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Sometimes you wonder if kids haven’t seen enough B-movies. I was in the local comic shop today picking up my weekly order when a couple of kids, probably 12-13 years old, wandered in and asked if the owner stocked any tarot cards. Alarm bells instantly starting ringing in my head. Don’t they know their horror tropes! Tarot cards is just the start – if those kids aren’t watched they’ll summon something unspeakable from the the neverworld and people will die!!!
Okay, I admit they looked like fairly normal kids and they had their Mum with them so an unleashing great evil was probably fairly unlikely. In any case the shop didn’t stock tarot cards so he referred them down the mall to the goth/hippy-shop. The entire thirty second conversation felt like it had been lifted from the opening scene of a horror film — they type that starts with kids messing around with tarot cards or some other occult junk before accidentally summoning an ancient evil that slices them, their friends, and a random assortment of blonde co-eds to pieces before being dispatched back to the neverworld for just long enough to tenuously justify a sequel.
(What’s strange is that you can actually get tarot decks for little children. Personally I think the entire occult, Halloween revival, mock-pagan stuff is complete and utter gibberish, but I am still uneasy about the promotion of occult divination (which tarot is) to impressionable children. There is precious little rational thinking in the world today without actively destroying children’s minds. )
I think it needs to be pointed out that tarot cards were not originally designed for the occult. It’s sad that the English language media will rarely tell the entire truth about those cards. The cards first appeared in 15th century Italy for use in a bridge-like card game and they were not used for fortune telling until the 18th century when a French occultist published his mistaken belief that the cards originated in ancient Egypt and had something to do with the Book of Thoth. In many European countries, people still play real card games with tarot decks. In my opinion, the real crime is how a worthwhile classic card game became mutated into something it was not meant to be. It is not right to distort and misrepresent people’s culture in this way.
I think tarot cards can be an opportunity to learn about the occult from a logical perspective. Why would someone want to know the future? It could be a fascinating look into human motivation and psychology. I was unaware of tarot’s origins as a regular old card game, and wouldn’t mind finding out the meanings behind the images.
For the record, I don’t buy into anything occult, but at that age I was most curious. Kids today have little control over their own lives and I can see the appeal of the occult for someone like that. I doubt that confident, well-adjusted kids would care.