Do you like Tarot because of its aura of mystery, for its esoteric history, or because of its magical qualities? If you think Tarot is special because of one of those reasons, then you are not going like what I have to say in this article. I’m going to be looking at the true history of Tarot, and my research has brought me to conclusions that are different to what most of you will have read online, and they are perhaps different to what you want to believe are the facts behind Tarot.
I have enjoyed using Tarot cards since 1985 and I love Tarot’s symbology, but I do not like it when unenlightened people create a fictitious and romantic history for these cards. I’ve put together the top ten pieces of information that I feel Tarot readers should know about Tarot’s origins. This data has been gleaned from art historians, card collectors, and my own research in museums and libraries.
1) It’s True History: For those of you who like the idea that Tarot is a magical or mystical tool that has been handed down from ancient Egypt, or even from Atlantis — I’m sorry, but there is absolutely no proof of this. Not only is there no proof, but when you look at the earliest known Tarot cards and check how they came into existence, there isn’t even any remote possibility of a link with Egypt or the mythical Atlantis. I hear you saying, “But I’ve seen cards that have Egyptian designs or symbols on them!” And you may have, but these are later additions to Tarot’s artwork, and the images that Tarot is based upon do not have any Egyptian designs or symbols on them.
The earliest surviving Tarot cards are hand painted decks that were made in Italy, around the year 1441. They were made for the court of Filippo Maria Visconti, the Duke of Milan (from 1412 to 1447) and these cards are known as the Visconti-Sforza Tarocchi. This name was given to them because that is the name of the families for whom these cards were created. We know this because the heraldry of these families was included on the cards themselves. Depictions of family members were also used in the cards.
2) The Joker: It’s been stated that today’s ordinary playing cards derive from Tarot cards, with the Joker being a representative of the Fool card from the Major Arcana. Sorry, but ordinary playing cards developed much earlier and first entered Europe from the Islamic world around 1375.
3) The Suits: Tarot’s modern suits are quite different to the original ones. The suits of Tarot are derived from Islamic playing cards which were Coins, Cups, Swords, and Polo Sticks. The game of polo was very important in the Islamic culture, but was not known in Europe when the cards arrived, so the suit of Polo sticks eventually became known as the suit of Staves or Batons. In Italy and Spain, playing cards have retained the suits of Batons, Coins, Cups, and Swords.
4) Magickal Imagery: Over the years of Tarot’s evolution, various occultists changed the original suits to make Tarot seem more magical or mysterious. The Sticks/Batons/Staves were changed to Wands, and the suit of Coins was changed to Pentacles.
5) No Gypsies: For many years there was a theory suggesting the Gypsies brought Tarot to Europe, and this notion has unfortunately become an accepted ‘fact’ in the story of Tarot. However, we know that the Gypsies arrived in Western Europe in 1417, but playing cards were known in Catalonia, a region in North Eastern Spain, by 1370, so cards arrived 47 years before the Gypsies. And in historical records, Gypsies are only referred to as palm readers; there is no mention of them using cards for fortune telling until 1891. And the cards they are associated with are standard playing cards, not Tarot cards.
6) It Was A Game: Despite repeated references in many books, Tarot was not designed as a way of hiding esoteric information from the ignorant, or a method of concealing secrets from invading nations. There were many references to Tarot during the 15th Century and all related to Tarot as a game. It was never mentioned as being used for any other reason during that time. Its original design did not have mystical connections, nor fortune-telling properties. The most likely reason for its invention involves the Duke of Milan (Filippo Maria Visconti) wanting a variation on the standard playing card deck he had been using. He asked his artist Bonifacio Bembo to create an extension of this game.
7) Name Changes: The images of the cards in the modern Tarot are similar in some ways to the original Tarot cards Bembo created, but there have been quite a few significant changes. Over the years the pictures on the cards have been altered by occultists to fit their own theories about mysticism and magic. Therefore the card called The Popess became known as The High Priestess, the image of The Pope was renamed as The Hierophant, The Hunchback was called The Hermit, and The Traitor was turned into The Hanged Man.
8) Biblical Overtones: The Major Arcana cards were originally based upon Christian principles, not on esoteric or magical knowledge. For the Major Arcana, the artist, Bembo, decided to utilise an allegory of religious teachings that could easily be displayed in a series of pictures. If you look at sources from the 15th and 16th centuries listing the trump cards in a sequence, you will see a distinct pattern emerge. This pattern shows the physical realm as the lowest form of existence, and then shows the path of Christian spirituality leading all the way to their God. The final card in the Major Arcana is The World card, and an early writer on the subject described this final card as “The World, that is, God the Father”. The terms ‘Major Arcana’ and ‘Minor Arcana’ are relatively recent terminology. Paul Christian, an occultist from the 1800s introduced these terms to the Tarot. Once again, these terms were given to the Tarot in order to make it seem more mystifying. The word arcana means mysterious, or secret, and by bestowing upon the cards these Latin titles, it was imbued with a mystical quality that was never intended by the original designer of the game.
9) Cabala: Some occultists state there is a direct link between the 22 paths of Cabala to the 22 Major Arcana. What is Cabala? It’s also known as Kabbalah, Cabbalah, or Qabalah, and it’s the ancient Jewish tradition that focuses on mystical interpretations of the Bible. Pico della Mirandola was the person responsible for introducing Cabala to Western occultists, but he did this more than 40 years after Tarot cards had been in existence, so the Tarot images were definitely not based on, nor linked to this Hebrew alphabet and system of mysticism. If Cabalists had invented the Tarot, the earliest known cards would have Hebrew letters on them, and they would not have used images such as Death, or the Devil, or pictures of any women on them. Jewish Cabalists did not like images of that nature, nor those of the human form, as these were forbidden by the First Commandment constituting ‘graven images’. And conversely, Tarot does not feature in any way within Cabalistic literature. The Tarot is not descended from Jewish culture, and Jewish Cabalists today do not recognise Tarot as being any part of their beliefs. Any significance between the Tarot and Cabala is the result of four main things…
a) Occultists conveniently overlooked some basic ideas about Cabala to better suit their theory about a link between the two subjects. For example, cards such as The Pope (now called the Hierophant) and Judgement are obviously Christian based, not Hebrew.
b) When designing a Tarot deck, occultists often implanted supplementary symbols within the Tarot card images to suit Cabala. For example, Lévi introduced the ‘elemental’ suit signs on the table of the Magician to show this card represented ‘first matter’ – the elements being the basis from which all things were composed.
c) Occultists often rearranged the order of the cards to better fit their theories. The Golden Dawn interchanged the cards Justice and Strength in order to conform to the Hebrew letters and correspondences.
d) With archetypal imagery such as the Tarot, it is not too difficult to see one system of esoterica as similar to another system. And when you include the coincidence that in Tarot’s Major Arcana there are 22 cards, and in Cabala there are 22 paths on the Tree of Life, then someone’s bound to jump to conclusions about a direct link between the two. But as I said, this is a coincidence that has been adapted in an attempt to find a connection that is not there.
In 1778 Court de Gébelin and the Comte de Mellet were the first to suggest a link between Tarot and Cabala, and this was picked up and expanded upon by Lévi, an occultist of dubious researching abilities. But because of Lévi’s high reputation in the magical world of that era, the association between Tarot and the Cabala was simply regarded as a fact from that point forward, with no-one bothering to check if he was right or not!
10) The Elements: Elemental associations with the four suits are another later invention of the occultists and were not part of the original Tarot concept. Eliphas Lévi gave Tarot the associations commonly accepted in most Tarot books today:
Batons/Wands = fire
Coins/Pentacles = earth
Cups = water
Swords = air
Conclusion: The evolution of Tarot is a jig-saw puzzle of information with pieces coming from scattered directions, and it is derived from many cultures and from many minds. When you think about Tarot, I’d like you to remember there are two main types of Tarot decks, and they are very distinct from each other. We have the historical Tarot, which was simply designed as a card game, and now we have the modern Tarot, which has evolved from the historical Tarot. The early Tarot did not have any mystical or magical qualities associated with it. The Historical Tarot was an invention of the 15th Century and was based upon the cultural, historical, and religious expressions of its time — nothing more, nothing less.
Modern Tarot cards have esoteric and mystical associations, but only because symbolism of this nature has been placed in the card’s imagery over the last few centuries, not because Tarot is linked to some ancient source of secret knowledge. In writing all of this, I’m not trying to belittle Tarot and its heritage. I am just trying to add a rational voice to the unreasonable accounts that some people attempt to pass off as the ‘history’ of Tarot.
The modern Tarot has become a powerful series of mystical images that can rightfully be seen as a spiritual journey. It is filled with magical, esoteric symbols and archetypes, making it a playground for the imagination. This is brilliant! This is an important part of Tarot’s place in today’s world. And it makes the art of Tarot reading so much easier than if you were using the historical cards. However, when people promote a fictitious history simply to boost the mystique of a subject, it undermines the value of its true nature when the truth is finally revealed.
The real story of the evolution of Tarot is just as interesting as the fabrications. This version may not seem as enigmatic as its counterpart, but it is still fascinating. When you see an article that tells of Tarot’s ‘mysterious and obscure’ origins, please delve deeper and you’ll soon realise the author hasn’t bothered doing any serious research on the subject.