Tarot and the Millenium
From Tarotpedia
Contents |
[edit] Tarot and the Millenium: The Story of Who’s on the Cards and Why
[edit] Author(s)
[edit] Publication details
[edit] date of publication
1998
[edit] publisher
New Perspective Media
[edit] Description
In Tarot and the Millenium, Timothy Betts makes the case that the Tarot was a Medieval document created to relate the events of Apocalypse and the second Coming of Christ. He spends a significant amount of the book connecting the Tarot to the Book of Revelations and also presents a (shaky) candidate for the source of the images that form the Major Arcana.
[edit] Author's comments
"I believe that Tarot represents a medieval retelling of the story of Jesus Christ's Second Coming and the ensuing Millennium. Tarot is not about the hoary past, it's about the future and the end of history! This is, and is not surprising. On the one hand, the Second Coming has been one of the most familiar themes in western civilization for almost 2,000 years. If you knew absolutely nothing about Tarot and had to guess it's meaning, this would be a good bet. On the other hand, cars like The Fool, Emperor, and Lovers seem to have nothing to do with the Second Coming - at least not to our eyes. A preliminary answer to this objection is that thinking has changed considerably in the almost 600 years since Tarot was created. We're more naive about the last times now. We find it difficult to interpret the cards correctly for three reasons: first, late medieval and early Renaissance people postulated elaborate scenarios for the last times that only a handful of scholars are familiar with today; second, many mediaeval meanings of familiar symbols were forgotten in the Renaissance; and third, entire categories or modes of medieval thought are held in little repute today."
[edit] Author's website
To be added
