What do Rembrandt, Salvador Dalí, Virginia Woolf and David Bowie have in common? Apparently, they all loved tarot cards and believed in them as a means of fortune-telling. Tarot began as a normal card game in 15th-century Italy. The name derives from the Italian word ‘tarocchi’, a word whose origins are unknown but that some believe comes from the Arabic word ‘taraha‘ meaning ‘to reject’ or ‘put aside.’ It was not until the 17th century in Marseille, France that the deckattained its mystical meaning, and it is the Marseille deck on which modern-day tarot cards are based.
LEARNING TAROT
Writer and tarot card-reader Jessa Crispin received her first tarot deck as a teenager in her native Kansas. She didn’t really take it seriously, however, until her late 20s and after a particularly touching reading by a professional tarot card reader. When she began to research the subject, she realised that there were very few serious books on the topic. This inspired her to write The Creative Tarot, a unique guidebook that, as she explained to Speak Up, is aimed at both novices and the savvy.
Jessa Crispin (American accent): I just wanted it to be useful. I wanted to get away from the kind of more mystical elements of it because there’s so much bad new age writing on the tarot. Just tell me what it means, how it works, how to tell a story with it. Don’t give me the whole mumbo jumbo about spirits and whatever.
SEARCHING FOR MEANING
It is commonly believed that we humans cannot live on rationality and materiality alone, but also need imagination and spirituality. Through the ages, people have searched for clues into their future through different and sometimes strange tools. Crispin thinks tarot is a manifestation of that proverbial need.
Jessa Crispin: People have always just used anything to help with their anxiety about the future or to have a sort of intuitive glimpse into what’s going on. There are people who just use a regular deck of cards to do fortune-telling, there are people who use cheese, people use the shapes of birds in the sky, people use melting metal and then pouring it into cold water, tea leaves, all this stuff. And I love that about it. like you can just turn anything into a sign or an omen of some sort. And a lot of times it works out, because it’s not specifically about the coffee grounds or the tea leaves, it’s the meaning that you bestow in them. It’s something kind of that you already know unconsciously and you’re just bringing it into consciousness through the imagery.
UNBLOCK CREATIVITY
Crispin reads the tarot cards of a growing clientele and teaches workshops on the subject. Most of her clients are artists, especially writers, who are going through a difficult time creatively. The author herself uses tarot reading to inspire her, with a focus on her present rather than a means to predict her future. In The Creative Tarot, Crispin describes a practical way to read the cards with a focus on creativity.
Jessa Crispin: In the book, I designed a specific reading for how to deal with a block or a project that’s in the works. I’ve definitely used that for myself. There’s what I need in order to finish a project, but then there is also what the project needs in order to finish. Sometimes those are in conflict. If you’re trying to micromanage it, if you’re trying to force the work to be something it’s not, you often get blocked. And so just having that moment of “Oh! This is a different thing than I thought it was going to be.”
CREATIVE POWER
Like meditation, tarot can offer clarity and boost creativity. Tarot itself is a creative act, as it consists of interpreting the cards, paying attention to specific aspects of life in order to figure out a solution to a certain problem. It works on an inspirational and intuitive level, explains Crispin, and that’s why there is not a right or a wrong way to read the cards.
Jessa Crispin: Obviously, there is a difference between the creativity of an accountant versus the creativity of a painter. That doesn’t mean that what the accountant is doing doesn’t require the same imaginative aspect. Hopefully not too imaginative or they’ll be sued by the government. But that aspect of a person is still there, even if they’re not using it in the obvious way of painting a painting or whatever. Every card has so many different meanings depending on the context in which you’re asking the question, the context in which it’s found in a larger reading if you’re doing a larger spread. Just reading the tarot is a creative act. You are creating a story based on these images and the meanings and you should be playful with this. It doesn’t have to be such a chore.
THE ART OF TAROT
Divided into two parts - Major Arcana (22 cards) and Minor Arcana (56 cards) - and in four suits (Batons, Coins, Swords and Cups, which refer to the four elements Fire, Earth, Air and Water), these cards have beautiful illustrations which when combined offer diverse interpretations combinations. Every card tells a story and and many details can be revealed. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung used tarot cards to study archetypes of the collective mind. Jung compared tarot to the I Ching, the ancient Chinese divination book, and believed it was a tool to better understand the present. Surrealist director, actor, writer and tarot reader Alejandro Jodorowsky uses tarot cards in his psychological search, defending their inspirational creative power.