I may sound redundant, but most people still don’t understand it, and I must explain it again.
Esoteric means:
a: designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone,
b: requiring or exhibiting knowledge restricted to a small group – or difficult to understand.
The word occult has a similar meaning.
Occult may mean secret, not easily apprehended or understood, mysterious, hidden from view or concealed.
Divination, conversely, refers to the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge, usually by interpreting omens or using supernatural powers.
Divination is a fancy formula for fortune-telling. However, it requires knowledge and a thorough understanding of esoteric matters such as Astrology, Numerology, Alchemy and Kabbalah. It is a matter of learning.
The Tarot is an instrument of preserving and transmitting occult, esoteric knowledge, and although it also has a divinatory function, that is secondary.
Most modern Tarot decks originate from or have been copied from the Rider-Waite deck. However, the Rider-Waite Tarot is a commercial deck with low esoteric content.
Long story short, Waite built his deck mainly inspired by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers’s 1888 pamphlet The Tarot, which was roughly based on Etteilla’s Tarot. However, Mather’s work contains several mistranslations and misinterpretations. Therefore, the Rider-Waite Tarot’s illustration of the Minor Arcana cards represents a graphic depiction of one of Etteilla’s keywords associated with each card, while the Major Arcana is a slightly altered version of the Tarot of Marseille.
Ettaila published his deck in 1789, specially designed for divination. Unfortunately, most of his original work has been lost or remains untranslated. The works of his pupils have been mainly used as a reference for his deck. Based on the design of some cards, we may suspect that their meaning was based on Astrology, but identifying any particular system is impossible. His work’s subsequent copies and alterations affected and harmed its original content and meaning. The most representative example is the Rider-Waite deck and its various clones.
Although Waite was a member and, at some point, the head of the Golden Dawn, his deck did not incorporate the teachings of the Hermetic Order.
Pamela Colman Smith was also a member of the Order, but like Waite, she was also Christian and disconsidered divination. The Rider-Waite deck was conceived for the sole purpose of commercial interest but failed to succeed. The man who eventually managed to capitalise on the Rider-Waite deck was Stuart Kaplan, the founder of US Game Systems.
Therefore, it is fundamental to discern between esoteric and commercial Tarot decks and practices.
Most people still misuse and abuse terms such as occult, esoteric and divination.
Esoteric also means knowledge-based. Yet, most modern works are intuition-based and speculative. Both authors and publishers are seeking commercial success and not widening our understanding. Actually, dumber is better! After all, their goal is not education but making a profit.
What is largely available and easily accessible is rarely esoteric but exoteric.
Exoteric refers to knowledge outside and independent from a person’s experience and can be fully appreciated or understood by anyone, in contrast to esoteric knowledge. Exoteric means common knowledge.
Thus, if esoteric means extraordinary, exoteric means ordinary.
As a result, most modern Tarot decks and Tarot related books are ordinary and strictly commercial.
Genuine esoteric Tarot decks are extremely rare.
I will only mention a few: the Etteilla deck, Aleister Crowley’s Thoth deck, Fredric Lionel’s Magic Tarot, and Robert Wang’s Jungian Tarot. Unsurprisingly, they are not necessarily the most popular – or commercially successful – decks. Although Crowley’s deck became popular and commercially successful, few people truly dug into its depths.
Sometimes genuine occult, esoteric materials can be found in the wide open, but few people will see and understand their value.
At the bottom line, it is your choice. You are here because you want to understand, put real effort into learning, or you are content to be a useful idiot.
#unifiedesoterictarot #attilakarpathy #tarot #esoterictarot
