Death (Tarot card) Totally Explained

Everything about Death Tarot Card totally explained

Death (XIII) is the thirteenth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. It is used in game playing as well as in divination.

Description

A. E. Waite was a key figure in the development of modern Tarot interpretations; however, not all interpretations follow his interpretive modeling, as Tarot decks used for divination are interpreted from personal experience and standards.
Some frequent keywords used by tarot readers are:

Ending of a cycle
- Loss
- Conclusion
- Sadness

Transition into a new state
- Psychological transformation

Finishing up
- Regeneration
- Elimination of old patterns

Being caught in the inescapable
- Good-byes
- Deep change The Death card commonly contains a picture of a skeleton riding a horse. Surrounding it are the dead and dying from all classes--kings, bishops, and commoners. In its hand it carries a black standard with a white flower on it. In some decks, the Crashing Towers from The Moon (Tarot card) appears in the background with The Sun (Tarot card) setting behind it. Many decks omit the name of the card entirely; the Tarot of Marseilles is one example of this.

Rider-Waite symbolism

The king is trampled by a reaping skeleton horseman, as the PKT describes him, which appears to be a personification of death. The fall of the king can represent the importance and magnitude of the critical event of this card.

The reaper carries a black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which according to Waite symbolises life (or rebirth).

As in other cards, the gray background seem to indicate uncertainty surrounding this event.

The bishop may represent faith in the face of death, faith in the divine plan and that "God works in mysterious ways".

The maiden seeming distraught by the fall of the king, represents the sorrow and the great pain that comes with death.

The child, seemingly entranced by the happening, may represent bewilderment, perhaps curiosity.

In the darkness behind lies, according to Waite's PKT, the whole world of ascent in the spirit.

Although some consider the New Jerusalem appearing as a silhouette across the Sun, it doesn't appear clearly enough and may just be the tops of The Moon's mountains.

Interpretation

It is unlikely that this card actually represents a physical death, usually it inclines toward an end of something; possibly a relationship, interest or otherwise; therefore, an increased sense of self-awareness — not to be confused with self-consciousness or any kind of self-diminishment.
Learning the Tarot, says "It is a truism in tarot work that Card 13 rarely has anything to do with physical death. A responsible card reader never interprets Card 13 in this way because this view is too limiting. Death isn't something that happens once to our bodies. It happens continually, at many levels and not just in the physical. Each moment is the end of the previous moment and is the beginning of the next.
   Death and Time are closely linked. Both are often shown carrying a scythe, both are often called the Reaper. The one who takes in the harvest. Death is the price one pays to exist in time.
   Death follows the Hanged Man. It is the threshold the Hanged Man must pass before he or she can journey through the Underworld, and be reborn.
   Death is associated through its cross-sum (the sum of the digits) with Key 4: The Emperor. This takes us back to Sir Fraizer’s story of The King of the Golden Bough. This was a priest of Zeus (the Ur-avatar of The Emperor) who got his position by killing his predecessor, then spent the rest of his term patrolling a grove with a naked sword. The Emperor takes power through death; wields power through death; is brought to power through death. The law tells us that power to take life is an inherent attribute of sovereignty. Contrast with The Empress, whose power is predicated on life, life, life.
   The Emperor builds, structures, the ego, power. Death takes them all down. Ebb and flow.
   In addition to The Emperor, Death is associated with The Queens, the 13th card of each suit. The body of the Queen is the way power defeats death; through the children she bears or the legitimacy she brings to the Emperor’s claim. But every queen is a handmaiden of death.
   Death is a thief. He doesn't respect our property rules. Persephone, the Daughter of the Earth Goddess Demeter, is the Queen of the Dead. Hades, the Lord of the Dead, stole her from her mother and made her his bride. Life beat back death; Demeter got her back – but only for part of every year. Every Spring Equinox, she's reborn; every Fall Equinox, she goes back into the earth. Life and death, dancing together, through her passage through time. Osiris is also a Lord of the Dead.
   The Sun and the Moon are implicit in this card. The Crashing Towers from the The Moon (Tarot card) frames a setting (some say rising) Sun. Death wears black and silver, colors associated with the moon, and rides a pale horse, just like The Sun, six cards later. Death walks the threshold between light and dark, night and day.
   When Death appears in a spread, it may speak of the transformation of passing through the gateway of death, hopefully metaphorically. It may also speak metaphorically of the stillness of the grave. It also can mean that time is short; a warning to measure our use of the tiny morsel we're given against the infinity we're not.
   Death may also serve as an example of power manifesting itself over our poor attempts to control it. Forms become exhausted, the center can't hold, cells forget how to be what they were. Sometimes, change can delay the inevitable.

Alternative decks

In the Vikings Tarot "Death" is portrayed as the Valkyries, the spirits who rode down to earth after a battle to bring the noble warriors into Valhalla. (see Brunhilde)

Cultural references

In 2002 The Death card has been used by the Beltway sniper as a calling card in many murders, upon one of which he wrote "Dear Policeman, I'm God. Do not tell the media about this".
A play on the death card is made by The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as where Grim is death, and Billy is the fallen peasant.

Trivia

In the X/1999 Tarot version made by CLAMP, The Death is Seishirou Sakurazuka.

In Live and Let Die (film) Baron Samedi interprets the Death card as himself.

In the computer game Max Payne, the Max at one point comes across three Tarot cards: The Tower, The Devil, and Death. Max states that the final card represents Max himself.Further Information

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