A Brief History of the Tarot

This is part of my section about the Tarot including interpretation of the symbolism of all the cards. Please see this page as an index of all that information.

In the modern day, the tarot is a means of divination. This means it is used to derive information from spiritual sources. It was not always so. Once upon a time, it may have been a card game similar to Bridge or Spades. Early records simply call it “Trionfi” or some variation of “Trumps”. Most commonly, cartomancers (people to try to divine information using cards) will determine the fate of a person by the combination of cards that are dealt from a shuffled deck and by the placement of the cards. Many will rely on their intuition to guide them to the most important aspects of a card. Some people who are gifted at scrying will scry the card as if it were a magic mirror or crystal ball for further information. If the cardreader’s client is an Occultist then often divining the future is less common. Since the cards symbolise many trans-temporal forces affecting the world, it forms an opportunity to discuss the client’s relationship to these trans-temporal forces since the client might have a more direct relationship with them. In many instances, it is an opportunity for a client to receive coaching, counselling and spiritual guidance, whether or not the cards successfully divine the future. With the cards, you can give a face and a voice to your issues and interact with them.

The Tarot de Marseille is often cited as the first tarot deck to be recorded as used for divination. It was certainly commonly being used throughout France for cartomancy by the late 1700s. Before this Tarot was likely a card game going back as early as the 1400s. It was commonly played in Italy and introduced to France during the French invasion of Milan. The game seems to have died out of popularity in Italy, but survived in France and Switzerland and was later re-introduced to Italy where Tarot de Marseille is still a very popular deck in Italy. The Italian deck is mostly identical to the the Tarot de Marseille deck.

By the mid-1800s the cards were accepted as having hidden Occult meanings. Often the history of tarot at the time was shrouded in mystery leading some to claim the cards go back to ancient Egypt. This earned the tarot the name “The Book of Thoth”.

A popular text, among qabalists of the time, was Sepher Yetzirah. This text attempts to describe the construction of the world through the speaking of each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, among other things. The text was believed to hold the hidden secret of the means of creating a golem, but only clear to some. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet was then believed to have some creative power that preceded time. With the Foul included the tarot’s trumps were then related to the 22 letters each having a relationship to the divine.

In the late 1800s, a group known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn began working profusely with the tarot and noticed that if they were neatly related according to the description in Sepher Yetzirah with the unnumbered fool at the wrong of the trumps, then Justice which featured scales fell in the place of Leo the sign based on the symbol of a lion and Strength the card which featured a Lion fell in the place of Libra the zodiac sign which featured scales. These cards were reversed on the assumption that they were probably meant to be that way round in the first place place with the card featuring the lion where Leo would be and the card featuring scales where Libra would be.

In 1909 a man called Edward Alexander Waite commissioned a desk to be made by a woman called Pixie or Pamela Coleman Smith. He had done extensive research into the tarot. She had a background as an artist and a suffragette and worked in theatre with costume. Each picture was inspired by a combination of the Tarot de Marseilles and the Sola Busca tarot. Pixie mostly worked from words rather than pictures and the descriptions for the minor arcana (the cards with the 4 suits) were lacking so many of these cards are her own invention or divination. Most previous decks had simple pip cards instead, but this deck did not which made it stand out. It is said that Pixie had synesthesia which caused her to see colours when she heard music. It is believed that she used this as a superpower to cause psychic visions and that the deck may have been born from this practice.

The deck was published by a publisher known as William Rider as the Rider-Waite deck which it is commonly called today. It was repeatedly published without Pixie receiving any further royalties. In fact, due to shoddy Copyright law, Rider was able to publish the deck in the USA as the Rider Tarot without even giving royalties to Waite.

To date, there have been over 100 million copies of the “Rider-Waite” deck sold and roughly 80% of published tarot cards are based closely on the “Rider-Waite”. It is the closest thing to a standard deck in the Occult world. Pamela Coleman Smith however was barely renumerated for painting what she refers to as 80 cards in 6 months and struggled financially for most of her later life while she attempted to serve aging priests. Her name was omitted on the deck for which she did most of the work and she was nearly erased from history. Her effort was rediscovered because every card was signed by her in a unique artistic way.

Of the 20% of published tarot decks which do not match the deck drawn by Pixie, many are reproductions of historic decks, some are so abstract they are difficult for any cartomancy to be performed and the rest tend to deviate from the common form to stick closely to a theme. If anyone wants to learn to read the tarot I ALWAYS recommend starting with the Smith-Waite-Rider deck or whatever you want to call it.

At the end of Crowley’s life, a Thelema-based tarot appeared which was painted by Lady Frieda Harris under the guidance of Crowley. This was dubbed the Book of Thoth as the whole of the tarot had been in the past (or sometimes the Book of Hermes), but this deck is often referred to today as the Thoth Tarot. This is used by most Thelemites and some other Ceremonial Magicians as an alternative to the Smith-Waite-Rider deck.

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