Who is that guy?

Touchstone Tarot, 2009

Today's draw comes from Kat Black's beautiful Touchstone Tarot, published by Kunati, 2009. The deck comes with wide borders designed to look like wooden picture frames, because all (or most) of the cards in this deck are composed of Renaissance portraits. I trimmed the top and sides of my deck to make them easier to handle. To me, the overall look of the cards is greatly enhanced by this change.

Waite Smith 1909

The card I pulled from the deck today is The World. Our usual image of the World card includes a female nude at the centre of the card, with the four figures around the edges (human face, eagle, lion, bull) said to  represent the four elements (air, water, fire, earth).  But older decks contain a male figure, as does this deck. Both Paul Huson in his 'Mystical Origins of the Tarot' and Robert Place in 'Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination' agree (as do many other writers) that the central figure originally represented Christ in glory, with the four figures surrounded him simultaneously representing the four evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), the four beasts surrounding the throne of God in Revelation 4:7 ("And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle"), and the Holy Living creatures described in the book of Ezekiel, each having the face of an ox, eagle, lion and man. ("As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle." -- Ezekiel 1:10). The World card, then shows the ascended Christ after the Judgement of the world at the end of days, reigning supreme and being worshipped by all creatures. This card does fall in sequence directly after the Judgement card, and there is no doubt in my mind it originated to represent the second coming. So some tarot cards depict Christ in glory, while others, the ones with female figures, refer to the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World, which is the bride of Christ, or the New Jerusalem. When you get into historical decks, or even decks based on historical decks, there's no getting around the Christian imagery. It is totally and completely there, and you can glaze over it with all the pagan stuff you like, but you can't get around that truth.

Anyway,in a reading, the World card represents achieved goals, complete fruition, absolute success, enlightenment, and so on. Well, I mean, can you get much higher than the glorified Christ, when it comes to symbols of success? I ask you!