Tarot has been a part of Barbara Moore's personal and professional lives for nearly twenty years. Right from the start, tarot intrigued her with its marvelous blending of mythology, psychology, art, history, mystery, and magic. She has studied under...
Learning tarot can be a lifelong journey. One of the reasons so many people love tarot is because it is a framework for nearly endless study and can be applied to so many areas of interest. As mentioned in chapter 1's "Tarot Fact and Fancy," in the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, tarot decks were used as placeholders for esoteric knowledge. The structure of a tarot deck lends itself so easily to so many modalities, such as astrology, numerology, or Qabalah. Connecting the tarot to other subjects or other ways of looking at the world has led to elaborate tables of correspondences. Correspondences are ways that things are associated with the tarot.
For example, the elemental energies discussed earlier are correspondences: fire corresponds to wands, etc. The cards, either individually or in groups/suits, have been associated with many, many things over the years: astrological signs, planets, seasons, numerology, Myers-Briggs personality types, Hebrew letters, Sephiroth (paths on the Tree of Life), colors, alchemy, musical notes, runes, plants, stones, directions, I Ching, and socioeconomic divisions, for example. In addition to all those associations (and more), different schools of thought sometimes assign the correspondences differently. There truly are no absolutes.
The lack of absolutes can make learning the cards feel like a daunting task. What you need to know, though, is that you do not need to learn or use any of these associations to read the cards. Using any correspondences should only enhance your understanding or add to your enjoyment of studying the cards. Explore them later, as trying to apply them now may only cause frustration. Here's why: while tarot does lend itself
to other modalities, there is not one that fits absolutely and perfectly. Many times, some of the connections seem to make sense with the card meaning and image, and other times, the assigned correspondence seems to contradict the meaning—or worse, have no apparent connection at all. For people who enjoy studying and talking about tarot, this is not a problem; it only adds to the fun and interest.
Here is an example of the astrological and Qabalistic correspondences commonly associated with the Major Arcana. Note that this is not the only method of assigning astrological correspondences.
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Minor Arcana Suit Correspondences
Note that these are commonly used but not the only ones used. In particular, I've seen many variations in the seasonal and directional associations.
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