ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the ways in which the tarot has been developed theosophically. Occult theosophies of the tarot provide grammars of human meaning: that is, principles and procedures for attributing, deriving, arranging, and structuring symbolic meanings so as to creatively fashion arcane significance. These occult theosophies of the tarot, consequently, reap a rich harvest of human intelligence: expansive dictionaries and vocabularies of symbolic meanings. Occult theosophies of the tarot mediate and connect an inner, subjective world of human feeling with an outer, objectified, collective, symbolic, social world of human existence. Historically, occult meanings have been attributed to an associated with each of the cards in a tarot deck. Occult interpretations of the minor arcana, as illustrated, reflect a tacit theory of human existence. The grammars of tarot generally are ill-defined and commonly embedded within specific theosophic occult systems. The occult tarot and the exceptionally obtuse occult theosophy of alchemy commonly are interrelated.
