Special:Badtitle/NS106:Tarot correspondences

Over time, Tarot has been linked to many other occult systems in order to find deeper meaning in tarot, or to make it more usable for the followers of a certain belief or magickal system. Such correspondences can also help in fortune-telling, because they can be quite specific. For an overview of the Golden Dawn correspondences as usually used with the Rider Waite Deck, see Major Arcana, Minor Arcana and Royalty cards.

History
Tarot was originally used as a card game, and may be for simple fortune telling. in the late 18th century, It drew the attentions of the french occultists of the time, namely Antoine Court de Gebelin and Comte de Mellet. They linked it to ancient Egypt and Kabalah, but their writings were more speculative than practical. Inspired by those writings, Eteilla formally described their use for fortune-telling in a book. This also included a set of astrological and kabalistical correspondences, but those were very different from all that came later. He also made his own tarot deck that is only loosely related to other decks. Therefore, this deck and it's correspondences are beyond the scope of this article. Shortly bevore that he had written a similar book about ordinary playing cards.

Roughly a generation later, those works inspired other French occultists, namely Eliphas Levi, Paul Christian and Papus. Eliphas Levi worked with the traditional Tarot de Marseille, not Eteilla's creation or an own deck. He deviced a comprehensive set of correspondences and meanings for it, which is still in use. Most other authors in continental Europe followed his attributions of Tarot cards to Hebrew letters, but not necessarily his astrological and other attributions.

Court de Gebelin, Eliphas Levi, and others in their wake interpreted Tarot as a mystical tool that was handed down from the ancient Egyptians to the present and held deep symbolical meaning. In their pursuit they linked the tarot to several other occult systems, especially astrology and Kabalah. Those two are intertwined because there are given correspondences between planets, signs of the Zodiac and the hebrew letters and paths of the Tree of Life. The hebrew letters also have numerous other correspondences linked to them, that also become connected to the cards this way. Beside the different correspondence systems of different tarot authors, this adds further confusion, because there are many different systems of linking Hebrew letters, paths on the Tree of Life, Astrology and other correspondences.

All the correspondences were of special importance both to these early authors and to the Golden dawn magickians, because they saw Tarot more as a magickal tool than as merely a fortune-telling device.

Tarot and Hebrew letters
main article: Essay:Tarot correspondences (Kabalah)

Tarot and astrology
While there are only a limited number of ways to associate the major arcana of the tarot to hebrew letters, there are numerous variants regarding their connections with astrology. One reason for this is that there is no definite system of linking the astrological stuff to the hebrew letters, and other aspects of Kabalah. There are several versions of Sefer Yetzira, the relevant jewish text, and hermeticists have created further versions in their struggle to make sense of the confusing sources.

Tarot and other divination systems
Others have also linked things like runes and I-Ching to the tarot. Some decks even have them printed on the cards.