In the last few decades, there has been an increased interest in predictive systems and practices around the world, especially in the Tarot cards. The card symbols used for fortune-telling have fascinated human minds for centuries and continue to do so to this day, each time revealing their new and new facets …
They are used for predictions and meditation, they are bought for collections and games, psychologists work with them, people of different ages, professions, and material wealth turn to them. There is something about Tarot that is of great interest. Let us turn to their history, lost in the mists of time.
Homeland - Ancient Egypt
The earliest documentary evidence suggests that the Tarot came to Europe from the Muslim world sometime around 1375. They were used in Italy in a card game called Les Tarots in French. For a long time, Tarot cards were used only for playing, and only at the end of the 18th century they began to make predictions with their help.
The Tarot deck consists of fifty-six cards, known as the Minor Arcana, and twenty-two pictures, called the Major Arcana. The first written mentions of the Major Arcana appear only after 1445, which dates back to the earliest of the extant card decks.
Mantegna deck. 1465 year.
Although the court and numeric cards of the Minor Arcana Tarot are undoubtedly associated with playing cards that remain in use to this day, it can still be assumed that the Tarot themselves are much older.
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One hypothesis is that the tarot cards arose from Egyptian hieroglyphs, and that during the time of the pharaohs, the tarot was a collection of engraved murals on the walls of a secret temple, depicting the most important occult truths.
The popularity of the "Egyptian" hypothesis of the origin of the Tarot can be explained by the interest in Ancient Egypt characteristic of Europe at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. Since the culture of Egypt was considered one of the most ancient in the world, this theory was very widespread.
Legacy of atlantis
According to another hypothesis, the twenty-two Major Arcana of the Tarot is an encrypted record of the doctrine of the monastic order of the Templars. The Knight Templar cards were designed to transfer knowledge safely without arousing suspicion from bystanders.
There are also suggestions that the Tarot cards came to Europe from Asia thanks to the gypsies; that they were invented by the Arabs and brought to Europe by the knights-crusaders; that the Tarot was invented in India and was the oldest analogue of chess.
Some researchers claim that the Tarot is the legacy of Atlantis and that they are of unearthly origin. However, all these hypotheses of the origin of Tarot cards are extremely unlikely and, most likely, are just beautiful myths and assumptions.
Author's decks
The main surviving deck is the Visconti-Sforza deck, named after the family of its owners: it has the traditional four suits and 22 cards of the Major Arcana.
This deck dates from around 1450. It was made by order of the Duke of Milan Visconti. In general, all the first tarot decks were drawn by famous artists, so only noble people could use such cards.
Also worth noting is the so-called Mantegna deck, created around the same time as the Visconti-Sforza deck. The deck consists of 50 cards and does not contain the Minor Arcana, therefore it does not fall under the definition of the Tarot, despite the similarity with some traditional images of the Major Arcana.
The first documentary mention of the author's Tarot decks dates back to the end of the XIV century. We are talking about three gilded and variously decorated decks of cards, written by the artist Jacquemien Grigonier for the French king Charles VI. He took gypsy cards as a basis and sold them to the king for 50 sous.
The National Library of Paris contains seventeen maps attributed to Grigonier, although it is believed that they were created in Venice in the 15th century.
A card from the Mantegna deck.
Since 1500, printed tarot decks began to appear, which caused a wave of popularity of the game among the people. Many authentic historical tarot decks were created in France. And of these, the most famous is the "Marseille Tarot", the graphics of which have not changed since the 18th century.
In the first decks, the 22 Major Arcana played the role of permanent trump cards (except for the Jester, who could be played instead of any other card). The remaining 56 cards, the four card suits of the Minor Arcana, then, it seems, correlated with the four estates: swords represented nobles, cups - clergy, coins - merchants and townspeople, and staffs - peasants and servants.
The Court cards Page, Knight, Queen and King conventionally designated the four ranks of the aristocracy in order of increasing power. In the future, the suits were called differently, until with the spread of card printing, the figures of hearts, tambourine, spades and clubs were established.
22 Hebrew letters
The popularity of the Tarot grew, which contributed to the emergence of many esotericists who had their own view of this subject.
In the 18th century, the representative of French Freemasonry, the thinker Antoine Cours de Geblen, considered the relationship of the Tarot cards to Egyptian culture. In the course of extensive occult research, he developed a hypothesis about the connection between the Tarot and the so-called "Book of Thoth." The authorship of this book is attributed to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus, an ancient Greek alchemist and magician.
Hermes Trismegistus.
In the middle of the 19th century, the work of Coura de Geblen was continued by another French occultist, Alphonse Louis Constant (pseudonym Eliphas Levi). He developed a system for interpreting tarot cards, including the Ryder-Waite deck.
He also established a connection between the Tarot and the Kabbalah (the ancient Jewish mystical-magical system), which still causes controversy regarding the true correspondences of the 22 Major Arcana and 22 Hebrew letters, which, according to Kabbalah, are the words with the help of which the unknown god manifested himself in The universe.
Knowledge about the laws of the universe
The next prominent researcher and systematizer of the Tarot was Jean-Baptiste Aliette (pseudonym Etteila), a contemporary and disciple of Cours de Geblen. He was not fond of the "philosophical" aspect of the Tarot symbolism, but systematized and put in order the system of fortune-telling on the cards. It was he who introduced the concept of "straight card", "inverted card", "blank (significator)".
The successor of Eliphas Levi's ideas was the French physician Gerard Encosse (pseudonym Papus). In 1889, Papus published the book "The Gypsy Tarot", which became a classic of the Tarot and finally formulated the idea of an encrypted card key to transfer knowledge about the laws of the universe in an accessible and understandable form.
A deck of 22 Major Arcana by Swiss Oswald Wirth, published in the same year, served as illustrations for the book "Gypsy Tarot". Thus, Wirth and Papus laid the foundation for a special branch of the occult tradition of Taro.
Tree of life
In the 20th century, the occultists from the Order of the Golden Dawn came to grips with tarot cards. One of the leaders of the order, Arthur Edward Waite, published the book "The Key to the Tarot" in 1908 and, together with the artist Pamela Colman-Smith, made a new Tarot deck, where the Minor Arcana were illustrated, which made it easier to understand the deck. Thanks to this innovation, the Waite Tarot deck conquered the whole world.
Marseille deck.
The famous occultist and hoaxer Aleister Crowley made a huge contribution to the Tarot. During the Second World War, he wrote his “Book of Thoth” and made the corresponding Tarot deck. His book is a fundamental work on the symbolism of the Tarot, as well as their kabbalistic and astrological correspondences.
Tarot Thoth is based on Kabbalah and reflects the structure of the Tree of the Sephiroth - the Tree of Life, this is an exclusive Tarot deck, the mystical images of which were embodied by the artist Lady Frida Harris.
So, the history of the formation of the modern Tarot actually developed from the emergence of two decks: "Marseille Tarot" and "Tarot Ryder-Waite". The first deck is characterized by the presence of symbolic drawings only on the Major Arcana, while the second is characterized by their presence on both the Elder and the Younger.
Some early decks contain more than seventy-eight cards, and the order has changed several times. All the famous decks are beautifully designed, and each of them can be considered worthy, albeit a kind of work of art. Moreover, many people buy tarot cards simply as miniature paintings, and not as a divination tool.
There is a wide variety of Tarot in the world today. In addition to the "classics", a large number of decks have appeared recently, which are aimed at studying certain areas of life and knowing oneself. From all of the above, the question arises: should people turn to Tarot cards for advice?
Of course it's worth it! With their help, you can think over in advance, analyze any situation of the past, present and future, which undoubtedly will allow you to avoid mistakes and draw the right conclusions. Tarot helps to see the limits of those restrictions that we impose on ourselves, and to expand our perception of reality.
And, despite the fact that the Tarot prefers to keep its history under cover of secrecy, this unique system has its own present and interesting future. It is in our days that the Tarot Arcana begin to reveal their true potential, their amazing ability to reflect human emotions, modern psychology and life situations through which each person passes throughout his life.
Elena MODENOVA, tarologist