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Death is one of the most feared cards in the Tarot Deck.
It is Card No.13 but is actually the 14th card in the Major
Arcana of the Tarot because
the
first
card
of
the
Major
Arcana
is
card
no.0 - "The Fool".
Most of the fear associated with this card is based on
mis-information or mis-understanding - probably due to the
name of the card. It rarely refers to physical death. Instead,
it is concerned with Transformation, and hence New Beginnings.
The "death" is therefore the death of the past, which
accompanies the birth of the new next phase.
Some older Tarot Decks include gruesome or distressing images
on the Death Card. This practice is less common in more modern
packs such as the Rider-Waite and Robin
Wood Decks - both of these include detailed symbolic
images - but nothing likely to cause nightmares ! Some
other modern decks such as in
the Golden
Dawn Tarot Deck do include images of a skeleton, albeit
depicted as artistic symbolism, not as a realistic "horror"
image.
Some specific terms associated with "Death" Tarot
card include:
Transformation, New Beginnings, New
Opportunities, Detachment, Release,
and, less succintly ... the end of one phase (of a project,
a development stage,
or of
life)
and moving onto the next phase.
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