A Cultural History of Tarot

Download or read book A Cultural History of Tarot written by Helen Farley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The twenty-one numbered playing cards of tarot have always exerted strong fascination, way beyond their original purpose, and the multiple resonances of the deck are ubiquitous. From T.S. Eliot and his 'wicked pack of cards' in The Waste Land, the pyschic divination of Solitaire in Ian Fleming's Live and Let Die and the deck's adoption by New Age practitioners, the cards have in modern times become inseparably connected to the occult. Yet, as the author shows, originally the tarot were used as recreational playing cards by the Italian nobility of the Renaissance. It was only much later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, that the deck became associated with esotericism before evolving finally into a diagnostic tool for mind, body, and spirit. This is the first book to explore the remarkably varied ways in which tarot has influenced culture"--Back cover