Tarot’s Clues to Health and Illness

By Lalia Wilson


Death 2


One way of looking at all of life’s events, including matters of health, is to see everything as manifesting first on the spiritual level, then the mental level, then the emotional level, and finally the physical level. To further understand this way of seeing health and illness, we must understand that the tarot is a collection of 78 archetypes. Each of the 78 cards in a standard tarot deck represents a different archetype or model from which all subsequent representatives are copies. Many psychologists use the word archetype to represent a primitive mental image that is universally present despite each person's individual experience. To people in the arts, an archetype is a recurring symbol or motif. An example of such an archetype is "mother," who is a psychological presence in all people and all cultures. "Mother" is also represented in the tarot, as The Empress and arguably all four Queens. 

How does this intersect with health and illness as well as the vibratory levels of experience? Each tarot card is connected with themes that connect with health issues. Furthermore, each tarot card can be experienced as "good" or "bad." It can also be experienced as a spiritual phenomenon, a mental concept, an emotion, or a physical event. To further complicate matters, an event arrives first as a spiritual happening, then as a concept, later as emotion, and finally as a physical world manifestation.

To thwart something that you judge to be bad, you can elect to consciously deal with it on the spiritual, mental, or emotional realm, instead of the physical realm. To draw something to you, you can start with the spiritual (prayer), then move to the mental (positive thinking, affirmations, meditations on a mandala or a tarot card), then go to the emotional (music, dance, poetry…), to manifest something in your physical world.

How might we apply this methodology to using the tarot? Let us use covid-19, the current pandemic, as an example. For most of us, our experience of this pandemic is a Nine of Swords phenomenon, we are anxious and fearful. Some of us are busier than ever before with tasks as medical professionals, or essential workers (maybe as a Ten of Wands by now). Many of us are experiencing covid-19 as the Death card, a total transformation of our lives that will likely lead to permanent changes such as job loss, career change, divorce, conception, and yes, physical death for some. 

We want our own safe world back, of course. However, let's be smart and use our knowledge of the world and the tarot to create a better option for ourselves and our families and communities. When we are fully functioning and fully actualized, we bring our best self into our families and communities. Many of us may be stuck here on the word "back," which implies a Six of Cups view of the world. We will never have the same life as we did before the advent of covid-19. We will move forward into the life that is newly possible.

How can we move forward into the health of our physical bodies, indeed our health in all realms of existence, and toward the greater health of our families and communities?  

We begin in the spiritual realm by asking for a healthy mind, body, and soul. In the mental realm, we start to work with affirmations such as "I am strong, fit, and healthy all my days." But the mental realm is also where the tarot comes in. Using the tarot to enhance physical health gives us many options. One is to pick any card from the deck that speaks to you of health. For some, this would be the Strength card. For others the Ace of Pentacles. Use any card that speaks to you.

Another approach is to pick a card that is your exemplar from among the court cards. All the court cards can be used as examples of the perfect health of a particular life path. Are you a King of Wands or a King of Pentacles? A Queen of Cups or a Queen of Swords? A Knight of Swords or a Knight of Cups? A Page of Pentacles or a Page of Swords? Pick your card and use it as a focus for contemplation. How can you be that archetype? What kind of health practices does that archetype practice? Who would I be if I were a fully actualized Queen of Wands? 

We have been speaking about moving toward health. Another approach to this pandemic is to avert the physical manifestation that is trying (or succeeding) to cause major illness, death, and social disruption. Let’s go through this step-by-step. Begin with a spiritual process such as prayer. “Oh Spirit of the Divine, let me and the human race easily find and learn the lesson of this pandemic.”  Use your own variation of this prayer or aspiration. 

Now we can turn to the tarot and affirmations. I suggest the Death card as a meditation focus and altar card. Death is the card of physical death but also total transformation. I also recommend that you keep using this card through November 1st, the Day of the Dead. When contemplating the Death card ask yourself, “How am I resisting necessary transformations?” “How is my fear of death limiting me?” “What would my life be like if I stopped resisting this transformation?” 

Moving into the emotional realm we can use the arts to fully engage with the idea of a complete personal and social transformation to a new and better option. Follow your own vision here. Are there streaming TV shows that represent positive change to you? Novels? Particular author’s works? Poems? Works of art? For poetry let me direct you to poets.org, which publishes a poem a day, but also allows you to search for themes of poetry. For the arts in general, artists’ interpretations of plagues and pandemics see: https://blog.academyart.edu/depictions-of-global-pandemic-throughout-art-history/, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/t-magazine/art-coronavirus.html, Albert Camus’s novel The Plague, Stephen King’s novel The Stand, and many others.

On the physical level, we can begin transforming ourselves through a healthier lifestyle. We can clean up and clear the clutter in our homes. We can support others to do the same. It is possible for us to individually and collectively learn and grow from this crisis. May we do so.

The three Death card images are from The Housewife’s Tarot: A Domestic Divination Kit with Deck and Instruction Book (2004), by Jude Buffum and Paul Kepple, published by Quirk Books, The Revelations Tarot (2005) by Zach Wong, published by Llewellyn, and the Tarot Decoratif (2016) by artist, writer, and publisher Ciro Marchetti. This latter deck is no longer available except secondhand. All three decks are available as apps from the Fool’s Dog. 


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