fool and magician

We don't know much about the origins of the mysterious oracle and playing card deck known today as the Tarot, only that the cards originated some time in 15th-century Italy, pretty much in the same form as we know them today.

We don't even know whether they originated among the aristocratic rulers of society, thence filtering down to the masses, or whether they were birthed by the commons and worked their way up the pecking order. But we can be certain that whoever invented these strange and wonderful symbols -- for symbols the trump cards at least certainly are -- that they did not intend to imbue them with occult meanings and "the secrets of the universe, knowable only by a few initiates."

The originators of the tarot were gamers, not occultists. If the trump pictures stand for something, and they certainly do, it's because they're the product of an endlessly creative, fertile, and playful culture.

For example, the sixth trump, which we call "The Lovers" but was originally designated simply as "Love," and number seven, "The Chariot," called "Victory" in some of the earliest decks, are simple and straightforward emblems of love and war, and their adjacent placement in the sequence reflect the key social roles of these eternal cardinal elements of the human condition.

Others, such as the Tower and number 12 which shows a man hanging upside-down by one leg remain cryptic and their meanings the topics of intense speculation, but we can be sure those who created them had something in mind.

In addition, contemplating these pictures over a period of years leads one to personal and unique interpretations of some of them as the icons combine with the viewer's personality characteristics.

The Fool is the most interesting card, as he has no place in the sequence. He originally had no number, not even the zero we assign to him today, since the earliest cards, if numbered, took Roman numerals, and there was no zero in ancient Roman arithmetic. The homeless and possibly mentally ill vagrant and drifter symbolized by this picture likewise has no place in society, and is shunted by those with places to the very margins. You see these people in city parks, pushing shopping carts and smoking hand-rolled Top Tobacco cigarettes -- people with no place.

The Magician or conjurer, on the other hand, has with effort secured a place at the very bottom of the social totem pole, but it is at least a place. He lives a hand-to-mouth existence by virtue of his wits and through the skill or strength of his hands, and for his work he is rewarded with a number -- one -- and a spot in the sequence. The magician is most of us -- most of society in any age, and the Magician is everyone who works for a living -- all "peasants and workers" as the Russian revolutionaries styled us. And in a sense, all working people really are magicians; they come into the world with nothing, and only over time acquire the "moxie" it takes to make a living out of nothing.

The ruling orders of society lay claim to much more of the deck's territory than the 90 percent or so of us below them, whose symbolic representation is limited to the first trump and the deck's outcaste. The Female Pope (one of the strangest and most inscrutable cards), The Empress, The Emperor, and The Pope represent the first and second estates of the societies that immediately preceded our own, aristocrats and clergy, the secular and spiritual authorities, and occupy trump places two through five.

I've drawn The Fool in my last two monthly short (three- or four-card) spreads. This tells me I have no home at the moment and I'm wandering, spiritually as well as in the everyday sense. This has been true for a number of years, but now I'm going somewhere and the subordinate signs around the symbol of the homeless wanderer bode very well.

The Bell-Decae Wizard Board was designed by Harlequinn Bell. Click on the image for a bigger picture.