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The Tarot is a deck of seventy-eight cards made up of two sections, today commonly known as the Major and Minor Arcana.
The Major Arcana is a section of twenty-two cards, each showing a universal theme (what Jung would have called an archetype). The Major Arcana are also called the Trumps.
The Minor Arcana is a section of fifty-six cards, very similar to our deck of fifty-two playing cards, with four suits, made up of cards from One to Ten and four Court Cards (King, Queen, Knight, Page). The only difference between the common deck of playing cards and the Minor Arcana of the Tarot is the addition of a Knight. The Joker which appears in our deck of playing cards is very similar to the Fool of the Tarot. The Minor Arcana of the Tarot are also called the Suits.
We do not really know if the original Tarot deck was made up of two parts or if they were combined at a later date. There is compelling evidence to indicate that the two sections had separate origins and were combined quite early on to make a single deck.
The Tarot appeared in Europe around the late 14th and early 15th Centuries. Although there are no examples of the earliest cards, there are other types of records of the game Trionfi or Tarocchi. This is the gambling game for which the Tarot was first used. In 1367 the city of Bern, Switzerland prohibited the use of playing cards, and similar decree was handed down in Barcelona, Spain in 1382. Several Italian murals from the 15th Century depict a gambling card game, which very well could have been the Tarot. The earliest surviving examples of the Tarocchi deck are from decks owned by the Visconti and Visconti-Sforza families. There are 271 cards in existence today, located in various museums and private collections. These cards have been divided into fifteen groups, and the largest known group has seventy-four of the seventy-eight cards surviving. The exact age of these cards is not known, but scholars have dated some of the cards to the mid-1400's.
The use of playing cards originated in China, and it seems coincidental that the Tarot game
began to appear in Italy after the return of Marco Polo from China in the late 13th Century. The
designs on the earliest known Trump cards related to Roman myths and Astrology, thus supporting the theory of Italian origins. Some of the imagery remains today on the cards, but much has changed. The original Trumps were not numbered, as they are now. The earliest documentation of numbering is from the late 15th Century. It is unclear how many original Trump cards there were in the Tarot deck. Some decks had Zodiac signs, the planets known at the time, Roman mythological figures, the seven virtues and seven vices, Many correspond with the current Trump cards, but some do not. The Minchiate decks had ninety-seven cards. There is some speculation that some of the early Visconti decks might be incomplete Minchiate decks, as the Major Arcana (Trumps) have some similarities. Is the Tarot a pared-down version of the Minchiate? The debate over this question still goes on.
Early decks were hand drawn and painted for very wealthy families. Cheaper copies from woodcuts were made shortly thereafter. With the advent of the printing press (moveable type) in the 15th Century, the publication of playing card decks became more widespread and profitable. It appears that although the Tarot originated in Italy, the widespread printing and publication of the cards was in mainly in the south of France. In spite of this fact, the game was not as readily adopted in the north of France or the northern parts of Europe. This game of Tarocchi is still played in parts of Europe today. There are similarities to our modern game of Bridge.
Contrary to popular belief, the Romany (gypsies) did not either invent the Tarot or start the trend of divining with the deck. By the time the Romany appeared in Europe in the 15th Century, the game of Trumps and the deck of Tarot was in widespread use.
Use of the Tarot for divination appears to have become popular with the French occultists in the late 18th Century. However, the earliest reference to the Tarot being used for divination came from a series of sonnets written by Merlini Cocai (pseudonym of Teofilo Folengo of Italy) in 1527.
In France, in the 18th Century, occultism was gaining popularity, and the Rosetta Stone had not yet been discovered and deciphered. There was a complete fascination with all things Egyptian. This combined with the fact that the occultists of the time had no idea of the history of the cards, led them to make some very inaccurate assumptions. French occultists attributed the cards origins to the "gypsies" or Bohemians (Romany) whom they believed to have come from Egypt. It is now known that the Romany originated in India. To this day, many still believe that the Tarot is a "book" of some ancient Egyptian Hermetic occult system
The humble deck of Tarot had even made its way to the Court of King Louis XIV of France. There, the cards were used for divination or fortune telling. It is a well-known fact that Louis XIV frequently consulted Mme. Ambruget, a famous cartomancer of the time. When the cards traveled to England and to North America, they were brought over as mysterious occult divination tools, not as a card game.
In the early 20th Century, A. E. Waite, a famous occultist, who was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, found many relationships between the Tarot and the ancient Jewish mystical tradition called the Cabala. He related the 22 Trump Cards (which he called Major Arcana) to the 22 paths along the Tree of Life. In order to make his theory "fit," he changed the accepted order of some of the cards. Since the Trumps did not have numbers or any recorded order for the first hundred years of their existence, his ordering method is as viable as any other. Today, Waite's ordering of the Major Arcana (Trumps) has become the standard for most decks.
Waite made the Suits of Cards relate to the Magical tools used by his Order, and added drawings to the Suit cards, to give visual aid to their interpretation. Before his deck, the Suits never had pictures on them, just the number of pips.
With the intervention of A. E. Waite, the Tarot Cards became a very useful tool for divination,meditation, and ritual work. It is to him, that we can attribute the modern day popularity of the Tarot.
Now, there are hundreds of varieties of Tarot Decks. I have divided these decks into three categories: Traditional (earlier numbering versions, and no drawings on the Minor Arcana cards), Waite style (decks adhering to Waite's design), and Eclectic (using some elements from Traditional and Waite decks).
In Europe, the collecting of limited edition Tarot Decks has become widespread. These decks are being viewed as works of art, by collectors. The largest publisher of Tarot decks in Europe is AGMüller & Cie. of Switzerland (where the cards were banned so many years ago).
Many other decks which have been designed for divination purposes do not use the symbolism of the Tarot, but might not have ever been created, had the Tarot not become so popular.
Pictures on this page
Various High Priestess Cards (from left to right). Rider-Waite deck, Cosmic Tarot, Robin Wood Tarot, Tarot of the Old Path
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