A Sociology of Tarot

Abstract
This article argues that Tarot should be analyzed sociologically—not as timeless “mystical wisdom,” but as a cultural artifact with a history, an institutional setting, and an ideological workload deployed in service to an emerging capitalist system. It situates Tarot in broader structures of authority, discipline, and identity formation, and asks what Tarot does in modern social life (for whom, and to what ends).

The Tarot was designed by Freemasons throughout the 18th and 19th centuries to serve an elite agenda ( Decker, Depaulis, & Dummett, 1996). Freemasons obscured the elite ideology and agenda by successfully presenting their work as reflective of ancient spiritual wisdom. The presentation of the Tarot as something other than a reflection of elite ideas about management and control prompted Decker, Depaulis & Dummett to suggest that the Masonic Tarot was the…

…most successful propaganda campaign ever launched: not by a very long way the most important, but the most completely successful. An entire false history, and false interpretation, of the Tarot pack was concocted by the occultists; and it is all but universally believed.

Key Points

• Treats Tarot as a social technology embedded in institutions, markets, and cultural narratives.
• Connects Tarot practice to authority, legitimation, and symbolic power (who gets to define meaning).
• Highlights how “occult” and “esoteric” systems can function as ideological infrastructure, not just personal spirituality.
• Calls for a research program that links divination practices to class, gender, modernity, and governance.

References

Decker, R., Depaulis, T., & Dummett, M. (1996). A wicked pack of cards: The origins of the occult tarot (p. 27). St. Martin’s Press.

Recommended citation: Sosteric, Mike. (2014). "A Sociology of Tarot." *Canadian Journal of Sociology*, 39(3), 357–392. https://doi.org/10.29173/cjs20000
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