The World is a place of infinite opportunity, there for the grabbing. You can conquer it and you can lose it. The Tarot World card opens this vast resource, but who has the embrace wide enough to encompass it? Everything has a price. Jesus warned about gaining the whole world and losing one’s soul in the process. The Tarot World card repeats the warning by having the four beasts of the Apocalypse in the corners: a lion, a calf, a man, and an eagle. They are also the symbols of the four Evangelists Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. So, if you strive for the world as your oyster, heed the warnings. You can get anything at a cost, but if you crave everything — that costs a lot. Success takes its toll. Many people still don’t hesitate, but go for it, happily forgetting about the price until they’re handed the bill. Then they realize that they should have hesitated and eaten moderately from the buffet. Although you may at times be offered the world, curb your enthusiasm and ask yourself how much of it you really need. If just handled calmly and with some restraint, the opportunity that the World Tarot card promises is splendid. Success in whatever worldly matter is at hand. But remember, the World Tarot card, although overwhelmingly generous, propagates moderation, as does the very archetype of that virtue, the card of Temperance. When you can get everything in abundance, beware…
First Appearance Ducal courts of northern Italy (c. 1440)
First Publisher ○
Appearance List Sola Busca (1490s) — earliest surviving deck [Open Culture] [WaiteSmith.org]; Monde primitif… (Vol. 8: “Du Jeu des Tarots”) (1781) by Antoine Court de Gébelin; Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées Tarots (1783–1785) by Etteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette); Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (1856) by Éliphas Lévi; The Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play (1888) by S. L. MacGregor Mathers; Le Tarot des Bohémiens (1889) by Papus (Gérard Encausse); Rider Waite Tarot (1909) by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith [WaiteSmith.org]; The Tarot of the Bohemians (1910) by A. P Morton [Internet Archive]; The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911, 1959) by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith; Le tarot des imagiers du moyen âge (1926) by Oswald Wirth; The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians (1944) by Aleister Crowley; Le Tarot de Marseille (1949) by Paul Marteau; The Tarot Revealed (1960) by Eden Gray; Tarot Cards for Fun and Fortune Telling (1970) by Stuart R. Kaplan; The Encyclopedia of Tarot (Vol. 1) (1978) by Stuart R. Kaplan.
Sample Read The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911, 1959) by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith [Internet Archive]
Description The World is a place of infinite opportunity, there for the grabbing. You can conquer it and you can lose it. The Tarot World card opens this vast resource, but who has the embrace wide enough to encompass it? Everything has a price. Jesus warned about gaining the whole world and losing one’s soul in the process. The Tarot World card repeats the warning by having the four beasts of the Apocalypse in the corners: a lion, a calf, a man, and an eagle. They are also the symbols of the four Evangelists Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. So, if you strive for the world as your oyster, heed the warnings. You can get anything at a cost, but if you crave everything — that costs a lot. Success takes its toll. Many people still don’t hesitate, but go for it, happily forgetting about the price until they’re handed the bill. Then they realize that they should have hesitated and eaten moderately from the buffet. Although you may at times be offered the world, curb your enthusiasm and ask yourself how much of it you really need. If just handled calmly and with some restraint, the opportunity that the World Tarot card promises is splendid. Success in whatever worldly matter is at hand. But remember, the World Tarot card, although overwhelmingly generous, propagates moderation, as does the very archetype of that virtue, the card of Temperance. When you can get everything in abundance, beware…
