The Illuminated Tarot Guidebook

By Caitlin Keegan

The Illuminated Tarot Guidebook is the official guidebook for The Illuminated Tarot deck. The guidebook begins with an introduction from the deck's creator and an overview of its structure and relationship to traditional 78-card tarot decks. Each card description includes a suit- and number-based Quick Reading, a Traditional Reading based on the corresponding card(s) from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the inspiration for each image, and questions for reflection. The Illuminated Tarot Guidebook goes beyond the keywords, inspiring readers to expand their interpretation of The Illuminated Tarot's images.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Caitlin Keegan
• Release date: Oct 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201398927

Book preview

Title Page

Illustration of an open deck of cards with sunrays coming out.

Caitlin Keegan

Copyright

The Illuminated Tarot Guidebook

© 2021 Caitlin Keegan

Designed by Caitlin Keegan

Edited by Rachel Bozek

Images from The Illuminated Tarot © Caitlin Keegan

Rider-Waite Tarot deck images used with permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902. c. by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Illustration of an open deck of cards with sunrays coming out.

Introduction

Background and Deck Structure

Playing Cards, Cartomancy, and Tarot

Major and Minor Arcana Combinations

Exclusion of Knights

Reversals

Tarot and Oracle Decks

The Rider-Waite-Smith Deck

The Cards

Joker / The Fool

Clubs

Diamonds

Hearts

Spades

Appendix

Suits, Numbers, and Court Positions

Suit Correspondence

Numbers

Court Cards

The Major Arcana

Themes

Index and Keywords

References

The Illuminated Art Series

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Illustration of an open deck of cards with sunrays coming out.

My first exposure to tarot came in the form of an oracle deck my mom had, called Morgan’s Tarot. This deck was first published in 1970, by its creator Morgan Robbins and illustrator Darshan Chorpash Zenith, but when I came across it as a teenager in the 1990s I had no clue what any of its images or references meant. What appealed to me about this deck was its expressive line art drawing style and its prophetic-sounding Buddhist wisdom. (One card with a bumpy hand-drawn circle reads This is not a perfect circle, but this is a perfect whatever it is.) The deck seemed to have secret knowledge and I wanted to understand it.

It wasn’t long before I picked up the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and attempted to learn more about tarot. I wish I could say the rest was history, but in fact it was much later (in my 30s) that I was able to really connect with tarot. By this time, I had studied illustration and had been working for a while as a designer and illustrator. I was seeing a therapist who suggested talking about images as a way of accessing and articulating deeper feelings. It was in this context that I started to think about tarot again. Tarot imagery fascinated me when I first saw it; why did I lose interest? I realized that the idea of predicting the future—the most commonly understood use for tarot at the time—had no appeal to me. I didn’t believe in it. Thinking about tarot in the context of self-reflection and discovery opened up a new way of interacting with its archetypes. I started to get excited about tarot again.

After reading and researching as much as I could, I started to think about creating a deck. It was important to me, first and foremost, to make one that was accessible to a broad audience. I wanted to create images that could be easily read and understood without referring to a guidebook. (And yes, I see the irony in mentioning that here!)

Visual art and illustration have the potential to communicate beyond language. Art can speak to different people in different ways, and the message received can change depending on context. In other words, the way we interpret an image six weeks or six years from now might be very different from how we read it today because life experiences shift our perspective. For me, this is where the magic of tarot comes from.

One aspect of tarot history that has always had my attention is its connection to playing cards. So much is unknown about the precise origin of tarot as we know it, but we do know that tarot and playing cards were used interchangeably (see the next page for more on tarot and cartomancy).

I loved the idea of bringing the two formats together explicitly, into a fully illustrated deck to be used in multiple ways. The method I used to create The Illuminated Tarot was a combination of game and divination practice. After researching the cards and determining the overall deck structure (more about that below), I pulled one card at random from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck each week and created my own version. I continued this process for one year to create a 52-card deck. The fifty-third card, The Fool, was created last.

The Illuminated Tarot is great for intuitive readings, introspection, clarity, and thoughtful analysis, but I hope it’s also fun to use. (It is a playing card deck!) My intention was to make the deck as accessible and useful as possible, so when you use The Illuminated Tarot, I encourage you to set aside any tarot superstitions you might have and engage with it on your own terms. Tarot’s power comes from you, the reader, and your intuition. I hope that you’ll use this book as a starting point to create your own rituals, whether it’s keeping a daily journal, reading for friends, using the cards in meditation, or playing Crazy Eights—there are no rules and a million possibilities.

This book is not prescriptive. Tarot imagery is a rich resource because meanings can change from day to day. The descriptions in this guidebook reveal what I had in mind when I created the cards, but even as the illustrator I might read the images differently depending on circumstance. When I think back to why I initially lost interest in tarot, a big part of that was my overreliance on guidebooks. Checking a book constantly to verify the one correct interpretation can really suck the life out of your tarot practice, so I hope you will use this guidebook to support and expand upon your own interpretation. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Background and Deck Structure

Playing Cards, Cartomancy, and Tarot

Playing cards go all the way back to the Tang dynasty, in ninth-century China, where they were printed using wood blocks. They first appeared in Europe around the eleventh century, possibly finding their way there with travelers or through trade. It is also likely that the cards were introduced to Europe by the Knights Templar who learned of them during the Crusades. The oldest surviving 52-card playing card deck originated in Egypt in the 12th and 13th centuries and is comprised of four suits similar to the tarot suits we know today: polo sticks, coins, swords, and cups.

Legend has it that the court cards, as we now know them, originated around 1390 with Charles VI of France, who interpreted earlier versions of these cards as members of the royal court. He also popularized playing cards and within two years, every family