Tarot

[The Last Lamenter]

Anybody have a solid grasp on the tarot? I've looked at lexicanum and still can't make heads or tails. It really seems like a shoddy bit of writing, but that may only be because I don't understand it. Someone with a solid understanding please explain what it is and how it works.

[Nabterayl]

My understanding is that it's essentially just a tarot deck, whose deals the Emperor is thought to guide. It predicts the future, though like a real tarot deck, there's considerable latitude in the number of interpretations possible for any given set of drawn cards (or, if you prefer, interpreting it requires considerable skill).

The cards are psychoactive, so there is a psychic discipline involved in using them - which is to say, you can't just shuffle and flip the cards. You have to psychically "activate" them as part of the shuffle-and-deal ritual in order for the Emperor to influence them. Or the psychic discipline involved could actually do nothing, or could directly influence the order of the deal rather than open them up to the Emperor's influence. Of course, no true servant of the Church would countenance such beliefs.

[The Last Lamenter]

So who does it? Is it heretical?

[Gotthammer]

Real Tarot or 40k Tarot?

Real tarot is a derivative of card games (still played in parts of Eastern Europe) that morphed into fortune telling. It uses a card system similar, but pre-dating, out common 52 card decks, having an additional deck of 22 picture cards (the most common concept of a tarot card). these are the major arcana. A tarot deck also features four suits (wands, swords, cups and discs), the minor arcana, which have a king, queen, knight, page/squire and numbers 10-2 and an ace.
Tarot is read by placing cards in specific positions and orders, with various combinations and such. A full spread requires a subject and a question usually, though generic futures can also be read. The reading is made by seeing what order and orientation the cards come out in. For example The Moon, when upright (as in the picture is right way up) represents, illusion, imagination, or the inability to see things clearly. Whilst the same card reversed (upside down) means insincerity, trickery or deception. The minor suits have themes to them, cups is often associated with emotions such as love and desire, while pentacles are with money or material prosperity.
The reader essentially pieces together a story based on the questioner's question and the meaning of the cards. As you can see from my example above the meanings are all fairly broad so it is a very vague process at best.

As for the 40k tarot, it was designed hodge-podge by several people with little understanding of how tarot works. The decks don't make much sense or really even fit - I mean there's as many canon cards relating to chaos as anything else, which are rather too specific if you ask me. I have re-written the classic Rider Waite deck to fit with 40k so it can be used with internal consistency, but I'm ducking out in a bit so shall have to fill you in on that later.

As to who does it, it is commonly associated with Astropaths and and other Sanctioned psykers. It is a very un-heretical and honoured art as it is a person receiving guidance from the Emperor.

[The Last Lamenter]

Gotthammer, I appreciate your answer, I know what tarot is in the real world, call Cleo, you know... Any books you remember where it's used? Also how does this tarot which supposedly reveals some part of the emp's will factor into the high lords ruling in his name? Or is the tarot not a commonly known thing with the masses? Hodge podge is a good description... It just seems.... Really thin, like they threw it in last minute. Also, you remember the inquisitor series? Real old school, where he actually makes it into the throne room and has some sort of metaphysical chat. With the emp? Is that still canon?

[Nabterayl]

It's pretty darn hard to become "not canon" in 40K, so I'd say so, yeah. Even if it's not, Alicia Dominica's experience in the throne room is, and the soul binding of astropaths certainly is, as is the astronomicon. It's pretty clear that the Emperor is still "in there," so to speak - he still does things psychically. The question isn't whether the Emperor is dead as certain Chaos marines are fond of claiming (from the audience's point of view, it is very clear that he is not). The question is whether any given instance in which somebody claims the Emperor's intervention is (i) the Emperor intervening psychically, (ii) the operation of some other supernatural or preternatural power, or (iii) a coincidence. That's my understanding of the tarot. The Emperor is certainly capable, and seemingly interested, in guiding the fate of mankind. He almost certainly could influence the tarot cards if properly psychically activated to create an open terminal, as it were, to the Emperor's psychic influence. But from the end user's standpoint, whether the Emperor actually did influence this particular use of the tarot is impossible to determine.

It's a normal and sanctioned religious practice, though - kind of like the urim and thummin. Not something you do every Sunday (even if you had a psyker on hand every Sunday to do it, which you probably don't), but a normal, holy thing to do when you need guidance.

I'm pretty sure that, if anybody actually inquired into the communal political fictions by which the High Lords rule (which I imagine virtually nobody does), they'd say that while the Emperor can still communicate with mankind "directly" (e.g., through the tarot), for whatever reason he doesn't communicate with the specificity and regularity required to rule an empire. No doubt the Emperor's ways are higher than ours, and he gives mankind the direct guidance it needs even if it isn't the guidance it wants - after all, The Emperor Provides (TM). But in the meantime, the High Lords, as his humble deputies, need to steward his dominion as best they can. Certainly if the Emperor should care to reveal (e.g., through the tarot) his displeasure with any of the High Lords' actions, as his humble deputies, they would naturally bow to his revealed will ...

[Morgrim]

The tarot is described in slightly more detail in the Dark Heresy and related RPG books. Having a properly sanctioned deck is considered something of a good luck charm by psykers and they can spend a few minutes meditating with them in the hopes of gleaning useful knowledge, said to be the guidance of the Emperor. It doesn't always work (sometimes they get no result at all, which is considered either contradictory outcomes, the psyker not having enough personal knowledge to ask the right questions, or the outcome being beneath the notice of the Emperor) and when it does the results are vague.

Mechanically in the game if you roll well the GM will either give you a piece of vague or unexplained advice in response to an asked question, or give you a bonus to a later roll. Fluff-wise it is presented as little better than honestly believed superstition the majority of the time. If a general could approach a rebel camp two ways and there was no sign which was better they might ask their assigned psyker to consult the tarot instead of flipping a coin, that sort of thing. It is reported by many as something that works but we have no way of knowing if that is true or confirmation bias.

[Denzark]

Use of the Tarot has been discussed in (non-40K RPG) quite a bit. Ian Watson makes extensive use of it by a the main charater, Ordo Malleus inquisitor Jaq Draco, in the Inquisition Wars trilogy. there have been other minor fluff bits in old WD and other books. One bit even had the legion of the Damned use it to choose where their intercessions would be. If I recall, it may have been an item of wargear in 1st Ed, along with such staples as the porta-rack etc.

[BrianDavion]

Doesn't one of the HH novels (I wanna say first Heretic) suggest Lorgar was the guy who created the tarot?

[miteyheroes]

Silver Skulls Space Marines use the Tarot loads.

The old inquisitor novels are Ian Watson's ones, which do indeed have a metaphysical chat with the (crazy) Emperor and lots of Tarot use. They're canon-ish: when FW reprinted them they came with a prelude from a more traditional inquisitor saying that they're heretical inventions and none of it is true.

[Just_Me]

My understanding is that the Tarot represents several slightly different forms of tool used in divination, almost always taking the form of a "deck" of "cards" or "tiles." The exact method of using them for divination probably varies as much or more than the myriad methods of "divination" that exist in the real world. However, when considering them in the context of 40k it is important to recall that not only do actual legitimate psychic abilities exist but that prediction of the future is possible (if not exactly precise).

At the most basic level it probably takes the form of a set of plain old cards, not much different from what we have in real life. Most people using them at this level probably get about the same accuracy as we would (i.e. not much to none). When used by a psyker with some latent ability for divination they probably act as a medium for information, the psyker's talent manifesting through them to result in something meaningful, though due to the allegorical nature of the cards there is probably still a lot of room for interpretation. Both of the above represent their use by mundane/untrained individuals, in the hands of one trained and aware of their own psychic abilities they are used much more intentionally and probably also have the role of a focusing tool for their concentration. They still act primarily as a medium rather than a mechanism for prediction but because the dealer is aware of what they are doing and probably versed in interpretation the results are more reliable and accurate, though still not exactly precise.

In their most "evolved" form we have accounts of Tarot decks whose card/tiles are laced with or made of a psi-active or psi-reactive material so that they are far more responsive to the user's psychic abilities and/or the user can actively channel their abilities through the tiles. These are probably rare and most likely far more effective.

The exact role that the Emperor himself plays in this process is open to interpretation, both in-universe and to us looking in from the real world. I'm sure there are psykers who take a clinical view and attribute the effectiveness of the Tarot purely to their own abilities while others profoundly believe that every message from the Tarot is a divine message from the Emperor, not to mention a host of views in between. Personally I'm inclined to believe it is a little of both, sometimes the Emperor DOES reach out and use the Tarot as a medium to convey information, even to mundane users.

Of course, other methods of predicting the future have been observed in other factions who must necessarily use them independent of the Emperor. Rune-casting among the Eldar is perhaps the best example of this. Chaos sorcerers have been known to use a vast host of (usually unpleasant) divining techniques, though the intervention of Daemons and the Dark Gods themselves generally just further confuses the matter. After all, at worst the Tarot may just be WRONG, a Daemon/Chaos God might be ACTIVELY trying to give you misinformation for its own purposes. Or to screw with you. Because, you know, it can. :p

[Katharon]

If you want to see a decent representation of the Tarot being used in Wh40K books, check out "Cadian Blood." But yeah, the Tarot cards are made from materials that are able to be psychically manipulated - so that by channeling the warp and the Emperor's guidance the user can determine future events. The clearness of a reading seems to be determined by the power of the psyker in question and whether or not the warp is screwing with him/her.