The Scheme That Standardised Esoteric Tarot

Three decisions in this paper shaped everything after it. The twenty two trumps were attributed to the Hebrew letters and to the paths of the Tree of Life in a fixed order, which required exchanging the positions of two trumps relative to older continental sequences so that the attributions would line up. The thirty six numbered cards from two to ten were assigned to the decans, each holding ten degrees of the zodiac, giving every one of them a planet and a sign.

The court was reorganised as King, Queen, Prince and Princess in place of the older four ranks. The effect was to make the pack a diagram rather than a set of pictures. Any card can now be located in a structure, and its meaning argued from that position instead of from tradition or invention, which is what allows two decks with completely different artwork to agree about what a card means. Both of the twentieth century's most influential esoteric packs were made by people trained in this system, and both follow it, which is why their interpretations converge even where their images do not. Modern books that give a card a planet and a sign, or place a trump on a path, are working from this scheme whether or not they name it.