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The tarot (also known as tarocchi, tarock or similar names) is typically a set of seventy-eight cards, composed of twenty-one trump cards, one Fool, and four suits of fourteen cards each—ten pip and four face cards (one more face card per suit than in Anglo-American playing cards).
Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play Tarot card games such as Italian Tarocchini and French Tarot.
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Encyclopedia
The tarot (also known as tarocchi, tarock or similar names) is typically a set of seventy-eight cards, composed of twenty-one trump cards, one Fool, and four suits of fourteen cards each—ten pip and four face cards (one more face card per suit than in Anglo-American playing cards).
Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play Tarot card games such as Italian Tarocchini and French Tarot. In English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for divinatory purposes, with the trump cards plus the Fool card making up the twenty-two major arcana cards and the pip and four face cards the fifty-six minor arcana. The terms Major Arcana and Minor Arcana are used in occult tarot and are seldom used by card players.
The divinatory meanings of the cards are derived mostly from the Kabbalah of Jewish mysticism and from Medieval Alchemy.
Etymology
The English and French word tarot (or tarocchi, tarô, tarock, tarok etc. in other languages) does not have a precise origin — nobody knows its true etymology. Some people believe it comes from the Arabic word turuq, which means "four pathways", or maybe from the Arabic tarach, "reject". According to the French etymology, tarot is borrowed from the Italian tarocco, derived from tara: "devaluation of a merchandise; deduction, the act of deducting".
History
Playing cards first entered Europe in the late 14th century with the Mamelukes of Persia, with suits very similar to the basic 'Latin' suits of Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins (also known as disks, and pentacles), which are still used in traditional Italian, Spanish and Portuguese decks. Although there are quite a number of alternative theories on the origin of Tarot, current evidence seems to indicate that the first decks were created between 1410 and 1430 in either Milan, Ferrara, or Bologna, in northern Italy, when additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added to the more common four suit decks that already existed. These new decks were originally called carte da trionfi, triumph cards, and the additional cards known simply as trionfi, which evolved into the word "trumps" in common English. The first literary evidence of the existence of carte da trionfi is a written statement in the court records in Ferrara, in 1442. The oldest surviving Tarot cards are from fifteen fragmented decks painted in the mid 15th century for the Visconti-Sforza family, the rulers of Milan.
No documented examples exist prior to the 18th century of the tarot being used for divination. However, divination using similar cards is in evidence as early as 1540; a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forli shows a simple method of divination using the coin suit of a regular playing card deck. Manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) document rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of the tarot, as well as a system for laying out the cards. In 1765, Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination.
Early decks
Playing cards first appeared in Christian Europe some time before 1367, the date of the first documented evidence of their existence, a ban on their use, in Bern, Switzerland. Before this, cards had been used for several decades in Islamic Al Andalus (see playing card history for discussion of its origins). Early European sources describe a deck with typically fifty-two cards, like a modern deck with no jokers. The seventy-eight-card tarot resulted from adding the twenty-two trump cards to an early fifty-six card variant (fourteen cards per suit).
Wide use of playing cards in Europe can, with some certainty, be given from 1377 onwards. Tarot cards appear to have been developed some forty years later, and they are mentioned in the surviving text of Martiano da Tortona. Da Tortona's text is thought to have been written between 1418 and 1425, since in 1418 the painter Michelino da Besozzo returned to Milan, and Martiano da Tortona died in 1425.
Da Tortona describes a deck similar to the cards used for Tarot card games in many specific ways though what he describes is more a precursor to tarot than what we might think of as real tarot cards. For instance, his deck has only sixteen trump cards, with motifs that are not comparable to common tarot cards (they are Greek gods) and the suits are four kinds of birds, not the common Italian suits. What makes da Tortona's deck similar to modern tarot game cards is that these sixteen cards are obviously regarded as trump cards in a card game; about twenty-five years later, a near contemporary of Da Tortona, Jacopo Antonio Marcello, called them a ludus triumphorum, or 'game of the triumphs'.
The next documents that seem to confirm the existence of objects similar to tarot cards are two playing card decks from Milan (Brera-Brambrilla and Cary-Yale-Tarocchi) — extant, but fragmentary — and three documents, all from the court of Ferrara, Italy. It is not possible to put a precise date on the cards, but it is estimated that they were made circa 1440. The three documents date from 1 January 1441 to July 1442, with the term trionfi first documented in February 1442. The document from January 1441, which used the term trionfi, is regarded as unreliable; however, the fact that the same painter, Sagramoro, was commissioned by the same patron, Leonello d'Este, as in the February 1442 document, indicates that it is at least plausibly an example of the same type. After 1442 there are some seven years without any examples of similar material. The game seemed to gain in importance in the year 1450, a Jubilee year in Italy, which saw many festivities and the movement of many pilgrims.
It seems apparent that the special motifs on the trump cards, which were added to regular playing cards with a 'four suits of fourteen cards' structure, were ideologically determined. They are thought to show a specific system of transporting messages of different content; known early examples show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical, and heraldic ideas, for instance, as well as a group of old Roman/Greek/Babylonian heroes, as in the case of the Sola-Busca-Tarocchi (1491) and the Boiardo Tarocchi poem (produced at an unknown date between 1461 and 1494). For example, the earliest-known deck, extant only in its description in Martiano's short book, was produced to show the system of Greek gods, a theme that was very fashionable in Italy at the time. Its production may well have accompanied a triumphal celebration of the commissioner Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milano, meaning that the purpose of the deck was to express and consolidate the political power in Milan (as was common for other artworks of the time). The four suits showed birds, motifs that appeared regularly in Visconti heraldry, and the specific order of the gods gives reason to assume that the deck was intended to imply that the Visconti identified themselves as descendants from Jupiter and Venus (which were seen not as gods but deified mortal heroes).
This first known deck seems to have had the standard ten numbered cards, but having kings as the only court card, and only sixteen trump cards. The later standard (four suits of fourteen plus twenty-two) took time to settle; trionfi decks with seventy cards only are still spoken of in 1457. No corroborating evidence for the final standard seventy-eight card format exists prior to the Boiardo Tarocchi poem and the Sola Busca Tarocchi.
The oldest surviving tarot cards are three early to mid 15th century sets, all made for members of the Visconti family. The first deck is the so called Cary-Yale Tarot (or Visconti-Modrone Tarot), which was created between 1442 and 1447 by an anonymous painter for Filippo Maria Visconti. The cards (only sixty-six) are today in the Yale University Library of New Haven. But the most famous of these early tarot decks was painted in the mid 15th century, to celebrate the rule of Milan by Francesco Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of the duke Filippo Maria. Probably, these cards were painted by Bonifacio Bembo, but some cards were realized by miniaturists of another school. Of the original cards, thirty-five are in the Pierpont Morgan Library, twenty-six are at the Accademia Carrara, thirteen are at the Casa Colleoni and two, 'The Devil' and 'The Tower', are lost, or possibly never made. This "Visconti-Sforza" deck, which has been widely reproduced, combines the suits of swords, batons, coins and cups and the court cards king, queen, knight and page with trump cards that reflect conventional iconography of the time to a significant degree.
For a long time tarot cards remained a privilege for the upper classes, and, although some sermons inveighing against the evil inherent in cards can be traced to the 14th century, most civil governments did not routinely condemn tarot cards during tarot's early history. In fact, in some jurisdictions, tarot cards were specifically exempted from laws otherwise prohibiting the playing of cards.
Later tarot decks
As the earliest tarot cards were hand painted, the number of the decks produced is thought to have been rather small, and it was only after the invention of the printing press that mass production of cards became possible. Decks survive from this era from various cities in France (the best known being a deck from the southern city of Marseilles and thus named the Tarot de Marseilles). At around the same time, the name tarocchi appeared.
The first wide publicity of divination by tarot came from a French occultist named Alliette, under the pseudonym "Etteilla" (his name reversed), who worked as a seer and card diviner shortly before the French Revolution. Etteilla designed the first esoteric Tarot deck, adding astrological attributions and "Egyptian" motifs to various cards, altering many of them from the Marseilles designs, and adding divinatory meanings in text on the cards. Later, Mademoiselle Marie-Anne Le Normand popularized divination in general during the reign of Napoleon I, through the influence she wielded over Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's first wife. However, she did not typically use Tarot.
Tarot cards would later become associated with mysticism and magic. Tarot was not widely adopted by mystics, occultists and secret societies until the 18th and 19th centuries. The tradition began in 1781, when Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Swiss clergyman and Freemason, published Le Monde Primitif, a speculative study which included religious symbolism and its survivals in the modern world. De Gébelin first asserted that symbolism of the Tarot de Marseille represented the mysteries of Isis and Thoth. Gébelin further 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 also asserted that the Gypsies, who were among the first to use cards for divination, were descendants of the Ancient Egyptians (hence their common name; though by this time it was more popularly used as a stereotype for any nomadic tribe) and had introduced the cards to Europe. De Gébelin wrote this treatise before Jean-François Champollion had deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, or indeed before the Rosetta Stone had been discovered, and later Egyptologists found nothing in the Egyptian language to support de Gébelin's fanciful etymologies. Despite this, the identification of the Tarot cards with the Egyptian "Book of Thoth" was already firmly established in occult practice and continues in modern urban legend to the present day.
The idea of the cards as a mystical key was further developed by Eliphas Lévi and passed to the English-speaking world by The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Lévi, not Etteilla, is considered by some to be the true founder of most contemporary schools of Tarot; his 1854 Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (English title: Transcendental Magic) introduced an interpretation of the cards which related them to Hermetic Qabalah. While Lévi 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, especially the Tarot de Marseille, to the Hermetic Qabalah and the four elements of alchemy.
Tarot divination became increasingly popular in the New World from 1910, with the publication of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot (designed and executed by two members of the Golden Dawn), which replaced the traditionally simple pip cards with images of symbolic scenes. This deck also further obscured the Christian allegories of the Tarot de Marseilles and of Eliphas Levi's decks by changing some attributions (for instance changing "The Pope" to "The Hierophant" and "The Popess" to "The High Priestess"). The Rider-Waite-Smith deck still remains extremely popular in the English-speaking world.
Since then a huge number of different decks have been created, some traditional, some vastly different. The use of Tarot for divination, or as a store of symbolism, has inspired the creation of Oracle card decks. These are card decks for inspiration or divination containing images of angels, fairies, goddesses, Power Animals, etc. Although 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.
Tarot card games
One usage of tarot cards is for playing games, with the first basic rules appearing in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona before 1425.
The game of Tarot is known in many variations (mostly cultural), first basic rules for the game of Tarocco appear in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona (before 1425; ), the next are known from the year 1637. In Italy the game has become less popular, one version named has still survived and there are still others played in Piedmont, but the number of games outside of Italy is much higher, there connected to the words Tarot (French) and Tarock (Germanic/Slavic Europe).
It is played with a tarot deck of playing cards. The so-called "esoteric" decks used for divination are usually ill-suited for playing, for example because the corner symbols are missing. A typical type of Tarot playing card deck is that of the standard French design, the so-called "Tarot Nouveau", which is French-suited and has face and number layouts similar to the common 52-card deck. The "Tarot Nouveau" deck has trumps which depict scenes of traditional French social activities, in increasing levels of wealth; this differs from the character and ideological cards of the standard Italian-suited Tarot decks such as the Tarocco Piedmontese or Tarocco Bolognese, or the Rider-Waite or Tarot de Marseille decks well-known in cartomancy.
Other tarot/tarock decks popular in Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Austria use either the Latin suits of cups, coins, batons and swords, or the German suits of Hearts, Bells, Acorns and Leaves. The character representations of the trump cards in divinatory tarot is based on representations similar to those found in the Italian tarot decks; Germanic Tarot playing card decks are less likely to feature these characterizations.
The 78-card tarot deck contains:
- 14 cards each in four suits (Anglo-French, German or Latin depending on the region): "pip" cards numbered one (sometimes Ace) through ten, plus four court cards - a Jack, a Knight (or Cavalier), a Queen, and a King;
- the twenty-one tarots, known in divination as the Major Arcana, which function in the game as a permanent suit of trumps;
- the Fool, also known as the Excuse, an un-numbered card that in some variations excuses the player from following suit or playing a trump, and in others acts as the strongest trump.
As certain regions have adopted Tarot games that use only a subset of the 78-card deck, the decks themselves have become specialized. A "full" Tarot deck such as one for jeu de Tarot contains all 78 cards and can be used to play any game in the family; many Austrian/Hungarian Tarock and Italian Tarocco decks, however, are a smaller subset suitable only for games of a particular region.
Typical rules of play
Play is typically counter-clockwise; the player to the right of the dealer plays to the first trick. If possible players must follow suit. If following suit is not possible a trump card must be played – this rule characterises all Tarot games, even Bavarian Tarock, which does not use a pack with a separate suit of tarocks. In the French tarot game, this trump must beat any trump already played to the trick if possible. The winner of each trick leads the next.
Common value of cards
- Oudlers/Trull (Trumps 1, 21 and the Fool) : 5 points
- Kings : 5 points
- Queens : 4 points
- Cavaliers : 3 points
- Jacks : 2 points
- all other cards : fraction of a point
The cards are usually counted in groups of two or three depending on the game.
After the hand has been played, a score is taken based on the point values of the cards in the tricks each player has managed to capture.
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For the purpose of the rules, the numbering of the trumps are the only thing that matters. The symbolic tarot images customary in divinatory tarot have no effect in the game itself: though, rather ironically, the tarot deck was originally designed to play this game (see playing card history), the design traditions subsequently evolved independently and the tarots often bear only numbers and whimsical scenes arbitrarily chosen by the engraver. However there are still traditional sequences of images in which the common lineage is visible: for example, a moon is visible at the bottom left corner of the XXI in the picture at the top of the page. This stems from confusion of German Mond with Italian mondo and French monde, meaning "world" - the usual symbol associated with the 21 on Italian suited tarots and in divinatory tarot.
In tarot decks made for playing the game (as opposed to those made for divination or other esoteric uses), the four Latin suits are replaced in many regions with the French suits of hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. Some variations of the game are played with a 54-card deck (5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 of hearts and diamonds and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 of spades and clubs are discarded).
Variations of the game are still played in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, and especially in the countries on the area of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, for which even the name Tarockanien has been coined: the Austrian variation of the game is thus still widely popular among all classes and generations in Slovenia, Croatia and in the Czech Republic, while in Hungary different rules are applied.
Occult tarot and divination
Tarot reading revolves around the belief that the cards can be used to gain insight into the current and possible future situations of the subject (or querent), i.e. cartomancy. Some believe they are guided by a spiritual force, such as Gaia, while others believe the cards help them tap into a collective unconscious or their own creative, brainstorming subconscious.
Common card interpretations
Each card has a variety of symbolic meanings that have evolved over the years. The many of the interpretations bear striking similarity to philosophy found in the Kabbalah or in Alchemy. Custom or themed tarot decks exist which have even more specific symbolism, although these are more prevalent in the English-speaking world. These are frequently created by amateur philologists who believe that they have a new insight into the proper analysis of the texts of Kabbalah and Alchemy. The literature specifies elements which must be present in each card for the deck to be proper Tarot. Artists are free to represent these elements in any they choose, and they usually try to draw the picture in such a way as to reveal a new truth. One example of how detailed they can get is the Major Arcana card The Moon. This card has several elements including a crawfish (or lobster), which is usually drawn very small, but is rarely omitted.
Each card has several meanings, and the reader determines which meaning to apply based on the card's location in the spread and which cards are turned up around it. Common sense is also used to discard meanings which have no relevance to the question asked.
Minor Arcana
The Minor Arcana closely match Anglo-American playing cards, having Ace-through-Ten and four face cards. The face cards are Page, Knight, Queen, and King.
Each suit of the Minors corresponds to one of the four Alchemical Elements. Pentagrams corresponds with Earth, Swords with Air, Wands with Fire and Cups with water.
The Face cards also correspond to the Elements. The Page is Earth, the Knight is Air, the Queen is Water, and the King is Fire. This makes the Page of Pentagrams, the Knight of Swords, the Queen of Cups and the King of wands very strong cards.
Major Arcana
The Major Arcana are a set of twenty-two cards, numbered zero to twenty-one, with no suit. There are usually many more elements in the images specified by the literature for this set of cards. These cards are often interpreted as describing the normal progression of a truly holy life, and often tell where a person is along their journey, or if they have strayed. Such an interpretation is called the "Fool's Journey" and it originated with Eden Gray
Spreads
To perform a Tarot reading, the Tarot deck is typically shuffled by either the subject or a third-party reader, and is laid out in one of a variety of patterns, often called "spreads". They are then interpreted by the reader or a third-party performing the reading for the subject. These might include the subject's thoughts and desires (known or unknown) or past, present, and future events. Generally, each position in the spread is assigned a number, and the cards are turned over in that sequence, with each card being contemplated/interpreted before moving to the next. Each position is also associated with an interpretation, which indicates what aspect of the question the card in that position is referring to.
Sometimes, rather than being dealt randomly, the initial card in a spread is intentionally chosen to represent the querent or the question being asked. This card is called the significator.
Some common spreads include:
- Celtic Cross: This is probably the most common spread. Ten cards are used, with five arranged in a cross and four placed vertically beside the cross. Another card is placed horizontally across the central cards of the cross to make a total of 10. The first central card of the cross is frequently the significator and the second card which is placed over the first represents the conditions surrounding the question; or the crossing card often represents an obstacle they must face, an aspect of the question they have not yet considered. The third card which is placed above the first represents what the person hopes for in relation to the question being asked. The fourth card which is placed below the first is what the subject has already experienced in relation to the whole spread. The fifth card is placed to the left of the first card and shows what was in the past. The sixth card is placed to the right of the first card and shows the influence that will come in the future. Then on the right of these cards are the remaining 4 cards, which are placed from bottom to top. So the seventh card represents the attitude of the question being asked. The eighth card is how family or friends will influence the question. The ninth card shows the hopes and fears in relation to the question and the final card, the tenth card, is the Culmination Card which shows the end result of all of the previous nine cards.
- Horse-shoe: Another very common question asking spread. Seven cards are arranged in a semi-circle or 'V' shape. The cards, from left to right, represent the past, present, influences, obstacles, expectations (or hopes/fears), best course of action and likely outcomes. Some variations of this spread swap the expectations and inspiration cards around.
- 3-card spread: Three cards are used, with the first representing the past, the second the present, the third the future.
- Astrological spread: Twelve cards are spread in a circle, to represent the twelve signs of the zodiac. A thirteenth card is placed in the middle; often the significator.
- 1-card spread: It should be noted that a single card can constitute a spread.
- Tetractys: Ten cards arranged in a four-rowed pyramid. Each row represents earth, air, fire or water and each card within the row has a very specific meaning. The single card in the top row is the significator.
- Star spread: starts in the lower left part and follows the star pattern. The first being what you see. The second, what you can't see. The third what you can change. The fourth what you cannot change, and the fifth, what you can expect
- The Mirror Spread: This Spread works primarily on existing relationships, but can assess anything from a budding love affair to an established partnership. It will often reveal inconsistencies between viewpoints - for example, if the cards at 2 and 3 contradict one another, there is need to reassess and readjust points of view, or take into account the input of the other person. Obstacles will sometimes produce very positive cards. The Probable result card is drawn with circumstances as they currently are - but if changes recommended by the reading are effected, then this final card can change.
***spread*** 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8
Card 1: The querent
Card 2: The way you see the other person in the relationship
Card 3: The way they see themselves
Card 4: What the person represents to you
Card 5: What you represent to them
Card 6: Obstacles within the relationship
Card 7: Strengths within the relationship
Card 8: Probable result
There are numerous other spreads - essentially, the reader may use any card arrangement in which they find by experience to be useful.
The Magic Cross Tarot Spread
A Healing nine card Tarot Spread. It looks at your hope and expectations and what opposes you. It can be used with colour therapy and numerology to allow the querant to look at their deeper self.
Reversed cards
Some methods of interpreting the tarot consider cards to have different meanings depending on whether they appear upright or reversed. A reversed card is often interpreted to mean the opposite of its upright meaning. For instance, the Sun card upright may be associated with satisfaction, gratitude, health, happiness, strength, inspiration, and liberation; while in reverse, it may be interpreted to mean a lack of confidence and mild unhappiness. However, not all methods of card reading prescribe an opposite meaning to reversed cards. Some card readers will interpret a reversed card as either a more intense variation of the upright card, an undeveloped trait or an issue that requires greater attention. Other Interpreters point out that card reversal is dependent on the order of the cards before shuffling, so is of little bearing in the scope of a reading.
Other uses of Tarot
Literature
Tarot was used as early as the 16th century to compose poems, called "tarocchi appropriati", describing ladies of the court or famous personages. In modern literature, two exceptional examples of novels centered on the Tarot are The Greater Trumps (1932) by Charles Williams and Il Castello dei destinati incrociati (1969) (English translation: The Castle of Crossed Destinies [1979]) by Italo Calvino. In the former, the Tarot is used by the main characters to move through space and time, create matter, and raise powerful natural storms. In the latter, Mediaeval travellers meeting at a castle are inexplicably unable to speak, and use a Tarot deck to describe their stories, which are reconstructed by the narrator, calling forth implications of the nature of communication, fate, and the presence of the transcendent in daily life. The 2007 novel Sepulchre by British author Kate Mosse features a fictional Tarot deck.
Psychological
Carl Jung was the first psychologist to attach importance to tarot symbolism. He may have regarded the tarot cards as representing archetypes: fundamental types of persons or situations embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The theory of archetypes gives rise to several psychological uses. Since the cards represent these different archetypes within each individual, ideas of the subject's self-perception can be gained by asking them to select a card that they 'identify with'. Equally, the subject can try and clarify the situation by imagining it in terms of the archetypal ideas associated with each card. For instance, someone rushing in heedlessly like the Knight of Swords, or blindly keeping the world at bay like the Rider-Waite-Smith Two of Swords.
More recently Dr. Timothy Leary has suggested that the Tarot Trump cards are a pictorial representation of human development from a baby to a fully grown adult, The Fool symbolizing the new born infant, The Magician symbolizing the stage at which an infant starts to play with artifacts, etc. In addition to this, in Leary's view the Tarot Trumps can be seen to be a blue print for of the human race in the future as it matures.
Occult tarot as a mnemonic device
Some schools of occult thought or symbolic study, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, consider the tarot to function as a textbook and mnemonic device for their teachings. This may be one cause of the word arcana being used to describe the two sections of the tarot deck: arcana is the plural form of the Latin word arcanum, meaning "closed" or "secret."
Varieties of tarot deck designs
A variety of styles of tarot decks and designs exist and a number of typical regional patterns have emerged. Historically, one of the most important designs is the one usually known as the Tarot de Marseilles. This standard pattern was the one studied by Court de Gébelin, and cards based on this style illustrate his Le Monde primitif. The Tarot de Marseilles was also popularized in the 20th century by Paul Marteau. Some current editions of cards based on the Marseilles design go back to a deck of a particular Marseilles 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, or High Priestess and the Pope, or Hierophant. In Florence an expanded deck called Minchiate was used; this deck of ninety six cards includes astrological symbols including the four elements, as well as traditional Tarot motifs.
Some decks exist primarily as artwork; and such art decks sometimes contain only the twenty two trump cards.
French suited tarots
French suited tarot cards began to appear in Germany during 18th century. The first generation of French suited tarots depicted scenes of animals on the trumps and were thus called "Tiertarock" decks. Card maker Göbl of Munich is often credited for this design innovation. French suited tarot cards are a modern deck used for the tarot/tarock card games commonly played in France and central Europe. The symbolism of French suited tarot trumps depart considerably from the older Italian suited design. With very few exceptional cases such as the Tarocchi di Alan and the recent Tarot de la Nature, French suited tarot cards are nearly exclusively used for card games and rarely for divination.
Non-occult Italian-suited Tarot decks
These were the earliest form of Tarot deck to be invented, being first devised in the fifteenth century in northern Italy. The occult Tarot decks are based on decks of this type. Four decks of this category are still used to play certain games:
- The Tarocco Piemontese consists of the four suits of swords, batons, clubs and coins, each headed by a king, queen, cavalier and jack, followed by numerals 10 down to 1. The trumps rank as follows: The Angel (20—although it only bears the second-highest number, it is nonetheless the highest), the World (21), the Sun (19), the Moon (18), the Star (17), the Tower (16), the Devil (15), Temperance (14), death (13), the Hanged Man (12), Strength (11), the Wheel of Fortune (10), the Hermit (9), Justice (8), the Chariot (7), the Lovers (6), the Pope (5), the Emperor (4), the Empress (3), the Popess (2) and the Bagatto (1). There is also the Fool (Matto).
- The Swiss Tarot de Besançon is similar, but is of a different graphical design, and replaces the Pope with Jupiter, the Popess with Juno, and the Angel with the Judgement. The trumps rank in numerical order and the Tower is known as the House of God.
- The Tarocco Bolognese omits numeral cards two to five in plain suits, leaving it with 62 cards, and has somewhat different trumps, not all of which are numbered and four of which are equal in rank. It has a different graphical design.
- The Tarocco Siciliano changes some of the trumps, and replaces the 21 with a card labelled Miseria (destitution). It omits the Two and Three of coins, and numerals one to four in batons, swords and cups: it thus has 64 cards. The cards are quite small and, again, of a different graphical design.[9]
Occult tarot decks
Etteilla was the first to issue a revised tarot deck specifically designed for occult purposes rather than game playing. In keeping with the belief that tarot cards are derived from the Book of Thoth, Etteilla's tarot contained themes related to ancient Egypt.
The seventy eight card tarot deck used by esotericists has two distinct parts:
- The Major Arcana (greater secrets), or trump cards, consists of twenty two cards without suits; 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 fifty six cards, divided into four suits of fourteen cards each; ten numbered cards and four court cards. The court cards are the King, Queen, Knight and Jack, 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 terms major arcana and minor arcana were first used by Jean Baptiste Pitois AKA Paul Christian and are seldom used in relation to Tarot card games.
Tarot is often used in conjunction with the study of the Hermetic Qabalah. In these decks all the cards are illustrated in accordance with Qabalistic principles, most being under the influence of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and bearing illustrated scenes on all the suit cards. The images on the 'Rider-Waite' deck were drawn by artist Pamela Colman-Smith, to the instructions of Christian mystic and occultist Arthur Edward Waite, and were originally published by the Rider Company in 1910. This deck is considered a simple, user friendly one but nevertheless its imagery, especially in the Major Arcana, is complex and replete with esoteric symbolism. The subjects of the Major Arcana are based on those of the earliest decks, but have been significantly modified to reflect Waite and Smith's view of Tarot. An important difference from Marseilles style decks is that Smith drew scenes with esoteric meanings on the suit cards. However the Rider-Waite wasn't the first deck to include completely illustrated suit cards. The first to do so was the 15th century Sola-Busca deck.
Older decks such as the Visconti-Sforza and Marseilles are less detailed than more modern decks. A Marseilles type deck is usually distinguished by having repetitive motifs on the pip cards as opposed to the full scenes found on "Rider-Waite" style decks. These more simply illustrated "Marseilles" style decks are also used esoterically, for divination, and for game play, though the French card game of tarot is now generally played using a relatively modern 19th century design of German origin. Such playing Tarot decks generally have twenty one trump cards with genre scenes from 19th century life, a Fool, and have court and pip cards that closely resemble today's French playing cards.)
The Marseilles style Tarot decks generally feature numbered minor arcana cards that look very much like the pip cards of modern playing card decks. The Marseilles' numbered minor arcana cards do not have scenes depicted on them; rather, they sport a geometric arrangement of the number of suit symbols (e.g., swords, rods/wands, cups, coins/pentacles) 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.
A widely used modernist esoteric Tarot deck is Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot (pronounced or ). Crowley, at the height of a lifetime's work dedicated to occultism, engaged the artist Lady Frieda Harris to paint the cards for the deck according to his specifications. His system of Tarot correspondences, published in The Book of Thoth & Liber 777, are an evolution and expansion upon that which he learned in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
In contrast to the Thoth deck's colorfulness, 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 colored by its owner. Other esoteric decks include the Golden Dawn Tarot, which claims to be based on a deck by SL MacGregor Mathers.
The variety of decks presently available is almost endless, and grows yearly. For instance, cat-lovers may have the Tarot of the Cat People, a deck replete with cats in every picture. The Tarot of the Witches and the Aquarian Tarot retain the conventional cards with varying designs. The Tree of Life Tarot's cards are stark symbolic catalogs, the Cosmic Tarot, and The Alchemical Tarot that combines traditional alchemical symbols with tarot images.
These modern decks change the cards to varying degrees. For example, the Motherpeace Tarot is notable for its circular cards and feminist angle: the male characters have been replaced by females. The Tarot of Baseball has suits of bats, mitts, balls and bases; "coaches" and "MVPs" instead of Queens and Kings; and major arcana cards like "The Catcher", "The Rule Book" and "Batting a Thousand". In the Silicon Valley Tarot, major arcana cards include The Hacker, Flame War, The Layoff and The Garage; the suits are Networks, Cubicles, Disks and Hosts; the court cards CIO, Salesman, Marketeer and New Hire. Another tarot in recent years has been the Robin Wood Tarot. This deck retains the Rider-Waite theme while adding some very soft and colorful Pagan symbolism. As with other decks, the cards are available with a companion book written by Ms. Wood which details all of the symbolism and colors utilized in the Major and Minor Arcana.
Unconventionality is taken to an extreme by Morgan's Tarot, produced in 1970 by Morgan Robbins and illustrated by Darshan Chorpash Zenith. Morgan's Tarot has no suits, no card ranking and no explicit order of the cards. It has eighty eight cards rather than the more conventional seventy eight, and its simple line drawings show a strong influence from the psychedelic era. Nevertheless, in the introductory booklet that accompanies the deck (comprehensively mirrored on , with permission from ), Robbins claims spiritual inspiration for the cards and cites the influence of Tibetan Buddhism in particular.
Deck-specific symbolism
Many popular decks have modified the traditional symbolism to reflect the esoteric beliefs of their creators.
Rider-Waite deck
Each card in the Rider-Waite deck is intricately detailed with symbols related to the card. Color is also used symbolically.
Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth deck
Each card in the Thoth deck is intricately detailed with Astrological, Zodiacal, Elemental and Qabalistic symbols related to each card. Colours are used symbolically, especially the cards related to the five elements of Spirit, Fire, Water, Air and Earth.
Mythic Tarot
The Mythic Tarot deck links Tarot symbolism with the classical Greek Myths.
Hermetic Tarot
Hermetic Tarot utilizes the Tarot archetypes to function as a textbook and mnemonic device for teaching and revealing the gnosis of alchemical symbolical language and its profound and philosophical meanings. An example of this practice is found in the rituals of the 19th Century Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In the 20th Century Hermetic use of the Tarot archetypes as a handbook and revealer of perennial wisdom was further developed in the work of Carl Gustav Jung and his exploration into the psyche and active imagination. A 21st Century example of a Hermetic rooted Tarot deck is that of Tarot ReVisioned, a black and white deck and book for the Major Arcana by Leigh J. McCloskey.
Modern oracle cards
Recently, the use of tarot for divination, or as a store of symbolism, has inspired the creation of modern oracle card decks. These are card decks for inspiration or divination containing images of angels, faeries, goddesses, Power Animals, etc. Although obviously influenced by divinatory Tarot, they do not follow the traditional structure of Tarot; they often lack any suits of numbered cards, and the set of cards differs from the conventional major arcana.
See also
External links
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