COURSE INDEX · ANDREW T. AUSTIN
The tarot as a language of images
Study the symbols, stories and relationships within the tarot. Compare the Tarot de Marseille, Rider-Waite-Smith and Thoth decks, trace their sources, and examine how their images work as metaphors.
100 lessons · 22 trumps · 40 numbered cards · 16 court cards · 22 supporting studies
This course concerns symbolism and archetypes. It does not teach divination.
Pamela Colman Smith, The Fool. From Waite’s 1922 illustrated edition.
ON THIS PAGE
Introductions · The 22 trumps · The 40 numbered cards · The 16 court cards · Paths and correspondences · Extended card studies · Symbolism and history · Reference and connections
MAIN SEQUENCE
A route through the course
- Introductions and foundations
The three opening lessons establish the suits, numbers and Tree of Life. - The twenty-two trumps
Follow the sequence from the Fool to the World, comparing the images and their sources. - The numbered cards
Follow each suit from Ace to Ten, then compare how the same number appears in different elements. - The court cards
Begin with the two court overviews, followed by the sixteen individual figures.
The main sequence ends with the individual court cards. The paths, extended studies and history sections offer optional routes into particular subjects. The glossary and correspondence map can be consulted whenever a term or association needs clarification.
01 · BEGIN HERE
Introductions and foundations
The structure of the pack, the Tree of Life, and a practical way to work with its symbolic vocabulary.
Introduction to Tarot Symbolism: Part 1
Four suits, ten numbers and twenty-two paths.
Introduction to Tarot Symbolism: Part 2
Ten spheres and the relationships between them.
Practical Wisdom of the Sephiroth
Bring the symbolic map into ordinary actions.
02 · THE CENTRAL SEQUENCE
The twenty-two trumps
Each lesson examines the image, its individual symbols, their sources, and the relationships between different versions of the card.
The sequence below follows Rider-Waite-Smith numbering. In the Thoth deck, Strength becomes Lust and is numbered XI; Justice becomes Adjustment and is numbered VIII. Other changed names are noted beside their lessons.
0 · The Fool
The traveller who has reached an edge.
III · The Empress
The conditions that allow things to grow.
IV · The Emperor
Authority takes a seat and a boundary.
V · The Hierophant
A teaching acquires an institution.
VI · The Lovers
Relationship begins with a visible difference.
VII · The Chariot
What does the conqueror carry?
IX · The Hermit
A light held for someone else.
XII · The Hanged Man
Suspended between an image and its meaning.
XIII · Death
What passes, and what takes form?
XV · The Devil
Desire, dependence, and the image of power.
XVI · The Tower
When the structure of certainty breaks.
XVII · The Star
Receiving, replenishing, and giving form to possibility.
XVIII · The Moon
Following a path in borrowed light.
XIX · The Sun
Openness beyond the garden wall.
03 · FOUR SUITS, TEN NUMBERS
The forty numbered cards
Explore each suit from Ace to Ten. Every lesson brings together three card images and explains their symbols, Qabalistic correspondences and astrological associations. The Marseille illustrations use a historical Camoin edition after the Conver pattern.
Wands
Fire, energy and the movement from an initial impulse into sustained action.
Cups
Water, feeling and the forms taken by relationship, pleasure and loss.
Swords
Air, thought and the uses of distinction, conflict and understanding.
Pentacles, Disks and Coins
Earth, material form and the ways resources are gathered, shaped and shared.
04 · FIGURES AND CHARACTER
The sixteen court cards
Compare the King, Queen, Knight and Page in each suit through the Marseille, Rider-Waite-Smith and Thoth images. The overview lessons explain the four ranks and their elemental relationships.
The 16 Court Cards: Part 1
Four elements expressed through four kinds of activity.
The 16 Court Cards: Part 2
Natural forces, zodiacal spans and sixteen character portraits.
For comparison, these pages pair Waite-Smith’s King, Queen, Knight and Page with Thoth’s Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess. The lessons explain where the designs and older rank conventions differ.
Pentacles, Disks and Coins
05 · THE WIDER ARRANGEMENT
Paths and correspondences
The twenty-two paths and the vital triads connect individual cards with the larger structure of the Tree.
Trumps on the 22 Paths
The trumps, Hebrew letters and celestial correspondences.
The Vital Triads
Seven groups of three, with the Universe as the whole.
06 · FOLLOW A THEME
Extended card studies
Longer studies of emotional metaphor, immersion, solar imagery and the four living creatures.
The Hermit and The Hurts: Emotional Metaphor and Creative Solitude
From the language of injury to the work of illumination.
Death and Immersion Metaphor: Pressure, Change and Renewal
An environment can allow movement while offering no apparent way out.
The Sun: Part 2
Five environments for light, boundaries and movement.
The Four Kerubim
Living creatures, throne imagery and four elemental relationships.
07 · CONTEXT AND COMPARISON
Symbolism and history
Further material on polarity, ritual gesture, Pan, divine names, astronomical cycles and early Italian tarot.
0 = 2: Getting Something from Nothing
Polarity, creation stories and images of reunited opposites.
The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
Orientation, gesture and the body as a symbolic diagram.
Hymn to Pan
Invocation, bodily imagery and a changing speaker.
Precession of the Equinoxes
A slow change in orientation and its symbolic use in the ages.
Shem Ha Mephorash
Letters, names and the construction of a symbolic pattern.
Visconti Tarot Trumps
Recognising familiar figures in an early Italian visual language.
08 · REFERENCE AND CONNECTIONS
The course as a whole
Compare the four suits by number, follow the correspondence map, look up recurring symbols and terms, and place the three decks in their historical setting. The final study brings related images together across the pack.
Numbers Across the Four Suits
How one number produces four different conditions.
The Tarot Correspondence Map
Tree, elements, planets, zodiac and court figures.
Tarot Symbols and Terms
An alphabetical glossary and illustrated symbol index.
Tarot History and the Three Decks
From Italian playing cards to Marseille, Smith and Harris.
Tarot as a Symbolic Whole
Connections across trumps, numbered cards and courts.