Re: rebranding tarot in the USA
anonymous
July 3 2008, 03:55:59 UTC
Well, there's still speculation as to what was really the issue. It is not only fundamentalists who are to blame for their ignorance, I believe the American tarot industry itself might be at least somewhat in fault. I don't think the way tarot is commonly sold in the US still serves a useful purpose. Back in the 60s it made more sense to sell tarot only for fortune telling because of the big occult boom in that decade. In Europe however tarot is also sold as a real card game similar to spades and not only as a fortune telling tool. There's a very real danger of a tarot market crash so the customer base for tarot needs to be expanded if this is to be avoided. I believe there is also a place for tarot cards as a means of teaching European history in America's schools. If the tarot publishers educated Americans about the role the cards played in the history of game playing, they could be more easily integrated into public education. I've read where this was done in secular France where tarot is played as a spades-like game. The tendency of too many tarot publishers to maintain an air of mystery regarding the cards and to even distort the actual history of them has unfortunately limited the acceptance of the cards to mainstream America and made them more controversial than necessary.
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