or
How did a simple card game become a tool for Divination called the Tarot?
In late 14th century a simple card game arrived in Italy from Manuik (Islamic) Egypt. The card deck was made up of four suits just as we now have clubs hearts spades diamonds, they were then referred to as discs/coins, cups, swords, wands/staves with three face cards… king queen knave.
A couple of decades later noble families started to commission new ‘trump’ cards to be painted creating their own decks which is when we see illustractions of more aspects of Christian and civic life in europe, which is when we see the Pope, Emperor, Judgement enter the deck.
These elaborately painted cards were designed as personification of abstract concepts which anybody could understand at a glance, death, the hanged man, Tower, wheel of fortune, Sun, Moon, Star, Devil, Temperance. Allegorical art. Justice card. You just have to look at the scales of justice to understand the concept of this card for instance.
The game was about winning trick using these Trump cards… rather like bridge. The game originally called Triumphs….
(these Trump/face cards came to make up the 22 major arcana cards of the Tarot deck now . The Fool was a wild card. And today the Major arcana describe the Fool’s Journey from the first leap of faith into the unknown as he/she transitions on the ups and downs, gaining knowledge, skills and experience on the journey of life ending with the card of completion of being whole, the world.)
The Wild card, that starts the hero’s journey by taking a leap of faith into the unknown!
A few more decades passed when it was just a parlous game for the rich and it wasn’t until printing because industrialised in 1700s that playing cards got spread around Europe and it wasn’t until the early 18 century that the idea of divination /fortune telling came into the picture.
And this was via a frenchman in 1781 who until then used ordinary playing cards to tell the future but then by adding the 21 trump cards and the fool created the Major Arcana although with the myth that imbedded in the pictures of the cards were ancient secrets and wisdom from the Egyptians that contained tarot symbols of the sacred wisdom from the Book of Thoth. Totally unsubstantiated but by then Europe was caught up in the occult and mysticism….. and the French occultist Jean-Baptiste Alliette published the first Tarot deck specifically designed as a divinatory tool.
Now the idea of past present future was introduced in the cards…
So originally from Italy, when they played tarocchi, a bridge-like game with four suits plus additional face tarot cards……was renamed Tarot when it arrived and became wildly popular in the south of France.
It was in 1909 that Arthur Edward Waite the occultist and Pamela Coleman smith created the Rider Waite deck we use now.
And the rest as they say is history…
More another day, meanwhile do come and have a reading online or in person in Battersea. It is a fascinating experience reading the cards.