Quotes about Tarot

We offer you ten quotes about tarot, by A. E. Waite, P. D. Ouspensky, Carl Gustav Jung, Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons and Alejandro Jodorowsky:









A. E. Waite, British occultist, the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, author of „The Pictorial Key to the Tarot“:

The true Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs.

Tarot embodies symbolical presentations of universal ideas, behind which lie all the implicits of the human mind, and it is in this sense that they contain secret doctrine, which is the realization by the few of truths imbedded in the consciousness of all, though they have not passed into express recognition by ordinary men.

There is a Secret Tradition concerning the Tarot, as well as a Secret Doctrine contained therein .

P. D. Ouspensky, Russian mathematician and occultist, author of „The Symbolism of the Tarot “:









There are many methods for developing the “sense of symbols” in those who are striving to understand the hidden forces of Nature and Man, and for teaching the fundamental principles as well as the elements of the esoteric language. The most synthetic, and one of the most interesting of these methods, is the Tarot

Yes, the Tarot contains and expresses any doctrine to be found in our consciousness, and in this sense it h a s definiteness. It represents Nature in all the richness of its infinite possibilities, and there is in it as in Nature, not one but all potential meanings. And these meanings are fluent and ever-changing, so the Tarot cannot be specifically this or that, for it ever moves and yet is ever the same

In order to become acquainted with the Tarot, it is necessary to understand the basic ideas of the Kabala and of Alchemy. For it represents, as, indeed, many commentators of the Tarot think, a summary of the Hermetic Sciences–the Kabala, Alchemy, Astrology, Magic, with their different divisions. All these sciences, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, really represent one system of a very broad and deep psychological investigation of the nature of man in his relation to the world of noumena (God, the world of Spirit) and to the world of phenomena (the visible, physical world)

Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist, founder of analytical psychology:

They are psychological images, symbols with which one plays, as the unconscious seems to play with its contents. They combine in certain ways, and the different combinations correspond to the playful development of events in the history of mankind .

Aleister Crowley, English occultist and ceremonial magician, author of „The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians“, co-creator of the Thoth tarot deck:

The cards of the Tarot are living individuals .

Jack Parsons, American occultist, chemical engineer, inventor and rocket propulsion researcher:

Remember that the Tarot is a great and sacred arcanum – its abuse is an obscenity in the inner and a folly in the outer. It is intended for quite other purposes than to determine when the tall dark man will meet the fair rich widow .

Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chilean film-maker and occultist, co-author of „The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards“:

The tarot is sacred.







