Liberating Tarot: Engaging with Self and Society through a Deck of Cards

The Tarot is a deck of liberation, with the potential to free us from various forms of internalized oppression and limitation, encouraging us to foster more constructive and healthier relationships with ourselves and others. It also provides glimpses of how a society might transform itself, inviting us to formulate new social structures that may contribute towards better relationships within the wider community. However, a thought-provoking view is that Tarot itself is subject to a certain degree of “bondage,” and requires some sense of its own “liberation.” It requires liberation from its links with fraudulent practices and New Age acquisitiveness; liberation from the often outdated and discriminatory value-norms and assumptions that embellish many of its more popular and mainstream decks; liberation from a view of spirituality that moves little beyond that of self-healing for the privileged; liberation from dualistic philosophies which may elevate the soul at the expense of the body and the environment. One of the aims of this book is to examine such concerns, but also to explore more “liberating” forms of interpretation and practice.