Science Tarot Cards

This one's sure to ruffle a few feathers: Science Tarot aims to use the magickal mystery deck as a platform for illuminating real scientific concepts. The face cards profile different scientists and link them to specific neurotransmitters. According to the site, "Science Tarot is a group project, an exciting collaboration of professional talent including post-doc scientists, experienced tarot readers, graphic designers and published artists. We are united by our desire to explore and create at the intersection of science and art." From the description of the 7 of Wands - Expansion (seen above left):

The red giant is at a great, expansive stage of the star's life and has grown to thousands of times its original size. Inner creation defines this moment in your life story as well.

The shell around the giant's collapsing core becomes hotter and starts fusing its hydrogen into helium, making the star brighter and the outer shells expand and grow cooler and less dense. Although fiery pressures mark the beginning of your journey, these expansive later years allow creation with a wider reach and a dense inner core.

We speak of "finding your voice" to describe this mature state. Other duties and diversions may fall by the wayside as work consumes the days filled with creation and productivity.

Hero's Journey, Step 7: Return with new knowledge into everyday life. The hero reveals a deeper determination.

Science Tarot Cards (Thanks, Chris Arkenberg!)

• [Anonymous]

  While I think this is a very cool idea, I cannot help but be offput by what appears to be a complete disregard for the traditional meaning of the tarot cards. Tarot cards are based on (Western) psychogical archetypes, so there is a lot of ways to make different themes fit into tarot cards, hense all the different decks on the market. But it looks like the creators of this deck dropped the ball.

  In every tarot tradition I can think of, the two of swords (pictured above) represents a balance or peace of forces, not “action.” Perhaps reaction (equal and opposite) or inertia would be a more “accurate” concept for this card. Also, the seven of wands traditionally represents courage or valour, not expansion. Perhaps that concept would be best for the two of wands or the five of cups.

  I apologize if this all sounds like nonsense, but I am a magick geek and this is a bit of a Han-shot-first moment for me. For anyone who feels that occult theory and magic is useless to the scientifically inclined, I recommend reading up on Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary and Jung.

  • [JDWickson]

    In the tradition of Tarot game playing, a tradition older than Tarot card reading, the meaning tacked on to the two of swords is irrelevant.

    • [Anonymous]

      Clearly these card are intended as a response to the esoteric use of the tarot. These are not “playing cards,” so I think it’s fair to evaluate these cards within the context of the tarot’s use as divination tool and occult text rather than as a game.

      I do not contest for one second that the tarot was created as a game and that it was then made to fit into occult philosophy. While I am annoyed as the disconnect between the tarot I am familiar with, I can see how it must be very irritating that the history of the game is practically unknown in America.

      Are there any good resources online about how to play the traditional game?

      • [JDWickson]

        Yes, the Science Tarot is using the esoteric interpretation of Tarot but I am critical of the project for neglecting to inform people that this is not the only context in which the Tarot may be viewed. Here are some of the best links in English on playing the Tarot card games. Pay also special attention to some of these decks as they look quite different from the ones normally used for divinatory purposes. I think it would be good if more Americans were familiar with them.
        http://www.gameoftarot.com

        http://www.tarocchino.com

        http://www.pagat.com/tarot/

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot_games

        http://www.tarotgame.org/

      • [Anonymous]

        The traditional game is called Tarocchi – you’ll have better luck finding the rules if you have the correct term for the game.

• [fyreflye]

  I actually bought one of the first decks issued and I love it. True, I’m a collector of rare tarot decks and I don’t expect many others, especially card readers, for whom science is the enemy, to buy it; but the art work is as least as good as most commercial decks (the artist is an illustrator of science texts) and I expect it to become a rarity fairly quickly. I’d offer a free reading for the future of Boing Boing but I don’t really believe any of that stuff.

• [Anonymous]

  All criticism aside, the choosing Schrödinger’s cat as the Wheel of Fortune is a stroke of genius.

• [Moienmarkt]

  Ok. I need those ones.

• [Crashproof]

  I like folk magic, and I love science. When the two are combined or pseudo-combined though, it just kinda hacks me off.

• [Anonymous]

  Personally.. I find this brilliant. As someone who is very logical and really believes in science, but also keeps an open mind to other possibilities (I don’t find the two always mutually exclusive), this just really rocked my boat. I showed it to a friend who frequently does tarot readings and she just went nuts over it. Kudos to the guys who thought this one up. Inspired!

• [Anonymous]

  thank you

• [Anonymous]

  Don’t give PZ Myers the link to this, he’ll crap a brick.

• [JDWickson]

  As a skeptic of the paranormal and as a player of classic games including card games played with Tarot,I am an advocate of the use of the Tarot in public education in an unbiased manner and my criticism of this project is because it is culturally biased in favor of American “new age” sensibilities and it fosters myths about culture and history. It is a myth that Tarot was created for divination. The Tarot was made for games which are still played mostly in European countries.

  I wish the deck creators did a better job of educating people about the Tarot itself and of its role in games instead of misleading the public into believing there is no other use of Tarot cards besides divination. It’s difficult to educate people about actual games played with Tarot when our educational institutions continue to typecast this cultural artifact and deny the existence of any Tarot culture apart from divination.

  I am usually in favor of public education having projects about Tarot cards but instead of always pandering to the interests of the “new age” population, they should have more respect for history and they should better promote cultural diversity by informing the public about how Tarot cards are also used in actual games.

  Tarot images reflect the times and places in which they are created and are good for learning about European history and geography. The traditional Tarot images of decks such as the Visconti-Sforza decks reflect the history of the Italian Renaissance and are well-suited for history courses on this topic. In France, where it is understood that Tarot is a card game and where there is a French Federation of Tarot which regulates tournaments, young students actually make their own Tarot de Marseilles decks as an arts and crafts project. However any teacher here in the States who attempts to use Tarot cards for such educational purposes is involved in controversy because of the limited view of Tarot promoted by the popular media and by many metaphysical publishers. Projects such as this Science Tarot are counter productive to education because they promote myths which are harmful to the Tarot being used in academic settings.

• [Anonymous]

  I would not be so critical of this project, if it weren’t presented as a means of education. I think it fails at education because it’s failing to educate people about the Tarot itself and upholds without debunking the common myth that Tarot cards are only used for divination. I would be more charitable towards this project if they did provide some information on the history of Tarot and how they are also used in certain card games. I’m all in favor of using the Tarot for educational purposes, but if educators engage in the same cultural denial as promoters of divinatory Tarot, then they are not truly educating people.

• [blueelm]

  Yay! I bought one. Why not? The beauty of the tarot is that it’s basically a set of parameters that can be translated into different philosophical systems with just some tweaking to create weird fusions, kind of like any other game, only much heavier on the art/symbolism aspect. Science, although perhaps entirely by accident, produces some beautiful imagery and any symbol that enters the human mind can be used for poetry so I think it sounds like a lot of fun, and the images look good too! It seems like a lot of thought went into this in order to make it a functional deck as well as informative with regards to the science.

  • [2k]

    I would add that it appears to me that the underlying philosophical context in which the parameters of the tarot are enmeshed, is itself, so open to interpretation and personally generated associations that, in my mind at least, the implication is that any system of related symbols (of a complex enough nature), when concentrated on, will help generate the free-associations and subsequent insights into otherwise sub-liminal mental processes that the tarot is famous for inducing.

    I think I am trying to indicate that it is effective because it is nonsense. Or arbitrary. ahem.

    • [blueelm]

      I didn’t know I was indicating it was effective?

      Effective at… what? I consider it entertainment.

      • [2k]

        affective?

• [Anonymous]

  JD, you are way too up in your drethers about this. The tarot is a malleable cultural entity, beholden to no-one, and the Rider-Waite “school,” as it were, is as valid as any other artistic interpretation of the tarot. Games and methods of divination have a cultural connection. They can certainly be mutually exclusive, but casting lots, for instance– one of the simplest and oldest games– has always had a divinatory connotation in CERTAIN uses.

  Anyway, not everyone thinks of divination in a hocus-pocus manner; the Jungian occult school, and many students of myth and psychology and art, use the tarot without regard to “supernatural” beliefs.

  Your beef seems to be largely that the Rider-Waite aesthetic and divinatory use has overshadowed the merits of the card game. Certainly a legitimate point, but again, the two are not mutually exclusive. I knew that the tarot began as a card game — as best we know– and so does every other tarot enthusiast I know; we don’t give a damn. That doesn’t have any bearing on our divinatory use for it at all. If you shared your links and told us about the game and held seminars and workshops about it, we’d probably think, “hey, cool!” However, as it stands, you are terribly condescending.

  Let me humbly suggest that being condescending is not going to attract anybody to your cause.

• [pdxhayes]

  Ordered!

  I will be the envy of the engineering department at… hmm… I probably shouldn’t say… but believe me, they will be a hit!

• [Anonymous]

  Interesting card readings… a little different for sure.

• [JohnnyOC]

  Guys, really..

  It’s a medium which consists of 2 sets of cards (major/minor). Who honestly cares the background of Tarot for something like this.

  It’s like saying you can’t do modern art on a painting canvas because the history of “real art” canvases help interpret the image, oh, and the canvas material before that used to hold fish for fishermen.

  People then they start spouting off on how the Renaissance Era was the true area of painting and how Modern art shouldn’t be painted on canvases.

  • [JDWickson]

    The Science Tarot and other derivative decks should in no way be compared with Modern art. Modernists such as Kandinsky and Mondrian were innovators but all these silly pop culture decks we have seen recently are nothing more than parodies of the Rider Waite Smith Tarot. It’s a recycling of a now shopworn image of Tarot which has been force-fed to the ignorant masses.

    Below are examples of some Tarot decks which more American artists should be familiar. The sooner we realize that we don’t need the divinatory Tarot or the Rider Waite Smith deck to create truly great Tarot art the better off we’d all be.
    http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/regions-france/
    http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/sola-busca/
    http://www.levalet.com/TAROT/IMAGES-T/TAROTJ2.HTM
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_tarot
    http://www.labirintoermetico.com/02Tarocchi/sirio.html

• [tyger11]

  Someone should send one of these decks to Richard Dawkins. :)

• [Tynam]

  This is going in my big box of cool stuff, immediately.

  (Other people refer to it as my bedroom, but that’s inaccurate. The bed is not fundamental to its purpose; the bookshelves are.)

• [JDWickson]

  “Tarocchi” is NOT the “correct term” for the game as opposed to the divinatory uses. “Tarocchi” is simply the Italian word for Tarot. “Tarocchi” is plural while “Tarocco” is singular. It is used by Italians in the same way the French use the word “Tarot” In both the Italian and the French languages, there is a distinction made between the “divinatory Tarot” and the “Tarot to be played” If you were to put “Tarocchi” in the Google search engine instead of finding game rules you are more likely to find Italian language divination sites. However many German speakers employ the term “Tarock” to refer exclusively to the traditional game while reserving the French word “Tarot” for the divinatory uses. Even here, though there are some exceptions. I have seen the term “Tarock” also being used to describe divination. One example being a German language novel called “Madame Tarock” and another would be a deck called “Erde Tarock” or “Earth Tarot”

• [namnezia]

  These are actually kind of cool! Maybe a bit flaky, but also a bit informative from what I gather from their site.

• [Anonymous]

  This looks more like a contemplative deck than a divinatory deck. A problem I have with how the tarot is presented is that while the tarot can be used for divination that’s not the way most tarot decks are meant to be used. I mean, you can use the i-ching for divination but it’s better as a way to learn chinese philosophy. I view the tarot as a way to learn qaballah personally.