The Symbolic Whisper of Tarot

What can tarot symbolism be compared to?

Imagine someone with no engineering background picking up a complex technical blueprint. To them, it looks like a “mess” of lines, arrows, numbers, and strange markings. If they’re asked to copy it, they’ll reproduce it only approximately—they’ll get details wrong, skip something that seems “insignificant,” and worst of all, they won’t even realize where the mistake is. And when that blueprint is “switched on” in the real world, the system won’t work.

Tarot can be understood in a similar way: as a visual code in which every detail has its place, its function, and its relationship to everything else. These aren’t simply pretty pictures—they’re symbols that operate like a language. If someone doesn’t know the grammar of that language, they’ll “read” by ear and by guesswork.

In occult tradition, tarot is often linked to the idea of the “Book of Thoth”—as an image of ancient knowledge condensed into symbols. You don’t need that idea in order to hold a deck in your hands, but it carries a certain flavor: the sense that the cards have preserved something transmitted not only through words, but through signs. Centuries have left behind different versions of the imagery, yet the same keys pass through them.

When you sink into a single card, it begins to work like a seal upon awareness. A figure’s gaze can lead toward an unseen cause. The path beneath their feet can hint at where possible choices may flow in the future. Water can speak of depths that reveal themselves through patience rather than effort. A mountain can be a trial that stands unmoving and waits. The objects in the characters’ hands behave like instruments of will: they are not ornaments, but signs of action, of choice, of cost.

Colors are not just mood. In an occult reading, they’re often felt as something more. Red can be a call to awaken vitality and to move force from the foundation up through the entire inner world. Blue can cool and open a spaciousness where silence becomes audible. Gold can feel like a sign of presence. When color joins with image, the card begins to resemble a diagram for inner attunement: entering a particular state, holding the focus, and then acting.

That is why tarot is often used beyond divinatory reading. A deck can serve as a doorway into occult work, into shifting a situation, into restoring reserves of strength, and more. A card is placed as a seal of intention—an image that “holds” the form while the will works. In those moments, tarot isn’t a conversation with the future; it is work with signs that align the inner direction so the outer world begins to respond differently.

And the deeper you go, the clearer it becomes that tarot has no patience for haste. It demands respect for its own grammar. If a symbol is pulled from its place and replaced with something “more pleasant,” the language starts to fracture. The image remains beautiful, but the key no longer fits. That is why traditions preserve their foundational signs—not out of whim, but out of the knowledge that the system has an inner logic.

For anyone seeking more information about working with tarot, there are books that give structure to the symbols without watering them down. A solid entry point is Ritual Tarot of the Golden Dawn by Chic Cicero and Sandra Tabatha Cicero—a book that keeps its attention on the tradition, the correspondences, and the practical work with the states the cards can unlock.

Author: Nick G. Quenfield