Negative Stereotypes Within Tarot

We can do better

This past weekend my Masonic Lodge participated in our City’s Downtown Association’s annual Ghost Walk. It is a tremendous opportunity to open up our Lodge building to the community, give them a bit of information about Freemasonry, and let them look around for ghosts.

As a part of that, and just across the street from our Masonic Temple, there is the ‘Dark Market.’ This is a temporary marketplace, operated in conjunction with the tours, where all kinds of New Age, ‘spiritual,’ and ‘witchy’ things can be had. Including, I was interested to see, Tarot Card Readings.

I couldn’t resist, I had to sit down for a reading. As we Masons were volunteers for the event, we were actually in the market area before it opened, and few folks were around, so I opted for a very involved reading, and the Tarotist really took her time.

I’ve got to say, right here from the outset, that she provided me with an absolutely fabulous Reading. She knows her stuff, and just as importantly, she knows how to communicate what she is Reading. I was pleased to pay her not insubstantial fee and take her business card. I could well see myself repeating the experience with her someday, or recommending her to others.

One part of it rather bothered me however.

She had the whole stereotypical gypsy theme going on.

Without a doubt, millions of people in this country, when they think of Tarot, they are thinking of an old gypsy crone sitting in a spooky tent with candles and a crystal ball, telling fortunes of lost love and doom; hexes and curses.

The entire thing, in far too many people’s minds, has a feel of fraud, petty criminality, and danger.

Perpetuating this stereotype is of course a slur against the Romani people.

It is also harmful to the Tarot community and Tarot practitioners as a whole.

I understand why so many Tarot Readers employ this carnivalistic persona. It’s entertainment, in a way, it’s exotic entertainment, and Tarotists have to make a living just like everyone else. Get a reading and get an exotic entertainment setting thrown in, as the carnival barker might think.

But if there is short term gain from perpetuating the gypsy stereotype, there is certainly long term harm as well. Harm in the form of destroying the reputation of Tarot in the minds of millions of people.

Playing into all of this as well is I think a push by some teachers of the Tarot to make people brand new to it believe that it is something that is easy to do. That they don’t have to truly absorb multiple meanings and perspectives for each card. That they don’t need to understand how astrology informs Tarot or how Tarot illustrates the Qabalah. That they need to know nothing of Hebrew letters or Numerology. That they can just look at the cards and let intuition, some kind of psychic power, or the collective unconsciousness do all the work, especially if there is a stick of cheap incense burning somewhere nearby.

It’s easy to see why some teachers of Tarot try to sell that. It gets them more students. Who would want to learn difficult material if he or she can get the same result by simply looking at the pretty pictures.

But, of course, it doesn’t work. Intuition is an important part of Tarot Reading, of that there can be no doubt. But it must be resting upon a firm foundation of knowledge if the reading is to be of quality. Hard learned knowledge.

For both of the reasons above, each of them ultimately financial reasons, far to many people associate Tarot with negative currents and connotations within our society.

It is my hope that as time passes, Tarot can move beyond this negative stereotype, because the fact is that the stereotype is not justified.

Unlike Freemasonry whose origins are lost to the mists of time, we have a full accounting of the history of divinatory Tarot. We know how the Tarot, as we know it today developed, and who developed it. From the very first author who ever mentioned its potential as a divinatory tool to those who have created the most modern of decks and theories that we enjoy today. The history is intact.

From that we know that Tarot was created by serious men and women, seeking to illustrate serious principles, for serious ends. These people were not carnival barkers and they did not try to sell Tarot as such.

All of this brings me back to the reading I received this weekend. To reiterate, it was superbly done, by a supremely talented Tarotist. It didn’t need the trappings of an old and negative stereotype.

Hopefully someday the Tarot community can move beyond that.