Tarot Symbolism
by Bob O'Neill
The Association for Tarot Studies is delighted
in being able to present Bob O’Neill’s important classic: Tarot
Symbolism.
The recommended retail price is set at AU$
35 (approx €22 / US$ 28) plus postage and handling.
Airmail to most parts of the world
currently stands at above AU$ 21 (2007 costs). We have therefore decided
to use the lower figure and provide a standard international
postal charge, subject to periodic review based on alterations
in postal charges.
Total cost (including postage) AU$ 56
approximately equal to €34 / US$48 (subject to currency exchange rates)
Ordering (outside Australasia)
important note: pdf order forms are no longer used.
Payment and contacting us for delivery
We do not yet have an automated online shop and apologise for the inconveniance this may create. However, we have tried to make purchasing a two-step process: 1) pay; and then 2) let us know so that we can send the book to your address.
First make you Credit card payment or PayPal transfer (please note that the details you enter on PayPal are not visible to us, including postal details linked to your credit card). For those hesitant in using PayPal or other online payment facility, our combined individual experience over the years has shown it to be secure - and of course, I personally always check Credit Card statements in case of strange activity.
After your payment has been made, please return to this page.
Next, we need to know the address to which you would like the book sent (this need not be your own if you are sending it as a gift). So please include the addressee's name and postal address for the book's delivery, and the date of your PayPal payment (so we can make sure all payments are accounted for against mailed items).
Email details to jmd@association.tarotstudies.org.
Please allow five working days for your order to be processed and mailed.
Members of the Association for Tarot
Studies receive a 25% rebate off the RRP - please
advise of your membership in the email.
If purchasing multiple copies, please first check with us for postage.
Postal address
Association for Tarot Studies
PO Box 4013
Croydon Hills
Vic. 3136
Australia
Featured Review
We have taken the opportunity to therefore
feature one of the most detailed and critical of various
reviews of this book.
The following is an excerpt from the abridged article available in the June
2004 issue of the Association for
Tarot Studies Newsletter, or in its entirety online at Michael J. Hurst's
site Carte da
Trionfi.
Book Review of Robert O'Neill's Tarot Symbolism
by Michael J. Hurst
Robert V. O’Neill wrote what is probably
the most interesting of all the historically oriented Tarot
books. It is 392 pages and expresses the author’s view
that early Tarot was in fact virtually all the things claimed
by the eighteenth-century occultists and twentieth-century
neo-Jungian interpreters, more or less. The book claims that
occultists have done much to “elucidate the meaning
of the symbols”, and “many occultist interpretations
are justified”, while taking care to reject none of
the occult sciences as possible “influences” on
Tarot. Because occultist views of Tarot have held center
stage in terms of Tarot interpretation for over two centuries,
and because this book is the most notable apologetic for
the historicity of their interpretations, O’Neill’s
work is must reading for anyone interested in either occult
or historical Tarot studies.
O’Neill devised a novel approach in arguing
for the historicity of occult Tarot, however. First, he argues
against a systematic design in terms of a coherent sequence
of the trumps. Second, he argues against a systematic design
in terms of congruent content of the trumps, the kind of
thematic design wherein all the trumps are interpreted in
terms of a single source or type of source material. Instead,
he presents the subject matter as diverse, and the sequence
as merely a vague progression. These two conclusions constitute
a nearly-complete rejection of the earlier occult systems
of meaning, all of which took a unified content (unified
within each of several layers of correspondence) and precisely
ordered sequence as key to understanding Tarot. Although
O’Neill rejects the earlier occultist interpretations
of the Tarot trumps as a coherent, precisely ordered group,
he adopts most of their various and conflicting interpretations
of the individual cards. These three elements of his approach
are closely interrelated, and shape the structure of the
book.
No Sequential Meaning or Mapping
The theories presented by generations of occultists
were primarily systems of Qabalistic and astrological correspondence.
They associated each of the
22 allegorical cards with one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and
thereby with a host of other esoteric correspondences including astrological
subjects and Paths of the Tree of Life.
This essential core of occult Tarot
is rejected by O’Neill, who notes
in Chapter 10 that “there are correspondences, but nothing so simple
as reducing the whole symbolism to the Tree of Life... There is sufficient
evidence to postulate that Kabbalah had an influence on the designers.” He
conclude that some Qabalistic “influence” is “increasingly
plausible at this stage in our explorations.” (Page 253-4.)
Introducing an appendix to that chapter, O’Neill
is a bit more clear.
[...] any such exploration must be relegated
to the sphere of pure speculation. Since we are not compelled
by logic or by the symbols themselves to accept any of
the traditional assignments, we should feel free to explore
new possibilities. [...] In many cases, understanding the
relationship of the occult sciences to the Tarot requires
that one make use of the imagination. It is at this level
that the cards have their greatest appeal. (Page 257)
Every chapter, as well as the appendices, relies on intuitional messages (i.e.,
vague analogies) and the abandonment of traditional images and sequence in
favor of occult images and interpretations of those images outside of their
sequential context. In Tarot, sequence conveys meaning. The cards’ rank
or place in the sequence is in fact its most defining characteristic. The
Pope triumphs over the Emperor, both Love and Death over the Pope, and the
Angel of Judgment over all that. Sequence conveys meaning. Likewise, in Hebrew
letter mysticism, sequence is also essential to meaning.
-------------
Read the rest of the article in the June 2004
issue of the Association
for Tarot Studies Newsletter, or in its entirety online
at Michael J. Hurst's site Carte
da Trionfi.
Michael J. Hurst's site Carte
da Trionfi contains highly important elements with
regards to both historical material and more general items
of interest to Tarot enthusiasts.
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