The History Of Tarot

Welcome to Madame Tarot's Information site, for information on all things about the Tarot. To understand the Tarot, let us first start, with its past.

The History of Tarot

No one actually knows the origins of tarot cards. Historians have come up with several theories about their beginning. Some believe the cards originated in India and its suites refer to the four caste systems of Hinduism. Others believe that their beginning originated with the Egyptian god of magic and wisdom, Thoth. What we do know is the relationship between tarot cards and playing cards is well documented. Playing cards first appeared in China and Korea dating back to at least the eleventh century. The earliest mention of tarot cards in history occurred when King Alfonse XI of Leon and Castile issued a proclamation against their use in 1332.

For a long time tarot cards remained a privilege for the upper class of society. The name Tarot may derive from the fourteenth century Italian decks called tarocchi meaning ”trumps". Early European sources describe a deck with typically 52 cards, like a modern deck with no jokers.The 78-card tarot resulted from adding 21 trumps and The Fool to an early 56-card variant (14 cards per suit).

The Roman Catholic Church condemned tarot cards as a device of the devil and actually gave them the name “the Devil’s Bible” or “the Devil’s Picture Book.” Christianity reigned supreme in the 14th century but paganism lurked in obvious forms leaving anyone at this time to be persecuted as a heretic.

Early Tarot decks were hand painted so there were only a few of them until the printing press was created. Decks survived from this era from various cities in France (the best known being a deck from the southern city of Marseilles). In recent times the symbolism of tarot has become inspiration for Oracle Cards and various other types of cards. (Angel, Faeries, Goddesses, Power Animals, etc.) While these decks are obviously influenced by Tarot, they do not follow the traditional structure of Tarot; they lack any suits of numbered cards, and the set of cards differs from the traditional major arcana. In particular, they have replaced all negative imagery with purely positive imagery.

Notable People in the History of Tarot

In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote a speculative history and a detailed system for using the tarot to foretell the future. Gébelin proposed the theory that the gypsy Tarot was the remains of an ancient Egyptian book of magical wisdom. He
authored the nine-volume work The Primitive World Analyzed and Compared to the Modern World. He believed the cards' birth place was ancient Egypt, where they served as tools of initiation into the priesthood. For Gébelin, the Tarot's Major Arcana was the Book of Thoth, a synthesis of all knowledge once held in hieroglyphic form in burned Egyptian temples and libraries. He claimed that it had escaped the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. At the time he was writing this, the skill of reading hieroglyphics had been lost for almost 1200 years and there existed the widely held belief that they were magical symbols concealing the lost knowledge of antiquity. Gébelin saw the Tarot as a contemporarily available pictorial embodiment of this occult wisdom. His writings were feted as the bible of the true occultists and became a tool of the Rosicrucian sages.

Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant, author of 'History of Magic|'), 1810-1875 who inspired an 18th century occult revival, was a French priest and Rosicruician who thought the Tarot the key to the Bible, the Jewish Qabbalah, and all other ancient spiritual writings. He attempted to link the 22 cards of the Major Arcana to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. He drew parallels between Tarot suits and the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, YHVH ('Yahweh'). He also was the first to give elements to the suits.

A. E. Waite (1857-1942), English Christian occult philosopher, broke from the Order of the Golden Dawn and founded his own school of mystical thought. Working with artist Pamela Coleman Smith - Waite created a deck featuring images and scenery on "all 78 cards." Together they produced the 78 card deck that we use today.

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung (1875-1961) noticed that events in the outside world corresponded with the psychological states of his patients. He noted that these coincidences gave “a sort of foreknowledge of the coming series of events.” He likened his idea of synchronicity to the belief that “the universe follows a divine plan.” While developing these theories Jung researched systems of divination which included Tarot. He believed that a Tarot spread was a “picture of the moment.” Jung regarded the study of the Tarot to be “illumination of higher consciousness, by means of which the initial situation is overcome on a higher level.” Jung’s concept of synchronicity helps us to understand the Tarot’s use for self understanding.

Modern Composition of a Tarot Deck

The modern, 78-card tarot deck has two distinct parts:

* The major arcana ("greater secrets"), or trump cards, consists of 21 cards without suits, plus a 22nd card, The Fool, which is often given the value of zero: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess. The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement, and The World.

* The minor arcana ("lesser secrets") consists of 56 cards divided into four suits of 14 cards each: ten numbered cards and four court cards. The court cards are the page, knight, queen and king in each of the four tarot suits. The traditional Italian tarot suits are swords, batons, coins and cups; in modern tarot decks, however, the batons suit is often called wands, rods or staves, while the coins suit is often called pentacles or disks.

The Major Arcana

The Major Arcana (Trumps Major, Major Trumps) of the Tarot deck consists of 22 cards. The name Major Arcana is used only in esoteric practice. Game players using Tarot decks for playing call them Trumps and usually only show a Roman or Arabic numeral on each card, plus some decoration that is identical on all of them.

0- The Fool
I - The Magician or Juggler
II - The High Priestess or Popess
III - The Empress
IV - The Emperor
V - The Hierophant or Pope
VI - The Lovers
VII - The Chariot
VIII - Justice
IX - The Hermit
X - Wheel of Fortune
XI - Strength
XII - The Hanged Man
XIII - Death
XIV - Temperance
XV - The Devil
XVI - The Tower
XVII - The Star
XVIII - The Moon
XIX - The Sun
XX - Judgment
XXI - The World

The Minor Arcana

Often, the suits are associated with one of the four classical elements, with a common set of associations being the following: Wands with fire, Cups with water, Swords with air, and Coins with earth. In other sets of associations, Fire is occasionally exchanged with air for the Swords suit. Other associations are also possible:

Tarot Card Suits

Wands, Staves, Rods, Batons
Pentacles or Coins
Cups or Chalices
Swords

Playing Card Suits

Wands, Staves, Rods, Batons = Clubs
Pentacles or Coins = Diamonds
Cups or Chalices = Hearts
Swords = Spades

Elemental Correspondence

Wands = Fire
Pentacles = Earth
Cups = Water
Swords = Air

Class

Wands = Peasantry
Pentacles = Merchants
Cups = Clergy
Swords = Military or Nobility

Faculty

Wands = Creativity and Energy
Pentacles = Possessions or Material Body
Cups = Emotions and Love
Swords = Reason and Will

Seasonal Correspondence

Wands = Spring
Pentacles = Winter
Cups = Summer
Swords = Fall

Astrological Correspondence

Wands = Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
Pentacles = Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn
Cups = Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
Swords = Gemini, Libra, Aquarius

Physical Characteristics - Complexion

Wands = Fair, Freckled
Pentacles = Dark, Sallow, Swarthy, Ethnic
Cups = Fair, Medium
Swords = Brown, Black

Physical Characteristics - Hair

Wands = Yellow, Auburn, Reddish
Pentacles = Black, Very Dark Brown
Cups = Light Brown, Blonde, Gray
Swords = Brown, Black

Physical Characteristics - Eyes

Wands = Dark or Light
Pentacles = Brown or Dark
Cups = Gray, Blue or Hazel
Swords = Light

Color Significance within the Tarot Cards

The following is the symbolism of Colors that can be recognized when reading the cards to someone. This information goes in conjunction with my Tarot for Beginners Podcast.

• Black: Death, endings, darkness, destruction, the occult, negativity, sin, ignorance
• Blue: Spirit, contemplation, emotion, water, sky, devotion, feelings, intuition
• Gold: Attainment, illumination, sun, success, glory, the divine
• Gray:Stormy weather, grief, mourning, sadness, depression, wisdom from experience
• Green: New life, hope, fertility, growth, security, health, abundance, vitality
• Orange: Fire, pride, ego, ambition, force, vitality, authority
• Purple: Royalty, power, pride, esoteric understanding, psychic
• Red: Blood, life, desire, action, strength, energy, courage, sex, death, passion
• Silver: Moon, hidden knowledge, feminine intuition, inner self, psychic ability, emotions
• White: Universal, purity, joy, happiness, truth, openness, enlightenment
• Yellow: Sun, illumination, intellect, will, masculine power, caution

Marissa