Death (Tarot card)

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Death (XIII)

Death (XIII) is a trump card in the Tarot cards deck. Tarot trumps are often called "Major Arcana" by tarot card readers.

Description

A. E. Waite was a key figure in the development of modern Tarot interpretations; however, not all interpretations follow his interpretive modeling, as Tarot decks used for divination are interpreted from personal experience and standards. Some frequent keywords used by tarot readers are:

• Ending of a cycle ----- Loss ----- Conclusion ----- Sadness
• Transition into a new state ----- Psychological transformation
• Finishing up ----- Regeneration ----- Elimination of old patterns
• Being caught in the inescapable ----- Good-byes ----- Deep change

The Death card commonly contains a picture of a skeleton riding a horse. Surrounding it are the dead and dying from all classes--kings, bishops, and commoners. In its hand it carries a black standard with a white flower on it. In some decks, the Crashing Towers from The Moon (Tarot card) appears in the background with The Sun (Tarot card) setting behind it. Many decks omit the name of the card entirely; the Tarot of Marseilles is one example of this.

Rider-Waite symbolism

• The king is trampled by a reaping skeleton horseman, as the PKT describes him, which appears to be a personification of death.
• The reaper carries a black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which according to Waite symbolises life (or rebirth).
• The bishop may represent faith in the face of death.
• The maiden seeming distraught by the fall of the king, represents the sorrow and the great pain that comes with death.
• The child, seemingly entranced by the happening, may represent bewilderment, perhaps curiosity.

Interpretation

It is unlikely that this card actually represents a physical death, usually it inclines toward an end of something; possibly a relationship, interest or otherwise; therefore, an increased sense of self-awareness — not to be confused with self-consciousness or any kind of self-diminishment.

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Some people say that death is the gardener of life. Others say that Death is the gateway to infinity. Once we have passed through that door, we rejoin the carbon cycle. Others say that Death is change. The sacrifice of virtue or vice, a loved one or a loathed one, demanded by Time. Joan Bunning, author of Learning the Tarot, says "It is a truism in tarot work that Card 13 rarely has anything to do with physical death. A responsible card reader never interprets Card 13 in this way because this view is too limiting. Death is not something that happens once to our bodies. It happens continually, at many levels and not just in the physical. Each moment we die to the present so the future can unfold." Death and Time are closely linked. Both are often shown carrying a scythe, both are often called the Reaper. The one who takes in the harvest. Death is the price one pays to exist in time.

Death (XIII) from the Tarot of Marseilles

Death follows the Hanged Man. It is the threshold the Hanged Man must pass before he or she can journey through the Underworld, and be reborn. Death is associated through its cross-sum (the sum of the digits) with Key 4: The Emperor. This takes us back to Sir Fraizer’s story of The King of the Golden Bough. This was a priest of Zeus (the Ur-avatar of The Emperor) who got his position by killing his predecessor, then spent the rest of his term patrolling a grove with a naked sword. The Emperor takes power through death; wields power through death; is brought to power through death. The law tells us that power to take life is an inherent attribute of sovereignty. Contrast with The Empress, whose power is predicated on life, life, life. The Emperor builds, structures, the ego, power. Death takes them all down. Ebb and flow. In addition to The Emperor, Death is associated with The Queens, the 13th card of each suit. The body of the Queen is the way power defeats death; through the children she bears or the legitimacy she brings to the Emperor’s claim. But every queen is a handmaiden of death. Death is a thief. He does not respect our property rules. Persephone, the Daughter of the Earth Goddess Demeter, is the Queen of the Dead. Hades, the Lord of the Dead, stole her from her mother and made her his bride. Life beat back death; Demeter got her back – but only for part of every year. Every Spring Equinox, she is reborn; every Fall Equinox, she goes back into the earth. Life and death, dancing together, through her passage through time. Osiris is also a Lord of the Dead. The Sun and the Moon are implicit in this card. The Crashing Towers from the The Moon (Tarot card) frames a setting (some say rising) Sun. Death wears black and silver, colors associated with the moon, and rides a pale horse, just like The Sun, six cards later. Death walks the threshold between light and dark, night and day. When Death appears in a spread, it may speak of the transformation of passing through the gateway of death, hopefully metaphorically. It may also speak metaphorically of the stillness of the grave. It also can mean that time is short; a warning to measure our use of the tiny morsel we are given against the infinity we are not. Death may also serve as an example of power manifesting itself over our poor attempts to control it. Forms become exhausted, the center cannot hold, cells forget how to be what they were. Sometimes, change can delay the inevitable.

Cultural references

The Death card was left by the Beltway sniper at one of the crime scenes with the message "Dear Policeman, I am God. Do not tell the media about this."

Alternative decks

In the Vikings Tarot "Death" is portrayed as the Valkyries, the spirits who rode down to earth after a battle to bring the noble warriors into Valhalla. (see Brunhilda)

Trivia

• In the X/1999 Tarot version made by CLAMP, The Death is Seishirou Sakurazuka.
• In Live and Let Die (film) Baron Samedi interprets the Death card as himself.
• A boss character in the game House of the Dead III is named after this card. He is a giant zombie in a security guard suit and wields a giant club made of skulls. He is the first boss character encountered in the game.
• In the computer game Max Payne, the Max at one point comes across three Tarot cards: The Tower, The Devil, and Death. Max states that the final card represents Max himself.
• 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 the role-playing game Persona 3, The Death is the Arcana card linked to the game's final boss, Nyx, as well as two other antagonists in the story: Pharos and Ryuji.

References

• A. E. Waite's 1910 Pictorial Key to the Tarot
• Sir James Frazer The Golden Bough
• 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)
• Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade (1987)
• Mary Greer, The Women of the Golden Dawn (1994)
• Merlin Stone, When God Was A Woman (1976)
• Robert Graves, Greek Mythology (1955)
• Joan Bunning, Learning the Tarot
• Juliette Wood, Folklore 109 (1998):15-24, The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Tradition: A Study in Modern Legend Making (1998)

External links

• "Death" cards from many decks and articles to "Death" iconography
• A modern and ancient history of Tarot Death