The dawn that never reached noon
John Michell
A HISTORY OF THE OCCULT TAROT by Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett Duckworth, 119. 99, pp. 379, ISBN 07156312225 This is the latest product of Professor Dumrnett's long-running obsession with the Tarot pack. For over 20 years this distinguished Oxford philosopher has studied and written about the magical cards, but it is still a mystery why he does it. In his last book, A Wicked Pack of Cards, he infuriated the Tarot-reading community by demolishing the myths by which they glamorise their trade. The Tarot cards, he said, did not originate in the ancient temples of Egypt or the wisdom of Hermes Tresmegistos. Nor were they introduced by Jewish cabalists or gypsies from India. Their first appearance was in 15th-century Italy where they were designed as ordinary playing cards. It was not until the 18th century that the Tarot was adapted for divination and fortune-telling. Fantastic myths have grown around it, likening the cards to the symbols of astrology and alchemy, the Hebrew letters. the Tree of Life and the archetypes of Creation. Dummett and his partner, Ronald Decker (an American expert on playing cards), show that all such pretensions are phoney. The Tarot cards are comparatively modern, so are the images they display and so is their mystical reputation.
So that's that, you might suppose. But here is another huge book on the Tarot, by the same authors who have already debunked it. Their interest now is in the myths of the Tarot and their influence on modern occultism. This has caused them to write a detailed history of the 'magical renaissance' that began towards the end of the 19th century. It is rather a sad story because — up to now, at least — it has been a story of failure. With its roots in Mesmerism, spiritualism and the revelations of Mme Blavatsky, the magical renaissance was in opposition to the doctrines of materialism which subsequently prevailed and have been dominant up to the present. And it is a sad story in another way, in exposing the rotten foundations on which the 'western magical tradition' was erected. Its leading institution was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888 for the betterment of mankind and the upraising of its members to the level of pure intelligence. It offered the true key to the Tarot and initiation into the highest mysteries. But its leaders were charlatans, basing their authority on fake antique documents and fabricated mumbo-jumbo. Many noble souls were attracted to the Golden Dawn, but it was so infested with crooks, creeps, impostors and trouble-makers that no honest truth-seeker could long endure it, and it was dissolved after 12 years, acrimoniously.
A pleasant feature of this book is its compilation of the little biographies on just about everyone who has been active in spiritual, New Age-type movements in modern times. I enjoyed reading about Florence Farr (1860-1917), a beautiful actress who rose to magical power as priestess of the Isis-Urania Temple. Her practice of free love was to the benefit of W. B. Yeats, G. B. Shaw and many other worthy mystics, and she ended up as principal of a girls' college in Ceylon. And my heart went out to Miss Pamela Colman Smith, whose quiet life as an artist in a Cornish cottage had its moment of opportunity when she designed the pack of Tarot cards that are now the standard best-sellers — and sold them outright for a tiny sum. I also liked the account of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) whose magical approach to life involved him in every blasphemy and abomination that an ordered society most dreads. Upon assuming his title, The Great Beast, he baptised a frog as Jesus Christ, then crucified it and ate it. You cannot be much naughtier than that.
Decker and Dummett are careful historians, dry and factual, with no axe to grind and no judgments to pass on the people they write about. Even Crowley, you can learn here, had his redeeming features — courage, imaginative genius, honesty of purpose. But what do these authors really think about him? Or about occultism and the use of Tarot cards? What made them apply their scholarship to such an obscure subject and such a widely forgotten set of people? I think highly of this learned book but still cannot understand why anyone should have gone to the trouble of writing it.
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