Tarot Game

By S. L. MacGregor Mathers

These Tarot Cards may be used like the ordinary packs for games, as well as for divination; and it may be as well to give the general rules and mode of play. The Game of Tarot may be played by either two or three persons. The full pack of 78 cards is shuffled and cut in the ordinary manner. The dealer dears them out in three hands by five cards at a time, and places the remaining three cards at his own right-hand side. There will thus be three hands of 25 cards each, and three cards besides. The players sort their hands, and the dealer discards the three most useless cards in his own hand and exchanges them for the before-mentioned three cards. The deal is taken in rotation by each player. The method of dealing is the same, whether two or three players participate, three hands being dealt out in each instance, but if only two players contend with each other, the third hand is untouched by either party.

The points constituting the game are 100, which may be marked on a cribbage board, on paper, or by an ordinary bezique-marker.

Before the hands are played out their score is reckoned in the following way:

Whoever has three of the Greater or three of the Lesser Trumps in his hand, scores 5 points for the same; 10 points if he has four; and 15 points if he have all five. If the player has any ten trumps in his hand they will score 10 points, any thirteen trumps 15 points. It does not matter if Greater or Lesser Trumps, which have been already scored, form part of such ten or thirteen; all scores are independent of other combinations. Furthermore, for any cards to be scored they must be shown to the adversary at the time of scoring; this rule holds good in all cases. The non-dealer scores and leads first. If three play, the player on the dealer’s left hand begins.

Seven cards bear the distinguishing title of Tarot Trumps; they are:

The Universe, 21; the Mat, or Foolish Man, 0; the Pagad, Juggler, or Magician, 1; the King of Scepters; the King of Cups; the King of Swords; and the King of Pentacles.

If the player has any two of these Tarot Trumps, he can ask his opponent for a third; if the latter cannot reply by showing a third Tarot Trump, the former can score 5 points; but if he has the third it must be given up to the asker, who then does not score, but gives him some card of small value in exchange. For every three Tarot Trumps actually held in the hand, the holder marks 15 points.

Sequences of trumps or of cards of the same suit count; for every four cards in sequence, 5 points; for every seven cards, 10 points; for ten cards, 15 points. All cards forming these scores must be shown to the adversary.

0, The Foolish Man, is the lowest card in the pack in playing the hand; can take no card of any suit, and may be played to a card of any suit. For instance, if the adversary leads a King, and you have only the Queen of that suit remaining in your hand, but have also the 0, you can play this instead of the Queen, and thus save her from being taken. A King cut counts 5 points to whosoever cuts it. In each suit King is highest, then come Queen, Knight, Knave, Ten, Nine, etc., down to Ace, which is lowest, and can only take the 0. The Trumps reckon from 21, which is highest, to 1, which is lowest. You must follow suit if you can; if not, you may trump. Each trick should be kept separate for counting afterwards. Of course, the principal care of the player should be directed towards saving his own important cards, and taking those of the adversary. The player who takes a trick leads next. When all the hand is played out, the tricks on either side are counted as follows:—

For every trick in which there is a Tarot Trump, 5 points (the 0 counts to its original possessor, while the Pagad, 1, counts to the player who takes it). For every trick with a

Queen, 4 points; with a Knight, 3 points; with a Knave, 2 points; for every other trick, 1 point.

At the end of each hand the points made by each player are added up separately, then the lesser is taken from the greater, and only the excess points of the more fortunate player are scored. The same is done in each hand, and the player who, in this way, first reaches 100 points (or over in the final hand) wins the game.

For my reader’s convenience I append a table of the points which can be scored:  

 If three players contend, of course the third player will form an additional factor in the game. Then, when the three compare their various scores in the same hand, only he who has most should score, and then only the amount by which he exceeds the player who comes second. The other players do not score at all.

Before concluding this short treatise, I will say a few words on the occult and Qabalistical signification of these wonderful Tarot Cards. It has been long known that the ordinary 52 card pack was susceptible of some peculiar numerical significa­tions, e.g.:  

Furthermore, if we add together:

But concealed behind their apparently arbitrary and bizarre designs, the Tarot Cards contain a far more complicated system of recondite symbolism. We fmd the number ten multiplied by the mystical number four, and combined with a primitive hieroglyphic alphabet of twenty-two letters.

Eliphas Lèvi says in his “Histoire de la Magie”: “The absolute hieroglyphical science had for its basis an alphabet of which all the gods were letters, all the letters ideas, all the ideas numbers, and all the numbers perfect signs.

“This hieroglyphical alphabet of which Moses made the great secret of his Cabala, and which he retook from the Egyptians; for, according to the Sepher Yetzirah, it came from Abraham; this alphabet, we say, is the famous Book of Thoth, suspected by Court de Gèbelin to be preserved to the present time under the form of that peculiar pack of cards, which is called the Tarot. . . The ten numbers and twenty-two letters are what are called in the Cabala the thirty-two paths of science, and their philosophical description is the subject of that primitive and revered work known as the Sepher Yetzirah, which is still to be found in the collection of Pistorius and others. The Alphabet of Thoth is the original of our Tarot, only in an altered form. The Tarot which we have is of Jewish origin, and the types of the figures cannot be traced back further than the reign of Charles VI.”

The Sepher Yetzirah referred to in the above quotation has been recently translated by my friend Dr. Wynn Westcott, who is a skilful and erudite Qabalistical student, so that it can now be read in English. It certainly gives, in my opinion, the Qabalistical Key of the Tarot; and shows at once, by evident analogy, the ancient and religious origin of its bizarre symbolism. It consists of thirty-three short sections (the thirty-third being merely recapitulatory) divided into five chapters, and elucidated by thirty-two occult paragraphs called the “Paths”. In fact, it may be called a treatise on the ten and the twenty-two. The numbers from one to ten are said to symbolize the Spirit, Air, Water, Fire, Height, Depth, East, West, North, South. The twenty-two letters are divided into three Mother Letters, A, M, SH, referring to Air, Water, and Fire; seven double letters, B, G, D, K, P, R, TH, referring to the seven planets, etc.; and twelve simple letters, H, V, Z, CH, T, I, L, N, S, O, Tz, Q, referring to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, etc.

Christian, the disciple of Lèvi, in his recent work on Magic, has made the explanation of the twenty-two hieroglyphics of the Tarot form part of the initiatory ceremonies of the Egyptian mysteries of Crata Repoa.

The symbols of three of the twenty-two Trumps of the Tarot were thus restored by Eliphas Lèvi.

7. The Chariot.— A cubical chariot with four columns, surmounted by an azure and star-decked canopy. Within the chariot and between the four columns stands a Conqueror crowned with a circlet, from which rise and shine three pentagrams of gold. On his cuirass are three right angles; and on his shoulders the Urim and Thummim symbolized by the two crescents of the Moon in increase and decrease. In his hand is a scepter surmounted by a globe, a square, and a triangle. His attitude is proud and tranquil. To the Chariot is attached a double sphinx, or rather two sphinxes joined together; one of them turns its head, and they both look in the same direction. The sphinx which turns its head towards the other is black and menacing, the other is white and calm. On the square which forms the front of the Chariot we see the Indian lingam surmounted by the flying globe of the Egyptians.

10. The Wheel of Fortune.— A wheel of seven spokes, the cosmogonical wheel of Ezekiel, with a dog-headed figure ascending on one side (Anubis, the Egyptian Mercury); and a demon descending on the other (the Egyptian evil deity, Typhon); the former of these bears a caduceus, the latter a trident; both figures are bound to the wheel. Above them is a sphinx at the balance-point of the wheel, holding a drawn sword between its lion’s claws.

12. The Devil.— Throned on a cube above the Universe is a goat-headed, satyr-like figure, bearing on its brow the pentagram, apex upward, so as to make it a symbol of Light. With one hand it points upwards to the symbol of the Moon in increase, with the other downwards to that of the Moon in decrease, thus symbolizing the eternal equilibrium of Mercy and Justice; the first two fingers and thumb of each hand are extended as in giving the sign of benediction. One arm is feminine, the other masculine. The torch of intelligence is placed between its horns, as the Magical Light of the Universal Equilibrium. The caduceus which holds the place of the generative organs signifies the eternity of life; the belly is covered with scales to represent Water; the circle above it is the atmosphere; the Wings are the emblem of the Volatile; and the deformed and goat-like feet rest upon the earth.

Space does not allow me to enter further into the subject, on which, indeed, several volumes might be written without exhausting it. I can only hope that this short treatise will suffice to give my readers some idea of the recondite meaning of the Tarot Cards, and how to employ them in divination.

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Tarot Game