Learn More about the Mysteries of the Tarot...
The Tarot Deck
The conventional 78-card tarot deck is structured into two distinct parts. The first, called the Major Arcana, consists of 21 cards without suits
typically referred to as "trumps", plus a 22nd card, The Fool. The second, called the Minor Arcana, consists of 56 cards divided into four suits of
14 cards each. The traditional Italian suits are Swords, Batons, Coins, and Cups. In modern tarot decks, the Batons suit is commonly called Wands,
Rods, or Staves, while the Coins suit is often called Pentacles or Disks. (Arcana is the plural form of the Latin word arcanum, meaning
"hidden truth" or "secret knowledge".)
The 14 cards in each suit consist of an Ace, nine cards numbered 2 through 10, and four court cards (not dissimilar from the structure of 52-card
bridge/poker playing card decks, except that bridge/poker playing card decks have three court cards rather than four).
The four court cards (or face cards) of the tarot deck traditionally consist of the King, the Queen, the Knight and the Page (or Knave). In
bridge/poker decks, the court cards typically consist of the King, the Queen and the Jack. The Jack corresponds to the tarot deck's Page.
In the Western world today, the Tarot is usually seen either as a means of divination, the practice of ascertaining information from supernatural
sources, or, in a more modern view, as a psychological tool for accessing the unconscious. However, early references such as the sermon refer only to
the use of the cards for game-playing and gambling; and in some European countries such as France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, Tarot is
still a widely played game.
The relationship between Tarot cards and playing cards is often said to be unclear, but in fact the history is tolerably well documented. Playing
cards appeared quite suddenly in Christian Europe during the period 1375-1380, following several decades of use in Islamic Spain: see playing card
history for discussion of its origins. Early European sources describe a deck with typically 52 cards, like a modern deck with no jokers. The 78-card
Tarot resulted from merging the 21 Trumps and the Fool into an early 56-card variant (14 cards per suit): why this happened is not completely clear,
but there is some evidence that it may have been a measure to avoid anti-gambling laws that targeted the 52-card deck.
Origin and History
The tarot deck
The origins of the tarot deck are obscure, and it has not been easy for historians to strip them of the occultist associations that developed in
the 19th century. Roman Catholic Church sermons inveighing against the evil inherent in cards can be traced to the 14th century. No mention of
playing cards in the context of gambling and other marks of dissolute life precede the sudden appearance of a barrage of hostility in the 1370s: a
sermon by the Swiss Johannes von Rheinfelden, Tractus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis states that "the game of cards has come
to us this year" (said to be 1377, in the 15th-century surviving manuscript) without inveighing against them, but prohibitions against cards were
issued by John I of Castile and the cities of Florence and Basel that same year and by the city of Regensburg the following year and in the Duchy of
Brabant in 1379. Bernard of Siena gave a sermon reviling cards as the invention of the Devil in 1423.
In Pietro Aretino's witty 16th-century dialogue Le carte parlanti ("The talking cards: dialogue in which gaming is discussed in a congenial
fashion") there are frequent references to tarot symbolism: "The temptation of the hermit is the devil," and some irony on their uses: "...They
reveal the secrets of nature, the reason for things, and explain the causes why day is driven out by night and night by day."
The oldest surviving Tarot cards are three mid-15th century sets all made for members of the Visconti family, rulers of Milan. The oldest of these
existing Tarot decks was painted to celebrate a mid-15th century wedding joining the ruling Visconti and Sforza families of Milan, probably painted
by Bonifacio Bembo and other miniaturists of the Ferrara school. Of the original cards, 35 are in the Pierpont Morgan Library, 26 cards are at the
Accademia Carrara, 13 are at the Casa Colleoni, 4 cards being lost (the Devil, the Tower, the Three of Swords, and the Knight
of Coins). This "Visconti-Sforza" deck, which has been widely reproduced in varying quality, combines the Minor Arcana (suits of Swords, Staves,
Pentacles and Cups in their original form, and face cards King, Queen, Knave and Page) with Major Arcana that apparently express versions of some
already traditional iconography. The considerable artistic license displayed in the set is a sign that the original significance of the designs was
already lost in the 15th century.
More simply-drawn decks survive from various cities in France at various times (the best known in this context being the city of Marseille, in
southern France) perhaps from the early 16th century, though actual surviving examples are no earlier than the 17th century.
The designation "Arcana", signifying "hidden meaning," is as old as the tarot cards themselves, but whatever that meaning has been, was lost
before the earliest surviving sets were painted. There is no reason to be confident that the surviving set of Major Arcana is complete. Of the four
Classical Virtues, only Fortitude, Justice and Temperance remain. Can Prudence have always been missing? The Christian Virtues that would ordinarily
complete them (i.e., Faith, Hope and Charity) are missing, however. The presence of the Fool and the Magician has often suggested a
portable catechism for the illiterate, which survives in cartomancy. All the heavenly sources of Light, so important to Dualist heretics, are present
in the Major Arcana, without any planets that would have been required for any meaning associated with astrology, the usual context for heavenly
bodies. Indeed, of any possible signs of the Zodiac, only the dual-natured Twins are present. It is unlikely that their Zodiac context is
being referred to, in which case all the others would have to have gone missing. Traces of medieval dualist heresy, such as the Bogomils taught, or
the Cathars, whose centers were precisely where the earliest Tarot surfaced in Piedmont and Provence, can be also detected in the paired balance, not
merely of Emperor with Empress, but, significantly, by Pope with Popess, with echoes of the Pope Joan myth and of the gnostic >Pistis Sophia.
The substitution of a more neutral "Hierophant" designation for the nameless high priest is a modern one. Steven Runciman, in The Medieval
Manichee (1947), doubted the Catharist connection: "There seems to me to be a trace of Dualism in the pack, but it has since been overlaid with
debased Kabalistic lore." He recognized the traditional interpretation of the Devil as the embodiment of the evil natural forces of this
world, holding a naked man and woman in chains, and suggested in the Tower struck by lightning, a Cathar view of a Roman Catholic church.
Study of the iconography of the earliest tarots via standard comparative-historical methods suffices to pin the origin of the depiction of
Death as after the Black Death, because the skeletal-death-with-a-scythe motif found on effectively all versions of Trump XIII does not
predate the plagues. Before then, skulls in pictorial art were primarily symbols of scholarship and learning.
Use of tarot cards in divination
Since the Egyptianizing ruminations in Le Monde primitif by Antoine Court de Gebelin (1781) which soon inspired the occultism of
"Etteilla," it has been believed by many that the Tarot is far older than this. Based on similarities of the imagery and reinforced by the added
numbering, some associate the Tarot with ancient Egypt, or the Hebrew mystic tradition of the Kabbalah, or a wide variety of other origins. This is
all, however, pure mythology.
In fact, the earliest Tarots seem to have been depictions of the carnival parades that ushered in the season of Lent or the related motif of
hierarchical powers found in Petrarch's poem I Trionfi. These elaborate productions layered then-fashionable Graeco-Roman symbolism over a
Christian allegory of sin, grace, and redemption; notably, the earliest versions of the World card (the final Trump, XXI) show a conventional image
known from period religious art to represent St. Augustine's "Heavenly City", and it is not coincidence that this closely follows the Judgement
card.
Several other early Tarot-like sequences of portable art survive to place the Visconti deck in context. Later confusion about the symbolism stems
from the occult decks, which began a process of steadily paganizing and universalizing the symbolism to the point where the underlying Christian
allegory has been almost completely obscured (as, for example, when the Rider-Waite deck of the early Twentieth Century changed "The Pope" to "The
Hierophant" and "The Popess" to "The High Priestess") It is notable that between 1450 and 1500 the Tarot was actually recommended for the instruction
of the young by Church moralists (reference is urgently needed here); not until fifty years after the Visconti deck did it become associated
with gambling, and not until the 19th century and "Etteilla" with occultism.
The Tarot cards eventually came to be associated with mysticism and magic. This was actually a late rather than early development, as we can tell
from period sources on card divination and magic. The Tarot was not widely adopted by mystics, occultists and secret societies until the 18th and
19th century. The tradition began in 1781, when Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Swiss clergyman and Freemason, published Le Monde Primitif, a
study of religious symbolism and its survivals in the modern world. De Gébelin first called attention to the unusual symbols of the Tarot de
Marseille, and asserted that the symbols in fact represented the mysteries of Isis and Thoth. De Gébelin furthermore claimed that the name
"tarot" came from the Egyptian words tar, meaning "royal", and ro, meaning "road", and that the Tarot therefore represented a "royal
road" to wisdom. De Gébelin wrote before Champollion had deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, and later Egyptologists found nothing in the Egyptian
language that supports de Gébelin's fanciful etymologies, but these findings came too late; by the time authentic Egyptian texts were available, the
identification of the Tarot cards with the Egyptian "Book of Thoth" was already firmly established in occult practice.
Although tarot cards were used for fortune-telling in Italy early in the 1700s and perhaps earlier, they were first widely publicized as a
divination method by Alliette, also called "Etteilla", an ex-barber who reversed the letters of his name and marketed himself as a seer and card
diviner in the Paris of the French Revolution. Etteilla designed the first esoteric Tarot deck, adding astrological attributions to various cards,
altering many of them from the Marseille designs, and adding divinatory meanings in text on the cards. Etteilla decks, although now eclipsed by Smith
and Waite's fully-illustrated deck and Aleister Crowley's "Thoth" deck, remain available. Etteilla's best known successor was Marie-Anne Le Normand,
whose cartomancy became fashionable during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, due largely to the influence Le Normand wielded with Joséphine de
Beauharnais, Napoleon's first wife. After the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbon kings, interest in cartomancy declined.
Interest by more serious occultists came later, during the Hermetic Revival of the 1840s in which (among others) Victor Hugo was involved. The
idea of the cards as a mystical key was first seriously developed by Eliphas Levi and passed to the English-speaking world by The Hermetic Order of
the Golden Dawn. Levi, not Etteilla, is considered by some to be the true founder of most contemporary schools of Tarot reading; his 1854 Dogme et
Rituel de la Haute Magie (English title: Transcendental Magic) introduced a new system for interpreting the cards. While Levi accepted
Court de Gébelin's claims about an Egyptian origin of the deck symbols, he rejected Etteilla's innovations and his altered deck, and devised instead
a system which related the Tarot to the Kabbalah and the four elements of alchemy.
The breakthrough into mass popularity began in 1910, with the publication of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, which took the step of including
symbolic images in the minor arcana as well the major arcana. (Arthur Edward Waite had been an early member of the Golden Dawn). In the 20th century,
a huge number of different decks were created, some traditional, some vastly different.
Please consult one of our many talented Tarot Readers if you would like a
comprehensive Tarot Card reading.
Differences among decks
Tarot cards serve many purposes, and this leads to a variety of Tarot deck styles. Traditionally, a variety of styles of Tarot decks and designs
have existed. A number of standard regional patterns emerged. Historically, the most important design is now usually known as the Tarot of Marseille
(French: Tarot de Marseille). This standard pattern was the one studied by Court de Gébelin, and cards based on this style illustrate his
Le Monde primitif. The name "Tarot of Marseille" is of relatively recent creation; it was bestowed in the 1930s by Paul Marteau on the deck
style. Most current editions of cards based on the Marseille design go back to a deck of a particular Marseille design that was printed by Nicolas
Conver in 1760. Other regional styles include the "Swiss" Tarot; this one substitutes Juno and Jupiter for the Papess and the Pope. In Florence an
expanded deck called Minchiate was used; this deck of 96 cards includes astrological symbols and the four elements, as well as traditional
Tarot cards.
Some decks exist primarily as artwork; and such "art decks" often contain only the 22 cards of the Major Arcana. Esoteric decks are often
used in conjunction with the study of the Hermetic Qabala; in these decks the Major Arcana are illustrated in accordance with Qabalistic principles
while the numbered suit cards (2 through 10) typically bear only stylized renderings of the suit symbol. In contrast, under the influence of the
Rider-Waite-Smith deck, decks used in the English-speaking world for divination often bear illustrated scenes on all cards. The more simply
illustrated "Marseille" style decks are used esoterically, for divination, and previously for game play. (Note that the French card game of tarot is
now generally played using German tarock tarot-gaming decks rather than Marseille style tarot decks. Tarock decks generally have 22 non-esoteric
designs to replace the Marseille designs for the trumps and Fool and have minor arcana that closely resemble today's French playing cards.)
An influential deck in English-speaking countries is the Rider-Waite deck (sometimes called simply the Rider deck). [This is the deck used in
our Free Readings.] In contrast, in
French-speaking countries, the Marseille deck enjoys the equivalent popularity. The images were painted by artist Pamela Colman Smith, to the
instructions of academic and mystic Arthur Waite, and originally published by the Rider Company circa 1910. While the images are deceptively, almost
childishly simple, the details and backgrounds hold a wealth of symbolism. The subjects remain close to the earliest decks, but usually have added
detail. An important difference from 'Marseille'-style decks is that Colman Smith drew pictorial scenes on the numeric minor arcana cards to depict
divinatory meanings ("scenic pip cards"); those divinatory meanings derive, in great part, from traditional cartomantic divinatory meanings (e.g.,
Etteilla and other cartomancy meanings) and from divinatory meanings innovated by The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, of which both Waite and
Colman Smith were former members.
The chief aesthetic objection (by some) to the Rider-Waite deck is the crude selection or rendering of colours in the original: several decks,
such as the Universal Waite, simply copy the Smith line drawings, but with more sophisticated colouring.
In Internet tarot discussion groups, the Rider-Waite deck and its close clones, e.g., the Universal Waite, are sometimes referred to by the
collective term "Rider-Waite-Smith", "RWS" or "Waite-Colman-Smith" (or variants of the latter expression). As noted further below, the Rider deck has
spawned many variant decks in English-speaking countries in the 20th and 21st centuries, which vary the designs themselves, and not just the
colours.
A widely-used esoteric Tarot deck is Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot (pronounced "tote" or "thoth"). Crowley engaged the artist Lady Frieda
Harris to paint the cards for the deck. The Thoth deck is distinctly different from the Rider-Waite deck. Also, it has non-scenic pip cards. That
said, many consider the Rider-Waite deck and the Tarot de Marseille also to be 'esoteric' decks.
In contrast to the Thoth deck's colourfulness, the illustrations on Paul Foster Case's B.O.T.A. Tarot deck are black line drawings on white cards;
this is an unlaminated deck intended to be coloured by its owner. Other esoteric decks include the Golden Dawn Tarot which is based on a deck by SL
MacGregor Mathers, the Tree of Life Tarot whose cards are stark symbolic catalogs, and the Cosmic Tarot, which is unusual for an esoteric deck
because it is fully-illustrated.
The Marseille style Tarot decks generally feature numbered minor arcana cards that look very much like the pip cards of modern playing card
decks. The Marseille numbered minor arcana cards do not have scenes depicted on them ('non-scenic pip cards'); rather, they sport a geometric
arrangement of the number of suit implements (e.g., swords, rods, cups, coins) corresponding to the number of the card (accompanied by botanical and
other non-scenic flourishes), while the court cards are often illustrated with flat, two-dimensional drawings.
Symbolism
The Tarot has a complex and rich symbolism because it has a complex and rich history. Such a history is not impenetrable, however; much of the fog
around the symbolism can be dispelled if one bothers to study sources other than occultists with a vested interest in the mystery of it all. We will
do some dispelling further on; in the meanwhile, the most important thing to note is that modern, occult readings of the cards often have little to
do with their meaning in their original context -- and that, given the modern uses of the Tarot, this is actually a good thing.
Tarots are more interesting, expressive, and psychologically resonant today than their ancestors. Interpretations have evolved together with the
cards over the centuries: later decks have "clarified" the pictures in accordance with their perceived meanings, the meanings in turn modified by the
new pictures. Images and interpretations have been continually reshaped, partly at random and partly in conscious or unconscious efforts to help the
Tarot live up to its mythic role as a powerful occult instrument.
See, for example, the Rider-Waite-Smith Strength card. We can know more about the symbolic intentions of the designer here, since he conveniently
wrote many books on the subject. As with its Marseille-deck ancestor, the card shows a woman holding the jaws of a lion, but this picture is far more
elaborate. The strangely shaped hat of the Marseille card has traditionally been interpreted as a symbolic lemniscate: the sideways-figure-eight
representation of infinity. In the newer card, this symbol appears explicitly. Other symbols are included: a chain of roses symbolizing desire or
passion, against a white robe symbolizing purity. The mountains in the background demonstrate another kind of strength. Even here there is room for
interpretation: the card is sometimes considered as showing intellect triumphing over desire, sometimes as the equal union of intellect and passion,
sometimes just as a symbol of mental strength or endurance.
The twenty-two cards in the major arcana are: Fool, Magician, High Priestess [or La Papessa/Popess], Empress, Emperor, Hierophant [or Pope],
Lovers, Chariot, Strength, Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, Judgement, World. Each
card has its own large, complicated and disputed set of meanings. Altogether the major arcana are said to represent the Fool's journey: a symbolic
journey through life in which the Fool overcomes obstacles and gains wisdom.
There is a vast body of writing on the significance of the Tarot. In many systems of interpretation, the four suits are associated with the four
elements: Swords with air, Wands with fire, Cups with water and Pentacles with earth. The Numerology is usually thought to be significant. The Tarot
is often considered to correspond to various systems such as astrology, Pythagorean numerology, the Kabalah, the I Ching and others.
Psychology
Carl Jung was the first psychologist to attach importance to the Tarot. He regarded the Tarot cards as representing archetypes: fundamental types
of person or situation embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The Emperor, for instance, represents the ultimate patriarch or father
figure.
The theory of archetypes gives rise to several psychological uses. Some psychologists use Tarot cards to identify how a client views himself or
herself, by asking the patient to select a card that he or she identifies with. Some try to get the client to clarify his ideas by imagining his
situation or relationship in terms of Tarot images: Is someone rushing in heedlessly like the Knight of Swords perhaps, or blindly keeping the world
at bay as in the Rider-Waite-Smith Two of Swords? The Tarot can be seen as a kind of algebra of the subconscious, allowing it to be analysed at the
conscious level.
Interestingly, the older decks such as the Visconti-Sforza and Marseille tend to have a cruder and less general "algebra" than the modern ones.
This is not merely an illusion of the modern eye, it reflects the general direction of evolutionary change in Tarot art over the centuries, and
especially since 1900. The Tarot symbolism has rather successfully universalized itself from parochial origins.
Divination
Divination, or fortune-telling, is by far the most popular and well-known use of the Tarot in the English-speaking world. This is sometimes seen
as an extension of the psychological use mentioned above. It can be argued that we sometimes perceive the signs of future events subconsciously only.
For instance, you might be subconsciously aware that a relationship or job is in trouble, before you admit it to yourself. In that sense, it might be
said that the Tarot can give you insights into the future without having any supernatural or occult aspect at all. Meaning may emerge even from
purely random patterns, as chance selections force you to consider concepts that you'd normally ignore, and the density of meaning is great enough
that meanings can emerge from almost any selection of cards.
That point of view is rare among those who use Tarot for divination. Tarot card readers generally believe that Tarot cards simply allow them to
exercise an innate psychic ability to see the future. It is popularly believed that the cards take on the "aura" or "vibrations" of someone who
touches them. The cards are therefore "insulated" by wrapping them in silk or enclosing them in a box, and only touched by the reader and by the
person for whom the reading is done (the "querent").
There are many variations, but in a typical reading the querent shuffles the cards, then the reader lays out the cards in a pattern called a
"layout" or "spread". A well-known spread is the Celtic Cross. The cards are then analysed according to their positions, their relationships and
whether the cards are upside-down ("reversed"). If the reader uses the interpretation technique of reversals, a reversed card has its own set of
modified meanings and/or modified energies; a reversed card's meaning may sometimes be the opposite of the upright card meaning, sometimes weakened,
sometimes twisted.
Divination may be seen as magical in itself, but the word "magic" usually refers to the use of Tarot cards in a magical ritual designed to achieve
some end. This is much less common than simple divination, however.
Please consult one of our many talented Tarot Readers if you would like a
comprehensive Tarot Card reading.
Layouts
In Tarot divination, results can be achieved with analysis of just one card, but, for more thoroughness, combinations of several cards in set
patterns are usually used. These patterns are called spreads or layouts. There are many different spreads, although the Celtic Cross is one of the
best known, and is often taught to beginners as their first spread, despite the complexity of that spread and the availability of simpler, more
easily manageable spreads. More experienced practitioners will sometimes use their own spreads, assigning their own meanings to the relevant
positions represented.
The Great Cross ("Celtic Cross") Layout
This layout generally consists of 10 cards, or 10 cards plus an optional, 11th card [as a significator card]. The significator card represents the
person or the situation. The first 6 of the 10 cards are laid out in the shape of a cross. (If there is a significator card, the first card of the 10
is placed atop the significator card.) The final 4 of the 10 cards are placed in a column to the right.
The Celtic Cross was used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn for outer-order members of the Order and was later made popular because of its
description by A. E. Waite in his book, A Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Note that, for tarot layouts for its inner-order members, the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn used The Opening of the Key.
The Romany Draw Layout (or Past/Present/Future, aka 3-Card Spread)
The card-reader shuffles the deck, then spreads out all of the cards, asking the querent [the person for whom the cards are being read] to pick
three cards, one at a time. The card-reader then flips the cards over, the one on the left telling of the past, the middle one telling current
events, and the one on the right telling the future. Click Here for your free 3-card spread Tarot
reading.
Crowley's Thoth layout
The Thoth Tarot deck was created by Aleister Crowley. The deck is shuffled by the querent. The querent concentrates on the question and then
returns the deck to the reader. The reader lays out the cards in five categories. The center category (three cards) represents the motivations of the
querent. The top right hand category (three cards) represents things that will happen in the near or most likely future. The top left hand category
(three cards) represent what will happen in the distant or less likely future. The bottom left hand category (three cards) represents forces that
help the querent. The bottom right hand category (three cards) represents forces beyond the querent's control.
Conclusion
The Tarot indisputably has a rich and mysterious history. From our own experiences in using the Tarot, the results of a reading are almost always
startlingly accurate. The Tarot most certainly is a magical tool of divination. See for yourself, consult one of our many talented Tarot Readers for a comprehensive personal Tarot Card reading.
(
Home |
Browse |
My Account | Hosts | Affiliates |
Help/Contact
)