The Symbolism Of The Tarot

The Symbolism of the Tarot is a book by P. D. Ouspensky, first published in 1913. In this compact, lyrical work Ouspensky treats the Tarot not as a deck for fortune-telling but as a symbolic language: a way of awakening a finer, imaginal faculty of mind. He walks through the Major Arcana with a blend of poetic vision and systematic thought, drawing on astrology, Kabbalah, alchemy and the older traditions of occult symbolism to show how pictures, numbers and geometric forms point to inner laws and stages of development.

The book sits beside Ouspensky’s wider project of bringing esoteric ideas into modern thought: it reads less like a practitioner’s manual and more like a meditational map for readers seeking deeper, philosophic readings of the cards. For students of Tarot, Western esotericism and early 20th-century occult thought it offers a concise, often surprising perspective that influenced later readers interested in the Tarot’s philosophical and symbolic dimensions. This is a translation by A. L. Pogossky.