Glossary
The Symbolic: definition
What belongs to the language of symbols, figures, images, and structures of meaning.
The symbolic is what belongs to the language of symbols, figures, images and structures of meaning. It is the very dimension in which tarot operates.
To speak of the symbolic is to recognise that an element does not mean only what it shows, but also what it represents, condenses or evokes within a broader system of relationships.
Tarot is a symbolic language before being a descriptive or predictive one: its images do not describe facts, but open meanings the reader must interpret in context.
The symbolic works by layers and by relationships: a colour, a gesture or a number refers to others, and meaning arises from that web, not from a fixed dictionary of equivalences.
This dimension demands both culture and prudence: knowing the symbolic codes in order to read them, and at the same time avoiding projecting arbitrary meanings or taking the symbol for a single, closed key.
Understanding the symbolic is, at heart, understanding how tarot works: not as a machine of answers, but as a language that gives something to think and that unfolds in interpretation.
That is why the symbolic is never exhausted in a single reading: the same card can reveal new meanings in another spread or at another moment, because the symbol is by nature open and fertile.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the symbolic mean in tarot?
- That an element is worth not only for what it shows, but for what it represents and evokes within a system of meaning.
- Is tarot a descriptive language?
- No: it is above all a symbolic language; its images open meanings to interpret, they do not describe facts.
- What does reading the symbolic demand?
- Culture to know the codes and prudence not to project arbitrary meanings or close the symbol in a single key.