FIRST LESSON.

p. 305

SIMPLIFICATION OF THE RULES OF FORTUNE-TELLING BY THE TAROT.

THE great difficulty encountered by a beginner in the study of divination by the Tarot, is the number of meanings to be remembered in reading the cards.

Open any treatise upon this subject, and you will see that you must first learn the different significations of the 78 cards of the Tarot. Then you must learn the significations of these 78 cards reversed, without counting the meetings and other complications, which bring them to about 200 different meanings, which must be retained in the memory before any one can become a good fortuneteller by cards. Habit only will enable the student to remember all these details, and in this case intuition becomes an important aid to the memory.

Now this complication always points to an imperfect system. Nature is synthetic in its manifestations, and simplicity is always found at the bottom of the most outwardly complicated phenomena. Whilst admitting that our work upon the Tarot may be erroneous, no one can deny the absolute simplicity of the constituent principles. We will therefore apply the same method to the

p. 306

divining Tarot, and endeavour to establish a system which will enable us to dispense with memory almost entirely, or at least to considerably reduce its work. We shall thus allow a certain scope for scientific data, although we are unwilling to create any prejudice by this influence, considering the subject we are dealing with.

The first point to retain from the commencement of this study is the necessity for clear, simple rules, by which the divining Tarot may be read. We will explain them in the following lessons.