The Celtic tarot and the secret traditions: a study in modern legend making

Folklore, Annual, 1998 by Juliette Wood

Nutt ultimately changed his mind about the function of the Dionysian cult, but not about the connection between fairy beliefs and Celtic tradition, nor the validity of using contemporary material to reconstruct past beliefs. Nutt's approach is by no means obsolete, or even confined to fringe scholarship. Many scholars have rejected the vegetation myth theory but still hold on to some of its method and its conclusions. Essentially the same assumption that Celtic supernatural and fairy traditions reflect ancient Celtic beliefs is found in the writings of Lucy Paton whose work was much praised by R.S. Loomis (Paton 1960, Introduction), and even Katharine Briggs suggests that many elements of the fairy tradition can be linked to earlier Celtic mythology (Briggs 1978, 22-4, 36-7 and 89).

Nutt provided a coherent theoretical elaboration of these ideas and contributed to the popularisation of Celtic studies through the family publishing firm. Several titles by Weston and Nutt were included in the series Popular Studies in Mythology, Romance and Folk-Lore (1889-1910).(5) Dorson summarises what he calls Nutt's "substantial and unified achievement in folklore scholarship" in using the doctrine of survivals to illuminate medieval Celtic literature and modern Celtic folklore, and in seeing Celtic literature as an opportunity to test questions of folklore origin on uncluttered ground (Dorson 1968, 233). Nutt established the parameters of the pagan Celtic versus Christian argument. He asserted the continuity of fairy belief over a thousand years and maintained that the questions arising from this thousand year time-span revolved around a central condition, namely the opposition and harmonising of Celtic agricultural ritualism and romantic mythology with alien Christian rituals and romance.

For Nutt, theorising about the agricultural mystery cult encoded in Celtic tradition remained an academic problem, but his influence sometimes extended beyond the academic sphere. For R.S. Loomis, Nutt, one of a comparatively small number of scholars whom he acknowledges, provided the basis from which to expand his theories about the Celtic origin of Arthurian romance (Loomis 1975, vii-ix; 1991, ix-xi). However, Nutt articulated ideas that were developed in the context of Celtic and Arthurian scholarship and in the direction of esoteric theory as well. They find their most imaginative synthesis in A.E. Waite's writings on the tarot which have been described above. Jessie Weston wrote an appreciation of Nutt's work which appeared in Folk-Lore soon after his death (Weston 1910, 512-14). For Weston, the rituals of the primitive agricultural world were not merely survivals, but a continuing secret reality which she saw as the esoteric explanation for the Grail.

The Celtic Tarot and Modern Occultism

The intellectual background of the tarot undoubtedly reflects Renaissance interest in esoterism and symbolic systems, and in a readiness to synthesise theurgic practices with philosophical ideas. The new synthesis of philosophical traditions such as hermeticism, astrology, alchemy and cabbalistic thought resulted in what is broadly described as Renaissance neo-platonism (Faivre 1994, 58-61 and 66-70). An important concept of neoplatonic philosophy was the re-creation of self using techniques of rational apprehension, meditation, mystical contemplation, even ritual activity. This self-recreation is best expressed in the concept of gnosis. Such knowledge allows the perceiver to become identified with that which is perceived (ibid., 19-35). Gnosis implies an erasure of the subject/object dichotomy which is fundamental to western intellectual thought, and it is this element which is often considered non-western or pagan (in the modern sense of "nature religion") (Jones and Pennick 1995, 2-3 and 53-76). Cultural historians such as Frances Yates suggest that the implications of the neo-platonic worldview became progressively more concretised during the seventeenth century and sought, through esoteric knowledge, to achieve an ultimate integration of human culture, one which would resolve religious differences and better the lot of mankind (Yates 1972, 220-33). This kind of hermetic thinking may not have been as influential as Yates suggests (Faivre 1994, 56), but several themes throw light on the occult revival of the nineteenth century and the development of the modern tarot (Yates 1972, 198-200 and 215-17; Faivre 1994, 86-9 and 95-109). The idea of occult procedures as practical embodiments of esoteric ideas gained prominence along with the increasing popularity of Rosicrusian and Masonic societies, and the old chivalric orders were transformed from military into esoteric ones (McIntosh 1987,82-94). Increased interest in ritual techniques, complex systems of symbol and metaphor, cipher languages, and the increased allegorisation of alchemy (ibid., 60-81) contributed to the emergence of the idea that a coterie of individuals, rather than single thinkers, possessed this secret knowledge. In this context, esoteric systems were thought to have the power to transform, not just the individual, but whole societies (McIntosh 1992, 179-80). This is the process which underlies the esoteric tarot; categories identifiable at a philosophical level are transferred to a pseudo-historical context and eventually, through Jungian speculation, into the idea of archetype.(6)