It’s a shame that when I was 17 and I got my first Tarot deck, I didn’t appreciate what I held in my hand. I want to tell you that my journey into the occult was brilliant and that I took to Tarot like a duck to water, but that wasn’t the case. It was more like bad sex with someone I loved, but I couldn’t quite fathom why.
For starters, my teenage self thought that the cards weren’t just ugly, they were FUGLY. So grody.
Well, why did I buy that deck? You might be wondering.
Fair enough!
I got my first set of cards without really knowing why. It was 1989, and in October. I had something I had to put in the mail regarding university. I was 17, in my first year of studies at Dalhousie (Classics – yay!), and I was walking down Spring Garden Rd. It was a late afternoon; the sun was getting long, the air was crisp and electric, and the leaves were beautiful colors and strewn everywhere on the sidewalk. I was fixated on getting to the Shoppers to get some stamps (across the street from where it is now, if you’re from Halifax, too!), and I was walking past The Lord Nelson Hotel. There were shops set back from the sidewalk then – I don’t know if they’re still there anymore – one of them was W.H. Smith Booksellers. To this day, I don’t know what force propelled me into that bookstore, but it was as if an unseen hand prodded me over to the door, and I walked right in. I went straight to the back, to the New Age/Occult section, looked right at the Tarot cards, and grabbed this one off the shelf. I paid my $20, put it in my kitbag, and carried on to Shoppers.
I knew nothing about anything when it came to this stuff. I didn’t know what a witch was, and I didn’t know a thing about reading cards. I was as green as grass. I didn’t know the bookstore had a New Age or Occult section. When I tell you I knew nothing, I mean it: NOTHING. Later that night, those cards were burning a hole in my kit bag. I peeled off the wrapper, opened up the box, and was promptly underwhelmed.
Ewww….like…..totally…..gross.
The drawings were harsh to my eye and made no sense. The little white book that came with the deck would surely explain what was happening.
It was as cryptic as the cards were ugly. The book referenced “fortune-telling” and proceeded to list off meanings such as “A lady, fair and false” and “Disaster at every turn.” Death, and all manner of misfortune.”
Greeeeeaaaaaat.
I put them away carefully, as though I might make them angry, slid them back into my kitbag, and went to sleep.
The next day, I sat in the SUB cafeteria and showed them to my friend Mya. I don’t know why I did that, but I suddenly felt like she was the person to tell. “Cool! You have Tarot cards! Do you read them? Are you a witch? You never told me you used Tarot cards!” I explained to her that I got them yesterday and told her about feeling like I was being pushed/pulled into the store. “Definitely your spirit guides.” She nodded like a sage elder. The look on my face must have told her that I was lost in this conversation. “You know…..dead people that put things in your path because you need them. It might even be you remembering a past life.” Really lost now. I grew up cloistered on military bases in a world before the internet and smartphones when things like this weren’t on the handful of television channels my parents felt were sufficient. She looked at me carefully. “You don’t know anything about this, do you?” I shook my head. Not a damned thing. “OK, you need to go back to that bookstore and get Eden Gray’s black book. That’s what you need to do.” So I did.
That book didn’t showcase The Marseille – in fact, none of the Tarot books I looked at back then did, but they all referenced my deck. Eventually, I started to put things together, and by 1993, I had put down The Marseille for a bit, picked up Crowley’s Thoth, and was doing Tarot and numerology readings all over town. I always came back to this deck, though. As I drove more into the occult and studied numbers, astrology, witchcraft, and magick, I learned to appreciate this ugly little deck of cards:
- These Tarots are some of the oldest decks in existence. The Marseille Tarot has existed at least since the 1600s. Different versions of it exist because various cardmakers over the centuries put their unique stamp on the images.
- The oldest surviving Marseille tarot cards were made in 1639 by Philippe Vachier of Marseilles. Thierry Depaulis discovered the cards, which went on sale in 2023.
- The oldest surviving tarot cards are the Visconti-Sforza Tarot, which were painted in the mid 1400s for the rulers of Milan. The cards included trumps, and the set of cards was consistent, even if the names and order varied.
- Understanding how the cards were made and the importance of the medieval cardmakers in society gave me a new perspective on the imagery.
- Learning about medieval art and symbolism opened doors to ideas that were never covered in modern books on Tarot. Much of modern Tarot is based on the Rider deck, which was designed to be a teaching tool of Golden Dawn information, so things were altered.
- The original Tarot decks were created in French and Italian so subtle changes in translation to English also altered the interpretation.
- Without busy picture scenes to “tell” you, your intuitive mind takes over and produces a much more detailed reading. Using a Marseille deck is like reading the book, and using a Rider deck is like watching the movie.
And that’s all I’ve got for you right now. If you’re reading this, remember that as you move forward in life, let shit unfold and be excellent to each other!
