As my progress to an understanding of the historic and esoteric Tarot has evolved it has become evident that there is an obvious and nearly crippling dichotomy amongst contemporary tarots: that which Michelle Jackson mistakenly calls "The New Tarot and The Old Tarot". The two schools of thought to which she refers would more correctly be called The Modern School and the Post-modern School of Tarot. Ms. Jackson's article can be read on-line at:ArtOfTarot

Eliphas Levi whose taroist leanings were absorbed by MacGregor Mathers and then, in an altered form, found their way into the Golden Dawn and other Secret Chief societies can be said to exemplify the Modern School. Jackson refers to this eclectic approach as "the Tarot/Qabala school". The New Age Movement school of thought she calls "largely a personal and intuitive experience" and further tells us that it "should be approached as such" which seems to discount propaedeutics.

Jackson allows, just as do I, that the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and the Thoth deck assumed that there was a direct and cogent link between the Kabala and the tarot cards. An understand of from whence and for why this connection arose can only benefit those who choice these decks as their focus. The correlation of Jewish mysticism with the cards can be of benefit and enhancement for those decks that incorporate such esoteric juxtapositions.

Jackson states that the alternative school of though is based upon using the imagery and the symbols of the cards in an entirely intuitive and highly personal means. She then goes on to detail the number of decks, although clones of the RWS/Thoth family, that portend to evoke the intuitive and the personal and as such seems to disincline towards history and evolution.

I am compelled to wonder to what purpose did she limit both us and the cards to such distinctions? Obviously, there is at least a "third school" of thought and possibly many more.

I know this for a fact, as I belong to "a school of thought" that falls outside and apart from her distinctions. My philosophy of the cards entails an analysis of the distant history as well as the more recently secret society history (the modern), and the even more recent history, of the New Age Movement and its many offspring (the post-modern).

I propose that it is both sufficient and necessary to look to the creators of the decks and to the best of our ability absorb and incorporate their purpose in creating the deck and then to use our intuition and our personal understanding to further our appreciation of any given deck.

If the creator utilizes the Kabala in their cards then it behooves us, the user, to have an understanding of and an appreciation of the Kabala. If the creator of the deck incorporates arithmology or Enochian magic, the same applies. While many would discount the necessity of having an understanding of the cosmology and culture of decks that are based upon traditional societies and/or epics, I find my comprehension and redaction abilities enhanced by such an understanding.

In this time and place there are nearly as many curriculums as there are decks. While personal analysis and intuition are a vital part of the knowledge of tarot they are neither separate from, nor are they sufficient to decry an understanding of the creator's purpose and role.

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