1.30.2025
Hmmm . . .
Hello everyone. Thanks for being here—and a special welcome to new readers!
I’m continuing a series of posts that are meant to add a little more depth for entry points identified in Ten Doors to Tarot. If you want to catch up quickly on the series so far:
Opening the doors . . .
Door #2
Those posts explored two Doors (Esoteric and Magick) that are closely related in some ways, but quite different in others. And shed some light on where their paths might connect, cross, or diverge.
I expected to write something similar about Doors 3 and 4:
Creativity and Aesthetic.
Here’s how they are described in the original Ten Doors model:
The two Doors were placed far apart in the original model, with Aesthetic at #3 and Creativity at #9—probably because I was thinking about “Creativity” in the way it’s so often used in today’s Tarot world.
Then, when I reorganized the model to better align with the historical development of Tarot studies and practices, I added this clarification:
Which sounds good!
But once I looked at that description more closely, I realized that most folks today are not talking about “creativity” in the same way I was applying it in relation to the Modernist poets. Or in the way I might apply it to the work of Italo Calvino.
When Yeats came in through the Creativity door, he had a deep commitment to Tarot as an esoteric instrument. Eliot approached Tarot as a poetic device, and Calvino as a narrative construct, but they too saw the deck as having a powerful symbolic resonance.
From those perspectives, creativity came from understanding and interacting with a meaningful system, developed and elaborated over centuries.
By contrast—and I’ve only just realized this—the currently prevalent idea of Tarot as a creative tool is often about using Tarot cards as if they were “oracle cards.” In fact, it’s not unusual to see the phrase “Tarot or other oracle cards.”
I’m going to argue (briefly, for now) that equating Tarot with oracle cards is basically meant to make clear there’s nothing special about Tarot itself. The user just applies personal imagination/experience to one or more images (whether from a Tarot-type deck or another type of illustrated deck), and that’s how the creative process takes place.
I see that approach as part of a dominant trend toward de-mystifying Tarot.
Let’s go a little further into what that means, beginning with some simple facts. First, the structures and images of Tarot have a long, deep history of interpretation and engagement.
On the other hand—as far as I can tell—the term “oracle cards” became popular in the late 20th century as a label for card decks that have a non-Tarot structure. This category proved useful for marketing purposes, so it grew.
Categorically, an oracle deck can be any unstructured assortment of images. Which is not an inherently bad thing—but when you stop to think about it, Tarot ought to be viewed as by definition not an oracle deck, since it does have a structure, as well as a fixed set of images.
The term “oracle” may have been settled on for marketing purposes because it had a vague association with ancient wisdom, but was also gaining a place in secular contexts. By the early 1980s, Oracle Corporation was aggressively marketing its breakthrough database management technology (the company went public in 1986). Around the same time, investment guru Warren Buffett acquired the nickname “Oracle of Omaha.”
I suspect that 20th century popularizers thought “oracle” had a nice ring—and it’s true that in ancient Greece, one consulted an oraculum for guidance in making plans or decisions. But there’s a catch: Ancient oracles hardly ever gave clear answers. On the contrary! More than one classic tragedy resulted from misinterpretation of an oracular riddle.
From that perspective, it’s a perfectly reasonable idea to use oracle cards for general inspiration, rather than specific advice. And insofar as Tarot cards are “just” oracle cards, you would take them the same way.
But in that case, Tarot becomes no more than a set of prompts, used in various ways to promote creative thinking or generate creative projects or channel creative energy or share creative insights.
In other words: Tarot per se becomes 100% de-mystified.
And based on that realization . . . I’m contemplating another revision of the Ten Doors model!
Briefly—the literary vs. visual arts division between “Creativity” and “Aesthetic” is now seeming unhelpful. So it might be better to align “Aesthetic” with uses of a “mystified” Tarot, and “Creativity” with de-mystified uses.
I’ll let you know in the next post . . .
I started thinking about this de-mystification business while working on an introduction for my new ebook, Exploring Tarot: History. I’ll share the intro on Tarot | In Four Dimensions this weekend—so if you haven’t subscribed to the free 4D newsletter, here’s a fresh invitation.
Finally for now, I don’t want to leave off with the impression that I’m anti-oracle! In fact, here are several from my own collection:
It’s just that I think the world of Tarot is significantly, qualitatively, definitively different from the world of oracle cards.
As always—thanks so much for reading. With luck, I’ll send a Sunday bonus. C