that genuinely made me laugh my ass off.

Yeah, it made me feel sober about the subject.

So, good. Now what? I'm broke.

In light of that, what do you think about Leo III the Isaurian and iconoclasm? I think it would make for a powerful (and assuredly controversial) movie.

while Im aware of the Gardneresque moulding of pagan traditions(which seems to be what you're talking about), it doesn't mean scyring and using orcales of all kinds did not exist prior to the late 19th/early 20th century.
The author of the waite rider tarot deck was a Freemason. Modern Christianity has borrowed in abundance from ancient pagan ritual. I find it odd that you seem to say the modern day tarot has absolutely no link to its past, but is rather a bastardised version of something completely unrelated.

Sorry if that is not in the slightest what you are suggesting.

You completely misunderstood me there, I did not say the modern tarot was not linked to its past, I said that the origin of Tarot cards had nothing to do with oracles, prophecy or fortune telling that they are used for today. They were pictographs for the original Knights Templar, who used the cards to tell their stories,their histories, their biographies, even their gossip in the style of Saracen story tellers who used the same techniques around the time of Crusades. Each card represented a different theme and story in Templar mythology and history, and they arranged the cards in particular orders to tell the stories to new/young templars and preserve their shit in secret.

it was the parenthesis and use of ignorance that got me :P