Old Wine, New Wine, Wrong Bottle
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Although I’ve been studying and working with tarot for over 50 years, I still occasionally dip into the literature. My chosen subject matter is most often from the traditional canon but once in a while the material is of more recent vintage just to assess how the world of tarot is evolving in the 21st Century. ( Spoiler Alert: not well.)
More and more, I’m seeing a disturbing tendency to dump the classical symbolism in favor of an entirely personal set of ideas and images that arises solely from the writer’s (and deck creator’s) fertile imagination. (This is often heralded as “the New Tarot,” but it strikes me as half-baked, wet-behind-the-ears solipsism that mirrors the ethical quagmire of genetic engineering: just because we can do something doesn’t automatically mean we should do so from a meritorious standpoint.) What usually results from this creative iconoclasm is something I call “TINO” (Tarot In Name Only): the cards may bear the familiar names but the imagery is nothing of the sort, coming across as a personal vision that is hyped as “tarot” but carries none of the symbolic depth. If they spent as much time getting their heads around the philosophical intent of the established narrative as in trying to reinvent it in a vacuum, we would have far fewer but much more thoughtful results. (I’ve even seen “stick-figure” banality being passed off as tarot art; blame it on the self-publishing phenomenon and the “It’s so simple a caveman could do it” mentality.) The sheer number of new decks out there that fail to hit the mark in any meaningful way is mind-boggling; tarot is rapidly becoming a shallow pool of pretentious dabblers in faddish, mannered social commentary and losing its cachet as a deep well of profound wisdom.
The mystical heritage of these misguided efforts is often diluted to the point that there is no “meat on the bone,” just fanciful intuitive flourishes that fly off in all directions. I’m reminded of ordering a lobster bisque at a dodgy seafood restaurant: a crustacean may have waded through it but there is no remaining evidence of its visit. Another analogy is that of “wine in a box;” rather than a standard bottle, we get a cardboard-and-bladder affair, a throw-away that frequently contains cheap, mediocre wine. It will do the job but it’s not normally a delightful experience. It almost seems like cynical (and marginally talented) deck creators are deliberately publishing a disposable product that is expected to have only a brief moment of profitability, which explains why so much of the internal morphology is conceptually hollow. (Just take a look at almost any modern “Lovers” card: since when did the historical tradition support showing two naked people coupling in a garden? That went out with Adam and Eve, and also misses the allegorical point of this card.) At least oracle-deck creators — however metaphysically loopy they may be — aren’t selling counterfeit snake-oil masquerading as an elixir of truth.
If it’s clear to buyers that such anemic fare is what we’re being sold in a deck of divinatory cards, so be it, but presenting it as legitimate “tarot” is dishonest and only trading on “name recognition.” What it amounts to is tinkering for its own sake in order to put an individual stamp on the outcome for marketing purposes; concepts and correspondences are tossed around in a jumble of superficial nonsense that purports to be “illuminated” but is usually just a tired rehash of overworked “New Age” cliches. You know the scenario: they watch a few YouTube videos, throw a few spreads, think “I’ve got this!” and proceed to bestow their newfound spiritual wisdom (and underwhelming artwork) on the world in the hope of raking in a few dollars with their warmed-over bullshit, much of which rapidly turns up for resale in the used-deck marketplace.
What a crock!
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on December 23, 2023.
