The Fool (Tarot card)

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The Fool is one of the 78 cards in a Tarot deck. It is one of the 22 Trump cards that make up the Major Arcana. All Major Arcana cards are numbered, and the Fool begins (or ends) the series with the numeral 0.

Contents 1 Description 2 Symbolism 3 History 4 Interpretation 5 Notes 6 Trivia 7 Alternative decks 8 Links and references 9 External links

[edit] Description

In the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, the Fool is shown as a young man, standing at the brink of a precipice. With him is a small dog. He has a rose in one hand and in the other a bindle.

A. E. Waite was a key figure in the developement of modern Tarot interpretaions.</ref> Wood, 1998 However not all interpretations follow his theology. Please remember that all Tarot decks used for divination are interpreted up to personal experience and standards.

When this card is drawn, it may represent:

• Beginning ------ Inconsequence ------ Innocence ------ Freedom

• Spontaneity ------ Originality ------ Happiness ------ Non-criticism

• No attachment ------ Initiative ------ Adventure ------ Irresponsibility

• Inexperience ------ Immaturity ------ Optimism ------ Boldness

• Carpe Diem ------ Creative Chaos ------ New Beginnings ------ Foolhardiness

[edit] Symbolism

The Fool is the spirit in search of experience. Many symbols of the Instituted Mysteries are summarized in this card, which reverses, under high warrants, all the confusions that have preceded it.

The Fool represents the mystical cleverness bereft of reason within us.

The number 0 is a perfect significator for the Fool, which can become anything when he reaches his destination. Zero plus anything equals the same thing. Zero times anything equals zero.^[1]

[edit] History

The "History of the Fool" from The Hermitage tells us that in the decks before Waite-Smith, the Fool is almost always unnumbered. There are a few exceptions: some old decks (including the 15th-century Sola Busca and the Rider Waite) label the card with a "0", and the Belgian Tarot designs label the Fool as "XXII". The Fool is almost always completely apart from the sequence of trumps in the historic decks. Still there is historic precedent for regarding it as the lowest trump and as the highest trump. .

In the game of tarot, the Fool has a unique role. Playing the Fool momentarily exempts the player from the rules of the game

[edit] Interpretation

Commonly it's taught that the Fool is the protagonist of a story and the Major Arcana is the path the Fool takes through the great mysteries of life and the main human archetypes. Traditionally in Tarot it's known as the Fool´s Journey and it's frequently used to introduce the meaning of major arcana cards to beginners.

In his Manual of Cartomancy, Grand Orient has a curious suggestion of the office of Mystic Fool, as apart of his process in higher divination; but it might call for more than ordinary gifts to put it into operation. We shall see how the card fares according to the common arts of fortune-telling, and it will be an example, to those who can discern, of the fact, otherwise so evident, that the Trumps Major had no place originally in the arts of psychic gambling, when cards are used as the counters and pretexts. Of the circumstances under which this art arose we know, however, very little.

The conventional explanations say that the Fool signifies the flesh, the sensitive life, and by a peculiar satire its subsidiary name was at one time the alchemist, as depicting folly at the most insensate stage. When The Fool appears in a spread, he would be a signal to strip down to the irreducible core, and interrogate whether The Querant’s self vision is obscured. It may also be a warning that significant change is coming.

Some comparisons can be made in universal literature, the Fool would be considered the youngest son or daughter who accomplishes great feats despite the older siblings apparent better position. Cinderella, Psyche, Cordelia (from King Lear), all the third sons of kings in fairy tales who succeed when their older brothers do not; the Grail Knight who may be destined to locate the Holy Cup, where greater and wiser men have tried and failed; the one teetering at the edge of Nietzsche’s abyss, at the cusp of dreadful knowledge that will pull him or her out of the cave or even Hamlet before he decides to embrace his destiny.

There is a dog who appears in most versions of the card. The dog, for example, would symbolize the natural world, one path to knowledge and a valuable ally.

Another interpretation of the card is that of taken on an action where the circumstances are unknown, confronting ones fears, taking risks, and so on.

Although it cannot be seen in all modern cards, The Fool is often walking off a cliff. This raises the question "Is The Fool making a mistake, or is The Fool making a leap of faith?"

A quote: Gandhi said once, “If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth, you must reduce yourself to a zero.” The Fool can be seen as that Zero who can swim in the deeper waters up mentioned.

Another issue surrounding the fool is "Who is calling him The Fool?"

The archetypal potency of the Fool as zero embodies the potentiate^[1] potential and summation of all Major and Minor Arcana: as is denoted by 'fool', the near english homonym of 'full'. The Fool is the period, the pregnant pause.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Defined as: 'increase the effect of or act synergistically with'.

[edit] Trivia

• In House of the Dead III, a boss character is named after The Fool.
• In the ending of Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy shows Billy plays as a fool.
• In the X/1999 Tarot version made by CLAMP, The Fool is Saya Monou who is pictured as a mermaid under water.
• In Live and Let Die (and in Ian Fleming's novel of the same name), the Tarot card representing James Bond is the Fool.
• Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play Tarot card games such as French Tarot and Austrian Königrufen. In English-speaking and Spanish- speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards came to be utilized primarily for divinatory purposes.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh GX The Fool represented Judai in Saiou's deck

[edit] Alternative decks

The Vikings Tarot portrays Loki as the Fool, with a mistletoe in one hand and a fishing-net in the other.

[edit] Links and references

• A. E. Waite's 1910 Pictorial Key to the Tarot
• Hajo Banzhaf, Tarot and the Journey of the Hero (2000)
• Most works by Joseph Campbell
• G. Ronald Murphy, S.J., The Owl, The Raven, and The Dove: Religious Meaning of the Grimm's Magic Fairy Tales (2000)
• Mohandes Gandhi: Essential Writings (John Dear, ed. 2002)
• Juliette Wood, Folklore 109 (1998):15-24, The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Tradition: A Study in Modern Legend Making (1998)

[edit] External links

• "Fool" cards from many decks and articles to "Fool" iconography
• The History of the Fool Card from The Hermitage
• The Fool article at para.wikia.com, the Paranormal and Metaphysical Wikia

Major Arcana
0 The Fool	I The Magician	II The High Priestess	III The Empress	IV The Emperor	V The Pope	VI The Lovers	VII The Chariot	VIII Justice	IX The Hermit	X Wheel of Fortune
XI Strength	XII The Hanged Man	XIII Death	XIV Temperance	XV The Devil	XVI The Tower	XVII The Star	XVIII The Moon	XIX The Sun	XX Judgement	XXI The World
Tarot • Minor Arcana

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1910 book Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite. Please feel free to update the text.