Twixt Earth and Sky

History of the Tarot

Because of it's spiritual roots, it has been said that the Tarot is one of the few protected forms of divination. There are the original decks which we discuss in the paragraphs below, and there are many newly designed decks based around differing spiritual traditions, from Paganism, Druidry, Native American Spirituality and the Animal kingdom, and Zen Buddhism, to Greek, Norse and Arthurian mythology. There is even a newly designed deck based upon Tolkein's novels, "Lord of the Rings". But whatever the virtues of these differing decks, they confirm the viability of the Tarot and its application to many times and many cultures. The best of these new designs spring from established Tarot tradition and symbology, which indicates that we too can deepen and evolve our use and understanding of the Tarot as did those who have gone before.

The standard modern deck consists of 78 cards split into two sections: the 22 cards of the Major Arcana (the archetypal Tarot cards, such as the Lovers, Death and Judgement), and the 56 cards of the Minor Arcana (four suits of fourteen cards, each comprised of cards numbered from one to ten, and four 'court' cards). This structure is a derivation of the Venetian or Piedmontese Tarot, but early decks were of several types with varying numbers of cards.

Marseilles Tarot, the earliest known cards still in existence date from 1392 and, of these, only 17 remain. It is believed that they were painted for Charles VI of France by Jacquemin Gringonneur, but it is possible that they are actually less ancient and are Tarocchi of Venice cards from the middle of the 15th century. The earliest surviving full deck was painted in 1422 by Italian artist Bonifacio Bembo. This is known as the Visconti deck after the family name of its commissioner, the Duke of Milan.

While there is little actual evidence for the existence of the Tarot before the 14th century, many of the ideas symbolically depicted on the cards are much older. While cards like the Juggler (Magus), the Pope (Hierophant), the Devil and the Last Judgement seem fully at home in the context of medieval Europe, others, such as the High Priestess and the Moon, have a more pre-Christian feel to them.

Initially, the Tarot may have been used for playing games, and our contemporary playing cards are effectively a subset of the Tarot deck. In modern Italy, there is still a game called tarocchi played with the Minor Arcana. Opinion differs, though, as to whether playing cards evolved from the Tarot or vice versa. Over time, the cards became used for fortune telling, which is their main application today.

During the 15th century, dissemination of the cards was limited as they had to be hand-painted or drawn, but as new printing techniques became available, Tarot became more accessible. By the 16th century, a deck called the Marseilles Tarot was widely used.

The cards, particularly the 22 cards of the Major Arcana, have strong esoteric associations, and these began to be explored from the 18th century onwards, with the cards being linked to many areas of mystical study, such as the Kabbalah, alchemy, ritual magic and divination. Whether these associations were a guiding force in the creation of the Tarot or whether they were added to the lore by these later mystics is, again, debatable.

The 19th century French occultist, Eliphas Levi, explored the link between the Tarot and the Kabbalah. Though others before him had suggested such a link, his was the work that rooted the association in occult study, and the Kabbalah-Tarot system became the main model for the development and interpretation of the Tarot, and of its use in the Western Mystery Tradition. Levi himself felt that the Tarot was born from Kabbalistic teachings, though there is no hard historical evidence for this belief.

The 19th and early 20th centuries saw a revival in the study and application of occult teachings, and many of the associations between the Tarot and other mystical systems were developed or refined at this time. Most influential was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an English Rosicrucian society founded in 1888. Members of the Order separately produced two of the most popular and influential modern Tarot decks: the Rider-Waite and the Thoth deck.

Arthur Edward Waite was a prominent member of the Golden Dawn. In 1910, he published The Key to the Tarot in which he wrote: "the true tarot is symbolism, it speaks no other language and offers no other signs." He directed a fellow member, Pamela Colman Smith, in the design of the deck now known as the Rider-Waite (Rider was Waite's publisher).

Another member, Aleister Crowley, designed the Thoth deck, which was painted by Lady Frieda Harris. The deck was developed between 1938 and 1943 (considerably longer than the anticipated three months). Though Crowley published his study of the Tarot, The Book of Thoth, in 1944, the deck itself was not published until 1969, by which time both designer and artist were dead. Thoth, incidentally, was an Egyptian god (the equivalent of the Roman Mercury), said to be the inventor of hieroglyphics. Both the Rider-Waite and the Thoth decks are replete with esoteric symbolism, combining important symbolic aspects of earlier decks with Kabbalistic, astrological and alchemical references.