Death and Resurrection As Muse: Stirring Your Creativity in Times of Crisis with Tarot’s Forgotten Iconography, Symbolism and Storytelling Power with Laetitia Barbier, Begins May 6
Four-Week class Taught online via Zoom
Tuesdays, May 6 - 27, 2025
7 pm ET (NYC Time)
$95 for Paid Patreon Members / $120 General Admission
All classes will also be recorded for those who cannot attend live
Please note: Zoom invites are sent five days before the first class meeting. If you do not receive it, please email us at hello@morbidanatomy.org.
Why isn’t the Death card the last card of the tarot deck? Does the devil card announces damnation or celebrate irreverence? Is the Magician a creator, a shaman, a con-artist, or all of the above? The twenty two cards forming the Tarot’s major arcana have, for centuries served as a visual oracle, an iconic and adaptable muse to seekers, artists, occultists, film makers, pop-stars and high fashion, with influence stretching from the artworks of the Surrealists to TV’s Twin Peaks.
Together, the powerful images that make up the Tarot’s major arcana form a compendium of symbolic representations crystallizing the hopes and fears of the western world, a reservoir of images with roots stretching back to Neoplatonism, the Black Plague of medieval Europe, profane folklore, and fin de siècle occultism. Each card evokes and draws on powerful archetypes whose meanings have shifted over the centuries, adapting to new symbolic needs. Combined, they form an alchemical allegory of metamorphosis and reinvention, in which one learns how to vanquish pain, fear and death itself.
Tarot was born of the confluence of two very human impulses: playing games and finding meaning in randomness and chaos. In these times of quarantine, as our minds oscillate between lethal boredom and fear of the unexpected, let’s gather and playfully contemplate six centuries of historical cards, losing ourselves in their beauty, playing games and trying to understand, through the lens of art and historical context, why these images continue to fascinate and inspire us today. By examining this incredibly rich, eternally evolving repository of icons, we will learn to reignite our imagination, reinvent who we are, and stimulate the creator within us.
In this month-long class, we’ll examine each card of the major arcana one by one. Students will be introduced to a rich variety of cards dating from the 15th Century to the present. Together, we will unpack their history and symbolism, with an eye towards investigating the archetypal ideas that animate these powerful images. Students will be given weekly assignments in the form of parlor games and journaling prompts, as well as an access to a virtual library of books, texts and cards archive to inspire and guide their research. For the final project, each student will create their own revisioning of a card of the major arcana, or a new major arcana of their own creation. This could take the form of any work of art in any medium. Students will leave class with a completed artwork, and a deep, intimate knowledge of the Tarot’s major arcana to take with them in future readings and tarot investigations.
French-born Laetitia Barbier is an independent scholar, as well as a professional tarot reader and teacher. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in Art History from La Sorbonne University Paris in 2009. Laetitia has worked with Morbid Anatomy from 2012 to 2024 as a programming director, head librarian, and occasional curator. Her book Tarot and Divination Cards: A Visual Archive was published in 2021 with a foreword by Rachel Pollack. She is the author of the Tiger Tarot Guide Book, a unique Tarot deck by symbolist artist Lori Field. As a writer and scholar, she has the privilege of collaborating with the iconic French maître-cartier Grimaud, notably on the exquisite re-release of their 1930s Tarot de Marseille and Belline Oracle.
Laetitia has lectured, taught and read cards for various cultural institutions, such as Greenwood Cemetery, Artyard, Fotografiska NY, the College of Psychic Studies in London or the New York Public Library. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Image: Lithograph of two allegorical figures: a skeleton holding a scythe and a ball of fire stands next to a female figure, circa 1880, via Wellcome Images
Four-Week class Taught online via Zoom
Tuesdays, May 6 - 27, 2025
7 pm ET (NYC Time)
$95 for Paid Patreon Members / $120 General Admission
All classes will also be recorded for those who cannot attend live
Please note: Zoom invites are sent five days before the first class meeting. If you do not receive it, please email us at hello@morbidanatomy.org.
Why isn’t the Death card the last card of the tarot deck? Does the devil card announces damnation or celebrate irreverence? Is the Magician a creator, a shaman, a con-artist, or all of the above? The twenty two cards forming the Tarot’s major arcana have, for centuries served as a visual oracle, an iconic and adaptable muse to seekers, artists, occultists, film makers, pop-stars and high fashion, with influence stretching from the artworks of the Surrealists to TV’s Twin Peaks.
Together, the powerful images that make up the Tarot’s major arcana form a compendium of symbolic representations crystallizing the hopes and fears of the western world, a reservoir of images with roots stretching back to Neoplatonism, the Black Plague of medieval Europe, profane folklore, and fin de siècle occultism. Each card evokes and draws on powerful archetypes whose meanings have shifted over the centuries, adapting to new symbolic needs. Combined, they form an alchemical allegory of metamorphosis and reinvention, in which one learns how to vanquish pain, fear and death itself.
Tarot was born of the confluence of two very human impulses: playing games and finding meaning in randomness and chaos. In these times of quarantine, as our minds oscillate between lethal boredom and fear of the unexpected, let’s gather and playfully contemplate six centuries of historical cards, losing ourselves in their beauty, playing games and trying to understand, through the lens of art and historical context, why these images continue to fascinate and inspire us today. By examining this incredibly rich, eternally evolving repository of icons, we will learn to reignite our imagination, reinvent who we are, and stimulate the creator within us.
In this month-long class, we’ll examine each card of the major arcana one by one. Students will be introduced to a rich variety of cards dating from the 15th Century to the present. Together, we will unpack their history and symbolism, with an eye towards investigating the archetypal ideas that animate these powerful images. Students will be given weekly assignments in the form of parlor games and journaling prompts, as well as an access to a virtual library of books, texts and cards archive to inspire and guide their research. For the final project, each student will create their own revisioning of a card of the major arcana, or a new major arcana of their own creation. This could take the form of any work of art in any medium. Students will leave class with a completed artwork, and a deep, intimate knowledge of the Tarot’s major arcana to take with them in future readings and tarot investigations.
French-born Laetitia Barbier is an independent scholar, as well as a professional tarot reader and teacher. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in Art History from La Sorbonne University Paris in 2009. Laetitia has worked with Morbid Anatomy from 2012 to 2024 as a programming director, head librarian, and occasional curator. Her book Tarot and Divination Cards: A Visual Archive was published in 2021 with a foreword by Rachel Pollack. She is the author of the Tiger Tarot Guide Book, a unique Tarot deck by symbolist artist Lori Field. As a writer and scholar, she has the privilege of collaborating with the iconic French maître-cartier Grimaud, notably on the exquisite re-release of their 1930s Tarot de Marseille and Belline Oracle.
Laetitia has lectured, taught and read cards for various cultural institutions, such as Greenwood Cemetery, Artyard, Fotografiska NY, the College of Psychic Studies in London or the New York Public Library. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Image: Lithograph of two allegorical figures: a skeleton holding a scythe and a ball of fire stands next to a female figure, circa 1880, via Wellcome Images
Four-Week class Taught online via Zoom
Tuesdays, May 6 - 27, 2025
7 pm ET (NYC Time)
$95 for Paid Patreon Members / $120 General Admission
All classes will also be recorded for those who cannot attend live
Please note: Zoom invites are sent five days before the first class meeting. If you do not receive it, please email us at hello@morbidanatomy.org.
Why isn’t the Death card the last card of the tarot deck? Does the devil card announces damnation or celebrate irreverence? Is the Magician a creator, a shaman, a con-artist, or all of the above? The twenty two cards forming the Tarot’s major arcana have, for centuries served as a visual oracle, an iconic and adaptable muse to seekers, artists, occultists, film makers, pop-stars and high fashion, with influence stretching from the artworks of the Surrealists to TV’s Twin Peaks.
Together, the powerful images that make up the Tarot’s major arcana form a compendium of symbolic representations crystallizing the hopes and fears of the western world, a reservoir of images with roots stretching back to Neoplatonism, the Black Plague of medieval Europe, profane folklore, and fin de siècle occultism. Each card evokes and draws on powerful archetypes whose meanings have shifted over the centuries, adapting to new symbolic needs. Combined, they form an alchemical allegory of metamorphosis and reinvention, in which one learns how to vanquish pain, fear and death itself.
Tarot was born of the confluence of two very human impulses: playing games and finding meaning in randomness and chaos. In these times of quarantine, as our minds oscillate between lethal boredom and fear of the unexpected, let’s gather and playfully contemplate six centuries of historical cards, losing ourselves in their beauty, playing games and trying to understand, through the lens of art and historical context, why these images continue to fascinate and inspire us today. By examining this incredibly rich, eternally evolving repository of icons, we will learn to reignite our imagination, reinvent who we are, and stimulate the creator within us.
In this month-long class, we’ll examine each card of the major arcana one by one. Students will be introduced to a rich variety of cards dating from the 15th Century to the present. Together, we will unpack their history and symbolism, with an eye towards investigating the archetypal ideas that animate these powerful images. Students will be given weekly assignments in the form of parlor games and journaling prompts, as well as an access to a virtual library of books, texts and cards archive to inspire and guide their research. For the final project, each student will create their own revisioning of a card of the major arcana, or a new major arcana of their own creation. This could take the form of any work of art in any medium. Students will leave class with a completed artwork, and a deep, intimate knowledge of the Tarot’s major arcana to take with them in future readings and tarot investigations.
French-born Laetitia Barbier is an independent scholar, as well as a professional tarot reader and teacher. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in Art History from La Sorbonne University Paris in 2009. Laetitia has worked with Morbid Anatomy from 2012 to 2024 as a programming director, head librarian, and occasional curator. Her book Tarot and Divination Cards: A Visual Archive was published in 2021 with a foreword by Rachel Pollack. She is the author of the Tiger Tarot Guide Book, a unique Tarot deck by symbolist artist Lori Field. As a writer and scholar, she has the privilege of collaborating with the iconic French maître-cartier Grimaud, notably on the exquisite re-release of their 1930s Tarot de Marseille and Belline Oracle.
Laetitia has lectured, taught and read cards for various cultural institutions, such as Greenwood Cemetery, Artyard, Fotografiska NY, the College of Psychic Studies in London or the New York Public Library. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Image: Lithograph of two allegorical figures: a skeleton holding a scythe and a ball of fire stands next to a female figure, circa 1880, via Wellcome Images