Is the Tarot ‘Cool’?
oday, interest in the occult is on the rise as toy companies making
significant profits push occult toys online and in big box stores, mostly to a public wholly unaware of the danger.
Are Tarot cards really dangerous? Well, the tarot (/ˈtæroʊ/; first known as trionfi and later as tarocchi, tarock) are simply playing cards, used from the mid-15th century for games such as Italian tarocchini and -- and they are still used throughout Europe for this.
Harmless enough, right?
Most English-speaking people don’t know this because in their cultures -- where such games are not played -- tarot cards are used primarily for occult attempts to see the future. This stems from the late 18th century, about the time of the Enlightenment. Tarotology/cartomancy is traced by some occult writers to ancient Egypt or the Kabbalah but there is no documented evidence of such origins or of the usage of tarot for divination before the 18th century.
So, is the Tarot cool? Alex*, age 34, is a former occultist who has become a fervent Catholic, in part because of what he experienced as a reader of the Tarot. Today, he is a husband and father keenly interested in the Faith. But that was not always the case. REGINA’s Maria Albers sat down with Alex recently to listen to his incredible story.
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