieve ever greater and greater consciousness; a consciousness which Jung preferred to call “awareness.” This “awareness,” for him and for me, included all sorts of non-rational forms of perception and knowing, all the more precious because they are the bridges between the in- exhaustible wealth of, as yet, unrealized meaning in the collective uncon- scious, always ready to carry reinforcements for expanding and strengthening the consciousness of man engaged in an unending cam- paign against the exactions of life in the here and now. This, perhaps, is one of his most important contributions to a new and more significant understanding of the nature of consciousness: it could only be renewed and enlarged as life demanded it to be renewed and en- larged, by maintaining its non-rational lines of communication with the col- lective unconscious. For this reason he rated very highly all non-rational ways along which man in the past has tried to explore the mystery of life and stimulate man’s conscious knowledge of the expanding universe around him inte new areas of being and knowing. This is the explanation of his interest, for instance, in astrology and this, too, is the explanation of the significance of Tarot. He recognized at once, as he did in so many other games and pri- mordial attempts at divination of the unseen and the future, that Tarot had its origin and anticipation in profound patterns of the collective un- conscious with access to potentials of increased awareness uniquely at the disposal of these patterns. It was another of those non-rational bridgesIntroduction xv across the apparent divide between unconscious and consciousness to carry night and day what should be the growing stream of traffic between darkness and light. Sallie Nichols, in her profound investigation of Tarot, and her illu- minated exegesis of its pattern as an authentic attempt at enlargement of the possibilities of human perceptions has in some such form as I have of necessity described in so over-simplified a fashion, performed an immense service for analytical psychology. Her book enriches and helps us to understand the awesome responsibilities laid upon us by consciousness. Moreover she has done something in her book which people who profess to recognize the great work done by Jung, so often fail to do. Jung, asa profoundly intuitive person, was compelled by his demonic vision, not to stay long with any particular aspect of his vision. It needed all that he had of reason and the method of the devout scientist that he was, to give him the will to stay long enough with a particular stage of his work to establish its validity empirically. But once that was done he had, as it were, to strike his intellectual tent and send the caravan of his mind on its way to the next stage of his unending journey. His spirit, inevitably in an age so imperilled as ours (an intuitive soul exhorted him), was a spirit desperately in a hurry. As a result almost everything he accomplished needs enlargement. And Sallie Nichols, in this book, has done Jungian psychology and all those who try to serve it, an immense service by the way in which she has enlarged the story and our understanding of the role of an important non- rational source of consciousness. On top of it all, she has done so notin an arid academic fashion, but as an act of knowing derived from her own ex- perience of Tarot and its strangely translucent lights. As a result her book not only lives but quickens life in whomever it touches. Laurens van der Post1. Introduction to the Tarot The Tarot is a mysterious deck of cards of unknown origin. Atleast six cen- turies old, this deck is the direct ancestor of our modern playing cards. Down through the generations, the figures depicted on these cards have enjoyed many incarnations. It is a testimony to the vitality and wisdom of the ancient Tarot that, although it had spawned such an active child as the playing cards we use today, the parent deck itself did not retire. In Central Europe, these quaint Tarot cards have remained in constant use for gam- ing and fortunetelling. Now, in America, the Tarot has suddenly surfaced into public consciousness. Like the puzzling figures which pop up un- expectedly in our dreams, these Tarot characters seem to ery out for our attention. Dramatic eruptions of this kind usually mean that neglected aspects of ourselves seek recognition. No doubt, like our dream figures, the Tarot personalities have intruded themselves into our complacency in order to bring us messages of great import; but modern man, steeped as he is ina verbal culture, finds the nonverbal picture language of the Tarot difficult to decipher. In the following chapters we shall explore ways to approach these mysterious figures and catch sparks of understanding. A journey through the Tarot cards is primarily a journey into our own depths. Whatever we encounter along the way is au fond an aspect of our ‘own deepest, and highest, self. For the Tarot cards, originating as they did ata time when the mysterious and irrational had more reality than they do today, bring us an effective bridge to the ancestral wisdom of our inner- most selves. And new wisdom is the great need of our time — wisdom to solve our own personal problems and wisdom te find creative answers to the universal questions which confront us all. Like our modern cards, the Tarot deck has four suits with ten “pip” or numbered cards in each. The four Tarot suits, are called wands, cups, swords, and coins. These have evolved into our present suits of clubs,2 JUNG AND TAROT: AN ARCHETYPAL JOURNEY hearts, spades, and diamonds. In the Tarot deck, each suit has four “court” cards: King, Queen, Jack, and Knight. The latter, a dashing young cavalier mounted on a spirited horse, has mysteriously disappeared from today's playing cards. The handsome Knight pictured here (fig. 1) is taken from an Austrian transition deck — meaning a design which falls historically somewhere between the original Tarot cards and our modern deck. As we see, the vitality of this Knight was such that he persisted in the deck after his suit had already changed from coins to diamonds. Fig. 1 Knight of Diamonds That this symbol of single-minded purpose, courtliness, and courage should have disappeared from today’s playing cards may indicate a lack of these qualities in our present-day psychology. The Knight is important because we shall need his courage and questing spirit if our journey is to be a successful one.Introduction to the Tarot 3 Equally significant, and certainly as mysterious, is the amputation from our modern deck of the Tarot Trumps, which are the cards that will be the landmarks for our journey. These Trumps— sometimes called Atouts — comprise a set of twenty-two picture cards which do not belong to any of the four suits. Each of these cards bears an intriguing name (THE MAGICIAN, THE EMPRESS, THE LOVER, JUSTICE, THE HANGED MAN, THE MOON, and so forth), and the cards are numbered. Arranged in sequence, the Trumps seem to tell a picture story. It will be the focus of this book to examine the twenty-two Trumps in sequence and to puzzle ‘out the story they tell. 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 descendant of a Tarot Trump called THE FOOL, with whom we shall soon become acquainted. Theories about the origin of this Foo! and his twenty-one companion Trumps are various and fanciful. Some imagine that these cards represent the secret stages of initiation in an esoteric Egyptian cult; others maintain, and this with more historical probability, that the Trumps are of Western European origin. Several reputatable scholars, among whom A. E. Waite and Heinrich Zimmer, suggest that the Trumps were concocted by the Albigenses, a gnostic sect which flourished in Provence in the twelfth century. It is felt that they were probably smuggled into the Tarot as a veiled communication of ideas at variance with the established Church. ‘One contemporary writer, Paul Huson, views the Tarot’s origin as a mnemonic device used chiefly in necromancy and witchcraft. Another contemporary writer, Gertrude Moakley, pioneered the ingenious theory that the Trumps are of exoteric origin, being simply adaptations of illustra- tions from a book of Petrarch’s sonnets to Laura. This book was called I Trionfi, a title which translates both as “The Triumphs” and “The Trumps.” In Petrarch's sonnets a serles of allegorical characters each fought and triumphed over the preceding one. This theme, a popular one in Re- naissance Italy, was the subject of many paintings of the period. It was also dramatized in pageants in which these allegorical figures, elaborately costumed, paraded around the castle courtyards in decorative chariots ac- companied by knights on horseback in full regalia. Such parades, called carousels, are the origin of our modern merry-go-round. On today’s carousels, while children play at being brave knights riding handsome steeds, their grandparents can enjoy a more sedate ride in a golden chariot.4 JUNG AND TAROT: AN ARCHETYPAL JOURNEY Fig. 2. The Chariot (Sforza Tarot)Introduction to the Tarot 5 Figure 2 shows Tarot number seven, THE CHARIOT, as pictured in a fifteenth century commemorative deck designed and executed by the artist, Bonifacio Bembo, for the Sforza family of Milan. These elegant cards, some ‘of which can be seen in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, are painted and illuminated in brilliant colors on a diapered background of gold over red with touches of silver. It is good to recall that such triumphal cars as the one pictured here are still an important feature of Italian festivals, and that the delightful rocking-horse spirit of its horses remains forever on parade in our modern carousels. Actually, very litte is known about the history of the Tarot cards or about the origin and evolution of the suit designations and the symbolism of the twenty-two Trumps. But the many imaginative hypotheses as to the cards’ inception, and the numerous visions and revisions inspired by their Pictorial symbology attest to their universal appeal and demonstrate their power to activate the human imagination. For the purposes of our study, it matters little whether the Tarot Trumps sprang from the Albigenses’ love of God or Petrarch's passion for Laura. The essence of their importance for us is that a very real and transforming human emotion must have brought them to birth. It seems apparent that these old cards were conceived deep in the guts of human experience, at the most profound level of the human psyche. It is to this level in ourselves that they will speak. Since it is the aim of this book to use the Tarot as a means of getting in touch with this level of the psyche, we have chosen as the basis for discus- sion the Marseilles Tarot, one of the oldest designs available today. Playing cards being perishable, the “original” Tarot no longer exists, and the few remnants of old decks still preserved in museums do not correspond exactly with any pack currently in print. Thus no present-day Tarot can be called in any sense authentic. But the Marseilles version, in general, preserves the feeling tone and style of some of the earliest designs. There are other reasons for choosing the Marseilles deck. First, its design transcends the personal. There is no evidence, for example, that it was created by one individual as are most of our contemporary Tarot decks. And second (again unlike most contemporary Tarot packs), the Marseilles deck comes to us unaccompanied by an explanatory text. Instead it offers us simply a picture story, a song without words, which can haunt us like some old refrain, evoking buried memories. This is not the case with contemporary Tarot decks, most of which were devised by a known individual or group, and many of which are accom- panied by books in which the authors set forth in words the abstruse ideas which they have presumably presented in the picture cards. This is the case, for example, with the cards and texts created by A. E. Waite, Aleister Crowley, “Zain,” and Paul Foster Case. Although the text which accompanies the Tarot in such cases is usually introduced as an elucidation of the symbols portrayed on the cards, the net